In 1978, his rookie F1 season, he was outdriven by his experienced Tyrrell team-mate, the brilliant Patrick Depailler, who performed superbly that season, winning at Monaco and bagging four further podium finishes; but Didier raced with promise, scoring two fifth places and three sixths. He also won the Le Mans 24 Hours outright that year, sharing a Renault Alpine A442B with the veteran touring car and sports car ace Jean-Pierre Jaussaud – who, incidentally, and by his own admission, enjoyed the odd glass of vin rouge in the pits during some of Pironi’s driving stints.
In 1979 Depailler left Tyrrell for Ligier, and Pironi was joined in Uncle Ken’s venerable F1 team by Jean-Pierre Jarier, who was every bit as experienced as Depailler. That year’s Tyrrell 009 was an unashamedly faithful imitation of the previous season’s all-conquering Lotus 79, in which Mario Andretti had won the 1978 F1 drivers’ world championship at a canter, and Pironi and Jarier raced it to two podium finishes apiece, Pironi at Zolder and Watkins Glen and Jarier at Kyalami and Silverstone. For 1980 Pironi moved to Ligier, joining yet another experienced Frenchman, Jacques Laffite, and, in the beautiful and rapid Ligier JS11/15, we now saw just how superfast Didier could be. He won at Zolder, he was second at Paul Ricard, and he was third at Kyalami, Montreal, and Watkins Glen. More impressive still, his qualifying was sometimes breathtakingly good – in a fluent yet muscular way – his pole positions at Monaco and Brands Hatch particularly accomplished.
Pironi leads from the start at Brands Hatch in 1980
David Phipps/Sutton Images
I was there, aged 17, to see him race at Brands that year. He led from the pole, confidently streaking away from all his pursuers, until a deflating front tyre sent him into the pits for a replacement on lap 19. His stop was a long one, and he emerged from it in 21st and last place. From there he attacked the UK’s greatest racetrack like a man possessed, palpably the fastest man on its then famously bumpy and undulating asphalt, his overtaking forceful yet deft, and we who were there will never forget watching him strong-arm that gorgeous blue and white Ligier back up to fifth place by lap 63, by which time he suffered another puncture, and that was the end of his run. He had repeatedly smashed the lap record that day, leaving it at 1min 12.368sec, which was almost a second faster than anyone else would manage all afternoon.
In 1981, now a Ferrari man, he was unable to conjure from the Scuderia’s powerful but evil-handling 126CK the stunning pace that Villeneuve was occasionally able to dredge from it, but in 1982, in the better-behaved 126C2, he was once again on top of his game. He won at Imola, in controversial circumstances as I have already described, then he won again at Zandvoort, he was second at Monaco and Brands Hatch, and he was third at Detroit and Paul Ricard. He missed the last five grands prix of a 16-race season yet he still finished second in the final F1 drivers’ world championship standings, only five points behind that year’s world champion, Keke Rosberg (Williams).
Pironi is visited in hospital by French F1 drivers Alain Prost, René Arnoux and Patrick Tambay in November 1982
Joel Robine/AFP via Getty Images
After Pironi’s dreadful Hockenheim accident he became more and more depressed, as gradually it dawned on him that he would probably never race in F1 again. John Hogan, then Philip Morris’s man in the F1 paddock, an engaging Australian unsurprisingly popular with the many drivers on whom he bestowed lucrative Marlboro endorsement deals, spent quite a bit of time with him, and in 2007 I commissioned him to write a Pironi profile for the magazine of which I was then the editor.
“Initially, Didier appeared at one or two grands prix, on crutches,” Hogan wrote, “but, after that, he stayed away. He hated the fuss – and not being involved. In fact, he didn’t do an awful lot with himself during the next five years after the accident. After umpteen operations he was left with one reasonable leg, but the other was still in a bad way, and in the ensuing years his character became rather dour. He realised that he was probably headed for an amputation. Sometimes we’d sit in a Parisian restaurant together and his leg would really reek.
“It was awful to behold. There he was in 1982, only 30, a good-looking guy, a brilliant racing driver, passionate, intelligent, deeply ambitious, a man who loved the outdoor life and had an eye for the ladies, then suddenly it was all taken away from him. He had a terrible limp, he put on a tremendous amount of weight, he was no longer athletic or attractive, he couldn’t enjoy the countryside pursuits that he’d loved before, he couldn’t play tennis, he couldn’t go skiing, he couldn’t do any of that. He sometimes talked about going into politics, but he also began to hate his life.
On the water in St Tropez, 1985
Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty Images
“Besides, he was itching to race again. The Ligier guys talked about rehiring him, and he tested their car at Dijon in 1986. He was quick-ish, but his leg just wasn’t up to it. So he decided to go powerboat racing instead. He really wasn’t up to that either, and, sure enough, on August 23, 1987, it happened. During a race off the Isle of Wight his boat flipped, and he and his passengers were killed. My view of that is that, while there is a difference between a deliberate act and plain irresponsibility, there was undoubtedly a devil-may-care fashion to the way he was driving that boat. He was depressed, and he really didn’t care any more. His attitude was: ‘If it happens, it happens.’”
Well, it happened. But, had the cookies crumbled differently, it might not have done. It is not clear that Hogan was right in claiming that an amputation was inevitable. Moreover, Pironi’s Ligier test had caught the attention of McLaren’s Ron Dennis, who had long admired him and now toyed with the notion of hiring him for 1987. But Prost, the McLaren incumbent, vetoed the idea, and instead Stefan Johansson was selected.
There is therefore an alternative version of the Pironi story that has Dennis telling Prost to mind his own business, which in turn would mean that Pironi, not Johansson, would have raced the highly competitive McLaren MP4/3 in 1987. Perhaps the methodical and determined Dennis might have sought and found top-class medical care that would have enabled Pironi to race on in F1 despite his gammy leg, and who knows what glories that might have led to?
Perhaps he might not only have won F1 world championships but, after he had hung up his helmet, he might also have served as President of France? As such, his life might have been a magnificently successful one. And if he were alive today, he would still be only 73. It is all rather sad, isn’t it?