Jean-Louis Schlesser (born 12 September 1948) is a French racing driver with experience in circuit racing and cross-country rallying.
He is known for his wins of many different competitions. He is the nephew of Jo Schlesser, a former Formula One driver. Jean-Louis himself attempted two Formula One races five years apart and his best known for his involvement in the 1988 Italian Grand Prix. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Unfortunately, most people’s recollection of Jean Louis Schlesser would involve his coming together with race leader Ayrton Senna in 1988’s Italian GP. However, this one incident does him a disservice as he excelled in touring and sports car racing, being World Sports-Prototype Champion for Sauber two years running, in 1989 and 1990.
Born in 1948, in Nancy, North Eastern France, Jean Louis grew up in Morocco before returning to France to study and to complete his military service. A nephew of Jo Schlesser (sadly killed during 1968’s French GP), he began his racing in the early 1970s after enrolling at Le Man’s race school, starting with numerous rally events plus contested the Formula Renault European Challenge series. In 1976, he entered Formula Three, competing in France and the UK over the next three seasons and in 1978 was the French F3 champion, sharing the title with Alain Prost. In between these years, in 1977 he raced a KWS Ford Escort in the 1000Km Nurburgring and GP Nurburgring races, with Rudolf Dotsch and Ari Vatanen. He continued to race in F3 plus also contested touring car and sports car races, participating in the World Manufacturers Championship with Jacques Guerin’s Porsches. In 1979 he contested the 6 Hour Dijon, Silverstone and Brands Hatch races with J.Guerin’s 911 plus drove a BMW 530i in the 24 Hour Spa race and the following year and the following year raced a Porsche 934 in the 6 Hour Brands Hatch and Mugello events. On his debut at Le Mans in 1981 he finished second with Philippe Streiff and Jacky Haran in Jean Rondeau’s M379C (behind Jacky Ickx/Derek Bell’s Porsche 936) though the result was marred by the death of team-mate Jean-Louis Lafosse. He also raced a KWS Motorsport Ford Capri in that year’s Spa 24 Hours though did not finish.
In 1982 he contested F2, French touring cars and sports cars, including Le Mans, though he, Hans-Joachim Stuck and Dieter Quester failed to finish there in GS Sports team’s BASF sponsored Sauber. In European F2 races with a Maurer MM82-BMW, his best results were seventh places at Spa and Mantorp Park. Continuing with various cars in 1983, including F2 with Maurer Motorsport and an Alfa Romeo GTV6 in the French Touring Car Championship, he became involved in F1 for the first time, as a test driver for Williams. Although there were no drives in the Championship he managed to get a drive with March-RAM and debuted in April’s F1 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch and went on to finish sixth. A week later he entered the French GP at Paul Ricard, though failed to qualify. There was a tenth place finish at Le Mans in Fitzpatrick Racing’s Porsche 956 (alongside Preston Henn and Claude Ballot-Lena) though he retired a Bastos BMW 635 from the Spa 24 Hour race. He returned for a fourth visit to Le Mans, in Joest Racing’s Porsche 956 (with Stefan Johansson and Mauricio De Narvaez) but after a promising third place start they retired after 170 laps. There were two drives with a Jaguar XJS at the Vallelunga and Silverstone 500Km races plus a drive in a Rover with Tony Pond in Silverstone’s Tourist trophy.
1985 saw him take his second French Touring championship with Tom Walkinshaw Racing’s Rover 3500 Vitesse, winning at Nogaro, Dijon and Croix en Ternois. while he took podiums in the Bastos Texaco Rover Vitesse in 500Km rounds at Monza, (with Alam), Donington (with Hahne) plus Nogaro and the Tourist Trophy and nogaro (with Soper). In the February he made his debut at the Daytona 24 Hours, as a member of Henn’s Swap Shop Racing team, though the Porsche 935 didn’t finish the race. Racing TWR Jaguar’s XJR-6 in the World Endurance Championship, his best result was third with Martin Brundle and Mike Thackwell at the Mosport Park 1000Kms though the event was overshadowed by the death of Manfred Winkelhock.
In 1986 he drove the Silk Cut Jaguar in the World Sports-Prototype Championship, alongside Gianfranco Brancatelli, Derek Warwick and Eddie Cheever. He contested Le Mans with D.Warwick and E.Cheever though they retired after 239 laps with damaged suspension.
For 1987, in the World Touring Car Championship he switched from the Rover Vitesse to an Alfa Romeo 75 while in sports cars he was in Kouros Racing’s Sauber C9-Mercedes, with his only victory of the year coming when he raced solo in September’s Supercup Supersprint at the Nurburgring.
