# Patrick Tambay

Patrick Daniel Tambay (French pronunciation:; 25 June 1949 – 4 December 2022) was a French racing driver, broadcaster and politician, who competed in Formula One from 1977 to 1986. Tambay won two Formula One Grands Prix across nine seasons.
Born and raised in Paris, Tambay gained training as a racing driver at the Winfield Racing School in 1971. Between 1977 and 1981, he raced for an assortment of teams including Surtees, Theodore, Ligier and McLaren with mixed results; he additionally won two Can-Am titles under Carl Haas in 1977 and 1980. Tambay was hired by Ferrari after the death of Gilles Villeneuve in 1982, taking his maiden victory four races later at the German Grand Prix. His second and final victory came the following season in San Marino, finishing the season a career-best fourth in the World Drivers' Championship. In 1984, Tambay moved to Renault, before ending his Formula One career at Haas Lola, having achieved two wins, five pole positions, two fastest laps and 11 podiums.
Tambay competed in various forms of motorsport following his departure from Formula One, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the World Sportscar Championship, and the Dakar Rally.

## Racing career

Early in his career, Tambay was a part of Formula 5000 with the team run by Carl Haas.
In 1977, winning the Can Am championship with Haas, Tambay debuted in Formula One on a one-off basis with Surtees, driving in only one session at the 1977 French Grand Prix before spending the rest of the season with Theodore. This partnership proved fruitful, and Tambay moved to McLaren to race Formula One full-time for the 1978 and 1979 seasons. In 1980, he returned to Can Am with the Lola team run by Carl Haas, immediately winning early in the season and then winning his second Can-Am championship.
In 1981 he returned to F1, first driving for the Theodore team then finishing the season with Ligier.
In 1982, he was offered a drive with Arrows by team boss Jackie Oliver to replace the injured Marc Surer in the season-opening South African Grand Prix. He arrived at the track and, when faced with the ongoing turmoil and the possibility of a drivers' strike, he soon left and did not take part in the race. Later in 1982 he was offered a place with the Scuderia Ferrari after the death of his close friend Gilles Villeneuve. He won his first Grand Prix at the German Grand Prix that year after Didier Pironi was injured in qualifying, in his fourth race for Ferrari. He took his second and last Grand Prix win in 1983 at Imola; driving with Villeneuve's #27, he won after Riccardo Patrese crashed near the end of the race.
Despite finishing 4th in the 1983 World Championship (with team mate René Arnoux finishing 3rd enabling Ferrari to win the Constructors' Championship), Tambay was dropped by the Scuderia at the end of 1983 in favor of Italian Michele Alboreto. Tambay then moved from one factory team to the other in Formula One at the time, Renault who had finished 2nd in the 1983 Constructors' Championship and 2nd in the Drivers' with fellow Frenchman Alain Prost. Unfortunately for Tambay, after 1983 the factory Renault teams fortunes would go on the downslide and he would spend a somewhat fruitless two seasons before Renault pulled the plug on its factory team with his best results over the 1984 and 1985 seasons being a single pole position and subsequent 2nd place in the 1984 French Grand Prix at Dijon.
For what would prove to be his final season in Formula One, Tambay was then reunited with his old boss Carl Haas racing in the Haas Lola F1 team in 1986 where he spent an even more fruitless season alongside 1980 World Champion, Australian driver Alan Jones despite Haas having exclusive use of the new Cosworth designed and built Ford TEC V6 turbo engine. Tambay's best result driving either the underpowered Hart engined Lola THL1 or the Ford powered Lola THL2 (which itself was somewhat underpowered compared to its rivals from BMW, Honda, Renault, Ferrari and TAG-Porsche) was a lone 5th place in the THL2 in the 1986 Austrian Grand Prix at the Österreichring (Jones having an equally hard time of it in 1986, finished 4th). Although he regularly out-qualified his former World Championship winning team mate, his 2 points in Austria would be Tambay's only points of the 1986 season and thus his last scored in Formula One. With the loss of the lucrative sponsorship from American company Beatrice Foods in mid-1986, Carl Haas shut his Formula One team down at the end of the season and Tambay, unable to find a competitive drive to continue in 1987, retired from the sport.
In 1987, Tambay formed his own sports promotion company in Switzerland, but gave this up in 1989 to return to racing. In 1989, he drove a Jaguar in the World Sportscar Championship and went on to finish fourth in the Le Mans 24 Hours. He then took up desert rally raiding, finishing twice in the top three on the Paris-Dakar. Additionally, he was involved in ice races and the Tour de Corse jet ski race.

