A cosmopolitan mixture of Belgian, French and Luxembourgeois, Bertrand was the first driver to race under the flag of the European Community. Trained when in karting never to cede a corner to another driver, even if it meant crashing himself, he gained the reputation of being uncompromising. Bertrand was a contemporary of Mark Blundell, Damon Hill and Johnny Herbert in British Formula Ford in the mid-1980s, and he finished as the runner-up to Herbert in the 1987 British Formula Three Championship, before graduating to Formula 3000 and then straight on to Formula One in 1989.

Unfortunately, Bernard joined the Moneytron Onyx team and seldom qualified. An even worse year followed in 1990 when he drove the overweight, Subaru-powered Coloni. Salvation came in 1991, from Jordan. And all was going well, including fifth place in Canada, when Bertrand was jailed for spraying CS gas in the face of a London taxi driver. Back with Larrousse in 1992, he struggled through 1994 with Pacific as a shareholder of the team. He was forced to stand down when funds ran short in 1995.

Reproduced from The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Formula One published by Carlton Books