A Swiss touring car driver whose British titles in 1997 and 2000, Renault and Ford years and Chevrolet world-series career made him one of the era's leading names.
Alain Menu is a Swiss racing driver, born in Geneva in 1963, who won the British Touring Car Championship in 1997 and 2000. He spent 2005 to 2012 racing for Chevrolet on the world stage, finishing second in 2012, and he now works as a driving coach for Team BMR.
Alain Menu is a Swiss touring car driver whose career was built on the British Touring Car Championship and the world series that followed. He claimed the British title in 1997 and again in 2000, and he later raced for Chevrolet on the global stage. Today he coaches drivers for a British team.
How did Alain Menu start in motor racing?
Menu was born in Geneva in 1963 and grew up on a farm. He moved into single-seaters, reaching the International Formula 3000 series in 1991 after two years in British Formula 3 and one in British F3000. Touring cars came later, from 1992.
Like many drivers who went on to touring cars, Menu learned his craft in open-wheel racing. He finished runner-up in the 1990 British Formula 3000 Championship before stepping up to the international series the following year.
The 1992 season took him back to Britain, where he drove a BMW 3 Series in the touring car ranks. He showed promise, but a quadbike accident at Knockhill injured him mid-season. He still finished ninth in the standings despite contesting only half the year.
The accident left him unable to jog, so he took up cycling as his main form of exercise. Racing had already become his life, and the touring car scene was about to give him his defining years.
Menu had enrolled at a French racing school run by Elf in 1984. In 1985 he won the French FF1600 Championship, and in 1987 he finished second in the British Formula Ford 1600 Championship.
Two British Touring Car titles, a Chevrolet world-series career and a coaching role that keeps him close to the sport he helped define.
How did his Renault years in the BTCC go?
Menu drove for Renault from 1993 to 1998, first in the Renault 19 and then in the Laguna. He won the 1994 Oulton Park race from pole and finished second in the championship in 1994, 1995 and 1996, before winning the 1997 title with twelve wins.
In 1993 the team, run by GB Motorsport, entered the series with the Renault 19. Menu finished second at Donington Park in a very wet round two, behind his team-mate Tim Harvey, and he won one race at a rain-soaked Donington later in the season.
For 1994 the team switched to the Renault Laguna, which proved a much better package. Alfa Romeo dominated the early races, but at Oulton Park the Alfa cars were told to run without their disputed aerodynamic aids and withdrew. That let Menu win from pole, and he also set the fastest lap.
A first-corner clash with Julian Bailey at Silverstone, in the support race for the British Grand Prix, caused a pile-up and a red flag. From there Menu collected four more podiums in the closing rounds and took second in the title race behind Gabriele Tarquini.
In 1995 Williams F1 took over the running of the Renault team, and Will Hoy became his team-mate. Menu qualified third for the opener at Donington Park and finished second in the race. He then took pole at the first Thruxton round and held on for a narrow win over John Cleland.
His 1995 season mixed mid-season podiums with a retirement at Silverstone. He finished the championship second, after three consecutive wins at the end of the year lifted him back up the standings.
In 1996 Menu's main rival was Audi Sport UK, which ran a four-wheel-drive car driven by Frank Biela. Menu finished third, behind his team-mate Hoy and Biela. Menu took pole at Brands Hatch, but Biela got ahead at the start and kept the position to the flag.
At the next Brands Hatch meeting he won both races, giving Renault its first win of the season, and he won twice more later in the year. He finished second in the championship, 92 points behind Frank Biela.
Renault's car was at its peak in 1997, and Menu opened the year with four straight victories. Jason Plato joined the team as the Renault Spider champion. Menu won twelve races that year, a record Ashley Sutton later equalled 26 years on.
Nescafe's backing came to the team in 1998, and Plato stayed on as team-mate. With the Laguna less dominant, Menu took three victories, the first in the year's second race at Thruxton.
What were his Ford years and BTCC return like?
Menu switched to Ford in 1999, the same season that 1998 runner-up Anthony Reid left Nissan. The Ford Mondeo was not competitive that year, and Menu ended the championship eleventh, winning once at Knockhill.
In 2000 he won his second title with Ford, beating his team-mates Anthony Reid and Rickard Rydell. No Ford driver took the title again until Ash Sutton did so 23 years later.
The 2000 season was the last of the BTCC in its earlier form. The championship had been losing entrants since 1998, with three works teams and only twelve championship contenders, compared with nine teams and more than twenty contenders in 1995.
A 2001 relaunch brought new regulations, yet only two manufacturers signed up, and most headline drivers, Menu included, walked away.
