Jo Schlesser: Road to Rouen

Jo’s Madagascar funds now depleted, Annie took a job as secretary at Crombac’s Sport Auto magazine to help pay the bills. Fortunately, the sociable Jo now found the first in a series of enthusiastic patrons, namely Jean Moench, an old friend from Nancy who had come into money when his family business was sold. Moench wanted to start a two-car team with Schlesser, and had his eyes on the new machine being built by Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac.

“In those days the car was called MRD, and you know what that sounds like in French!” smiles Jabby. “I told Tauranac, if you will change the name to Brabham, we’ll buy two, one for Moench and one for Schlesser. Of course they changed the name, and it took years for Ron to forgive me.”

Armed with the first production BT2, Schlesser gave Brabham its first-ever victory, at Montlhery, in 1962. The following year he proved a regular winner all over Europe, although he was lucky to escape unhurt from a huge crash at Chimay in a Lotus. He also appeared in a few non-championship F1 races, and drove a works Aston Martin at Le Mans. At his side throughout these weekends was Annie, who effectively acted as team manager.

As Crombac recalls: “If she thought he wasn’t going quickly enough, she would say, ‘Jo, you are walking instead of racing!’ She was very good at lap scoring and doing the letters for him.”

Schlesser was established as France’s most promising prospect, although the competition was slim. But he was now 35, and few considered that he had a future. Crombac came to the rescue when a new Ford France PR man turned up at the infamous bar below the office of Sport Auto.

“We more or less became advisors to this guy, and the first thing we did of course is say you should sponsor Schlesser. He was really never sorry for it, and for years he was backing Jo in a big way. Jo really was, at that time, the best French driver.”

With backing from Ford France, Jo launched a serious F2 programme with a Brabham in 1964. He won a poorly-supported race at Vallelunga; more impressive was third behind Brabham and Stewart at Montlhery. He also had sportscar outings, sharing a GT40 with Richard Attwood at Le Mans, and finishing fifth in a Cobra with Phil Hill at Sebring.

Schlesser was a natural choice for the new works Matra F2 team in 1966, but he was gradually overshadowed by rising star Jean-Pierre Beltoise, who was nine years younger. Jo regularly qualified well, but appalling reliability spoiled the season until he finished second to Brabham at Albi.

In 1967, Beltoise took centre stage in Matra’s works F2 team, while Schlesser retained a seat only with Ford France sponsorship.

“The Matra hierarchy never considered him as a Matra driver,” says Crombac. “Part of the reason Matra was racing was to attract young engineers to work for them, and they didn’t want the image of old drivers.”

When the race got underway, some 15 minutes late, rain was already falling. Schlesser struggled around at the back, and the car could be heard misfiring, perhaps because water had got into its complex electrical system.

On the third lap he lost control at the fast right-hander before the Nouveau Monde hairpin. The RA302 slammed into an earth bank, and turned over, spraying burning petrol as it did so. The fire took hold, fed by the V8’s large oil supply and the extensive use of magnesium in the chassis. Marshals were slow to react, but Jo probably had no chance.

“I have never seen such an inferno develop so quickly,” wrote Innes Ireland in Autocar, “and this great towering column of flame and black smoke reached high into the skies.”

“It was absolutely horrible,” says Vic Elford, who also made his GP debut that day. “The thing was like a giant firework, and it went on for laps before it finally shut down.”

The race carried on, and for several laps cars had to pass through the smoke and huge puddles of foam. In a scene uncannily reminiscent of Grand Prix, Schlesser’s body was brought to the paddock before the end of the race. Friends and officials kept Annie away from the awful sight. That evening Crombac faced the task of looking after her: “All the Paris chums were in the hotel room and, suddenly, they looked at their watches and they said, ‘We must get going because we are having dinner.’ And, like birds, they flew off. So I was alone with Annie Schlesser, her daughter, and my wife.

“Fortunately, Mrs Louis Stanley turned up, and she spent the night in Annie’s room to stop her jumping out of the window, which she was threatening to do. ‘Big Lou’ has really been badly branded, but whenever there was a thing like that, he was there. I’ll never forget that. My wife and I took the little girl, who was 12 or 13, in our room.”

“When it happened I was in Morocco,” recalls Jean-Louis Schlesser. “My father came in during the night and he was crying. He said, ‘Tomorrow morning I have to go to France, because Jo died.’ That was it.”

The following day Ligier flew Annie and her daughter back to Paris. Later, when he started his F1 team, he would give her a job as secretary.

Crombac says the whole episode was the worst time of his life, and he’ll never forget the emotions surrounding that weekend.

“I spoke to Annie and said, ‘I am so sorry I put him in this.’ She said, Jabby, this was the best day of Jo’s life. If he had been given a choice, he would have still driven the car. For him, the impossible thing was to die without having driven a works Formula 1 car.’”