IN A NEW regular series, I will be profiling the careers of those drivers who won races and championships and those who either didn’t get the luck, or just failed at the top level of motorsport. All drivers featured will have competed between the years 1991-2011.
The fourth driver featured in The Driver Files will be best remembered for a high-profile incident off-track which led to the big break for a certain seven time world champion. Profiled is the Belgian, Bertrand Gachot.
Bertrand Gachot had a great time with Jordan...until his conviction in 1991 (Richards F1)
BERTRAND Gachot had a mixed career in motorsport, often driving for perennial backmarkers at its highest level, Formula One. His peak came in 1991 and who knows what would have happened to a certain Michael Schumacher if Gachot hadn’t had an altercation with a London taxi driver.
Gachot’s main success in junior formulae was winning the British Formula Ford Championship in 1986. He came runner-up in the British F3 series in 1987 to Johnny Herbert and there were strong second place finishes at Silverstone and Vallelunga in a single F3000 season, driving for Spirit Racing in 1988. However in an era where there may have been more chance of getting into Grand Prix racing, Gachot certainly was not one of the leading stars in feeder categories.
Born in Luxembourg in 1962 Gachot is firmly known for his Belgian roots but did change his nationality to French in 1992. In an interview a year earlier, he said; “I am not really one nationality. I feel very much a European, but today I have to accept that a united Europe is not yet a reality.” This quote alone probably sums up Gachot’s Formula One career – acceptance that he would never quite reach the top.
He made his Grand Prix debut for the Onyx team in 1989, but his debut season was a real struggle as he was often a regular faller in the pre-qualifying stage on a Friday morning. His first start and finish came in the 1989 French Grand Prix, with a 13th placed result. 12th at Silverstone a week later followed, but Gachot lost his drive to J.J Lehto before the season was out and he switched to fellow stragglers Rial for the final two races, failing to qualify on both occasions.
1990 was a total disaster with the switch to Coloni almost finishing off Gachot in Formula One. The car was pathetic, starting with a Subaru engine that had no hope of ever making it past pre-qualifying. A switch to Ford power from Hockenheim onwards didn’t help and Gachot only started getting past pre-qualifying when his former team, Onyx and the EuroBrun team folded before the season’s conclusion. He failed to start a single event in 1990.
Despite his shortcomings so far Bertrand was signed up by Eddie Jordan for his debut season in F1. 1991 was looking hugely promising for all parties and Gachot matched his vastly experienced team-mate Andrea de Cesaris for much of the first half of the season. He started Jordan’s first race in Phoenix when de Cesaris failed to pre-qualify and finished their first event too; a creditable eighth place result around the streets of Monaco. He was a superb fifth in Canada, backing up de Cesaris fourth place result and scored points at both Silverstone and Hockenheim too. The Hungarian Grand Prix might have brought an unspectacular ninth place race finish, but Bertrand did set the fastest lap ever at the time around the Hungaroring during the race. During this period Bertrand was a shock winner of the 1991 Le Mans 24 Hours, alongside Johnny Herbert and Volker Weidler for the unfancied Mazda team. His career though was about to tumble to its lowest point.
The previous December Gachot had been involved in an altercation with a London taxi driver at Hyde Park. In the fracas that followed, Bertrand sprayed CS gas into the face of the driver who pressed charges. Although CS gas in the UK is illegal to use, many in Formula One at the time believed that Gachot’s had only used the action in self-defence, so a fine or suspended sentence was more likely. It was a surprise then when he was sentenced to six months in jail for possession of the gas and 18 months for causing grevious bodily harm. The sentence was handed out immediately before the Belgian Grand Prix.
He served two months in prison before an appeal was held and although his conviction wasn’t completely quashed, he was released on October 15 and flew to Suzuka in the hope that his contract with Jordan Grand Prix was still valid. In his absence, Eddie Jordan had hired Michael Schumacher and given the legendary German his big break before his controversial switch to Benetton. Roberto Moreno was parachuted into the car on a stopgap basis and the young Italian, Alessandro Zanardi had raced in Barcelona. As Gachot admitted in an interview to Joe Saward in October 1991, he was disappointed with Eddie Jordan’s lack of support; “That disappointed me a lot, it was a drive which I thought was mine, but he didn’t want to do it because he had commitments with other people. He decided to interrupt the contract. I don’t know what the grounds were but I have had enough of lawyers and things like that. I’m not going to look into that. It’s going to be my advisors who will do that. I don’t want to get involved.”
When Eric Bernard unfortunately broke his leg during qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix in 1991, a vacancy opened up at Larrousse. Gachot snapped it up, but failed to qualify for the final race in Adelaide. He stayed with Larrousse for 1992 and scored a sole championship point in Monaco, but had some run-ins with team-mate Ukyo Katayama during the season too. Fourth at Le Mans in 1992 and an unsuccessful season in IndyCars followed before his involvement with the new Pacific team in 1994. He only finished two races in two seasons for the fledgling team in which Bertrand was involved behind-the-scenes with its existance too. When he stepped aside for no-hopers such as Giovanni Lavaggi, it was clear that Pacific were struggling for cash and they folded at the end of 1995.
Apart from a couple of sportscar outings, his career in motorsport was over as a driver, but Gachot still has contacts within Formula One and is concentrating on his business interests nowadays, which include energy drinks beverages. Bertrand Gachot made some bad decisions in his time within Formula One, but many believe he got a rough break from justice in 1991 too and it stalled a promising and successful year upto that point. He always kept fighting though and that is always a solid quality to have.
NEXT IN THE DRIVER FILES: The dynamic, fiery Colombian who gave Michael Schumacher more of a fight than most in the dominant Ferrari days, Juan Pablo Montoya.
GERMAN racing driver Adrian Sutil has received an 18-month suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of causing GBH (Grevilous Bodily Harm). The ex-Force India racer was convicted in a two-day trial in Munich after an incident occured at a Shanghai nightclub which left the chief executive of Genii Capital, Eric Lux with injuries. Sutil, 29 has also being given a 200,000 euro fine which according to Planet F1, will be donated to charities. He becomes the first active F1 racing driver to be found guilty of an off-track skirmish since Belgian driver Bertrand Gachot was controversially jailed in the summer of 1991 for spraying CS gas at a London taxi driver.
Adrian Sutil found guilty and set for a spell on the sidelines
The confrontation between Sutil and Lux happened on the evening of Lewis Hamilton’s stunning victory at last April’s Chinese Grand Prix. Sutil, a close friend of Hamilton’s was celebrating his success when an incident with a champagne glass occured which left Lux needing stitches after sustaining cuts to his head and neck. Lux’s company own the Lotus Formula One team, formerly known as Renault. Despite being asked to testify, Hamilton was unable to attend due to commitments with McLaren. Sutil apologised to Lux in a statement and via a phone call, although it is believed that no face-to-face apology was given by the driver. On Monday in court, The German was quoting by the Reuters news agency; “I did everything to try to settle this row, I am really sorry, extremely sorry. I never wanted for this to happen.”
Despite finishing ninth in the drivers championship, including strong sixth place finishes at the Nurburgring and in Brazil, Sutil’s Formula One career looked bleak before court proceedings were set against him. He lost his Force India drive to Nico Hulkenberg before Christmas and was beaten to the vacant Williams seat recently to Brazilian Bruno Senna. There has been talk of a third driver role at Ferrari, considering that they have let their young Italian Jules Bianchi out on loan to Force India to compete in Friday sessions in 2012. However, this sentence might scupper those chances too.
It looks like Adrian Sutil’s Formula One career, which did show signs of solid promise have now reached an ultimate crossroads.
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