Jacques Laffite

Nationality French
Formula One World Championship career
Active years	1974 - 1986
Teams	Iso Marlboro, Ligier, Williams
Races	180 (176 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	6
Podiums	32
Career points	228
Pole positions	7
Fastest laps	6
First race	1974 German Grand Prix
First win	1977 Swedish Grand Prix
Last win	1981 Canadian Grand Prix
Last race	1986 British Grand Prix

Jacques-Henri Laffite (born 21 November 1943) is a French former racing driver who competed in Formula One from 1974 to 1986. He achieved six grand prix wins, all while driving for the Ligier team. He is now a TV commentator on French television TF1.

[edit] Career

Born in Paris, Laffite debuted in Formula One in 1974 for Frank Williams' Iso Marlboro team. The following year he raced for the same team, now named Williams, scoring a 2nd place in the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.

Laffite's 1979 Ligier JS11 being demonstrated at the 2008 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Laffite demonstrating the Ligier JS19 chassis at the 1982 Grand Prix de Pau.

In 1976 Laffite moved to the French Ligier team, scoring 20 points and a pole position at the Italian Grand Prix. The next two seasons were transitional, although he managed to win his first Grand Prix at Anderstorp in the 1977 Swedish Grand Prix.

The 1979 season opened with Laffite winning the first two races. He fought for the World Championship title until the last races, but eventually placed only 4th, with 36 points. The following two seasons were similar, with two more 4th places in the Championship and a further 3 victories. In 1982, however, Laffite finished only 17th in the final classification, with only 5 points scored.

Results in the next two seasons weren't much better, when he moved back to England, again to race for Williams (11 and 5 points, respectively). Now in his forties, Laffite returned to Ligier in 1985: in that season he was on the podium three times (Great Britain, Germany and Australia), for a total of 16 points. In 1986 he scored 14 points including two more podium finishes in the first half of the season, but he broke both legs in a crash at the start of the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, and therefore retired from Formula One. The race was stopped and restarted without Laffite, who thus ended his career tied with Graham Hill for the most Grand Prix starts. He was the most successful driver in Ligier's history, having taken six of their nine wins.

Laffite recovered from his injuries and later raced in touring cars. He is now a television commentator. In October 2008, at the age of 64, he tested a Renault R27 F1 car at the Paul Ricard circuit.^[1]

Jacques Laffite was one of the three people (along with Jacky Ickx and Johnny Servoz-Gavin) believed most likely to be the unidentified driver in director Claude Lelouch's classic 1976 short film C'était un rendez-vous. It has since emerged that the driver was in fact Lelouch himself.

[edit] Victories

• 1977: Sweden
• 1979: Argentina, Brazil
• 1980: Germany
• 1981: Austria, Canadian

[edit] Complete Formula One World Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)

[edit] References