Jean-Louis Schlesser

Schlesser in 1988

**Jean-Louis Schlesser** (born 12 September 1948), is a French racing driver, who is known for his experience in the World Sportscar Championship.

## Early racing career

Schlesser was born in Nancy, Lorraine, France, and grew up in Morocco, where his father worked as an agricultural engineer. The local culture had such an impact on him that when he began racing bicycles and motorcycles, he based his distinctive helmet design on the Christian cross motifs of North African nomadic tribes. In 1963, however, he returned to France, first to study and then to complete his compulsory military service.

At this point in his life, tragedy struck the Schlesser family. Jean-Louis' uncle, Jo Schlesser, was a well-known sports car and Formula 2 driver in the 1960s and a close friend of Guy Ligier. Jo was given the opportunity to make his Formula One debut at the 1968 French Grand Prix in Rouen, but he died in a fireball in an early-race accident. In the future, when Ligier ran his own team, he would designate his cars as 'JS' in honour of his friend. Undeterred by his uncle's fate, Jean-Louis enrolled in the racing school at Le Mans in 1970, finishing second, and attempted to enter Formula Renault in 1971, but lacked the necessary funds. So the next few years were spent doing development work for car companies, interspersed with the occasional bit of rallying, a discipline that would play an important role in his later career. Only in 1976 did he have enough money to compete in some Formula Three races in France, before attempting European F3 but scoring no points in 1977.

By 1978, he was 29 going on 30, which was not an ideal time to begin climbing the single seater ladder. But in his private Chevron B38 Toyota, he finished the season as joint French F3 champion with none other than Alain Prost, a fantastic result (though in the European championship, he only scored 3 points, finishing equal 20th with six other drivers). Another fruitless season in European F3 followed in 1979, before returning to the French series in 1980, where he finished fifth overall in a March 793 Alfa Romeo, scoring 56 points. In 1981, he decided to take one last shot at European F3, having been hired by the Martini team to partner Alain Ferté and Philippe Alliot. Schlesser did reasonably well, finishing third at Misano and scoring 18 points in total in his Martini Mk34 Alfa Romeo, placing him seventh overall. However, upgrading to a works Maurer MM82 BMW for eight starts in European F2 the following year proved difficult. Jean-Louis finished seventh and eighth at Spa and Mantorp Park, respectively, but did not earn any points.

Although he made his Formula One debut in 1983 and spent several years testing for Williams, his single-seater career appeared to be over. However, as a late starter, Jean-Louis had kept his racing options open from the start by competing in other categories. For example, he competed in the French Production Car Championship in 1978 and 1979, as well as the French Touring Car Series from 1980 to 1983. However, in 1984, he joined Tom Walkinshaw Racing's Rover team and won the French Touring Car Championship with them in 1985. That year, TWR also entered Schlesser in their Austin Rover team for the European Touring Car Championship, where he finished 10th in Class 3 in a Rover Vitesse with 97 points. Furthermore, 1985 marked his return to his North African and off-road roots, as he competed in the Paris-Dakar rally for the first time in a Lada, returning for more in 1986.

Aside from production cars, touring cars, and rally machines, Jean-Louis has carved out a nice niche for himself in the world of sports car racing. He drove in the World Championship round at the Nürburgring in a KWS Motorsport Ford Escort with Rudolf Dötsch as early as 1977, and he competed in the Spa 24 Hours in 1979, but the BMW 530i he shared with Claude Ballot-Léna and Gérard Bleynie crashed out of the event. In the 1979 World Championship, he completed three rounds in a Jacques Guérin Porsche 911SC alongside Guérin and Bleynie, finishing sixth at Silverstone. He stayed with the same team for two more events in the 1980 championship, but it wasn't until 1981 that Schlesser rose to prominence in sports cars, when he finished second in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Philippe Streiff and Jacky Haran, scoring 20 points and finishing equal 112th in the points standings!

Another start with KWS Motorsport in a Ford Capri at the Spa 24 Hours in 1981 with Ferté and Anny-Charlotte Verney ended in retirement, as did his return to Le Mans in 1982, where he shared a Sauber SHS C6 Ford with Hans-Joachim Stuck and Dieter Quester. In the following three years, Jean-Louis would finish 10th in the 24 hour classic in 1983 in a Porsche 956, retire in 1984 in another 956 and then DNQ in 1985 after the Porsche 962C he shared with Kenny Acheson and Dudley Wood collided during practice. While many sports car drivers made an annual pilgrimage to the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring in America, Schlesser was not among them. In 1985, he made his only start in the Daytona Classic, retiring due to engine problems in the Porsche 935 Turbo he was driving with Harald Grohs and Walter Brun. And, while his sports car career had previously been limited to sporadic starts, it really took off in 1986.

