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| Last updated: 11-October-2002 | |
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1970s
Moves from FRenault to European F3, taking a 5th |
A Parisian whose father owned a van and truck hire business, Patrick Gaillard emerged from nowhere in the late 1970s, shone briefly in Formula 3, had stop-start outings in F2, flirted for a short time with F1, slipped away just as quickly, and now helps other people to get a taste of what it's like to drive a Grand Prix car. Graduating from French Formule Super Renault, he made the big jump into European F3 in 1977, driving a Chevron B38 with a Toyota engine.
5th at Croix-en-Ternois was his only points-scoring place, and 10th at the Osterreichring his only other top 10 finish. With his two points Gaillard came equal 23rd in the championship with Geoff Brabham, Roberto Campominosi, Henrik Spellerberg and Siegfried Stohr, but he had done enough to earn a drive in a works Chevron B43 Toyota for the following year. It would prove to be a somewhat inconsistent year, although with enough flashes of brilliance to suggest that Patrick was not without considerable talent. |
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1978
Takes two great wins to finish 3rd overall in Euro F3 |
Gaillard started with a 5th at Zandvoort, before a 3rd at the Osterreichring in the third round, where he also took the fastest lap, and 6th at Zolder. But he then sensationally took out the next two races at Imola and the Nurburgring, and later had a run of three 2nds in a row at Monza, Enna and Magny-Cours. Yet towards the end of the season his form dropped, with only 6ths at Karlskoga and Kassel-Calden and 4th at Jarama to show, leaving him 3rd in the championship nonetheless with 48 points.
But perhaps Patrick had left his best impression at the prestigious non-championship Monaco F3 race. A massive entry list had already seen 20 drivers fail to qualify, with the remaining 40 split into two groups of 20 for 16-lap heats, and the top ten from each race to move into a 24-lap final. Despite being in the older Chevron B38, Gaillard stormed to victory in his heat by a thumping 28 seconds, ahead of the likes of Stohr, Jean-Louis Schlesser, Anders Olofsson and Alain Prost, setting the fastest lap in the process. |
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1978
Heads impressive field at Monaco before coming together with Elio |
The other heat had seen Teo Fabi defeat the likes of Derek Warwick, Elio de Angelis, Bobby Rahal, Huub Rothengatter, Jan Lammers and Chico Serra. In what was a top-class final, de Angelis started from pole but Gaillard took the lead, and the two of them engaged in a titanic battle. Patrick remained in front until the 16th lap, when Elio attempted an ambitious move. The two made contact, and the Frenchman was forced out with suspension damage.
De Angelis got away with it and won the final, beating Stohr, Daniele Albertin, Prost, Lammers, Schlesser and Rothengatter, but Gaillard could justifiably feel as though he had been robbed. Nevertheless, his efforts at Monaco and throughout the rest of the season had made its point, and by the end of 1978 he was looking forward to racing in Formula 2 with Chevron in 1979. Judging by his 1978 form, Patrick was beginning to look like a man to watch. |
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1979
Only 4 starts in F2 following end of season 4th in Japan |
In fact he got his first taste of F2 at the end of 1978, when he drove in the fifth round of the Japanese F2 championship at Suzuka. In a Chevron B40 BMW run by Team Phoenix, he took to the category like a duck to water, coming 4th. That should have boded well for his 1979 season, but as things turned out he was only given limited chances by Chevron, and in his works B48 with a Hart engine he managed just four starts at the Nurburgring, Pau, Hockenheim and Donington.
Despite the disappointment of all this, Gaillard made the best of his opportunities. After coming 9th at the Nurburgring, he had two points-scoring results with 5th at Pau and 4th at Hockenheim. His Donington race ended after one lap though when he retired with accident damage. This left Patrick in 15th in the championship with 5 points. But perhaps he didn't care too much, for during 1979 he had already fulfilled his dream of making it into the top flight, Formula One. |
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1979 Ensign Tiff's loss is Patrick's gain, saddling up for home GP at Dijon |
Mo Nunn's Ensign F1 team had begun the 1979 season with its N179 chassis coming on-stream late, and with Irishman Derek Daly as its one and only driver. Alternating between the old N177 and the new N179 in the first seven rounds, Daly had started no better than 23rd on the grid, and in fact had failed to qualify four times. Walking out on the team after the Monaco GP, Nunn had wanted to replace him with Tiff Needell for the French GP at Dijon, but the Englishman was denied a superlicence.
So Gaillard got the call, and despite Ensign's rather iffy form, he grasped the opportunity with both hands and set out to impress in front of his home crowd. One of 27 entries, he lapped the track in his Cosworth-powered N179 in 1min 13s exactly, but his was only 26th fastest, and only 24 were going to be allowed to start. Even when Hans-Joachim Stuck withdrew after his ATS team quarrelled with Goodyear, Patrick was only promoted to 25th, still not good enough for a start. |
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1979
Finishes his second Grand Prix, in 13th after battle with Elio and Jan |
He had been 5.81s slower than Jean-Pierre Jabouille's Renault on pole, and 0.77s behind than his nemesis de Angelis in a Shadow, the lucky 25th-fastest man who was bumped up to 24th upon Stuck's withdrawal. So it was on to Silverstone for the British GP, and there, despite an ill-handling car, Patrick had the best F1 outing of his career. He qualified 23rd, 5.19s behind Alan Jones' Williams, and between the Fittipaldi of Emerson Fittipaldi and the private Lotus 79 of Hector Rebaque.
