Gervais Tremaux

Saint-Mihiel, France

**Gervais Trémaux** was a French racing driver who raced in Formula One for Wolf, Shadow and Ferrari. He initially had a successful career in amateur motorcycle racing and sports car racing before making his Formula Debut in South Africa in 1978.

Trémaux only participated in Formula One for a year due a motorcycle crash after the 1978 Austrian Grand Prix that put his career on hold for several years.

Trémaux was killed whilst testing for Ferrari at Imola. He was in the process of staging a comeback for the 1985 season.

## Early Years

Gervais Tremaux was born to Michelle and Henri Tremaux in Saint-Mihiel on the 6th of January 1947.

As a young man, Gervais was notably involved in a number of local efforts to continue the Iron-Harvest in the Ypes, Meuse and Argonne salients of France. This involved mostly digging up and deactivating potentially live explosives and artillery shells as part of the ongoing efforts to decontaminate the Zone Rouge around the Pre-WWI German-French border.

He learned to ride a motorcycle at the age of 13, loaded to the brim with spent French 75mm artillery casings and deactivated rounds to local military disposal locations, where he was often noted as "delivering dangerous materials at a rather alarming speed" by the sentries who were responsible for admitting loads of collected ordinance.

## Racing Career

### **Motorcycle Racing**

   Gervais started racing motorcycles when he was 17 years old, taking part in races across Northern France and Belgium. He struggled to fund his early racing career until he started winning races and gathering local media attention. Although he had the pace to finish well, several heavy crashes and near-misses took their toll on his health and he began to reconsider his bike racing career.

### **Car Racing**

In 1973, Gervais participated in his last motorcycle race at Assen. He had already started to enter car races at this point but struggled to adapt from motorcycles to cars. It took several months of work and effort before he started to see the results he was hoping for and he soon started entering more prestigious races across the country.

Gervais caught a lucky break in 1975 and was able to sign a sponsorship deal with the French cigarette company Gitannes, which helped fund his racing career further. Later that year he entered French Formula Three. He finished 4th in his first season, before winning the championship in 1976.

### **Formula One**

Despite his limited experience, Wolf Racing took a risk with Trémaux and signed him as a reserve driver for the 1978 season. His race debut came earlier than expected and he replaced Scott Amor for the South African Grand Prix. Despite an incident with Chuck Dingley, Trémaux had a strong recovery drive to eventually finish on the podium in his first Grand Prix. Despite his result, he fell out with the management of Wolf and was sacked just days after the race.

Although he feared that his Formula One career was now over, his departure from Wolf came at an opportune time as Shadow re-entered the sport following financial trouble at the start of the year. Their first race came at the 1978 United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach and the team appeared to have a strong car around the street circuit. Trémaux shocked the grid by taking pole position on Saturday before going on to win the race the following day, despite another crash with Dingley. Ferrari contacted Trémaux and Shadow one day after the race and offered to buy out his contract to replace Hugo Gehring at Ferrari. Shadow accepted and Trémaux moved to the famous Italian team after just weeks in the sport. Trémaux went on to finish on the podium for the next three races before a series of unfortunate retirements in the British and German Grands Prix. His last race with the team was in the Austrian Grand Prix where he finished 5th after having to start from the back of the grid.

## Motorbike Accident

Trémaux' season came to a premature end when he was involved in a heavy accident following the Austrian Grand Prix. *Le Monde* reported:

> French racing driver Gervais Trémaux is reportedly "fighting for his life" after being involved in a motorbike accident, doctors say. The accident occurred in the Eastern Alps near the Austrian-Italian border.
>
>

> Trémaux was undertaking a road-trip from Austria to Italy before next month's Italian Grand Prix at Monza when the accident happened. Witnesses stated that Trémaux was travelling at considerable speed on his Honda CX500A before colliding with a car and being thrown from his bike. Some say that he was riding with just one hand whilst smoking a cigarette in the other, but this has not been confirmed.
>
>

Trémaux was replaced at Ferrari by the Italian driver Fabiano Margheriti for the rest of the season. After just eight races in the sport, Gervais was forced to retire from racing due to the extent of his injuries.

## Death

Ferrari driver Stefan Van Damme announced his retirement from the sport at the end of the 1984 season, forcing the team to look for a replacement for the upcoming season. After contacting several drivers, Trémaux was offered a test to evaluate if he still had the capability after years away from racing.

Trémaux' test took place at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari Circuit in Imola, using the 126C that Ferrari had raced with from 1981-1983. The day of testing was very cold, and morning showers meant that the track was wet when Gervais started driving. He struggled to find grip in the difficult conditions in a much faster car than he was used to but started to gain confidence as the track dried. Shortly after completing his 37th lap of the day, Trémaux lost control of the car before Rivazza and the Armco barriers at high speed. Due to the lack of marshals and team members at the private test session, help took longer than expected to reach him. He was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash and the destroyed car was impounded by officials before an investigation into the crash took place.

Footage showing Trémaux' fatal crash was destroyed, until CCTV footage was leaked to the Italian press which showed the accident.

## Personal Life

Trémaux started smoking when he was 15 and continued to smoke heavily every day until his death in 1985.