Guillaume Gauthier

Guillaume Gauthier (born 6th January 1956 in Toulon, Var, France) is a former French racing driver and owner of Equipe Gauthier. Gauthier was considered one of the best drivers of his generation during the 1980s, winning the Formula One World Championship in 1986.

Early Life and Career

Guillaume was born in 1956 in Toulon to Pierre and Gabrielle Gauthier. Pierre was briefly an amateur racing driver in the years before World War II, and fought in the French Resistance during it. After the war, he settled down and opened a successful chain of garages which eventually covered most of southern France, and which is still in operation today by Guillaume's older brother Robert.

In this position, much of Guillaume's pre-school days were surrounded by cars, and naturally he had a fascination with them that would shape his life. At first however, he wished to work on cars, like his father, not race them. That changed on his father's 50th birthday, when the family travelled to Monaco to watch the 1967 Monaco Grand Prix. After watching the race, Guillaume was certain: He wanted to be a Formula 1 driver. His brother, Robert was equally convinced and the two began working hard to ensure their dreams would come true. Eventually the pair earned enough to buy a kart; they would participate infrequently until the end of Guillaume's school days, with mixed success for both brothers.

After leaving school at the age of 18 in 1974 with mostly average grades, Guillaume's father proposed a deal to Guillaume and Robert. He was looking to advertise his garage business, and so offered to buy them a competitive kart, and free use of his tools, on the condition that they service it themselves and purchase all necessary parts themselves. The only question left was who would drive. Guillaume and Robert took turns setting times around the local go-kart track, until Robert spun off on his third lap. Pierre decided at that point that Robert's driving style was too wild and declared that Guillaume would be the driver and Robert the mechanic - which was fortunate because Robert happened to be better than Guillaume at servicing cars anyway.

Very quickly upon joining the French karting scene proper, Guillaume found himself one of the chief protagonists there. Indeed, by the end of 1975, he was second only to Alain Prost. Pierre was more than happy to finance Guillaume's rise to Formula Renault for 1976, after his results had been matched with a marked increase in the business that Pierre's garages were doing. The 1976 French Formula Renault title was bitterly fought, with Prost only just beating Gauthier by 7 wins to 6. Prost then moved on to Formula Renault Europe for 1977, whereas Guillaume remained, allowing himself to win every race in French Formula Renault that year.

Guillaume then moved up to French Formula 3 for 1978, where he would again clash with his rival, Alain Prost. This time, Guillaume was determined to prevail, and did so, winning 5 races.

Formula 1

1978-1981: March

Amidst his French Formula 3 battle, Gauthier made a move up into Formula One for the first time with the March Engineering team. Initially joining the team at the non-championship 1978 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, Gauthier replaced François Migault at March ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix - taking the seat for the remainder of the season.

Gauthier remained with the team into 1979 alongside Harvey Jones. Gauthier's best results were a pair of eighth place finishes in Brazil and the European GP at Brands Hatch.

March held onto Gauthier for a third season in 1980, scoring his first points in the opening race of the season with a fifth place in Argentina. Gauthier scored a maiden podium at the United States Grand Prix West with a shock third place finish. He also managed a first major international win in the non-championship XXII BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone.

1986: Williams

Gauthier won the 1986 Formula One Driver's Championship.

1987-1989: Lotus

In 1987, Gauthier chose to defend his title at the Camel Team Lotus Honda team alongside British driver Derek Warwick. In a season plagued by poor reliability, Gauthier managed only a solitary win at the Monaco Grand Prix.

He trailed his teammate by a single point over the course of the season and finished in fifth place overall, with Lotus third in the constructor standings.

Gauthier and Warwick both remained at Lotus for a second year, this time running Ford engines in the new 100 chassis. The car was an abject failure, with both drivers only managing to score a single point each in 1988.

A third engine supplier in as many years for Lotus saw the British team feature an all-French lineup, with Minardi refugee Frederic-Maxime Voeckler joining Gauthier in the Renault-engined 101 chassis in 1989. This season was far kinder to him, taking two podium finishes with a third in Monaco and a second place in the Lotus 1-2 behind Voeckler in Portugal. However, the results were not all that they seemed - in many races Gauthier had failed to capitalise on a front row or second row start and threw away victory in the Portuguese Grand Prix by spinning from the lead of the race.

1990: Arrows

Having had a fairly frustrating time at Lotus, 1990 saw Gauthier make the jump to the newly amalgamated Benetton Arrows organisation alongside British driver Chris Dagnall. Gauthier took pole in the second race of the season in Brazil - but squandered the win away in the opening two laps. Things did not improve for Gauthier at the Pacific Grand Prix, as a spin during the race saw him come home in only 7th position. Gauthier took his first podium of the season with a third place in Canada behind Dagnall and Berger.

Gauthier had a second pole position one race later in Mexico, but would retire after a collision with the lapped Thierry Boutsen, meaning once again he could not convert pole position into a result.