He then became involved with the Sauber Mercedes team, alongside Mauro Baldi and Jochen Mass, and started well by winning 1988’s opening race at Jerez. This was followed by victories at Brno, Jerez, Nurburgring and Australia’s Sandown Park plus podiums at Jarama, Monza, Silverstone, Brands Hatch and Spa and he finished the season second, behind Jaguar’s Martin Brundle. He took three wins in five races (Hockenheim, Nurburgring and Diepholz) to become the German Supercup champion and there were also two DTM races with a Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 and he was eighth in a Bastos BMW M3 in the Spa 24 Hours, with Marc Duez and Jean-Pierre Jabouille.
Williams called upon him to stand in for an unwell Nigel Mansell at the Italian GP. Jaguar and Tom Walkinshaw had allowed Martin Brundle to race for Williams in Belgium though refused for a second race but added to this was the fact that Williams were sponsored by Barclay cigarettes, which ruled out borrowing a driver contracted to Marlboro. However, Jean Louis’s only experience with an F1 car had been in 1983, when he did not qualify a March-RAM for the French GP at Paul Ricard. At Monza, he struggled in an unfamiliar environment but in the race he had worked his way up to eleventh. Running at the front Ayrton Senna was under strong pressure from the Ferraris of Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto, who were close behind. As he dived inside to pass into the tight Rettifilo chicane, Jean Louis locked his brakes and bumped across the apex kerb and his left front wheel hit Senna’s right rear. With the suspension broken, the McLaren spun and beached itself on a kerb; Ayrton’s race was done and the Ferraris had a one-two finish on home soil, less than a month after Enzo Ferrari’s death. Afterwards, although he did not think the collision was his fault, he made a heartfelt apology to Ayrton Senna.
Following this though he went on to be dominant in the world championships in 1989 and 1990, winning the title in both seasons. In 1989, four Sauber teammates took wins and, being involved in five of the victories (at Suzuka, Jarama, Nurburgring, Donington and Mexico City) plus podiums at Dijon and Brands Hatch, meant he finished first, ahead of Jochen Mass, Mauro Baldi and Kenny Acheson. Although Le Mans was not part of the championship that year, Sauber-Mercedes scored a 1-2 victory there though he was only fifth, alongside Jean-Pierre Jabouille and Alain Cudini. He was teamed with Mauro Baldi in the following season and the first victory came with a C9 in the season opening 430 Km Suzuka race. From this they raced a C11 and won at Monza plus had four consecutive wins at Dijon, Nurburgring, Donington and Montreal. Away from the Sauber Mercedes, there was a drive in a Ferrari France F40 in a 2 Hour Topeka GT race in America. 1991 would not be as successful a year and his best results were second, third and fourth place finishes with the C11 in 430Km races at Suzuka, Monza and Silverstone
During this time, he had tried his hand at rallying and after making his debut with a Mitsubishi in the Dakar Rally, and discovering a passion for it, it became his main occupation. After competing with different vehicles he began to build his own cars, his first being a Porsche-powered Schlesser Original and he took an overall victory with it in the Baja Portugal 1000. He continued to build 2-wheel-drive dune buggies over the following years (using Porsche, Seat and Renault engines) and competed against the Citroen and Mitsubishi factory vehicles with his own team. In 1993, he won the 2WD class and was fourteenth overall and went on to take a sequence of wins in rounds of the FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup. He achieved his first Dakar stage victory in 1997 (on a stretch between Tambacounda and Kayes) against the factory Mitsubishi Pajeros while 1998 saw him win his first FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup, taking several victories and finishing fifth in the Dakar Rally. Then, in the following year he won it outright, with Philippe Monnet, achieving BFGoodrich’s first major off-road competition success outside America. It was also the first time the event had been won by a 2WD vehicle and in 2000 he won it for a second time plus also took the FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup title, after winning five rounds. Although he was one of the favourites to win in 2001, he was up against Mitsubishi’s factory cars, and finished third, though the year’s fortunes changed when took his fourth world title at the end of the year. In the following year’s Rally, he competed with a diesel engined Renault Kangoo buggy but retired after the car caught fire so, reverting back to his old buggy for the rest of the season, he won his fifth consecutive world title. Unfortunately, over the following years, his buggy was competing against 4WD factory prototypes but in the 2WD class he won three more times, in 2004, 2006 and 2007. The Dakar Rally moved to South America in 2009 but he didn’t enter it and instead competed in the inaugural 2009 Africa Race, taking victory. This would be the first of six overall wins between 2009 and 2014 and during that period, he was runner up in the FIA World Cup and won the 2WD class three times in a row, in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
In 2000, he appeared in the French movie Taxi 2 as himself, alongside his Paris-Dakar co-driver Henri Magne. Twenty-five years after the Italian GP, at 2013’s Monaco Grand Prix, McLaren chairman Ron Dennis was reintroduced to Jean Louis. Dennis said “This is the man who ruined my life and our perfect record back in 1988” to which he responded by saying that “what happened that day at Monza kept you hungry…”
