Legendary designer Gérard Ducarouge has passed away

Former French F1 designer Gérard Ducarouge has passed away at the age of 73 after a lengthy illness. Ducarouge, whose career was closely associated with Ligier and Lotus, had trained at the Ecole Nationale Technique d'Aéronautique before joining Matra in 1966. He was involved in the conception of several of the constructors cars, mainly the LeMans winning Matra 670.

When the firm closed down its motor racing operations, Ducarouge joined Guy Ligier, penning the JS5 and the JS7 which gave both Ligier and driver Jacques Laffite their first F1 victory. The elegant ground-effect JS 11 dominated the early part of the 1979 season with Laffite winning the first two races of the year and Depailler taking victory in Spain, but the pace of development dropped in midseason, eroding what looked like a dominant campaign for "Les Bleus". In 1981, Laffite was once again in contention for the championship at the wheel of the Ducarouge-designed JS17 but relations were strained within the French concern and Ducarouge was subsequently sacked by Ligier. He then joined the works Alfo Romeo F1 team, designing the 182, but was later replaced when Autodelta handed over chassis design to Paola Pavanello's Euroracing team.

But Ducarouge's immense talent was called upon by Team Lotus in 1983, helping to produce in just a handful of weeks the Lotus-Renault 94T. A few years later, his successful 97T was entrusted to the genius of Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian winning in Portugal and Belgium while Elio de Angelis won at Imola. Senna, who enjoyed a close relationship with the crack designer, enjoyed four more wins in the Ducarouge/Lotus era with the 98T and the Honda-powered 99T. After a disappointing 1988 season, the Frenchman returned to France and took up an offer from his former Matra colleague Gérard Larousse who had formed his own F1 team. Despite some promising performances, Gérard Ducarouge was lured back to Ligier in 1991 and remained at Magny-Cours as technical director until 1994, when the team was taken over by Flavio Briatore. He eventually rejoined Matra where he worked on various projects and designs.