Derek Warwick

Derek Warwick

Born	27 August 1954 (1954-08-27) (age 57)
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	British
Active years	1981–1990, 1993
Teams	Toleman, Renault, Brabham, Arrows, Lotus, Footwork
Races	162 (147 starts)[1]
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	4
Career points	71
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	2
First race	1981 San Marino Grand Prix
Last race	1993 Australian Grand Prix
British Formula One Series career
Active years	1979
Races	1
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podium finishes	1
Career points	6
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0

Derek Stanley Arthur Warwick (born 27 August 1954) is a British former racing driver from England. He raced for many years in Formula One, but never won a Grand Prix. During the early 1980s he was thought more likely to achieve World Championship success than his contemporary Nigel Mansell, but a series of wrong career choices held him back. In 2005 and 2006 he raced in the inaugural season of the Grand Prix Masters formula for retired Formula One drivers. In 2010, Warwick served as the fourth steward for the Spanish and Hungarian Grands Prix. In 2011, Warwick served as the fourth steward for the 2011 Turkish Grand Prix. This role is given only to former racing drivers, who advise the stewards panel on incidents from a driver perspective.

Early life and career

Warwick was born in Alresford, Hampshire, England.^[2] He began his career in British stock car racing under the Spedeworth organisation at tracks such as his local Aldershot Stadium. He won the Superstox English Championship in 1971 (at the age of 16) and the World Championship at Wimbledon Stadium in 1973.^[3] His younger brother Paul also raced with some success in Superstox before progressing to Formula 3000, in which he was racing when killed in an accident in 1991.

He later won the 1978 British Formula Three Championship.

Formula One (1981–1993)

Warwick qualified third for Renault at the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix, but spun off after 10 laps.

Warwick began his Formula One career with the fledgling F1 team Toleman for the 1981 season. He managed to qualify for only one race, the season finale at Las Vegas.^[2] Warwick had a mainly dismal 1983 season in the Toleman car, but bounced back, scoring points in the final four rounds of the championship.^[1]

He joined Renault in 1984 after Alain Prost left them at the end of 1983. Warwick, expecting to have a race-winning car, led the Brazilian Grand Prix, his first drive for them, only to retire because of a suspension failure. He finished in second place in both the Belgian and British Grands Prix in 1984 and placed seventh in the championship.^[4] The turning point in Warwick's career was his decision to stay at Renault for 1985 and reject an offer to drive for Williams. (The seat was then offered to Nigel Mansell who, accepting the position, went on to win two races at the end of the season.) 1985 was a poor one for Renault and the team withdrew from Formula One at the end of the year. Renault's withdrawal, and Ayrton Senna's refusal to let Warwick join him as team mate at Lotus, left Warwick without a team for the 1986 season. Following the death of Elio de Angelis in a testing accident in May, however, Warwick was invited to take his place at Brabham.

In 1987, Warwick moved to the Arrows team, ending the season with 3 points scored. The 1988 season saw an improvement on the Arrows performance due to the powerful Megatron engine and Warwick finished 7 times in the top 6, earning him 17 points and a respectable 8th position in the championship. In 1989, victory eluded Warwick in two occasions. The first was in the Brazilian Grand Prix, when a disastrous pit-stop cost him more than the 17 seconds he finished behind winner Nigel Mansell. But the real heartbreak came in the Canadian Grand Prix, when Warwick drove superbly and was leading the wet race, only to have his Cosworth engine fail on lap 40. Reliability issues plagued Warwick's season and cost him good finishes in other races as well, resulting in only 7 points for the season, the last of his 3 years at Arrows.

For the 1990 season, 4 years after Senna's veto, Warwick finally drove for Lotus. But the glory days of that team were over and Warwick ended the season with a meagre 3 points. His greatest achievement of the season happened at the 1990 Spanish Grand Prix where his team mate Martin Donnelly suffered a severe crash leaving Warwick to help morale at the team by qualifying in the top 10 only for the gearbox to fail 10 laps from the end. Following a 3 year sabbatical, Warwick returned to Formula One in 1993 to drive for Footwork, but managed to score only 4 points. He ended his career with a total of 71 Grand Prix points.^[2]

Some consider Derek Warwick to be the best Formula One driver never to win a single race.^[1]

Sports and Touring cars

Warwick driving for Vauxhall in the 1998 British Touring Car Championship.

