Didier Braillon

Didier Braillon died on Friday, October 30, 2026, aged 75, from pancreatic cancer after a long illness. L'Équipe published a tribute by Jérôme Bourret, head of its motorsport section, on October 31, noting that he had been in palliative care and was still asking about the result of the United States Grand Prix the previous weekend. AUTOhebdo, Ouest-France and Auto Journal's F1i also reported his death. His funeral was to be held privately with a very small circle, according to his wishes.

Few details of Didier Braillon's early life have been published. Reports of his death gave his age as 75, placing his birth around 1951. He was a lifelong motorsport enthusiast whose detailed knowledge of Formula 1 opened the door to his first job in journalism.

Braillon was recruited in 1977 by Étienne Moity, editor of AUTOhebdo, the weekly launched by Michel Hommell in February 1976. He joined the magazine's F1 section, working alongside Éric Bhat and Patrick Camus, and covered the Grands Prix through the 1978 season. In 1979 he moved to Grand Prix International, a monthly also launched by Hommell.

He then spent a period as communications officer for the Larrousse Formula 1 team before returning to journalism at AutoMag. He was part of the daily Le Sport in 1987 and 1988 and of Course Auto, a weekly offshoot of L'Équipe, in 1990 and 1991.

In March 1991 he joined L'Équipe, succeeding Johnny Rives as the paper's Formula 1 specialist. He covered the championship for nearly 25 years, until October 2014, with forays into endurance racing and rallying, and was regarded as one of the leading French writers on the sport.

Braillon was married to Judit. After retiring they travelled extensively, and he eventually settled between Málaga and Marbella on Spain's Costa del Sol, where he spent much of his time. Colleagues described him as a lover of the travelling life that Formula 1 had given him, and he told L'Équipe he was grateful for a career that had let him meet the sport's best drivers and engineers.

Braillon is remembered as one of the significant French chroniclers of Formula 1 in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries, carrying L'Équipe's coverage through the eras of Senna, Prost and Schumacher. Tributes described him as a great writer on the sport whose encyclopedic knowledge and enthusiasm never faded.