Racing Career
He began racing in 1938, and won the 1939 Grand Prix des Frontières, but his career was interrupted by World War II, during which his own Bugatti was stored in a barn. When he rebuilt it for a 1945 event, the Coupé de la Liberation, he overlooked a clogged fuel filter, which caused him to drop out of the event. It transpired that the filter was plugged with rat droppings, earning him the unenviable nickname Le Petoulet, "the rat-droppings".
By 1950 Le Petoulet was successful enough to be offered a works drive for the Gordini team, in the newly-formed Formula One World Championship racing series. He competed in Formula One every year until his retirement after the 1964 season. During this long career Trintignant scored two victories, at the Monaco Grand Prix in 1955 and 1958. 1954 and 1955 were his best Championship years, and he finished fourth in the drivers championship in both.
During the course of his career Trintignant drove a huge variety of cars, for many different teams: both works and privateer. Unusually, at the 1955 Argentine Grand Prix Trintignant shared both second and third places, a product of the Scuderia Ferrari policy of passing cars to their top drivers, should their original car break down. In 1956 he drove the Bugatti Type 251 in the French Grand Prix, becoming the last driver to represent the famed marque at a Grand Prix race. Even in his final season, driving his own BRM P57, he scored points, taking fifth place at the 1964 German Grand Prix on the intimidating Nürburgring.
Following his retirement from racing, Maurice Trintignant returned to a quiet life as a wine-grower (naming his vintage Le Petoulet), near the town of Vergèze, in the Languedoc-Roussillon wine growing region, where he would eventually be elected mayor. Trintignant died, aged 87, in 2005.
Read more about this topic: Maurice Trintignant
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