Ecurie Bonnier - Sports Car Racing

Sports Car Racing

It was with sports cars that Jo Bonnier first became involved in motor racing, entering Alfa Romeo saloons and sports cars in various Scandinavian rally, ice racing and circuit championships during the early 1950s. He stepped up to true racing sports cars with various Maserati two-seaters, including his own Maserati 150S. In common with his single seater career, the majority of Bonnier's sports car entries during the first half of the 1960s were with works or established privateer teams, and it wasn't until the latter years of that decade that he began to enter his own cars once again.

For 1968 Bonnier purchased a McLaren M6B for use in the North American Can-Am series, and an ex-John Surtees Lola T70 Mk3 GT for use in European races. Both were finished in the Ecurie Bonnier/Ecurie Suisse Swedish racing yellow, but retained vestiges of the previous year's Anglo-Suisse identity with longitudinal white and red stripes along their centre line. Results with the McLaren were generally disappointing, with Ecurie Suisse's best result being third place against mainly local opposition at the Can-Am series' non-Championship 200 mile race at the Fuji Speedway in Japan. The Lola proved more competitive, however, and Bonnier took top ten places at two of the four World Sportscar Championship (WSC) races that he contested in 1968, finished in second in the Players Trophy race at Silverstone, and won both the Anderstorp and Norisring 200 km races. For 1969 Ecurie Suisse upgraded to the new Lola Mk3B specification car, in keeping with the newly-introduced FIA sports car rules. With this car Bonnier finished fifth in the 1969 1000 km Spa race, and he took two second place finishes in the 1969 British RAC Sports Car Championship.

For 1970 Ecurie Suisse took a new route. Rather than just fielding large capacity sports cars such as the McLaren and Lola T70s, the team decided to concentrate on the 2,000 cc (122 cu in) class. Retaining the Ecurie Suisse yellow livery, but running under the Ecurie Bonnier moniker, the little Lola T210 provided excellent results, with Bonnier taking class wins in the Salzburgring, Anderstorp, Hockenheim and Enna rounds of the European Sportscar Championship (ESC), in addition to second places at Paul Ricard and Spa. This secured the series title for the, by now veteran, Swede. In 1971 Ecurie Bonnier switched entirely to the smaller capacity cars, fielding an updated, T212-specification Lola for Italian driver Mario Casoni. Bonnier himself drove a similar car entered by Scuderia Filipinetti.

In 1972 Ecurie Bonnier decided to expand and upgrade their stable, with brand new three litre Lola-Cosworth T280 cars for Bonnier and new team mates Reine Wisell, Gérard Larrousse and Chris Craft in the WSC, alongside the year old Filipinetti/Bonnier T212s for a number of junior drivers. The team also ran T290 Lolas in the ESC, for Jorge de Bagration, Claude Swietlik, Roland Heiler and others. While the T280s chassis was a proven unit, the Cosworth DFV engine had been designed with Formula One racing in mind and frequently failed to complete the longer distances required of sports car racing. Sadly for Bonnier and his team, the Swede's long driving career was to come to an end at the wheel of one of his own cars. For the 1972 24 Hours of Le Mans race Bonnier was sharing a T280 with Larrousse and Gijs van Lennep. Things were going well, with Bonnier's car leading briefly and setting fastest lap before transmission troubles, but in attempting to lap the Ferrari Daytona of Florian Vetsch Bonnier instead ran into the back of the slower car. The Lola was sent spinning into the trees and Bonnier was killed instantly. Ecurie Bonnier limped on into the 1973 season – with the team's new T292 Lolas sporting sponsorship backing from Portuguese property investment company BIP and piloted by a number of Portuguese drivers, including Carlos Gaspar and Jorge Pinhol—but at the end of the season Ecurie Bonnier was wound up for good.