Alain de Cadenet has died at the all too young age of 76.
Alain defined for me the spirit of the gentleman driver at Le Mans, though he was far, far closer to a pro-level of pace ‘back in the day’.
He approached his craft with a sense of fun, barbed with deadly seriousness, and competed at Le Mans no fewer than 14 times, as well as in a variety of other world-class sportscar racing events, winning a pair of World Championship races overall (1000km of Monza and the Six Hours of Silverstone) in 1980 with Desiré Wilson (above).
His Le Mans debut came in 1971 in a Ferrari 512M (after a class win at the Daytona 24 Hours earlier that same year), thereafter though, and reportedly in the wake of failing to persuade Ferrari to sell him a contemporary 312PB, he went his own way.
With backing from Duckhams Oil, he commissioned Gordon Murray to turn a Brabham BT33 into a Le Mans spec 3-litre sportscar, the eye-catching machine would race at Le Mans for the next three years, de Cadenet sharing driving duties for two of them with Chris Craft.
1975 saw the car, latterly dubbed a de Cadenet, parked and replaced by a modified Lola T380, again re-named as a de Cadenet.
Its second year, again with Craft sharing the driving, saw the car claim third overall, Alain’s best overall finish in a Le Mans history that saw three class podiums.
The Le Mans adventures went on beyond the Lola, with starts in Dome, Courage and Porsche machinery and long beyond his contemporary racing career Alain was a keen historic racer including at the wheel of his own beloved Alfa Romeo 8C 2300.
After showing quite some talent at the wheel, de Cadenet launched a second career as a broadcaster, and was pretty darned good at that too with regular outings as a motorsport presenter and as a key face and voice on a range of documentaries, including a spell as the presenter of the series Victory by Design for Speed Channel.
His broadcast career though is remembered by many for a single clip, and it should be mentioned an epic piece of timing and delivery from de Cadenet before Ray Hanna in his Spitfire swooped overhead rather lower than the crew expected!
You can view the clip here – as millions have.
The whole clip defines the man, his professionalism, his joyous and very human reaction to an extraordinary moment. My god we’re going to miss him.
DSC sends our deepest condolences to his Alison and to his children and grandchildren.
