1. Louis Chiron 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.
23 Facts About Louis Chiron
1. 2.
Louis Chiron started in local hillclimbs, and moved to Grand Prix racing in 1926, after getting a Bugatti T35, and befriending rich industrialist Alfred Hoffman.
3.
Louis Chiron won the Grand Prix du Comminges that year, at Saint-Gaudens, near Toulouse.
4.
Louis Chiron took major victories at the 1928 Italian Grand Prix, 1929 German Grand Prix, and 1930 Belgian Grand Prix.
5.
Louis Chiron won the 1931 Monaco Grand Prix and 1931 French Grand Prix in a Bugatti T51.
6.
Louis Chiron was fired from Bugatti's factory team at the end of 1932.
7.
Louis Chiron then founded with his friend Rudolf Caracciola a new team, called Scuderia CC.
8.
At the team's first race, the 1933 Monaco Grand Prix, Caracciola had a season ending accident, and Louis Chiron switched to Alfa Romeo cars run by Scuderia Ferrari mid-season.
9.
Louis Chiron won the 1933 Spa 24 hours race with specialist endurance racer Luigi Chinetti in an Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Monza.
10.
Louis Chiron drove an Alfa Romeo P3 run by Ferrari for the 1934 Grand Prix season.
11.
Louis Chiron won the 1934 French Grand Prix at Montlhery, against several works Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union entries, a race that is often considered one of the greatest victories of his career.
12.
The Alfa Romeos struggled against the German cars in 1935, and Louis Chiron only salvaged a podium at the 1935 Belgian Grand Prix and a minor victory at the Lorraine Grand Prix that year.
13.
Louis Chiron moved to Mercedes-Benz's factory team for the 1936 Grand Prix season.
14.
Louis Chiron started the European championship campaign with a pole at his home race of Monaco, but his race ended after an accident on lap one.
15.
Louis Chiron decided to retire from Grand Prix racing after that.
16.
Louis Chiron won the 1937 French Grand Prix, a race that was run for sports cars only that year.
17.
Louis Chiron retired from racing in 1938, and World War II curtailed motor racing a year later.
18.
Seymour's book says that in a letter to Antony Noghes, the head of the Monte Carlo Rally committee, Helle Nice "protested her innocence"; that she told him she would appeal to the Monaco court unless Louis Chiron wrote an apology; that no letter from Louis Chiron has been found; and that the court has no record of such a case between 1949 and 1955.
19.
Louis Chiron took part in the first ever Formula One World Championship season in 1950, as a factory Maserati driver.
20.
Louis Chiron is 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.
21.
Louis 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.
22.
Louis 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.
23.
Louis Chiron was the only Monegasque driver to score points in a Formula One race until Charles Leclerc in the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix and the only Monegasque to score a podium until Leclerc in the 2019 Bahrain Grand Prix.