Photo : DR - Archives ACO

Fifty years ago, the driver, engineer and journalist Paul Frère won the Le Mans 24 Hours at the wheel of a Ferrari with Olivier Gendebien as a co-driver. Until his death in February 2008, Paul Frère was much admired in the  Le Mans circuit press room in the heart of the Sarthe : he sought out as much information from the race as possible. “Paul never slept during the race. At the press conference after the race, he always asked the first question,” adds Antoine Seyler, one of his closest friends.

As he did in 2008, Seyler is wearing a precious piece of memorabilia, inside his full-face helmet at Le Mans Classic this year, is a fragment from the helmet worn by Paul in the 1960 Le Mans 24 Hours: “Two small bits came away from the helmet. Stéphane Ortelli, a driver Paul liked very much and also a Le Mans 24 Hours winner in 1998, has got one and I’ve got the other. Paul’s helmet was yellow, and I was lucky that mine was  in the red and gold colours of my family. The artist who did my helmet used the same yellow as Paul’s.” So Paul Frère’s memory still lives on on the racetrack, with the #50 Lotus Eleven (Grid 2) driven by Constant Wagner and Antoine Seyler at the Le Mans Classic this weekend.

Jean-Philippe Doret