Gaillard made it all the way to the finish, and late in the race was involved in a three-way tussle with the Shadows of Lammers and de Angelis. All of them were three laps down, and eventually finished nose-to-tail, the Dutchman followed by the Italian and then our Frenchman. But then there was to be disappointment at the German GP, when Patrick was 25th fastest, 7.47s down on Jabouille on pole, but only 0.09s slower than Rebaque who was the 24th and last starter. |
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1979
Beats out Rebaque by 0.06s to take to the grid in Austria |
He turned the tables on the Mexican in Austria though, where he was the one in 24th, edging out Rebaque by 0.06s this time. But he was 7.03s away from the pole time set by René Arnoux, and 1.65s behind Lammers in 23rd. Soldiering on gamely towards the back of the field, Gaillard was up to 12th by lap 42 when the N179 suffered a suspension failure, putting him out of the running. Up to that stage he had set the 21st fastest lap of the race.
Come Zandvoort for the Dutch GP, and once more Gaillard just missed the field by clocking the 25th fastest time, and once more it was Rebaque who was 24th. But unlike the minuscule margins in German and Austria, here Rebaque was a full 1.578s ahead of the Ensign, and Patrick was almost 7.5s behind Arnoux who was on pole again. In five entries, Gaillard had done no better than Daly before him, and with three DNQs to his name, he was replaced at the next round by Swiss driver Marc Surer. |
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1980
Finishes sixth in famous non-WC Spanish GP at Jarama |
Strictly speaking, that was the end of Gaillard's participation in World Championship F1, although he would have another one-off drive for Ensign in the 1980 Spanish GP at Jarama, a race boycotted by Ferrari, Renault and Alfa Romeo, and which was declared a non-championship event after it was run. Guaranteed a starting spot in his new Ensign N180 Cosworth, which he was driving in place of Needell, Patrick qualified 21st out of the 22 entries, just 3.31s behind the pole time set by Jacques Laffite's Ligier.
In the race, 7 drivers retired through accidents, and several others through mechanical failures. Although there were 8 classified finishers, there were only 6 cars on the road at the end, and Gaillard was number six. Even if he was five laps down on winner Alan Jones, he came home to what he thought was his first championship point, only to have it snatched from his grasp. Lammers then moved over from ATS to take Gaillard's place at Ensign, and Patrick never got another chance to race in Formula One. |
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1979-80
Tries to revive his F2 fortunes, heading back to Japan for top-5 finishes |
Towards the end of 1979, whilst evaluating his options, Gaillard had actually competed in the Can-Am round at Laguna Seca, driving a Formula 5000 Lola T332 modified into a Can-Am sports car. He finished a creditable 11th in that race, but really his heart was still set on open wheelers, and he tried to organise an F2 drive again for 1980. He thought he had a deal with the Ecurie Motul GPA Nogaro outfit to drive an AGS JH17 BMW, but that team never got its act together for the first three rounds, and Gaillard moved on.
He did however land a ride in an MM Mampe Team Maurer MM80 BMW for the fifth and sixth rounds at Pau and Silverstone, but he retired from both races. He also took part in the fourth and fifth rounds of the 1980 Japanese F2 championship, both at Suzuka, finishing 5th and 4th respectively, first in a March 792 BMW and then in a Walter Wolf Racing Japan March 802 BMW. This left him with 12 points in the Japanese title, good enough for 9th overall. But frankly, Gaillard's open-wheeler career was going nowhere. |
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1980-82
Off to Le Mans with Chevalley, and more sports cars with Courage |
That being the case, in 1980 he also sampled sports cars, joining Andre Chevalley's team to drive Chevalley's own ACR 80 Ford, a truly ridiculous-looking contraption. With Chevalley and François Trisconi, Gaillard retired at Silverstone with a clutch problem, and then in the Le Mans 24hrs the trio once again dropped out, this time with a front wishbone failure. Chevalley, Gaillard and this time Bruno Sotty tried again at Le Mans in 1981 with a modified ACR 80B, but again they retired, a clutch problem their undoing.
In 1982, Gaillard had two entries in the Courage Competition Cougar C01 Ford, but they were spectacularly unsuccessful. At the Nurburgring, he was partnered with Yves Courage and Jean-Philippe Grand, but the car retired after just one lap with suspension failure. Patrick was then due to partner Hervé Regout at Brands Hatch, but the car never even made the start after an engine problem in practice. |
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1983-02
Last hurrah for Kremer, but the Porsche lasts on 76 laps |
After that, Gaillard made his last major motor racing appearance in the 1983 Le Mans 24hrs. There, he teamed up with Derek Warwick and Frank Jelinski in a Kremer-Porsche CK5/83, but once again his car retired, pulling out after 76 laps with a head gasket failure. Since then, Patrick withdrew from the racing spotlight, but now is the chief instructor at the well-known AGS Driving School in France. There, the former F1 team gives enthusiasts from all over the world the chance to drive F1-spec and F3 machines, with full lessons from Gaillard and co about the nuances of race driving technique. Thus with plenty of money exchanging hands, people can live their dreams of driving an F1-spec car (even if it is an old AGS!). Full details can be found here at the AGS school's website. |
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