Warwick also competed successfully in sports car racing, winning the World Sportscar Championship in 1992, and was part of the Peugeot team which was victorious at the 24 hours of Le Mans race that year. He drove sports cars for Jaguar in 1986 and 1991.

Warick raced in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) after retiring from Formula One, driving for the Alfa Romeo works team in 1995. Despite the team's dominating the previous year, their car was underdeveloped this time, leading to a poor season. In the first race of the season he memorably crashed into a TV camera, an incident featured in the highlights screened by the BBC a week later, with commentator Murray Walker quipping that Warwick owed them £6,000 for the damage ("that'll be six grand please, Derek!"). After a year out of racing, he co-founded the 888 Racing team that took over the running of the works Vauxhall 1997 BTCC entry, as well as owning three car dealerships in Southampton and Jersey. Originally set to be team principal, it was decided he would drive one of the cars alongside established Vauxhall driver John Cleland, winning a wet race at Knockhill in 1998. He retired from racing at the end of the year, but continued his involvement in the team for another 3 years.

Warwick now writes his F1 blog on the Sports social network champions365.com and operates a Honda franchise in Jersey.^[5]

Racing record

Complete Formula One results

(key)

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	WDC	Points
1981	Candy Toleman Motorsport	Toleman TG181	Hart S4 (t/c)	USW	BRA	ARG	SMR DNQ	BEL DNQ	MON DNPQ	ESP DNQ	FRA DNQ	GBR DNQ	GER DNQ	AUT DNQ	NED DNQ	ITA DNQ	CAN DNQ	CPL Ret		NC	0
1982	Candy Toleman Motorsport	Toleman TG181C	Hart S4 (t/c)	RSA Ret	BRA DNQ	USW DNPQ	SMR Ret	BEL Ret	MON DNQ	DET	CAN	NED Ret	GBR Ret	FRA 15	GER 10	AUT Ret	SUI Ret			NC	0
		Toleman TG183	Hart S4 (t/c)															ITA Ret	CPL Ret
1983	Candy Toleman Motorsport	Toleman TG183B	Hart S4 (t/c)	BRA 8	USW Ret	FRA Ret	SMR Ret	MON Ret	BEL 7	DET Ret	CAN Ret	GBR Ret	GER Ret	AUT Ret	NED 4	ITA 6	EUR 5	RSA 4		14th	9
1984	Equipe Renault Elf	Renault RE50	Renault V6 (t/c)	BRA Ret	RSA 3	BEL 2	SMR 4	FRA Ret	MON Ret	CAN Ret	DET Ret	DAL Ret	GBR 2	GER 3	AUT Ret	NED Ret	ITA Ret	EUR 11	POR Ret	7th	23
1985	Equipe Renault Elf	Renault RE60	Renault V6 (t/c)	BRA 10	POR 7	SMR 10	MON 5	CAN Ret	DET Ret	FRA 7										14th	5
		Renault RE60B	Renault V6 (t/c)								GBR 5	GER Ret	AUT Ret	NED Ret	ITA Ret	BEL 6	EUR Ret	RSA	AUS Ret
1986	Motor Racing Developments	Brabham BT55	BMW S4 (t/c)	BRA	ESP	SMR	MON	BEL	CAN Ret	DET 10	FRA 9	GBR 8	GER 7	HUN Ret	AUT DNS	ITA Ret	POR Ret	MEX Ret	AUS Ret	NC	0
1987	USF&G Arrows Megatron	Arrows A10	Megatron S4 (t/c)	BRA Ret	SMR 11	BEL Ret	MON Ret	DET Ret	FRA Ret	GBR 5	GER Ret	HUN 6	AUT Ret	ITA Ret	POR 13	ESP 10	MEX Ret	JPN 10	AUS Ret	16th	3
1988	USF&G Arrows Megatron	Arrows A10B	Megatron S4 (t/c)	BRA 4	SMR 9	MON 4	MEX 5	CAN 7	DET Ret	FRA Ret	GBR 6	GER 7	HUN Ret	BEL 5	ITA 4	POR 4	ESP Ret	JPN Ret	AUS Ret	8th	17
1989	USF&G Arrows	Arrows A11	Ford V8	BRA 5	SMR 5	MON Ret	MEX Ret	USA Ret	CAN Ret	FRA	GBR 9	GER 6	HUN 10	BEL 6	ITA Ret	POR Ret	ESP 9	JPN 6	AUS Ret	10th	7
1990	Camel Team Lotus	Lotus 102	Lamborghini V12	USA Ret	BRA Ret	SMR 7	MON Ret	CAN 6	MEX 10	FRA 11	GBR Ret	GER 8	HUN 5	BEL 11	ITA Ret	POR Ret	ESP Ret	JPN Ret	AUS Ret	14th	3
1993	Footwork Mugen-Honda	Footwork FA13B	Mugen-Honda V10	RSA 7	BRA 9															16th	4
		Footwork FA14	Mugen-Honda V10			EUR Ret	SMR Ret	ESP 13	MON Ret	CAN 16	FRA 13	GBR 6	GER 17	HUN 4	BEL Ret	ITA Ret	POR 15	JPN 14	AUS 10

