Ligier

Equipe Ligier is a motorsport team, best known for its Formula One team that operated from 1976 to 1996. The team was founded in 1969 as a sports car manufacturer.

Ligier in Formula One.
Acquiring the Matra F1 team's assets, Ligier entered Formula One in 1976 with a Matra V12-powered car, and won a Grand Prix with Jacques Laffite in 1977. This is generally considered to have been the first all-French victory in the Formula One World Championship.
The deal with Matra ceased in 1979 and Ligier built a Cosworth-powered wing-car, the Ligier JS11. The JS11 begin the season winning the first 2 races in the hands of Laffite. However, the JS11 faced serious competition when Williams and Ferrari introduced aerodynamically modified cars. The rest of the season was less successful for the French marque.

The JS11 and its successors made Ligier one of the top teams through the early 1980s. Despite substantial sponsorship from Talbot and public French companies - mainly SEITA and Française des Jeux (deals which François Mitterrand helped to put in place) - the competitiveness of the team began to decline around 1982. In the mid 1980s, the team benefitted from a "free" Renault turbo engine deal. This made them more competitive, though not a frontrunner, despite sponsorship from companies such as Gitanes, Loto and elf. When Renault left the sport in 1986, Ligier was left without a bona fide engine supplier. An abortive collaboration with Alfa Romeo (due to René Arnoux's harsh criticism on the Alfa Romeo engines) was followed by customer engine deals with Megatron (who provided them with rebadged BMW M12 engines), Judd and Cosworth and then works contracts with Lamborghini, Renault and Mugen-Honda.
In the last years Ligier had little public support and lacked funds. Surprisingly, the team was somewhat more competitive during this period, perhaps due to the talents of aerodynamicist Frank Dernie, whose skills had developed the Williams of Alan Jones that so regularly beat the Ligiers in the late 1970s.

The talent of the young engineer Loïc Bigois may have played some role as well. But this also brings some to think that, in previous years, Guy Ligier was more worried about making money than restoring the team competitiveness. Famous for his histrionics and boisterous pitlane explosions, the recalcitrant Guy Ligier added greatly to the character of Formula One events from the mid 1970s onward, if not through the competitiveness of his teams. As one F1 commentator famously said, "You always had the feeling that even when they were winning they didn't know why...". Certainly the team enjoyed an upswing when Guy Ligier sold the team to Cyril de Rouvre after a disappointing 1992 season when they once again failed to fulfil their potential despite being supplied with the same works Renault engines as the dominant Williams team - they scored eight podium finishes over the next four years, contrasting sharply with their failure to secure a single top three position between 1987 and 1992.

In 1990, they failed (as they always did between 1987 and 1991) to finish in the valuable Top 10 in the Constructors Championship, in 1990 as 11th, but Larrousse-Lola were disqualified because they entered as Larrousse, but it was entirely a Lola Car. That moved Ligier up into the important 10th Place which gave them Travel benefits.

In 1996, the Mugen Honda-powered JS43 turned out to be a well balanced car, if not on par with the Williams entries. It became a surprise winner as well, with the team taking the chequered flag with Olivier Panis at the Monaco Grand Prix, albeit in a race of heavy attrition. While the victory was a famous moment for French Motorsport (the first "all-French" victory at Monaco since René Dreyfus in Bugatti in 1930), it must be said it came very much against the run of play in a race in which only three cars finished.

The team was sold to Alain Prost soon after and became Prost Grand Prix in 1997. Prost GP, despite substantial financial backing by large private French companies failed to make the team competitive and went bankrupt in 2002.
The team traditionally used numbers 25 and 26.

Ligier sports car racing
After retiring from racing following the death of his friend Jo Schlesser, Guy Ligier had engineer Michel Tétu develop a sports car named JS1 (Schlesser's initials). The Cosworth-powered JS1 took wins at Albi and Monthlery in 1970, but retired at Le Mans and from the Tour Automobile de France.

For 1971, Ligier had the JS1 developed into the JS2 and JS3. The JS2 was homologated for road use and used a Maserati V6 engine, while the JS3 was an open-top sports-prototype powered by a Cosworth DFV V8 engine. The JS3 won at Monthlery in 1971 but failed to finish the minimum distance in Le Mans. Therefore, it was retired, and Ligier installed the Cosworth DFV in the JS2 road car, finishing second overall at Le Mans in 1975. Guy Ligier then switched his efforts into F1.

In 2004, Ligier returned to motorsport after acquiring Automobiles Martini. Tico Martini had designed a Formula 3 chassis that was introduced at the 2004 Paris Motor Show as the Ligier JS47, but with the F3 market cornered by Dallara, the car never raced.

In 2005 Ligier introduced a "gentlemen driver" sports car, the JS49, a sport prototype made for the 2000 cc CN class, which can be used in the V de V Challenge.