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| Full name | Équipe Ligier |
|---|---|
| Base | Vichy (1976–1988) andMagny-Cours (1989–1996),France[1] |
| Founder(s) | Guy Ligier |
| Noted staff | Ken Anderson Loïc Bigois Flavio Briatore Cyril de Rouvre Frank Dernie Richard Divila Gérard Ducarouge Claude Galopin Tom Walkinshaw |
| Noted drivers |  Jacques LaffitePatrick Depailler Jacky IckxDidier Pironi Eddie Cheever Andrea de CesarisRené Arnoux Stefan JohanssonThierry Boutsen Martin BrundleMark Blundell Aguri SuzukiOlivier PanisÉrik Comas |
| Next name | Prost Grand Prix |
| Formula One World Championship career | |
| First entry | 1976 Brazilian Grand Prix |
| Races entered | 332 entries (326 starts) |
| Engines | Matra,Ford-Cosworth,Renault,Megatron,Judd,Lamborghini,Mugen-Honda |
| Constructors' Championships | 0(best finish: 2nd,1980) |
| Drivers' Championships | 0(best finish: 4th, 1979-81, Jacques Laffite) |
| Race victories | 9 |
| Podiums | 50 |
| Points | 388 |
| Pole positions | 9 |
| Fastest laps | 10 |
| Final entry | 1996 Japanese Grand Prix |
Équipe Ligier (French:[e.kipli.ʒje]) is a motorsport team, best known for itsFormula One team that operated from1976 to1996. The team was founded in 1968 by former Frenchrugby union player and former Formula One driverGuy Ligier as a sports car manufacturer.[2][3]
After retiring from racing following the death of his friendJo Schlesser, Guy Ligier decided to found his own team and had engineerMichel Têtu develop a sports car namedJS1 (Schlesser's initials). TheCosworth-powered JS1 took wins at Albi and Montlhéry in 1970, but retired atLe Mans and from the Tour Automobile de France.[4]
For 1971, Ligier had the JS1 developed into theJS2 andJS3. The JS2 was homologated for road use and used aMaserati V6 engine, while the JS3 was an open-top sports-prototype powered by a Cosworth DFV V8 engine. The JS3 won at Montlhéry in 1971 but failed to finish the minimum distance at Le Mans. Therefore, it was retired,[5] and Ligier installed the Cosworth DFV in the JS2 road car, finishing second overall atLe Mans in 1975.[6] Guy Ligier then switched his efforts into Formula One.
After the departure ofMatra at the end of the1972 season, no French constructor competed in Formula One for three seasons until Ligier's arrival at the start of the1976 season. Following the acquisition of the Matra F1 team's assets, Ligier entered Formula One with aMatra V12-powered car, and won the1977 Swedish Grand Prix withJacques Laffite. This is generally considered to have been the first all-French victory in the Formula One World Championship[7] as well as the first Formula One victory for aFrench-licensed team[8] and a French engine.
The deal withMatra ceased in 1979 and Ligier built aCosworth-poweredwing-car, theLigier JS11. The JS11 began the season winning the first two races in the hands of Laffite. However, the JS11 faced serious competition whenWilliams andFerrari 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 fromTalbot (known officially asTalbot Ligier in the1981 and1982 seasons)[9] and public French companies – mainlySEITA,Gitanes andFrançaise des Jeux[10] – the competitiveness of the team began to decline around1982. Around this time, they were testing a Matra V6 turbocharged engine, which never raced.[11] Thanks to the political support of Ligier long-time friendFrançois Mitterrand, in the mid-1980s, the team benefitted from a free Renault turbo engine deal. This, along with sponsorship from companies such as Loto andElf Aquitaine, made the team more competitive, though not a frontrunner. When Renault left the sport in 1986, Ligier was left without a bona fide engine supplier. An abortive collaboration withAlfa Romeo (due to René Arnoux's harsh criticism on the Alfa Romeo engines) was followed by customer engine deals withMegatron (who provided them with rebadgedBMW M12 engines),Judd andCosworth and then works contracts withLamborghini,Renault andMugen-Honda.
