Roger Loyer (5 August 1907 – 24 March 1988) was a motorcycle road racer and racing driver from France. He won the 1937 250cc French motorcycle Grand Prix and the 1938 350cc French motorcycle Grand Prix.
He participated in one Formula One World Championship Grand Prix, the Argentine Grand Prix on 17 January 1954. His Gordini Type 16 ran out of oil, and he scored no championship points. Shortly after, this car failed again during the non-Championship Buenos Aires Grand Prix, but Loyer was able to share Élie Bayol’s car to finish 10th. Info from Wiki
One of the top French motocycle riders before the war, after hostilities ceased he continued to ride as well as race cars, driving a private Cisitalia and for Gordini in sports cars and Grand Prix.
Roger Loyer was the son of a Parisian taxi driver. He worked as a chauffeur and mechanic and started racing motorcycles in 1928 and went on to become one of the top French riders of the 1930s and 1940s primarily for Velocette.
In 1938 he started racing cars and in 1939 acquired the ex-Berg Maserati 6CM. He also drove one of the Watney’s Delage at Le Mans. His career was disrupted like many of his era by the onset of war.
After the war Loyer continued to enjoy two-wheeled competition as well as racing cars. Loyer took part in the first post-war motor races in the Bois de Boulogne in September 1945 in an old Amilcar and then reappeared in 1947 as a Delahaye driver before he set up a team with “Robert” racing two Cisitalias D46 in 1947 and 1948. It was in one of these cars that he finished fourth in the Grand Prix du Comminges.
Loyer then joined the Gordini team in 1950 primarily in sports car racing but also making his World Championship debut in a Gordini T16 at the 1954 Argentine Grand Prix at Buenos Aires. He also drove the same car in the Buenos Aires City Libre GP a couple of weeks later, retiring his own machine before sharing Bayol’s to finish a distant tenth. His best result with the T16 came in the minor Circuit of Medoc race near Bordeaux. He scored a couple of sports car victories for Amédée winning the Coupe du Salon at Montlhéry and at Agen in 1953.
When he left Gordini he wound down his racing though he was still making odd appearances up until 1960. He was an intelligent and freethinking man who patented a number of devices for use on cars.