In October 2007 Menu agreed to a single appearance in the series he is most linked with, returning for the final Thruxton round in a Vauxhall Vectra run by VX Racing. The aim was to support Fabrizio Giovanardi's title push.
On 27 January 2014 Team BMR announced that he would return to the BTCC in a Volkswagen CC. The car was a new breed of touring car, and Menu struggled to find the right set-up. He finished tenth in the standings, with podiums at Rockingham and Silverstone.
By 2015 he was no longer a race driver for Team BMR, but he stayed on the roster as a driver coach. He worked as a coach for drivers in the British Touring Car Championship and in two junior categories.
What did his DTM and sports car years bring?
Between 2001 and 2003 he drove Opel machinery in the DTM, a high-tech German series. In a 2004 interview he called those years not very good. Results were modest, with ninth-place championship finishes in 2002 and 2003 as his best.
Alongside the DTM, Prodrive gave him sports car outings at Le Mans and Sebring. He also took one victory in the FIA GT Championship and one in the American Le Mans Series.
In 2001 he finished 21st in the DTM and won one race in the FIA GT Championship in a Ferrari 550 Maranello. In 2002 an engine failure ended his Le Mans run in the same car.
In 2003 he finished ninth in the DTM and won his class at Petit Le Mans. In 2004 he finished fourth in class and eleventh overall at Le Mans, and he also finished second in the BTCC Masters Race at Donington Park.
How did his WTCC years with Chevrolet go?
Menu drove for Chevrolet's RML team on the global stage from 2005 to 2012. He won the first outright FIA world championship victory for Chevrolet in 2006, and he finished second in the 2012 standings, twelve points behind Huff.
In 2005 the team did not expect to win, and Menu collected only three points finishes. His best result was sixth at Spa-Francorchamps, and his team-mate was the equally respected Nicola Larini.
The breakthrough came in 2006. On 21 May, in a very wet event at Brands Hatch, Menu took the second race of the day, and that victory was Chevrolet's first outright win in the series.
The 2007 season was his strongest in terms of wins at the time, with sixth overall and five victories in the Lacetti. In 2008 he finished ninth with three wins, and the team later moved on to the Cruze.
The Chevrolet Cruze arrived in 2009. Menu took his first win with it at the Race of France, having started from the reversed-grid pole, and he won again at Brands Hatch later in the year. The season ended with him tenth in the standings.
He stayed with Chevrolet for 2010 alongside Huff and Yvan Muller. His only win that year came in the opening race at Germany, and the season finished sixth in the standings.
In 2011 Menu finished third in the championship with five wins. In 2012 he collected six victories and finished second overall. He also closed the year with a victory at Macau, in the season that brought his best WTCC championship position.
Chevrolet announced it was ending its WTCC programme just before the Race of Brazil in 2013, which left its drivers without seats for that year.
What else did Menu race after Chevrolet?
With no WTCC seat available, he switched to the Porsche Supercup for 2013, racing for FACH Auto Tech. Some sources claimed that the team was his own, but he said that was untrue. Sponsorship problems meant he completed just one race that season.
He also raced in other categories over his career. In 1995 he drove for Renault in the Italian Superturismo Championship, where a new Magneti Marelli system affected the engine at the final round and ended his race early.
At the Paul Ricard round of the FIA Touring Car World Cup, he qualified seventh for Race 1, the only car outside the Audi and BMW ranks in the top nine. He retired from Race 1 with a mechanical problem and finished fifth in Race 2.
A 2006 round of Argentina's TC2000 series, the 200 km de Buenos Aires, went to Menu in a Chevrolet Astra shared with Matias Rossi. Readers of Motorsport Magazine ranked him fourth on their 2005 all-time list of touring car drivers.
What were Menu's results season by season?
| Year | Series | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | BTCC | Ninth with a BMW 3 Series, despite half a season |
| 1993 | BTCC | Tenth, with one win at Donington |
| 1994 | BTCC | Second, with two wins in the Renault Laguna |
| 1995 | BTCC | Second, with seven wins |
| 1996 | BTCC | Second, with four wins |
| 1997 | BTCC | Champion, with twelve wins |
| 1998 | BTCC | Fourth, with three wins |
| 1999 | BTCC | Eleventh, with one win at Knockhill |
| 2000 | BTCC | Champion, with six wins in the Ford Mondeo |
| 2005 | WTCC | 16th, with the Chevrolet Lacetti |
| 2007 | WTCC | Sixth, with five wins |
| 2008 | WTCC | Ninth, with three wins |
| 2009 | WTCC | Tenth, with two wins in the Cruze |
| 2011 | WTCC | Third, with five wins |
| 2012 | WTCC | Second, with six wins, twelve points behind Huff |
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