Patrick Camus (1950 – 2020)

This afternoon, one of the pillars of AUTOhebdo since the end of the 70s left us. Patrick Camus was more than a great reporter, he was an inspiration for our editorial staff. His favorites, his rants have punctuated week after week four decades of the life of the weekly but also of ours, colleagues and readers united in the same passion. 

Patrick loved motorsport, but even more F1. He was not an armchair journalist but a field journalist, always between two trucks chatting with the mechanics whom he held in high esteem. Especially those from Ligier! Guy, the boss, was not mistaken and had great esteem for him. 

Patrick also had a passion for pilots. Very close to Ronnie Peterson in his early days, he subsequently developed special friendships with Didier Pironi, Alain Prost, Jean Alesi, Olivier Panis, Jarno Trulli, Jules Bianchi and many others until Charles Leclerc of which he announced the day after the 2018 Italian Grand Prix his signing with Ferrari. 

This Grand Prix was his last where he lowered the curtain as he had raised it, with a final “scoop”. Indeed, it was while slipping into a guarded garage at the Circuit Paul Ricard in 1977 that he lifted a tarpaulin and discovered a car with funny skirts which would give birth to the Lotus 78. 

Passionate, Patrick was also passionate about technique – which made him become close to Gérard Ducarouge. He also had a weakness for Italy and Scuderia Ferrari to which he spent little or nothing. Who likes to be well punished, and that was also true regarding the stable Renault as Bernard Dudot, Christian Contzen and Eric Boullier can attest, which was undoubtedly his last great F1 meeting. This evening, everyone is mourning a fellow traveler.

To his wife Martine, to his son Florian, to all his loved ones, to all his friends in the paddock and elsewhere with a special thought for his friends on French radios whom he called his “Musketeers”, the AUTO editorial staffhebdo offers its deep condolences.

Hello Comrade, on the trajectory of life, you will have been the equal of the champions about whom you loved to write so much.