Between 1987 and 1991, the team struggled, failing to score points in 1988, 1990 and 1991, and at the1988 San Marino Grand Prix neitherRené Arnoux norStefan Johansson qualified for the race, the first time in team history that neither car made the grid. In 1990, when fellow French teamLarrousse were disqualified after claiming their chassis was built by themselves, while in fact it was built byLola Cars, Ligier moved up into 10th place in the Constructors' Championship, which gave them subsidized travel benefits, despite actually not being classified due to a lack of points.
In 1993 the team enjoyed an upswing whenGuy Ligier sold the team toCyril de Rouvre after a disappointing 1992 season when they once again failed to fulfil their potential despite being supplied with the same worksRenault engines as the dominantWilliams team. Surprisingly, the team was somewhat more competitive during this period, in part due to the talents of aerodynamicistFrank Dernie and engineerLoïc Bigois. They scored eight podium finishes over the next four years, contrasting sharply with their failure to secure a single top three position between1987 and1992. In the last years Ligier had little public support and lacked funds.
In1994, de Rouvre sold the team toFlavio Briatore andTom Walkinshaw. Other organisations bidded to purchase Ligier, includingAlain Prost and a consortium consisting ofHughes de Chaunac andPhilippe Streiff,[12] with the support of the similarly Renault-poweredWilliams F1 team, who intended to turn Ligier into a 'junior' team.
In 1995, Ligier switched from the Renault engines as they had been passed/sold on to the Benetton team, the reason given was because Flavio Briatore had purchased the team and had persuaded Renault to switch the supplies to the defending champions in light of Michael Schumacher testing a Renault-powered Ligier car late into the 1994 season which convinced Renault to support Benetton along with Michael. Ligier's replacement engine supplier was Mugen-Honda, who in previous seasons with Footwork and Lotus did not initially have the best reliability. The switch to Mugen-Honda engines was not without controversy, as the contract was originally intended for theMinardi team. Though the engine was less reliable than the previous Renault engine, the 1995 season turned out to be surprisingly successful for the team while allowing them to score points on a more consistent basis combined with securing 2 podiums for the season, Martin Brundle securing 3rd place at Belgium and Olivier Panis securing 2nd at the last race of the season in Australia.
TheMugen-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 withOlivier Panis at theMonaco Grand Prix, albeit in a race of heavy attrition, with only three cars finishing. It was the first "all-French" victory at Monaco sinceRené Dreyfus inBugatti in1930. This ended a nearly fifteen-year-long winless-streak for the Ligier team, the longest of any uninterruptedly existing team between two wins (some teams like Renault, Honda or Mercedes had much longer periods between two wins, but did not exist as a Grand Prix team for most of their respective periods between two wins, and teams with a name change (Tyrrell/BAR/Honda/Brawn/Mercedes-AMG and Jordan/Midland/Spyker/Force India/Racing Point/Aston Martin have longer streaks).
The Ligier name last appeared in Formula One at the1996 Japanese Grand Prix. At the end of the season the team was sold toAlain Prost and becameProst Grand Prix in1997.
The team traditionally used numbers 25 and 26.
As of 2025, Équipe Ligier remains the last defunct Formula One team to score a Grand Prix victory.
In 2004, Ligier returned to motorsport after acquiringAutomobiles Martini. Tico Martini had designed aFormula 3 chassis that was introduced at the 2004Paris Motor Show[13] as the Ligier JS47, but with the F3 market cornered byDallara, the car only raced in the minorRecaro F3 Cup.
In 2005 Ligier introduced a "gentlemen driver" sports car, the JS49, a sport prototype[14][15] made for the 2000 cc CN class, which can be used in theV de V Challenge.
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