Érik Gilbert Comas (born 28 September 1963) is a French former racing driver whose career stretched from Formula One to Japanese GT racing, Le Mans and international rallying. He competed in 63 Formula One Grands Prix between 1991 and 1994, scoring seven championship points, before reinventing himself in Japan and becoming a two-time All-Japan GT Championship winner with Nismo.
Driver Bio
| Born | Érik Gilbert Comas 28 September 1963 Romans-sur-Isère, Drôme, France |
| Nationality | French |
|---|---|
| Active years | 1991–1994 |
| Teams | Ligier, Larrousse |
| Entries | 63 (59 starts) |
| Championships | 0 |
| Wins | 0 |
| Podiums | 0 |
| Career points | 7 |
| Pole positions | 0 |
| Fastest laps | 0 |
| First entry | 1991 United States Grand Prix |
| Last entry | 1994 Japanese Grand Prix |
Comas arrived in Formula One with an impressive junior record behind him. He won the French Formula Three Championship in 1988, then moved into International Formula 3000. In 1989 he finished runner-up to Jean Alesi, losing the title only on count-back, before returning in 1990 and winning the championship outright.
That success earned him a Formula One seat with Ligier for 1991. The Lamborghini-powered JS35 was difficult and uncompetitive, and Comas failed to qualify on his first attempt in Brazil. His first finish came with tenth at Imola, while eighth in Canada was the high point of a season in which he scored no points. Even so, he generally compared well with his far more experienced teammate Thierry Boutsen.
His place at Ligier briefly came under threat before the 1992 season when Alain Prost tested the team’s new Renault-powered car with a possible race deal — and even potential ownership of the team — under consideration. Comas later said that he received no winter testing mileage while those discussions were taking place. Prost ultimately walked away, leaving Comas to continue alongside Boutsen.
The Ligier JS37 initially promised much more. Powered by Renault’s proven V10, it was only intermittently competitive, but Comas finally opened his Formula One points account with sixth place in Canada. He followed that with fifth at Ligier’s home race in France and another sixth in Germany. Four points left him 11th in the Drivers’ Championship, and he both outscored and was generally quicker than Boutsen.
That same season produced one of the most dramatic moments of Comas’s career. During qualifying for the 1992 Belgian Grand Prix, he suffered a huge accident at Blanchimont and was knocked unconscious. His car came to rest in the middle of the circuit with the engine still screaming at the rev limiter.
Ayrton Senna stopped his own car, ran to the wreck and switched off Comas’s engine before helping stabilise him until medical crews arrived. With fuel still being pumped through the damaged car, the danger of fire was very real. Comas later credited Senna with saving his life.
Ligier did not retain him for 1993, so Comas joined Larrousse. The Lamborghini-powered LH93 lacked competitiveness and reliability, and he retired from eight of the season’s 16 races. His reward for a difficult campaign came at Monza, where sixth place earned his only point of the year.
Larrousse kept him for 1994, now with the more dependable Ford HB engine. Comas scored sixth at the Pacific Grand Prix and repeated the result in Germany after a race of heavy attrition. That Hockenheim point became both the final Formula One point of his career and the last ever scored by Larrousse.
The 1994 season also brought another deeply significant episode involving Senna. At the San Marino Grand Prix, a radio misunderstanding resulted in Comas being released from the pits while the race was stopped following Senna’s crash at Tamburello. He arrived at the accident scene to find marshals, medical vehicles and a helicopter on the circuit, forcing him to brake heavily.
Having seen the medical response surrounding the badly injured Senna, Comas chose not to take part in the restarted race. It was an especially powerful moment given what Senna had done for him at Spa less than two years earlier.
For the season finale in Australia, Comas gave up his Larrousse seat so that Jean-Denis Delétraz, who brought additional funding, could drive. With that, his Formula One career ended after four seasons, 63 Grands Prix and seven championship points.
Comas’s story, however, was nowhere near finished. He moved to Japan and found a second career in the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship, later known as Super GT. Racing for Nissan and Nismo in the top GT500 category, he became one of the championship’s standout drivers.
Driving the factory Nismo Skyline GT-R, Comas won back-to-back titles in 1998 and 1999 and finished runner-up in 2000. By the end of 2003, he had accumulated more career championship points than any other driver in series history, a record later surpassed by fellow Nismo star Satoshi Motoyama.
Comas left Nismo after 2002 and joined Toyota’s factory effort the following year. He then spent 2004 and 2005 with Hasemi Sport, driving privately entered Nissan 350Zs in GT500. Alongside Toshihiro Kaneishi, he inherited victory in the 2004 All-Star 200 exhibition race at California Speedway after the apparent winners received a time penalty, although the event did not count toward official championship records.
He remained in Super GT into 2006 with Kondo Racing, but health problems began to interfere with his season. After missing the Sportsland SUGO round and briefly returning for the Pokka 1000km, Comas announced in September that he would sit out the final three races of the year.
Endurance racing also formed a major part of his post-F1 career. Comas competed at Le Mans on multiple occasions and, in 2005, finished second overall in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Pescarolo Sport, adding another major result to a career already rich in variety.
He also branched into rallying. In 2010 and 2011, Comas won the electric-vehicle category of the Rallye Monte Carlo des Véhicules à Énergie Alternative in a Tesla Roadster. In 2014 he won the Carrera Panamericana in a Studebaker, while between 2012 and 2017 he campaigned a Lancia Stratos in historic rallying.
Away from his own competition programme, Comas created Comas Racing Management, aimed at developing and guiding young drivers, particularly from France. Later, after fully retiring from competition, he turned his attention to Comas Historic Racing, offering customers the chance to contest historic rallies in a fleet of blue Alpine cars.
His enthusiasm for special machinery never disappeared. In 2019, Comas acquired one of the Nissan R390 GT1s he had raced at the 1998 Le Mans 24 Hours. He had the car restored and converted for road use, creating one of the more unusual links between his racing past and his life after competition.
Comas’s Formula One career may have been relatively modest on paper, but it was only one chapter of a much broader story. He was a French F3 champion, International F3000 champion, Formula One points scorer, two-time Japanese GT champion, Le Mans runner-up and successful rally driver. Few racers have managed to build such a varied career — and even fewer have managed to find major success both before and after Formula One.
Stats by Season
| Year | Constructor | Entries | Starts | Wins | Podiums | Poles | Fastest Laps | Front Rows | DNF | Best Start | Best Result | Pts Finishes | Points | Championship |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Ligier | 16 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 14 | 8 | 0 | 0 | NC |
| 1992 | Ligier | 16 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 11th |
| 1993 | Larrousse | 16 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 20th |
| 1994 | Larrousse | 15 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 13 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 23rd |
Stats by Constructor
| Constructor | Years | Entries | Starts | Wins | Podiums | Poles | Fastest Laps | Front Rows | DNF | Best Start | Best Result | Pts Finishes | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ligier | 1991–1992 | 32 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| Larrousse | 1993–1994 | 31 | 31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 3 |
Teammates & Qualifying Head-to-Head
| Teammate | Years | Races | Qualifying H2H |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thierry Boutsen | 1991, 1992 | 32 | 9-23 |
| Philippe Alliot | 1993, 1994 | 15 | 6-9 |
| Toshio Suzuki | 1993 | 2 | 2-0 |
| Olivier Beretta | 1994 | 10 | 10-0 |
| Yannick Dalmas | 1994 | 2 | 1-1 |
| Hideki Noda | 1994 | 2 | 2-0 |
