Gerard Ducarouge, the man who designed some of Formula 1’s most elegant and celebrated race-winning cars of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, has died at the age of 73.

The Frenchman joined Matra in the mid-1960s, working on the company’s F3 and F2 cars, before designing the F1 MS10 which Jackie Stewart drove to second in the 1968 World Championship, and then the MS80 which took the Scot to his first title a year later.

Three years later Ducarouge oversaw Matra’s MS670 sportscar project which resulted in three straight wins for the marque in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, 1972-’74 (BELOW).

Although he quit Matra when the company pulled out of racing, his next project would be powered by the 3-liter V12 from his old company – it was the Ligier JS5 Formula 1 car, famously dubbed “The Teapot” for obvious reasons…(BELOW)

The super-high airboxes were banned by governing body, FISA, from Round 4 onward, and clothed in its less outrageous bodywork, the JS5 achieved three podiums and a pole position in the hands of Jacques Laffite.

Gerard’s JS7 of ’77 earned Ligier its first win at Anderstorp (BELOW), but the JS9 was pushed aside by the mighty Lotus 79 and Ferrari 312T3, having neither a ground-effect underbody nor Michelin tires.

“Duca” appeared to get the gist of Colin Chapman’s aero breakthrough better than anyone at the start of 1979, and his Ligier JS11s – now powered by Ford Cosworths V8s which enabled the underside of the car to be shaped in the necessary manner for ground-effect – won Rounds 1, 2 (Laffite) and 5 (Patrick Depailler) [ABOVE]. However, as the Williams FW07s came on strong, Laffite’s best results for the remainder of the year were a clutch of podium finishes, while Depailler broke his legs in a hang-gliding accident and had to miss the balance of the season. Nonetheless Ligier finished third in the Constructors’ Championship.

Remarkably, the team went one better in 1980, despite running an update of the previous year’s car. Laffite and hot new ace Didier Pironi scored a win apiece, and eight other podium finishes, to clock fourth and fifth in the Drivers’ Championship. Unfortunately, the car’s downforce-producing ability was not matched by structural strength and too many potential wins were lost to component/tire issues.

Ducarouge’s 1981 design, the JS17, had to be built around a new Matra V12 unit and Michelin tires, yet Laffite drove it to two wins – a thriller in Austria, passing René Arnoux’s Renault in the closing stages – and a quite dominant performance in the torrential conditions in Montreal. These victories, combined with five other podium finishes, meant Laffite went to the final round with a vague chance of becoming World Champion. However, he and Ligier finished fourth in their respective championship standings.

This was of less concern than it might have been to Ducarouge, as he had been sacked mid-season by the combustible team principal, Guy Ligier, and had been snapped up by Alfa Romeo, desperately in need of help with its Alfa Romeo 179. Mario Andretti and Bruno Giacomelli were immediately impressed by how quickly Gerard improved the handling of their previously troublesome cars, and Giacomelli went on to finish third in the season finale in Las Vegas.

As well as improving the old car, Ducarouge spent the remainder of ’81 designing the Alfa Romeo F1 team’s first carbon fiber monocoque around the company’s V12. The redoubtable Andrea de Cesaris put it on pole at Long Beach for only its second race, and later scored a podium at Monaco. (RIGHT, Ducarouge pictured on right of picture, next to Giacomelli’s car).  There was another big change for ’83 though, with Alfa ditching its V12 for another homegrown engine, a 1.5-liter V8 turbo installed in Ducarouge’s 183T. De Cesaris should have won the Belgian Grand Prix but the engine blew, but he did score two runner-up finishes…

And again, Gerard wasn’t around to enjoy the reflected glory. Back in April, at the third round of the season, the French Grand Prix, de Cesaris’ Alfa had run underweight in the first qualifying session and his times had been deleted. Ducarouge was blamed by the team and dismissed. Lotus, in desperate need of a quick fix for its huge first turbo-powered F1 car, the 93T, hired the Frenchman who set about a rescue mission that involved penning the far more svelte 94T in time to be brought on stream at the ninth round. Immediately, drivers Elio de Angelis and Nigel Mansell started chalking up points finishes, culminating in a podium for the Briton on home ground in the European GP at Brands Hatch.

