Thierry
Boutsen

Thierry Boutsen was born in Brussels on 13 July 1957. In 1978 he won the Belgian Formula Ford 1600 championship and then moved up to Formula 3 and Formula 2. In Formula 3 he finished runner-up in the 1980 European championship behind Michele Alboreto, and in Formula 2 he was again second in the European series in 1981, this time behind Geoff Lees.

Boutsen made his Formula One debut with Arrows at the 1983 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa and stayed with the team until 1986. At Imola in 1985 he was classified second after Alain Prost was disqualified, and he ended that season 11th in the championship. He joined Benetton for 1987 and finished eighth, helped by third place in Adelaide after the disqualification of Ayrton Senna. In 1988 he scored points in ten of the 16 races, including five third places, and finished fourth in the standings.

Boutsen drove for Williams in 1989 and 1990. He took his first victory in Canada in 1989, when Senna's engine failed three laps from the finish, and added a second win in the rain at the Australian Grand Prix. His third and last win came in Hungary in 1990, from the only pole position of his career. He finished fifth and sixth in the championship in those two seasons. He then drove for Ligier in 1991 and 1992, scoring a fifth place in his last race for the team. In 1993 he contested ten races for Jordan without scoring. His home race in Belgium was planned as a farewell, but he retired on the opening lap. In total he started 163 Grands Prix, winning three and finishing on the podium 15 times.

Alongside Formula One, Boutsen also raced sports cars and touring cars. In 1983 he won the Monza 1000 km, the first Group C race, with Bob Wollek in a Porsche 956. He won the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1985 and the World Sportscar Championship with the Brun team in 1986. At Le Mans he was runner-up in 1993 and 1996. From 1994 he raced for Ford in the Super Tourenwagen Cup in Germany, and he later competed in the United States, winning the GT-1 championship with Champion Racing in 1998. He retired from racing after a crash at Le Mans in 1999.

Source: Wikipedia, “Thierry Boutsen”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.