Gauthier continued his run of performing well on Saturday and underperforming on race day for much of the middle of the season - retiring from a commanding lead in the French Grand Prix and crashing out of fourth after a collision with Pierluigi Martini's lapped Minardi at the British Grand Prix - causing an accident where several spectators and a marshal were injured by flying debris. However, Gauthier finally was able to break the near-three and a half year drought in race wins when he emphatically took victory in the German Grand Prix after defending from McLaren's Gerhard Berger and Alessandro Nannini for the latter part of the race. This would prove to be his final win as he opted to retire from F1 at the end of the season.

WTCM

Prior to the start of the 1989 season, Gauthier took part in the World Touring Car Masters race weekend at Watkins Glen driving a Ford Sierra RS500 for defending champions Kaliber Industrial Control Services Racing - replacing injured team owner Andy Rouse.

This result encouraged the Frenchman and he accepted a further invitation for the Tooheys 1000, driving a Sierra RS500 for Aegis Motorsport alongside New Zealander Paul Radisich. The pair finished the race in fifth overall.

Gauthier returned to the Mountain in 1990 with the Alan Moffat Enterprises Ford team alongside former Grand Prix star Gianfranco Brancatelli. The pair qualified in tenth for the race but retired.

After retiring from Formula One, Gauthier embarked on a full-time assault on the WTCM series in 1991 - leading Courage Compétition's two car outfit alongside former BMW factory driver Fabien Giroix. Gauthier raced a Mazda 323F in the series but the Frenchman severely struggled in the early stages - failing to qualify for the first three rounds.

Personal Life

Guillaume is the father of engineer and former Equipe Gauthier Technical Director Arnaud Gauthier and grandfather of AutoReject World Series driver Aimée Gauthier.

After Gauthier's World Championship win and subsequent win drought, Gauthier began to suffer from severe depression which impacted his confidence during the later years of his Formula One career - causing him to retire from Grand Prix racing in 1991. This depression would continue to impact Gauthier in his later career as a team owner and would contribute to the collapse of Equipe Gauthier in late 2018.

Gauthier is close personal friends with the French restaurateur and chef Raymond Blanc, who owns several restaurants in the Oxfordshire area. Gauthier and Blanc became part of a very fashionable clique in the area during the late 1970s and 1980s.

Complete Formula 1 Results

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	WDC	Points
1978	March Engineering	March 781	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	ARG	RSA	USW	ESP	BEL	MON	SUI	TUS	GBR	FRA	NED	GER	AUT DNPQ	ITA 14	CAN Ret	USA 12		—	0
1979	March Engineering	March 791	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	ARG 12	BRA 8	RSA 12	USW Ret	ESP Ret	BEL Ret	MON 10	EUR 8	SMR Ret	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER Ret	AUT Ret	NED C	ITA 18†	CAN 9	USA Ret	—	0
1980	March Engineering	March 791B	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	RSA C	ARG 5	BRA 4	USW 3	ESP 4	BEL Ret	MON 7	MEX 7	SMR 5	FRA 7	GBR Ret	GER Ret	AUT Ret	ITA Ret	CAN 6	CPA Ret	DUB Ret	8th	15
1987	Camel Team Lotus Honda	Lotus 99T	Honda RA166E 1.5 V6t	AUS Ret	SMR 2	BEL 8	MON 1	CAN 2	DET Ret	FRA 5	GBR Ret	GER Ret	HUN 4	YUG 3	ITA 3	POR Ret	EUR Ret	JPN Ret	MEX Ret		5th	34
1988	Camel Team Lotus	Lotus 100	Ford Cosworth DFZ 3.5 V8	BRA 10	SMR 15	MON Ret	MEX Ret	CAN 10	DET 12	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER 12	HUN 14	YUG 17	SOV Ret	ITA 6	BEL Ret	JPN 13	AUS 12		19th	1
1989	Camel Team Lotus	Lotus 101	Renault RS1 3.5 V10	BRA Ret	SMR 14†	MON 3	FRA 4	USA Ret	CAN Ret	GBR 6	GER Ret	HUN 4	SOV Ret	POR 2	ITA Ret	BEL 8	JPN Ret	AUS 8†	MEX 8		10th	17
1990	Benetton Arrows Grand Prix International	Arrows A13	Ford HBA4 3.5 V8	USA 4	BRA 4	PAC 7	SMR Ret	MON Ret	CAN 3	MEX Ret	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER 1	HUN Ret	BEL Ret	ITA Ret	POR 2	JPN Ret	AUS Ret		7th	25

Complete WTCM Results

Year	Team	Car	Class																								WDC	Pts	Class	Pts
1989						Template:USA				Template:FRA						Template:FRA		Template:GBR		Template:BEL				Template:AUS			40th	28	19th	38
				E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E
	Kaliber Industrial Control Services Racing	Ford Sierra RS500	A			GLN Ret	GLN 16
	Aegis Motorsport																							BAT 5
1990	Alan Moffat Enterprises	Ford Sierra RS500	A			Template:USA				Template:GBR		Template:FRA						Template:FRA		Template:GBR		Template:BEL				Template:AUS	N/A	0	35th	3
				E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E
																										BAT Ret

Sporting Accolades
Preceded by: Unknown	Formula One World Champion 1986	Succeeded by: Gerhard Berger