There are many who suggest that with the Michelin tires of the all-conquering McLarens, de Angelis (BELOW) and Mansell might have chalked up wins in ’84, equipped with Ducarouge’s Renault turbo-powered 95T. As it was, the Goodyears were a major improvement on the Pirellis of the previous year, and the pair scored a pole position each, a total of six podium finishes, and de Angelis was the nearest thing to a threat the McLarens had, in terms of consistency. Elio would finish third in the Drivers’ Championship.

And together, Elio, Nigel, Renault and Gerard sent Lotus back up to third in the Constructors’ Championship with 47 points. The teams that had most recently canned Ducarouge, Alfa Romeo and Ligier, finished eighth and ninth with 11 and 3 points respectively. The Ligier showing was particularly pathetic, given that it was (a) French state-funded and (b) was using the same Renault engines as Lotus…

Ayrton Senna arrived at Lotus to replace Mansell in 1985 for his sophomore F1 season, and with the Renault pumping out some 900hp in qualifying tune, there seemed to be a black-’n’-gold Ducarouge-designed 97T at or near the front of the grid all year, with Senna reeling off seven poles, and de Angelis’ added one. Ayrton scored his first two victories on the rain-lashed Estoril and Spa tracks, while Elio added a fortuitous win at Imola. The fragility of the Renault unit ultimately dragged the team down to fourth in the Constructors’ standings, but Lotus hadn’t looked this out-and-out competitive since the days of Mario and Ronnie.

Ducarouge’s 98T and its 1200hp Renault allowed Senna to produce eight poles in 1986, but again there were only two wins (RIGHT, Jerez) as Ayrton simply couldn’t keep his engine at the same turbo boost levels as the Honda units in the Williams if he wanted to see the checkered flag.

Switching to Honda engines for 1987 wasn’t the answer to Lotus’ problems though, because Ducarouge’s 99T had the double-edged sword of active suspension which made the car ride bumps unbelievably well but added weight and stole five percent of the engine’s horsepower. Senna won at Monaco (BELOW) and Detroit but was lapped by the Williams-Hondas at some of the faster tracks.

Ayrton departed Lotus in ’87 having scored the final F1 wins for the Lotus marque. Ducarouge lasted one more season, with an apparently demotivated Nelson Piquet pedaling the 100T to a few podium finishes behind the preposterously dominant McLarens. Despite looking leaner and lower than its predecessor, there were aero problems with the Lotus and its reversion to conventional suspension had not gone well, either.

After a couple years working with underrated young designer Chris Murphy at the Larrousse-Lola team, Gerard was able to return to France and rejoined Ligier mid-1991. He helped update the JS35 to B-spec midseason, but could do little to polish the proverbial and it scored no points, while its successor, penned by Frank Dernie, wasn’t much better. But the JS39 of 1993/’94 brought new hope to the team. With Ducarouge back in charge of the team’s technical department, Paul Crooks designing and Loic Bigois in charge of aero, Ligier staged a mini-revival and in those two seasons Mark Blundell (BELOW), Martin Brundle, Olivier Panis and Eric Bernard collected five podiums and put the blue cars back into the top six in the Constructors’ Championship table.

That signaled the end of Gerard Ducarouge’s competition career, and he returned to Matra to work on other projects, including the wild one-off Renault Espace SUV equipped with an F1 Renault V10!

RACER extends its condolences to all Gerard Ducarouge’s friends and family. He should be remembered by all racing fans as one of the brightest stars of Formula 1 car design over a 20-year span.

Gerard Ducarouge, Oct. 3, 1941 – Feb. 24, 2015

Three of France’s F1 stars in 1980 – Jacques Laffite, Gerard Ducarouge, Didier Pironi.