The Driver Files: Erik Comas

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 first driver featured in The Driver Files is the Frenchman, Erik Comas.

Erik Comas had a frustrating career in Formula One (Speed TV)

NAME: Erik Comas

TEAMS: Ligier (1991-92), Larrousse (1993-94)

POINTS: 7

GP STARTS: 59

BEST FINISH: 5th (1992 French Grand Prix)

ERIK Comas was part of the former French generation.  He came through the junior ranks alongside the likes of Eric Bernard and Jean Alesi.  In fact, Alesi only narrowly pipped him to the F3000 championship in 1989.  Erik bounced back to win the title the following season, adding to success in winning the French Formula 3 title in 1988.

With a proven record in junior formulae, Erik had forged himself a strong reputation and was signed by a Ligier team in 1991 that was going through a period of severe decline.  He was never the most exciting or vintage competitor, but had the ability to get the job done.  The 1991 Ligier Lamborghini was not a good car, proved by him failing to qualify for his first event in Phoenix.  Thierry Boutsen, a Grand Prix winner with Williams was his team-mate and he struggled too with a poor chassis.  Comas did well to match his more experienced team-mate, but neither driver scored a point.  Erik’s best result in his debut season was 8th placed in a carnaged Canadian Grand Prix.

Ligier switched to Renault engines in 1992 and things improved for both drivers.  This season turned out to be Comas’s peak in his F1 career.  He finished seven of the first nine events and came in the points on three separate occasions.  His best ever career result was a fifth place performance at his home event in France.  Sixth in Canada and Germany meant he finished equal 11th in the drivers championship, with four points.  However, his working relationship with Boutsen took a nosedive as they took each other off in two separate races; (Brazil & Hungary).  Both were fired at the end of the season, to be replaced by English duo Martin Brundle and Mark Blundell.

Before that though, Erik had a lucky escape during practice for the Belgian Grand Prix.  He had a mammoth shunt at the flat-out Blanchimont corner, which knocked him out.  Boutsen drove past the wreckage, but Ayrton Senna bravely stopped his McLaren, got out of his car and rushed to his stricken colleague.  He held Comas’s head still until the paramedics arrived.  Luckily, he only suffered concussion but his race weekend ended there and he never finished a race for Ligier again.

Staying loyal to French teams, Erik moved to Larrousse for 1993, partnered by the French no-hoper Phillipe Alliot.  He scrambled sixth place at Monza and qualified an excellent 11th in France, ahead of Riccardo Patrese’s Benetton and Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari.  However, the accident in Belgium the previous season seemed to have knocked any forward motions in his form.  As Larrousse’s finances seriously declined, Comas went backwards and plugged away through 1994, when he was partnered by many team-mates, including Olivier Beretta, Yannick Dalmas and Hideki Noda.  If anything, his career will be remembered more for a crazy incident on the fateful Imola weekend.

Following Senna’s serious accident, a member of the Larrousse team clearly didn’t realise the situation and allowed Comas out of the pitlane underneath a red flag.  He screamed through the flat Tamburello bend and was lucky to be flagged down without clobbering the medical helicopter or track officials.  The scenes were so distressing for Erik, he didn’t feel like taking the restart.  Although he got blamed for exiting the pits, it seemed like a team communication issue was the main fault.  Nevertheless, it was a ridiculous move and just added to the nightmare that was Imola 1994.

Comas managed sixth place finishes in Aida and at Hockenheim, but said during the year that he would retire from Formula One if he would end up being outqualified by a Simtek.  In Spa, David Brabham managed this and the Australian gloated afterwards, telling media; “I wish Erik a very happy retirement!’  He was replaced by the end of the season, with Jean Denis Delatraz taking his seat for the season finale in Australia.

Since Formula One ended for him, Comas spent several years competing in GT racing in Japan, as well as focusing on driver management, promoting further French talent.  He suffered from ill health in 2006 and effectively retired from all forms of racing.  Today, he runs Comas Historic Racing, which is a service that provides customers to pay and drive historic rally driving cars.

Erik Comas ended up having a frustrating Formula One career, which promised much after success in junior formulae, but ended with little joy.

NEXT UP IN THE DRIVER FILES: An Italian whose career ended thanks to one of the worst chassis/engine combinations in history – Stefano Modena