Gérard Ducarouge

Gérard Ducarouge (born 23 October 1941) is a French former Formula One car designer. Like many designers, his background was based in aeronautical engineering. He qualified at college with Bacalaureat Technique et Mathematique and won his Degre Superieur after studying at the Ecole National Technique d’Aeronautique.

After leaving college he joined Nord Aviation in 1964 where he worked on various missile projects. However, he became restless and applied for a job as a technician at Matra racing in December 1965. This was shortly after the creation of Matra-Sports and Gérard started work on their Formula 3 programme, and from 1966 he also began improving their Formula 2 cars. Ducarouge steadily rose within the organisation to Head of Operations where he masterminded Matra’s hat-trick of Le Mans wins from 1972-1974 and oversaw their two constructor World Championship wins of 1973-1974. At the end of 1974 Matra pulled out of racing.

Ducarouge resigned shortly after to begin work at the new Formula 1 team founded by Guy Ligier at Vichy, close to Gerard’s home town of Paray-le-Monial. He began work on Ligier’s entrant to the F1|1976 season, the JS5 which retained links with Matra including their 3-litre V12 engine and SEITA Gitanes brand sponsorship. By the Swedish Grand Prix of 1977 the team celebrated its maiden Grand Prix victory.

Subsequent victories were to occur throughout the F1|1979 season. In F1|1981 a revised Matra V12 was fitted in the latest Liger chassis and with Talbot backing it seemed as though the team would be contenders to win the constructors championship. But by mid season Gérard was unceremoniously sacked by Guy Ligier. He quickly accepted an offer to join the Alfa Romeo team where he persuaded the team to create his first carbon fibre chassis. Despite this and other innovations instigated by Ducarouge, Alfa Romeo failed to deliver on increasingly high expectations. Following the 1st qualifying session of the 1983 French Grand Prix where Andrea de Cesaris was disqualified for his car being underweight, Ducarouge was blamed and dismissed. He was not to remain out of work for long, as Peter Warr from Team Lotus head hunted Ducarouge. Lotus had witnessed a severe decline in fortunes following their dominant F1|1978 campaign, and had culminated with the death of their founder Colin Chapman in December 1982. Following extensive persuasion Ducarouge joined the team following the 1983 Belgian Grand Prix. He immediately began work on the Type 94T which was designed and built in five weeks, and helped salvage some degree of success for the remainder of the 1983 season. Team Lotus began a major restructuring headed by Ducarouge and culminated with the years 1984-1987 representing a major revival of the team’s fortunes. The Lotus 95T, which followed the 94T, was widely regarded as the finest handling chassis throughout the season and was only let down by the unreliable and uneconomical Renault V6 engine.

The still born Lotus 96T Indy Car incorporated the innovative use of lightweight aluminium foil honeycomb in the chassis replacing the previous nomex construction. The gain of strength with no weight penalty was to become a hallmark of subsequent Lotus Formula 1 chassis.

For the start of the F1|1985 season Gérard was joined at Lotus by the talented Ayrton Senna. By the Portuguese Grand Prix held at a torrential Estoril, Senna would score his maiden win in a Ducarouge Lotus 97T. This was to be the first of 7 and culminated in the 1987 victory in Detroit. Senna would depart for McLaren for the start of the F1|1988 season leaving Ducarouge to develop and enter the much hoped landmark Lotus 100T. Despite some encouraging performance throughout a season dominated by McLaren, the team finished in 4th position, with fault allegedly laid at incorrect aerodynamic data amassed during testing at Comtec.

Ducarouge departed Lotus to return to France and take up an offer from the Larrousse team. At Larrousse he developed the Lola chassis with Chris Murphy (who would later join Lotus for the 1992 season). In F1|1991 he rejoined Liger and remained as Technical Director until mid 1994.

Now in the twilight of his career, Ducarouge has retraced his career path back to Matra where he worked as the International development director on various projects.