Fascinating F1 Fact:91

Count Ferdinand de Lesseps was a man of much vigour. A diplomat of distinction, who served France in many different countries, he had a rather tragic private life, losing three of his five children when they were young, the third in 1853 just a few days after the death of his wife, at the age of only 33. He decided to change his life dramatically and retired from public service and began to promote the idea of a 75-mile canal through the isthmus of Suez, in order to link the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. It took 15 years to raise the money and complete the project, but on November 17 1869 the Suez Canal opened. It is rare that men achieve things that truly change the world, but the Suez Canal certainly did.

Eight days after the canal was opened the 64-year-old Count de Lesseps married 21-year-old Louise-Hélène Autard de Bragard – and they proceeded to have no fewer than 12 children, in the years that followed. The youngest, Gisèle, was born in 1885, when de Lesseps was a mere 79 years of age, at which point he was in the process of building the Panama Canal. Alas, it all went badly. The company failed and the Count was convicted of bribing French politicians to fund the project. He avoided prison, but died in disgrace in 1894.

His children were an adventurous bunch: three of his sons were killed in World War I (two of them having been Olympic fencers), a fourth son was the second man to fly the English Channel and was later presumed lost while conducting an aerial survey of the coast of Canada.

One of his daughters married a Spanish duke while Gisèle, the baby of the family, was 21 when she was swept off her feet in 1906 by a dashing cavalryman called Louis Lacaze. His family owned the very grand Chateau de Saint-Pierre-du-Perray, and both came from dazzling families with long histories of soldiers, politicians, businessmen, writers and diplomats. His mother had died soon after he was born, but even Louis’s stepmother came from a grand and very rich family.

Louis and Gisèle would produce five children, the youngest being Robert, who was born in 1917. He had obviously inherited some of the family’s adventurous genes because when he was 19 he travelled to the Atlas Mountains, 50 miles from Marrakesh and built the first ski refuge at Oukaïmeden, at 10,500 ft above sea level. He would return to France after that but he soon tried motor racing at Montlhéry – and he liked it. During the war  he was sent to Morocco where he completed his studies under the Vichy government but in 1942 Morocco was liberated and Lacaze spent his time after that as a sports instructor. He was a successful skier, a good footballer and he would end up running the Service de la Jeunesse et des Sports for the city.

In 1948, keen to develop Oukaimeden, he set up a transport business to provide access and supplies to the ski area. He did this in league with Baron Maurice de Castex, a former fighter pilot. The two would also become partners in a garage on the Avenue Landais, one of the wide boulevards, built in the Gueliz district of the city during the period when Morocco was a French protectorate. It would become a Simca dealership. In 1949 Lacaze married a gym teacher Janine Armand.

He began in Moroccan motor sport with rudimentary street races around Marrakesh after which he became a star of Moroccan rallying, taking part in the 1951 Rally of Morocco in a Renault 4CV and finishing sixth, although he would win the event in 1954 in a Simca Aronde and again in 1967 with a Renault 8 Gordini. He raced in many other local rallies and in various touring car “Grands Prix” in Tangiers, Agadir, Marrakech and Casablanca.

In March 1956 the French protectorate was ended and many of the French settlers decided to depart, worried what the future would hold. Decaze remained and raced afterwards with a Moroccan licence.

The following year Sultan Mohammed declared himself King and to show the world about Morocco, he agreed to fund the construction of a new racing circuit, using the public roads in the Ain-Diab district of Casablanca. Part of this track ran along the coast road and the return leg was inland in the desert. It was fast and in October 1957 it hosted the Grand Prix de Maroc, a non-championship F1 race, won by Jean Behra in a Maserati.

There were no local drivers involved. The King pushed for a World Championship race in 1958 and the FIA agreed that the Moroccan Grand Prix would be the World Championship showdown. That year Lacaze went to France and competed in several events including the Le Mans 24 Hours meeting with a works Gordini, which he shared with “Charles Rinen” although the car retired in the race before he could drive it. He also finished fourth in the Tour de France automobile race in a Porsche 356 Carrera. As a result he was allowed to take part in the Grand Prix.

It was going to be the first African World Championship F1 event and the King wanted “an African” driver and so journalist Jabby Crombac organised a deal for Lacaze (entered with his Moroccan licence) and André Guelfi (a local settler) to race a pair of Formula 2 Cooper-Climax T45s, which were being run by Ken Tyrrell. The race was the championship showdown between Stirling Moss and Mike Hawthorn and while Moss won the race, Hawthorn took the title – and became Britain’s first World Champion. The same day Stuart Lewis-Evans suffered terrible burns when his engine exploded at high speed. Although he was flown home to Britain, he died a week later.

Out of the international spotlight, Lacaze did a very decent job and finished 14th, five laps behind the winner, but only a lap down on the best F2 runner, Jack Brabham, in a similar car. Lacaze was on the same lap as Brabham’s team-mate Bruce McLaren…

F1 would not return to Morocco again, largely because of the accident, but Lacaze went back to Le Mans in 1959 and 1960 in Porsches which he shared with Jean Kerguen. He retired on both occasions with mechanical troubles. He went on competing in the 1960s and then his son Marc starter competing. Robert did eventually move to France where he lived in Cannes until his 99th year. When he died in 2015 he was the oldest surviving F1 driver.

His wish was to be buried in the European cemetery in Marrakesh.