Gijs van Lennep celebrates his 82nd birthday: before Max Verstappen, the first star of the Netherlands, it was him

Slender figure, straightened hair and Bugs Bunny smile, Baron Gijs van Lennep has not really changed since that day in June 1976 when he hung up his red-orange helmet, on the evening of his second Le Mans victory. A voice, a little scratchy from cigarillos, gives him the air of an old circuit warrior, survivor of a time when racing was cruel. Although he was born (March 16, 1942 in Bloemendaal) with the title of baron, Gijsbert van Lennep does not draw any particular glory from it: “ Yes, I'm a bit of an aristocrat, he concedes, but at the lowest level. And my name is Gijs! », he confided to us during a meeting at the Le Mans Classic in 2018.

If he claims a heritage, it is in a completely different field: “ My father was a great sportsman, he practiced shooting, boxing, tennis and rowing. I inherited his good level of reaction and his eyes. » It was in the wake of this dynamic father that the young Gijs attended, at the age of 6, the 1948 Dutch Grand Prix. At the age of 9, his older brother taught him to drive and around the age of 15, Gijs piloted a kart built by him. Soon, he made his first laps on the circuit completely illegally, at the wheel of a Beetle. It was at the age of 18 that he made his real debut, in thunderous fashion: “ My mother had a Fiat 600, with which I competed in my first slalom. I put her on the roof! I then raced with a Beetle, but el