Jean-Louis Schlesser

Born in Nancy, Lorraine, this Frenchman was able to celebrate his first major motorsport success in Formula 3 at the start of his career when he won the French championship in 1978, level on points and therefore together with Alain Prost. In 1981, he took part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time in a Rondeau GTP racing sports car and immediately took second place overall.

The following year's Formula 2 European Championship season with the German team Maurer Motorsport was just as disappointing as his first attempts in Formula 1, where Schlesser bought into the chronically financially weak RAM team for two Grands Prix in 1983. From 1983 to 1986, he competed in the French Touring Car Championship in a Rover Vitesse and won the title in both 1984 and 1985.

By now more experienced in Group C racing, the Frenchman joined Peter Sauber's team in 1987, for whom he won the 1988 World Championship races at Jerez, Brno, the Nürburgring and Sandown Park in the Sauber-Mercedes C 9. In 1989, he was victorious at Suzuka, Jarama, again at the Nürburgring, at Donington Park and in Mexico. In 1990, driving both the C 9 and the new C 11, he finished on the top step of the podium at Suzuka, Monza, Dijon, the Nürburgring, Donington Park and Montreal.

This winning streak resulted in the title of World Sports Car Champion in 1989 and 1990, after he had already finished second in the championship in 1988. Schlesser's start at the second Hockenheim round in a Mercedes-Benz 190 E 2.3-16 Group A as part of the 1988 DTM season, on the other hand, remained a singular event.

After ending his career on the circuit, Schlesser shifted his interest to the booming segment of Rally Raid events at the beginning of the 1990s, for which he also produced specially designed buggies. in 1999 and 2000, he won the overall classification of the Dakar Rally and from 1998 to 2002 he won the FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup four times in a row.