Born : November 27 1945
Deceased : July 2 2022
Biography Alain de Cadenet
Alain de Cadenet was born to a French air force lieutenant and his English wife. De Cadenet went to Framlingham school in Suffolk. His first motorbike was a BSA Bantam, his first car a pre-war MG Midget for which he paid five guineas. Even though his interest for cars and bikes, his career started completely different, as a fashion and music photographer. However, the invitation of a friend to attend a race meeting at Brands Hatch, changed his life. Not only because of the cars and atmosphere at the track. He was ainly impressed by the fact that his girlfriend disappeared with a racing driver.
Just a week later, de Cadenet returned to the race track. This time he carried an overall and helmet to drive an AC Ace. He managed, with the assistannce of a friend, to secure a racing licence on the spot. Deciding that single-seater racing was too expensive, he opted for entering sports car events. First he bought a Porsche from a friend. He was thrilled by the challenges posed by such demanding classic circuits as Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium and the Nürburgring’s 14-mile Nordschleife in Germany.
His first Le Mans, in 1971, came at the wheel of a Belgian-entered Ferrari 512M, an extremely fast car which he drove with only one eye working properly, the other having been injured in a crash in the Sicilian mountains a few weeks earlier, during the Targa Florio endurance race.
The following year, having failed to persuade Enzo Ferrari to sell him one of his latest cars, he secured £500 in sponsorship from Duckhams Oil and commissioned the gifted young South African designer Gordon Murray to turn a Formula One Brabham into a sports car suitable for Le Mans. Sharing the driving with the experienced Chris Craft, he finished 12th.
For 1975 he acquired a Lola that would form the basis of his most successful Le Mans car, finishing 14th, third and fifth in successive years, always with Craft as his co-driver and invariably competing against teams with much greater resources. After their third place finish in 1976 they were invited to drive a lap of honour before the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, in front of a full house.
In 1980 De Cadenet and a new co-driver, Desiré Wilson, went to Le Mans having astonished the sports car world by winning the 1000km of Monza and the Six Hours of Silverstone races, in the new Lola-based De Cadenet-Ford LM-4. After Wilson overturned the car during practice, the stewards refused permission for her to race, claiming she had not posted the necessary qualifying time. With François Migault sharing the driving, De Cadenet finished seventh.
After folding his own team, he raced Porsches and Courages at Le Mans before beginning a new career as a presenter of TV programmes about cars and aeroplanes for various cable channels, including the popular and long-running Victory by Design series for the Speed Channel.
Active in the world of classic racing, he was often seen at the wheel of the sort of Alfa Romeos that had won at Le Mans and the Mille Miglia before the second world war, including his own 8C 2300.
Alain de Cadenet, racing driver and TV presenter, born 27 November 1945; died 2 July 2022
Pictures courtesy unknown and LAT Images
