Denis Dayan’s Fatal Crash @ Rouen-les-Essarts 1970 (Aftermath)

Recognized as one of Europe’s finest tracks, the circuit of Rouen-les-Essarts had a feared downhill section after the Paradise bend and the start/finish straight in front of the grandstands. After the extremely fast right-hand Virage des Six Frères, the route passed through the Nouveau Monde cobbled hairpin, and then went back in a wooded area along the Sanson, Beauval and Gresil bends, bringing the drivers back to Paradise through the Scierie corner. Great excitement reigned at the track and the stands all around were packed with people on Sunday, 28 June 1970. The main event of the meeting was a non-championship Formula 2 race, the prestigious XVIII Grand Prix de Rouen-les-Essarts, scheduled to be contested in the afternoon. Its support race was the Coupe de Vitesse de l’A.C. Normand - Craven A, tenth round of the 1970 French Formula 3 Championship. The event turned to become one of the worst days in French motorsport history. A number of accidents during the race resulted in the deaths of two young men, Denis Dayan and Jean-Luc Salomon. Two of the frontrunners in that series, so much that both of them were rumored to move directly to Formula 1 and compete in the French Grand Prix of that year, to be held at Clermont-Ferrand on 05 July. Sadly neither of the two would reach such a dream. At the age of 27 Denis Dayan was one of the most promising French drivers of the time. Born in Casablanca (Morocco), after the Algerian War he moved with his family to Caen, department of Calvados, France, where he grew up. He started racing motorcycles, riding 50 and 125 cm3 bikes. In 1964 he moved to four wheels, driving for the Écurie Normandie, in the “Ford Jeunesse 1964“ series. But unexpectedly the team made a last minute choice and preferred to give their Lotus Super Seven to another driver, Patrice Grandsart. Dayan returned to motorcycling, contesting the French Motorcycle Championship on a Bultaco 125 owned by Jean-Pierre Beltoise. In 1965 Denis Dayan took part in the Mobil Economy Run driving a Ford Taunus and the following year he took part to the first Renault Gordini Cup, finishing second overall in the standings behind Jimmy Mieusset. Dayan won the “Premier Pas Dunlop“ prize, a challenge for newcomers among the Renault Gordini Cup competitors, beating a number of youngsters, including Jean-Luc Thérier and Jean-Pierre Jabouille. Dayan drove a works Renault 8 Gordini in the Rallye de Monte-Carlo, in January of 1967. Later in the season he was hired by team SEC Automobiles CD to share with Claude Ballot-Léna a small streamlined sportscar CD SP66C-Peugeot in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The pair did not finish the race, due to overheating during the fifth hour. Denis Dayan made his French Formula 3 Championship debut in 1967, driving a-year-old Alpine-Renault A310 entered by the Écurie Normandie. That same year he also competed in national hillclimbs, taking an outright win in the Course de Côtee des Andelys. When the Formula France, later named Formula Renault, was introduced in 1968, Jean Max won the title from Jimmy Mieusset, both driving GRAC MT5 - Renaults. Denis Dayan was one of the frontrunners in the series, eventually finishing third in points. The following year Denis Dayan graduated to the French Formula 3 Championship, with the newly presented GRAC MT11-Ford/Novamotor designed by Serge Granjon. He finished a remarkable fifth, first of the French drivers in the Grand Prix de Pau, then he earned seventh place at Le Castellet, 12th in the Monaco Formula 3 Grand Prix, tenth at Dijon-Longuic and eighth at Linas-Montlhéry. The next round of the series was the Rouen-les-Essarts race. After starting from the sixth row, Denis Dayan was following the leading group when, on 13th lap Bob Wollek in a Brabham BT28-Ford crashed hard while dicing for the lead with James Hunt in a Lotus 59-Ford, suffering critical injuries. On the next lap Dayan lost control of his GRAC MT11-Ford which went head-on against the guardrail at the infamous Virage des Six Fréres, almost in the same place as Jo Schlesser’s Honda two years before, during the French Formula 1 Grand Prix. Although a tyre failure has been hypothesized, it is likely that the suspension of his GRAC failed after an earlier, slight collision in the middle of the pack of cars. Dayan’s machine, having gone straight on at the turn, went under the guard-rail that had been installed just a month earlier. The GRAC was completely destroyed in the crash. Severely injured, Denis Dayan was taken by ambulance to the Hôtel-Dieu in Rouen, France, where he underwent an emergency operation in which the medical team, fighting to save his life, was obliged to amputate one of his feet. Four days later he succumbed to his injuries without regaining consciousness. During the same meeting, in a separate multiple car accident which happened five laps after Dayan’s crash, another French rising star, Jean-Luc Salomon was killed. Denis Dayan.