10 ROBERT BENOIST 1895-1944
Many drivers could have taken the 10th slot, not least Pietro Bordino, whose relatively modest list of successes did not do justice to his speed. Similarly, Guy Moll’s impressive abilities would almost certainly have got him onto the list had it not been for his untimely death at the 1934 Coppa Acerbo.
Benoist had a longer impact and would have been 1927 world champion had there been such a title, given his domination of that season.
Benoist, a First World War pilot, started competing after hostilities ended and showed promise with Salmson. He joined Delage and became one of its key drivers in a strong squad, finishing third in the 1924 French GP behind team-mate Albert Divo. Benoist and Divo teamed up to win the following year’s French GP, notable for the death of Antonio Ascari (another candidate for this list), but Benoist really starred in 1927.
Armed with the exquisite Delage Type 15, Benoist won four of the five races that counted for the manufacturers’ world championship and didn’t start the other – the Indianapolis 500. He regularly outpaced the opposition on his way to victory, in the wet and dry, in the French, Spanish, Italian and RAC (‘British’) GPs.
WF Bradley described him as “undoubtedly the most brilliant French driver in the ‘betweentwo-wars’ period” in the book Great Racing Drivers edited by David Hodges, but Delage’s financial troubles left Benoist briefly without a drive before joining Bugatti.
Benoist competed sporadically over the next few years and GP success was limited, but he did win his last race, the 1937 Le Mans 24 Hours with Jean-Pierre Wimille, for Bugatti.
Benoist also ran Bugatti’s racing department before becoming a secret agent to help the French Resistance during the Second World War. He was executed by the Nazis in 1944.
9 LUIGI FAGIOLI 1898-1952
Surely one of the most tempestuous characters in GP history, Fagioli was also fast. He joined Maserati in 1930 and became a force over the next couple of years. In 1931 he was second to Louis Chiron in the Monaco GP and then won the Monza GP against top opposition from Alfa Romeo and Bugatti.
Pickings were slim in 1932 as Alfa Romeo dominated, but Fagioli was now an established top-liner. When rival Tazio Nuvolari walked out of the Ferrari-run Alfa Romeo team during the 1933 season to join Maserati, Fagioli went the other way. That meant he got his hands on the Tipo B and Fagioli duly won the Italian GP and Coppa Acerbo. He became champion of Italy that season, no mean feat given the number of quality