## Later life and death

After retiring from full-time racing, Tambay worked as a commentator for French television. He also served as the deputy mayor of Le Cannet, a suburb of Cannes. He was the godfather to 1997 World Champion Jacques Villeneuve, while his son Adrien raced in the DTM championship between 2012 and 2016. After suffering from Parkinson's disease for several years, Tambay died on 4 December 2022, at age 73. His son Adrien announced his death.

## Racing record
### Career summary

| Season | Series | Team | Races | Wins | Poles | F/Laps | Podiums | Points | Position |
| 1974 | European Formula Two | Écurie Elf | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 7th |
| 1975 | European Formula Two | March Engineering | 14 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 36 | 2nd |
| 1976 | European Formula Two | Automobiles Martini | 12 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 39 | 3rd |
| 1976 | SCCA Continental Championship | Theodore Racing Hong Kong | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 21st |
| 1977 | Formula One | Theodore Racing Hong Kong | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 18th |
| 1977 | Can-Am | Carl A. Haas Racing | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 1st |
| 1977 | European Formula Two | Ardmore Racing | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | NC |
| 1978 | Formula One | Marlboro Team McLaren | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 14th |
| 1978 | European Formula Two | Chevron Cars | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | NC$^‡$ |
| 1979 | Formula One | Marlboro Team McLaren | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | NC |
| 1980 | Can-Am | Carl A. Haas Racing | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 1st |
| 1981 | Formula One | Equipe Talbot Gitanes | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 19th |
| 1981 | Formula One | Theodore Racing | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 19th |
| 1981 | 24 Hours of Le Mans | Oceanic Jean Rondeau | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | N/A | DNF |
| 1982 | Formula One | Scuderia Ferrari | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 25 | 7th |
| 1983 | Formula One | Scuderia Ferrari | 15 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 40 | 4th |
| 1984 | Formula One | Equipe Renault Elf | 15 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 11th |
| 1985 | Formula One | Equipe Renault Elf | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 12th |
| 1986 | Formula One | Team Haas (USA) Ltd. | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 15th |
| 1989 | World Sportscar Championship | Silk Cut Jaguar | 8 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 30 | 8th |
| 2005 | Grand Prix Masters | Team Lixxus | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | N/A | – |
| 2006 | Grand Prix Masters | Team Lixxus | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | N/A | – |
| Source: ||||||||||
$^‡$ Graded drivers not eligible for European Formula Two Championship points.

### Complete European Formula Two Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | Pos. | Pts |
| 1974 | Ecurie Elf | Alpine A367 | BMW | BAR 10 | HOC 5 | PAU Ret | SAL 4 | HOC Ret | MUG NC | KAR Ret | PER Ret | HOC 4 | VAL 4 | | | | | 7th | 11 |
| 1975 | March Engineering | March 752 | BMW | EST Ret | THR 2 | HOC Ret | NÜR 2 | PAU Ret | HOC Ret | SAL 15 | ROU 2 | MUG Ret | PER Ret | SIL 4 | ZOL 2 | NOG 1 | VAL Ret | 2nd | 36 |
| 1976 | Automobiles Martini | Martini Mk 19 | Renault | HOC 3 | THR 3 | VLL 2 | SAL 3 | PAU Ret | HOC 3 | ROU Ret | MUG 3 | PER Ret | EST 16 | NOG 1 | HOC DSQ | | | 3rd | 39 |
| 1977 | Ardmore Racing | Chevron B40 | Hart | SIL | THR | HOC | NÜR | VLL | PAU Ret | MUG | ROU Ret | NOG | PER | MIS | EST | DON | | NC | 0 |
| 1978 | Chevron Cars | Chevron B42 | Hart | THR | HOC | NÜR | PAU 6 | MUG | VLL | ROU | DON | NOG | PER | MIS | HOC | | | NC | 0$^‡$ |
| Source: ||||||||||||||||||||
$^‡$ Graded drivers not eligible for European Formula Two Championship points

