Louis Alexandre Chiron (; 3 August 1899 – 22 June 1979) was a Monégasque racing driver who competed in rallies, sports car races, and Grands Prix.
Among the greatest drivers between the two World Wars, his career embraced over thirty years, starting in 1923, and ending at the end of the 1950s. He is still the oldest driver ever to have started a race in the Formula One World Championship, having taken 6th place in the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix when he was 55. Three years later he became the oldest driver to enter a Formula One race, at 58. The Bugatti Chiron takes its name from him. Until 2024, when Charles Leclerc matched his achievement, he was the only Monegasque driver to have won the Monaco Grand Prix.
Early life and career
Coming from a family of wine-growers, Louis Chiron's father gained employment as a butler in the Hôtel de Paris at Monaco. As a teenager, Louis was employed as a bellboy at the hotel, and his interest in cars and racing started at that time. During World War I, he was seconded from an artillery regiment as a driver for Maréchal Pétain and Maréchal Foch, thanks to his persistence and a driving license financed by a Russian duchess he met at the hotel.
Employed as a dancer after World War I, Chiron's racing career started in 1923, after a rich American woman he was friends with bought him a second hand Bugatti Brescia. He started in local hillclimbs, and moved to Grand Prix racing in 1926, after getting a Bugatti T35, and befriending rich industrialist Alfred Hoffman. He won the Grand Prix du Comminges that year, at Saint-Gaudens, near Toulouse.
Driving career
Starting in 1928, Chiron became a Bugatti factory driver in parallel to his role in Hoffman's private team. During that period, he became one of the dominant drivers in Grand Prix racing. He took major victories at the 1928 Italian Grand Prix, 1929 German Grand Prix, and 1930 Belgian Grand Prix. In the Indianapolis 500 of 1929, he drove a Delage to 7th place. He won the 1931 Monaco Grand Prix and 1931 French Grand Prix in a Bugatti T51.
Chiron's partnership with Hoffman ended in the early 1930s after he was found having an affair with his wife Alice. He was also fired from Bugatti's factory team at the end of 1932. He then founded with his friend Rudolf Caracciola a new team, called Scuderia CC. At the team's first race, the 1933 Monaco Grand Prix, Caracciola had a season ending accident, and Chiron switched to Alfa Romeo cars run by Scuderia Ferrari mid-season. He won the 1933 Spa 24 hours race with specialist endurance racer Luigi Chinetti in an Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Monza.
Chiron drove an Alfa Romeo P3 run by Ferrari for the 1934 Grand Prix season. He won the 1934 French Grand Prix at Montlhéry, against several works Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union entries, a race that is often considered one of the greatest victories of his career. The Alfa Romeos struggled against the German cars in 1935, and Chiron only salvaged a podium at the 1935 Belgian Grand Prix and a minor victory at the Lorraine Grand Prix that year.
Chiron moved to Mercedes-Benz's factory team for the 1936 Grand Prix season. He started the European championship campaign with a pole at his home race of Monaco, but his race ended after an accident on lap one. A more serious accident at the second round, the 1936 German Grand Prix, left him with head and shoulders injuries. He decided to retire from Grand Prix racing after that. He won the 1937 French Grand Prix, a race that was run for sports cars only that year.
Chiron retired from racing in 1938, and World War II curtailed motor racing a year later. When racing resumed after the War, he came out of retirement and drove a Talbot-Lago to victory in two French Grands Prix.
According to a Los Angeles Times review of fellow driver Hellé Nice's biography, Chiron accused her, at a 1949 party in Monaco to celebrate the first postwar Monte Carlo Rally, of "collaborating with the Nazis". The review says biographer Miranda Seymour is "circumspect on Nice's guilt". A review of the same book in The New York Times says Nice was accused of being a "Gestapo agent"; that Seymour "rebuts" the charge; and that it made Nice "unemployable". Seymour's book says that in a letter to Antony Noghes, the head of the Monte Carlo Rally committee, Hellé Nice "protested her innocence"; that she told him she would appeal to the Monaco court unless Chiron wrote an apology; that no letter from Chiron has been found; and that the court has no record of such a case between 1949 and 1955. Modern investigations have found no evidence to collaborate Chiron's claims.
Chiron took part in the first ever Formula One World Championship season in 1950, as a factory Maserati driver. At his home Grand Prix of Monaco he finished in third, at age 50, the only points scoring finish of his career.
Paired with the Swiss driver Ciro Basadonna, Chiron won the 1954 Monte Carlo Rally. His last race was in 1955, when he took a Lancia D50 to sixth place in the Monaco Grand Prix a few weeks before his 56th birthday, becoming the oldest driver to compete in a Formula One race. He is also the oldest driver ever to have entered for a Formula One race, taking part in practice for the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix when he was 58.
Later life and legacy
Chiron retired after 35 years in racing but maintained an executive role with the organizers of the Monaco Grand Prix, who honoured him with a statue on the Grand Prix course and renamed the Swimming Pool corner after him. As he had achieved the greatest number of podium finishes in Bugattis, the 1999 Bugatti 18/3 Chiron concept car and the 2016 Bugatti Chiron are named in his honour.
