Robert La Caze (26 February 1917 – 1 July 2015) was a Moroccan-French racing driver.
He was born in Paris, France, but raced under the Moroccan flag, the only driver to do so in F1 history.
He participated in one Formula One World Championship Grand Prix, the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix, driving a privately run Formula 2 Cooper. He finished 14th, five laps behind the winner, scoring no championship points. He was classified third in the F2 class. He was the oldest living World Championship driver from the death of Paul Pietsch in May 2012 until his own death in July 2015. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Robert La Caze mostly competed in races and rallies in North Africa though raced at Le Mans in 1957 and entered one Grand Prix, the Moroccan GP in 1958. Although born in Paris, on the 26th February 1917, his grandfather was a French diplomat, responsible for the impetus behind the Suez Canal, and Robert spent most of his life in Morocco, becoming as much Moroccan as he was French and later raced under the Moroccan flag.
Although GP racing had taken place in the early 1930s at Anfa, just outside Casablanca, his initial interest involved rallying and, after the Second World War he competed in rallies throughout North Africa.
He became a leading figure in North African motor sport and had good results, including third place in the 1952 Casablanca 12 Hours with a Delahaye and he won 1954’s Moroccan International Rally in a Simca. He raced at Le Mans on three occasions but never finished, with his debut in 1957 ending after his works Gordini T15S suffered engine failure in the second hour. He returned in 1959 and 1960, sharing Jean Kerguen’s private Porsche 550A and 718 though retired in the first due to clutch problems after 20 hours and engine problems after 17 hours in 1960.
After the War, Grand Prix races stared to be held again in Morocco from 1954 though the first few events were sportscar races and took place on the coast in Agadir. The region was a flourishing motorsport arena and Robert competed in 1956’s event with a Mercedes 300 SEL and came home in eighth place. A non-championship F1 GP took place in 1957 but in the following year Morocco hosted the final round of the World Championship, at the Ain-Diab Circuit, and in order to encourage local interest the organisers invited Robert to enter.
King Mohammed attended the race and more than 50,000 spectators turned up to watch the first F1 World Championship round on the African continent. However, Robert came to it without having a single F1 or F2 race and his drive would come in a Cooper-Climax T45, which had previously been driven by Ken Tyrrell. Although he raced towards the back, the attrition rate meant that at the midway point he was running in sixteenth place. After eventually passing Andre Guelfi’s Cooper the end result saw him finish fourteenth, though third in the F2 class behind Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren, Sadly, Stuart Lewis Evans was badly burnt after crashing during the race and later succumbed to his injuries back in the UK.
Robert later went on to win the Moroccan Rally again, sharing a Renault Eight Gordini with Raymond Ponnelle in 1967. Away from racing, he ran a garage in Marrakech and also established a youth sports association within the city and passed away on the 1 July 2015.
