Elie Bayol

Élie Marcel Bayol was born in 28 February 1914 in Marseille, in the South of France. His racing career started in 1950 driving in DB-Panhards. He was amongst the quickest of the DB pilots, finishing second to Ken Carter's Cooper at Montlhéry in April, a respectable fourth at Monaco in May (Stirling Moss won), third at Aix in May, second at Angoulême in June and  fourth at Rouen les Essarts behind the Coopers of Bill Whitehouse, John Cooper and Eric Brandon.

He set a number of records for DB at Montlhéry in October 1950 for the 500cc and 750cc classes but these were short lived, while awaiting ratification, the Kieft team of Moss, Gregory and Neill raised the bar only a month later.

He returned to Formula 3 occasionally thereafter including a second place at Draguignan in May 1952.

For 1952, he ran his own OSCA F2 car, built by the Maserati Brothers, and finished fourth at Pau. In 1953 he was fourth again at Pau and got a pole position at Albi.
 

Élie Bayol's record breaking DB

Bayol's Formula One career consisted of  8 races over five years. After two years with an OSCA, he joined the Gordini team in 1954 with Jean Behra, his best results being fifth  in Argentina and fourth at the a non-championship event at Pau. Élie teamed up with René Bonnet again in 1954 to finish tenth overall and win the index of performance at Le Mans in a DB Panhard. He was quite seriously injured in 1955 after the car flipped in testing. In 1956 he only raced occasionally and then retired.

Élie Bayol died on the 25th May 1995 at La Ciotat.

If anyone has more details, please get in touch.