Complete BTCC results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Car	1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		11		12		13		Position	Points
1995	Alfa Romeo Old Spice Racing	Alfa Romeo 155 TS	DON		BHI		THR		SIL		OUL		BHGP		DON		SIL		KNO		BHI		SNE		OUL		SIL		19th	15
			Ret	Ret	12	Ret	12	Ret	16	17	DNS	DNS	8	11	13	Ret	9		Ret	16	8	14	Ret	13	8	Ret	8	10
1997	Vauxhall Sport	Vauxhall Vectra	DON		SIL		THR		BHI		OUL		DON		CRO		KNO		SNE		THR		BHI		SIL				14th	33
			9	8	8	5	15	6	10	11	11	Ret	Ret	10	7	10	9	13	11	Ret	9	8	Ret	Ret	Ret	Ret
1998	Vauxhall Sport	Vauxhall Vectra	THR		SIL		DON		BHI		OUL		DON		CRO		SNE		THR		KNO		BHI		OUL		SIL		9th	70
			12	5	4	6*	13	8	11	13	11	Ret	DSQ	3	9	12	10	Ret	7	Ret	9	1*	Ret	14	10	5*	7	10

* Point awarded for leading the feature race for at least a lap.

Helmet

Warwick's helmet is blue with the entire chin area white and a white stripe running across the top, in the chin area there is a stripe on each side, his name written and a Union Jack.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Catania, Maximiliano (22 February 2005). "Derek Warwick in focus". Funo!. http://www.funof1.com.ar/tx/pi198104036_eng_maxi_.htm. Retrieved 22 March 2008. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} "DRIVERS: DEREK WARWICK". GrandPrix.com. http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/drv-warder.html. Retrieved 22 March 2008. 
3. ^ "EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Derek Warwick". Richard's F1. http://richardsf1.com/2011/03/13/exclusive-interview-derek-warwick/. Retrieved 26 August 2011. 
4. ^ "Renault Rockets – A history of Renault in F1". F1Network.net. http://www.f1network.net/main/s208/st18333.htm. Retrieved 22 March 2008. 
5. ^ http://www.jersey-honda.co.uk/showroom/

External links

Derek Warwick's F1 Blog on Champions365.com

• http://www.champions365.com/experts/derekwarwick/view
• Derek Warwick in focus

Sporting positions
Preceded by Stephen South	British Formula Three Championship BRDC Series Champion 1978	Succeeded by Chico Serra (Combined championship)
Preceded by Teo Fabi	World Sportscar Champion 1992 with: Yannick Dalmas	Succeeded by none
Preceded by Volker Weidler Johnny Herbert Bertrand Gachot	Winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1992 with: Yannick Dalmas Mark Blundell	Succeeded by Geoff Brabham Christophe Bouchut Eric Hélary
Preceded by Damon Hill	BRDC President 2011 – present	Incumbent
Awards
Preceded by John Watson	Hawthorn Memorial Trophy 1984	Succeeded by Nigel Mansell
Preceded by Nigel Mansell	Hawthorn Memorial Trophy 1988	Succeeded by Nigel Mansell
Preceded by Nigel Mansell	Autosport British Competition Driver of the Year 1992	Succeeded by Damon Hill

Persondata
Name	Warwick, Derek
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1954-08-27
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death