Flashback: What happened when the French Resistance met Formula 1

Although you may not recognise him, it is not an exaggeration to say that François Guiter (pictured with Jackie Stewart at Monza in 1990) was one of the most influential men in Formula 1. As marketing director, Guiter brought Elf into motor racing in the 1960s. Apart from seeing the sport as the perfect means of introducing Elf as a new brand, Guiter also used the association to promote French motor sport through initiatives ranging from Pilote Elf to title sponsorship of the Tyrrell F1 team. Described by Stewart as a “communications genius”, Guiter was responsible for bringing François Cevert, Patrick Depailler, Didier Pironi and Alain Prost (among others) onto the F1 front line.

An intensely private person, the soft-spoken Guiter would be a respected, avuncular presence at Elf Team Tyrrell, seeing and hearing all, missing nothing. Little was known about his background, but F1 people were to get a clue early in their relationship with the big man.

Elf would hold a not-to-be-missed party by a hotel pool at the Mediterranean resort of Bandol each year the French Grand Prix visited Paul Ricard. On one occasion, Ken Tyrrell playfully pushed Guiter, dressed in customary suit, into the pool.

The Elf contingent gasped in horror. Mortification turned to anxiety when Guiter failed to surface. Despite his size, there was barely a ripple at the point where he had gone in, and yet there was no sign of him. A few moments later, Guiter gracefully rose from the water like a porpoise at the far end of the pool. He was completely unperturbed.

It turned out Guiter had been a frogman with the French Resistance during World War II. He never talked about his past. The missing parts of his fingers were believed to have been caused by an accident when attaching a limpet mine to an enemy ship. After that, dealing with the more stroppy members of motor sport society would be a walk in the park.

When chatting about Elf’s arrival in motor sport, he told me about an incident at Reims, the territory of Toto Roche, who had a long-standing sponsorship arrangement with BP. “We hired this pit from Roche,” said Guiter, “and, of course, the first thing we did was paint it in the white, blue and red of Elf. The next morning we arrived to find it had been repainted in BP’s colours. So we painted it Elf again. Then we waited that night and, when they came with the BP paint, we – ’ow you say? – box! Our pit stayed in Elf colours after that.”