Jean-Marc Gounon

**Jean-Marc Gounon** (born 1 January 1963) is a French racing driver.

## Early life and career

A New Years baby from Aubenas in France, Gounon begun karting as early as 1980, in 1984 he was runner up in the European Karting Championship. He won a prize French Formula Renault drive for 1985, and came 10th in the series. He leapt up to 2nd the following year, recording 2 victories, and in 1987 came 2nd again having won four times. By now he was ready to move up a class, and in 1988 Jean-Marc began competing in French F3, driving for the famous Promatecme team in a Dallara F388 Alfa Romeo. With 72 points he came 4th overall, but won rookie of the year honours as a result.

1989 was then easily the best year in his career, when he joined the ORECA team and took his Reynard 893 Alfa Romeo to 5 wins and 121 points, to leave no one in any doubt as to who the French F3 champion of that year was. In the process he scored a massive 53 points more than his nearest rival Laurent Daumet. He impressed so much that, when he moved up to International Formula 3000 in 1990, he was taken on board by the Mansell-Madgwick team, co-owned by Nigel Mansell. Unfortunately, in his three seasons in F3000 Gounon showed dashing speed at times, and was usually a demon off the line, but also displayed frustrating inconsistency. For example, in 1990 he came 9th in his Reynard 90D Mugen with 11 points, qualified as high as 3rd at Enna (and won, but was disqualified for jumping the start) but also DNQed at Pau. He crashed in 3 of his first 5 races, but had a late-season run of 3rd at Hockenheim, 6th at Brands Hatch, and 4th at Birmingham and Nogaro.

Jean-Marc also always seemed to be in the right teams but wrong cars. In 1991 he joined Mike Earle's 3001 International team, but was saddled with the unfashionable Ralt RT23 Cosworth against the better Reynards and Lolas. But after failing to qualify at Vallelunga, at the next round at Pau he won from 3rd on the grid! Two races later he had dropped to 25th on the grid at Mugello, before finishing 6th at Enna and 5th at Hockenheim. Midfield mediocrity in the remaining races saw him 6th overall with 13 points. In 1992 he switched to the DAMS team, but found his Lola T92/50 Cosworth no match for the Reynards. After coming 4th in the first round at Silverstone, he spent most of the season on the fringes of the top 5 before finishing off the season in style, coming 2nd at Nogaro and winning at Magny-Cours, beating Olivier Panis and David Coulthard from 6th on the grid. He was equal 6th overall, this time with 19 points.

Gounon hoped that this would be impressive enough to earn him a full-time Formula One drive for 1993, and initially thought he had concluded a deal with the March team, only for the cash-strapped operation to close its doors before the season started. Another deal to race a Lola again in F3000 also came to nothing, and in the end he had to be content with doing some testing for BMS Dallara.

## Formula One

This section is incomplete. If you'd like to help, please add the relevant information.
In April 1993, Gounon was tasked with some development work for BMS Dallara at Snetterton.

## Notes

1. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"The month in MOTOR SPORT". *Motor Sport*. Teesdale Publishing Company Limited. 1993-06-01.