### Complete Formula One World Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Entrant | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | WDC | Pts |
| 1977 | Team Surtees | Surtees TS19 | Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 | ARG | BRA | RSA | USW | ESP | MON | BEL | SWE | FRA DNQ | | | | | | | | | 18th | 5 |
| 1977 | Theodore Racing Hong Kong | Ensign N177 | Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 | | | | | | | | | | GBR Ret | GER 6 | AUT Ret | NED 5 | ITA Ret | USA DNQ | CAN 5 | JPN Ret | 18th | 5 |
| 1978 | Marlboro Team McLaren | McLaren M26 | Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 | ARG 6 | BRA Ret | RSA Ret | USW 12 | MON 7 | BEL | ESP Ret | SWE 4 | FRA 9 | GBR 6 | GER Ret | AUT Ret | NED 9 | ITA 5 | USA 6 | CAN 8 | | 14th | 8 |
| 1979 | Marlboro Team McLaren | McLaren M28 | Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 | ARG Ret | | RSA 10 | USW Ret | ESP 13 | | | | | | | | | | | | | NC | 0 |
| 1979 | Marlboro Team McLaren | McLaren M26 | Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 | | BRA Ret | | | | BEL DNQ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | NC | 0 |
| 1979 | Marlboro Team McLaren | McLaren M28B | Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 | | | | | | | MON DNQ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | NC | 0 |
| 1979 | Marlboro Team McLaren | McLaren M28C | Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 | | | | | | | | FRA 10 | GBR 7 | | | | | | | | | | | | NC | 0 |
| 1979 | Marlboro Team McLaren | McLaren M29 | Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 | | | | | | | | | | GER Ret | AUT 10 | NED Ret | ITA Ret | CAN Ret | USA Ret | | | | NC | 0 |
| 1981 | Theodore Racing Team | Theodore TY01 | Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8 | USW 6 | BRA 10 | ARG Ret | SMR 11 | BEL DNQ | MON 7 | ESP 13 | | | | | | | | | | | 19th | 1 |
| 1981 | Equipe Talbot Gitanes | Ligier JS17 | Matra MS81 3.0 V12 | | | | | | | | FRA Ret | GBR Ret | GER Ret | AUT Ret | NED Ret | ITA Ret | CAN Ret | CPL Ret | | | | 19th | 1 |
| 1982 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari 126C2 | Ferrari 021 1.5 V6 t | RSA | BRA | USW | SMR | BEL | MON | DET | CAN | NED 8 | GBR 3 | FRA 4 | GER 1 | AUT 4 | SUI DNS | ITA 2 | CPL DNS | | 7th | 25 |
| 1983 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari 126C2/B | Ferrari 021 1.5 V6 t | BRA 5 | USW Ret | FRA 4 | SMR 1 | MON 4 | BEL 2 | DET Ret | CAN 3 | | | | | | | | | | 4th | 40 |
| 1983 | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari 126C3 | Ferrari 021 1.5 V6 t | | | | | | | | | GBR 3 | GER Ret | AUT Ret | NED 2 | ITA 4 | EUR Ret | RSA Ret | | | | 4th | 40 |
| 1984 | Equipe Renault Elf | Renault RE50 | Renault EF4 1.5 V6 t | BRA 5 | RSA Ret | BEL 7 | SMR Ret | FRA 2 | MON Ret | CAN WD | DET Ret | DAL Ret | GBR 8 | GER 5 | AUT Ret | NED 6 | ITA Ret | EUR Ret | POR 7 | | 11th | 11 |
| 1985 | Equipe Renault Elf | Renault RE60 | Renault EF4B 1.5 V6 t | BRA 5 | POR 3 | SMR 3 | MON Ret | CAN 7 | DET Ret | | | | | | | | | | | | 12th | 11 |
| 1985 | Equipe Renault Elf | Renault RE60B | Renault EF15 1.5 V6 t | | | | | | | FRA 6 | GBR Ret | GER Ret | AUT 10 | NED Ret | ITA 7 | BEL Ret | EUR 12 | RSA | AUS Ret | | 12th | 11 |
| 1986 | Team Haas (USA) Ltd. | Lola THL1 | Hart 415T 1.5 L4 t | BRA Ret | ESP 8 | SMR Ret | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 15th | 2 |
| 1986 | Team Haas (USA) Ltd. | Lola THL2 | Ford Cosworth GBA 1.5 V6 t | | | | MON Ret | BEL Ret | CAN DNS | DET | FRA Ret | GBR Ret | GER 8 | HUN 7 | AUT 5 | ITA Ret | POR NC | MEX Ret | AUS NC | | 15th | 2 |
| Source: |||||||||||||||||||||||