That year, his TWR connections helped him get a seat in a Jaguar XJR-6 for the 1986 World Sportscar Championship, alongside drivers like Gianfranco Brancatelli, Derek Warwick, Eddie Cheever, and Jan Lammers. However, several driveshaft failures limited Jean-Louis' points scoring to fourth at Brands Hatch with Warwick and fifth at Spa with Cheever. Warwick, Cheever, and Schlesser retired from Le Mans due to irreparable damage caused by a puncture. Schlesser left TWR Jaguar at the end of 1986 and struggled to find a seat for 1987, but eventually joined the Kouros Racing Team to drive the works Sauber C9 Mercedes at Spa alongside Mike Thackwell, finishing seventh. This resulted in a full-season drive in the Sauber C9/88 Mercedes in 1988, and Jean-Louis thrived in his new surroundings. Schlesser had an incredible run, alternating between Mauro Baldi and Jochen Mass, finishing in the top three in all but one of the races he drove in.

The only race where he did not finish on the podium was in Fuji, where Schlesser, Mass, and Acheson finished fifth. In the rest, Jean-Louis won at Jerez, Brno (the first major event held on the Czechoslovakian circuit), the Nürburgring, and Sandown, scoring 5 fastest laps and amassing 208 points, putting him second overall and the best of the Sauber Mercedes drivers, but not enough to beat Martin Brundle's Jaguar XJR-9 to the championship. Aside from the World Championship, there was also the ADAC Supercup series of races in Germany, and after only one start in 1986 and 1987, Schlesser won the title in 1988, driving his Sauber C9/88 to victories in three of the four races (out of five in the entire series) he entered. But it wasn't all roses; in 1988, Jean-Louis sparked outrage by refusing to drive at Le Mans, a race he didn't particularly enjoy.

## Formula One

Schlesser was working as a test driver for Williams when he gained his first taste of Formula One in early 1983 when he bought a drive in the RAM team's March-RAM 01-Cosworth. His first race was the non-championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, where he started last of the 13 entrants and finished 6th. One week later, at the French Grand Prix at Circuit Paul Ricard, he was the slowest of the 29 cars in qualifying and thus failed to make the grid. He did not take part in another F1 race for five years, though he continued to test for Williams.

### Rial (1988)

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## Post Formula One career

Sauber Mercedes C9s dominated the World Sportscar Championship in 1989, after coming close in 1988. Schlesser won at Suzuka with Baldi and then drove with Mass for the rest of the season, finishing second at Dijon, first at Jarama, third at Brands Hatch, first at the Nürburgring, including fastest lap, first at Donington, retiring at Spa, but winning and setting the fastest lap in the final race in Mexico. The early driver juggling proved critical. Schlesser won the World Championship with 115 points, compared to 107 for Mass and 102 for Baldi. He was also coaxed into racing again at Le Mans, a non-championship event, but finished fifth with Jean-Pierre Jabouille and Alain Cudini. Then, in 1990, he was permanently teamed with Baldi after both of them decided not to partner Karl Wendlinger, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and Michael Schumacher as part of Mercedes' junior driver programme.

However, in terms of championship success, Schlesser and Baldi's decision paid off handsomely. Starting the season in the old Sauber C9 before upgrading to a new C11, Jean-Louis and Mauro won six races at Suzuka, Monza, Dijon, Nürburgring, Donington, and Montreal, setting three fastest laps in the process, though they retired at Silverstone and were disqualified in Mexico. Schlesser and Baldi tied for the World Championship with 49.5 points each, while Jean-Louis successfully defended his title. Baldi was lured away to the works Peugeot team in 1991, while Frentzen dropped out of the junior programme. Schumacher was then paired with Wendlinger, while Schlesser was reunited with Mass. The Sauber Mercedes plan for 1991 had been to start the year in the trusted C11s before switching to the new C291 after Le Mans, but in the face of the Peugeot challenge and a revitalised Jaguar effort, Schlesser and Mass could only finish second, third, and fourth in the opening three races.

They were joined by Ferté at Le Mans, where Jean-Louis overcame his dislike for the track to take pole, but an engine failure forced them out after 319 laps. The C291 was later introduced, but it proved to be extremely unreliable, with the Schlesser machine dropping out of three consecutive races before finishing fifth at Autopolis in the final race. Overall, the double World Champion's season was disappointing, as he failed to win and finished joint seventh in the title standings with 45 points. However, with the WSC's impending demise and Sauber's decision to focus on Formula One, Schlesser found himself looking for something new. He had competed in another IMSA race in a Ferrari at Topeka in 1990, but this was not the path he wanted to take. In his own words: "What interested me was the opportunity to take on another challenge. But I wanted something that would allow me to outperform myself in another domain. I told myself it would be a fun challenge to build a car."

## Notes

1. ↑ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>Small, Steve (1994). *The Guinness Complete Grand Prix Who's Who*. Guinness. p. 341. ISBN 0851127029.