Robert Benoist Robert Marcel Charles Benoist ( 20 March 1895 – 9 September 1944 ) was a French Grand Prix motor racing driver and war hero . Early life . Born near Rambouillet , Île - de - France , France , Robert Benoist was the son of Baron Henri de Rothschild ' s gamekeeper . As a young man , Benoist served during World War I in the French infantry , then as a fighter pilot in the new " Armée de l ' Air " and ultimately as a flying instructor . Grand Prix Driver . Looking for excitement in the post - war world , Benoist joined the " de Marçay " car company as a test driver . He then moved on to Salmson and was very successful in cyclecar races before being signed to drive for Delage in 1924 . The next year , teamed with Albert Divo , he won the French Grand Prix in the race that claimed the life of Italian racing star Antonio Ascari . In 1927 , driving a Delage 15 - S - 8 , he won the French , Spanish , Italian and British Grand Prix races , earning the season championship title for the French manufacturer . When the Delage company dropped out of racing , Robert Benoist was without a job and was appointed manager of the Banville Garage in Paris . He did occasional races for the Bugatti team , finishing second in the 1928 San Sebastián Grand Prix in Spain . The following year he teamed up with Attilio Marinoni to win the Spa 24 Hours race in Belgium , driving an Alfa Romeo . At the end of the season he retired until 1934 , when he made a comeback with the Bugatti team . He was soon made head of the competition department and masterminded the company ' s Le Mans programme . In 1937 he partnered with Jean - Pierre Wimille to win the 24 hours of Le Mans endurance race . Following that victory , Benoist retired permanently , but continued to run Bugatti ' s racing department until called up into the French Air Force . World War II . In addition to Jean - Pierre Wimille , Robert Benoist became good friends with another Grand Prix driver , William Grover - Williams . When World War II broke out and France was occupied , these three race drivers all escaped to England where they joined the Special Operations Executive as secret agents to return to France to assist the French Resistance . Benoist was commissioned into the British Army as a captain . Parachuted into France , Benoist helped organize sabotage cells and with William Grover - Williams moved weapons from air - drops in the Rambouillet forest to his home at Auffargis for storage and distribution . In June 1943 , the " Prosper " network in Paris collapsed and its leaders , Francis Suttill and Andrée Borrel , were arrested by the Gestapo . In August , Benoist ' s home was raided by the Gestapo and Grover - Williams was captured and executed with Francis Suttill at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Capture and escape . Three days later , Robert Benoist was apprehended in Paris . While being driven to Gestapo headquarters , Benoist leaped from the moving vehicle and escaped , eventually being smuggled back to England via the underground . New missions . Benoist would later return to France on a second mission , lasting from October 1943 to February 1944 , after which he returned to London for a short time before going back to France in March to work in the Nantes area with fellow SOE agent Denise Bloch . Robert Benoist was arrested on 18 June 1944 and shipped to Buchenwald concentration camp where he was executed three months later , on 11 September . Testimony . Following Germany ' s surrender , on 9 September 1945 , the " " Coupe Robert Benoist " " automobile race was held in Paris in his memory . Captain Robert Benoist is recorded on the Brookwood Memorial in Surrey , England and as one of the SOE agents who died for the liberation of France , he is listed on the " Roll of Honor " on the Valençay SOE Memorial in the town of Valençay , in the Indre of France . In his honor , the village of Auffargis named a street after him and it is there in the churchyard cemetery on " Allée Robert Benoist " that fellow pioneer race driver , Ferenc Szisz is buried . Among the remaining grandstands still standing at the former Reims - Gueux circuit in France is one named " Tribune Robert Benoist " .