### 24 Hours of Le Mans results

| Year | Team | Co-Drivers | Car | Class | Laps | Pos. | Class Pos. |
| 1976 | Renault Sport | Jean-Pierre Jabouille José Dolhem | Renault Alpine A442 | S 3.0 | 135 | DNF | DNF |
| 1977 | Équipe Renault Elf | Jean-Pierre Jaussaud | Renault Alpine A442 | S 3.0 | 158 | DNF | DNF |
| 1981 | Oceanic Jean Rondeau | Henri Pescarolo | Rondeau M379-Ford Cosworth | 2 +2.0 | 41 | DNF | DNF |
| 1989 | Silk Cut Jaguar Tom Walkinshaw Racing | Jan Lammers Andrew Gilbert-Scott | Jaguar XJR-9LM | C1 | 380 | 4th | 4th |
| Source: ||||||||

### Complete Canadian-American Challenge Cup results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Team | Car | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Pos | Pts |
| 1977 | Carl A. Haas Racing | Lola T333CS | Chevrolet V8 | MTR | LAG | WGL 1 | ROA 4 | MDO 1 | MOS 1 | CTR 1 | SON 1 | RIV 1 | | 1st | 159 |
| 1980 | Carl A. Haas Racing | Lola T530 | Chevrolet V8 | SON 1 | MDO 1 | MOS 1 | WGL 1 | ROA | BRA 1 | CTR 1 | ATL 4 | LAG 18 | RIV 3 | 1st | 61 |
| Sources: ||||||||||||||||

### Complete Grand Prix Masters results

(key) Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap.
| Year | Team | Chassis | Engine | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 2005 | Team Lixxus | Delta Motorsport GPM | Nicholson McLaren 3.5 V8 | RSA 11 | | | | |
| 2006 | Team Lixxus | Delta Motorsport GPM | Nicholson McLaren 3.5 V8 | QAT 11 | ITA C | GBR 11 | MAL C | RSA C |
| Source: |||||||||

## Explanatory notes

* ↑ McLaren entered the final two rounds as "Löwenbräu Team McLaren".
* ↑ McLaren entered round 4 as "Löwenbräu Team McLaren".

## Citations

* ↑ Glick, Shav (14 April 1985). "For Carl Haas, It's a Working Weekend : The Only Fun in Racing Is Winning, Says the Man Who Runs Andretti's Team". Los Angeles Times. p. 2. ProQuest 292117161.
* 1 2 Potter, Steve (29 June 1980). "Can Am Struggling in Revival". The New York Times. p. A.9. ProQuest 423943182.
* 1 2 3 4 5 6 Benson, Andrew (4 December 2022). "Former Formula 1 Ferrari driver Patrick Tambay dies aged 73". BBC Sport. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
* ↑ Arron, Simon (August 2016). "Patrick Tambay: 'You could've been world champion'". Motor Sport Magazine. Retrieved 12 January 2023.
* ↑ "Two-time Grand Prix winner Patrick Tambay passes away". formula1.com. 4 December 2022. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
* ↑ Arron, Simon (August 2016). "Patrick Tambay interview". Motor Sport Magazine. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
* ↑ "Patrick Tambay, ancien pilote de F1, est mort". lequipe.fr (in French). 4 December 2022. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
* 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Patrick Tambay Statistics Database". motorsportmagazine.com. Retrieved 4 December 2022.
* ↑ "Can-Am – final positions and tables". World Sports Racing Prototypes. 2 October 2005. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 20 May 2022.

## General and cited references

* Burbi, Massimo; Tambay, Patrick (2016). 27: Patrick Tambay – The Ferrari Years. Evro Publishing. ISBN 978-1910505120.
Sporting positions :
| Preceded byJackie Oliver (1974) | Can-Am Champion 1977 | Succeeded byAlan Jones |
| Preceded byJacky Ickx | Can-Am Champion 1980 | Succeeded byGeoff Brabham |
vte Scuderia Ferrari :
Category:Ferrari
Commons:Scuderia Ferrari :
vte Renault in Formula One :