Chiron was so popular in Czechoslovakia, whose Grand Prix he won three consecutive times, that even after 75 years his name still lives in a popular saying "He drives like Chiron", used mainly when referring to speeding motorists or generally to people who drive very quickly.
Chiron was the only Monegasque driver to score points in a Formula One race until Charles Leclerc did so at the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the only one to achieve a podium until Leclerc at the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix, and the only Monegasque to win the Monaco Grand Prix until Leclerc’s victory in the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix.
Motorsports career results
Major career victories
Belgian Grand Prix – 1930 Czechoslovakian Grand Prix – 1931, 1932, 1933 French Grand Prix – 1931, 1934, 1937, 1947, 1949 German Grand Prix – 1929 Italian Grand Prix – 1928 Spanish Grand Prix – 1928, 1929, 1933 Monaco Grand Prix – 1931 Moroccan Grand Prix– 1934 Grand Prix du Comminges – 1947 Grand Prix de Marseilles – 1933 Grand Prix de Nice – 1932 Spa 24 hours – 1933 Rome Grand Prix – 1928 Marne Grand Prix – 1928 Monte Carlo Rally – 1954
Complete European Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.) Year Entrant Chassis Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Pts 1931 Automobiles Ettore Bugatti Bugatti T51 Bugatti 2.3 L8 ITA FRA BEL 6th 13 1932 Automobiles Ettore Bugatti Bugatti T54 Bugatti 5.0 L8 ITA 5th 17 Bugatti T51 Bugatti 2.3 L8 FRA GER 1935 Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo Tipo B/P3 Alfa Romeo 2.9 L8 MON 10th 40 Alfa Romeo 3.2 L8 FRA BEL GER SUI ITA ESP 1936 Daimler-Benz AG Mercedes W25K Mercedes ME25 4.7 L8 MON GER SUI ITA 18th 28
Post-WWII Grandes Épreuves results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.) Year Entrant Chassis Engine 1 2 3 4 5 1947 Ecurie Auto-Sport Maserati 4CL Maserati 4CL 1.5 L4s SUI Ecurie France Talbot-Lago MC Talbot 4.5 L6 BEL FRA Enrico Platé Maserati 4CL Maserati 4CL 1.5 L4s ITA 1948 Ecurie France Talbot-Lago MC Talbot 4.5 L6 MON SUI FRA ITA 1949 Ecurie France Talbot-Lago T26C Talbot 23CV 4.5 L6 GBR BEL SUI FRA ITA
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) Year Entrant Chassis Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Pts Officine Alfieri Maserati Maserati 4CLT/48 Maserati 4CLT 1.5 L4s GBR MON 500 SUI BEL FRA ITA 10th 4 Enrico Platé Maserati 4CLT/48 Maserati 4CLT 1.5 L4s SUI 500 NC 0 Ecurie Rosier Talbot-Lago T26C Talbot 23CV 4.5 L6 BEL FRA GBR GER ITA ESP Louis Chiron OSCA 20 OSCA 2000 2.0 L6 ARG 500 NED BEL FRA GBR GER SUI ITA NC 0 Scuderia Lancia Lancia D50 Lancia DS50 2.5 V8 ARG MON 500 BEL NED GBR ITA NC 0 Scuderia Centro Sud Maserati 250F Maserati 250F1 2.5 L6 ARG MON 500 BEL FRA GBR GER ITA NC 0 André Testut Maserati 250F Maserati 250F1 2.5 L6 ARG MON NED 500 BEL FRA GBR GER POR ITA MOR NC 0
Indianapolis 500 results
YearCarStartQualRankFinishLapsLedRetired1929614107.3512672000RunningTotals2000
Starts1Poles0Front Row0Wins0Top 50Top 101Retired0
24 Hours of Le Mans results
Year Team Co-Drivers Car Class Laps 1928 No Team Name Cyril de Vere Chrysler Six Series 72 5.0 66 DSQ DSQ 1929 C. T. Weymann Édouard Brisson Stutz DV32 8.0 65 DNF DNF 1931 Equipe Bugatti Achille Varzi Bugatti Type 50S 5.0 24 DNF DNF 1932 Guy Bouriat Guy Bouriat Bugatti Type 55 3.0 23 DNF DNF 1933 L. Chiron Franco Cortese Alfa Romeo 8C 2300MM 3.0 177 DNF DNF 1937 Luigi Chinetti Luigi Chinetti Talbot T150C 5.0 7 DNF DNF 1938 Ecurie Bleue René Dreyfus Delahaye 145 5.0 21 DNF DNF 1951 Luigi Chinetti Pierre-Louis Dreyfus Ferrari 340 America Barchetta S5.0 29 DSQ DSQ 1953 Scuderia Lancia Robert Manzon Lancia D20 S8.0 174 DNF DNF
References
External links
Grand Prix History , Louis Chiron Louis Chiron at The Crittenden Automotive Library