France spawned fourteen Grand Prix winners in the history of Formula 1, but the very first driver to blaze the trail for his compatriots was Maurice Trintignant, born on this day in 1917.
Nicknamed 'Petoulet', Trintignant's career in F1 spanned a lengthy 14 years, a period during which he raced for 14 different teams.
A popular figure on the Grand Prix trail, Trintignant's memorable 'jour de gloire' came twice in F1, and at the same venue.
In 1955, at the age of 38, he won the Monaco Grand Prix for Ferrari (picture here above), a feat he repeated three years later in 1958 at the wheel of a Rob Walker-run Cooper.
