Patrick
Tambay

Patrick Tambay was born in Paris on 25 June 1949. In 1971 he trained as a racing driver at the Winfield Racing School. Early on he raced in Formula 5000 for Carl Haas's team, and with Haas he also won the Can-Am championship in 1977 and 1980.

He made his Formula One debut in 1977, driving for Ensign and Surtees that year. In 1978 and 1979 he was a full-time McLaren driver. In 1980 he went back to Can-Am with Haas, and in 1981 he returned to Formula One, first with Theodore and then with Ligier.

In 1982 he joined Ferrari after the death of his close friend Gilles Villeneuve. In only his fourth race for the Scuderia, Tambay won the German Grand Prix. His second and final victory followed in 1983 at the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, where he drove with Villeneuve's number 27. He finished fourth in the World Championship, and Ferrari took the constructors' title. Even so, the team let him go at the end of the year and signed Michele Alboreto.

Tambay drove for Renault in 1984 and 1985. His best result of those years was second place in the French Grand Prix at Dijon, after starting from pole position. In 1986 he joined the Haas Lola team, where fifth place in Austria was his best finish. He left Formula One after that season. In total he made 113 starts and took two wins, eleven podiums and five pole positions.

After Formula One, Tambay drove a Jaguar in the World Sportscar Championship in 1989 and finished fourth in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He then took part in the Paris-Dakar Rally and finished in the top three twice. He also worked as a commentator for French television. His son Adrien raced in the DTM from 2012 to 2016. Patrick Tambay died on 4 December 2022, aged 73.

Source: Wikipedia, “Patrick Tambay”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.