Rob Walker Racing Team
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Full name | R.R.C. Walker Racing Team |
---|---|
Base | Ferguson Brabham |
Race victories | 9 |
Pole positions | 10 |
Fastest laps | 9 |
Final entry | 1970 Mexican Grand Prix |
Rob Walker Racing Team was a privateer team in Formula One during the 1950s and 1960s. Founded by Johnnie Walker heir Rob Walker (1917–2002) in 1953, the team became F1's most successful privateer in history, being the first and (along with FISA team) only entrant to win a World Championship Formula One Grand Prix without ever building their own car.
Beginnings
Born in 1917, the 35-year-old Rob Walker founded his team in 1953, debuting in the
Walker, who entered his cars in Scottish national colours (blue with a white stripe, instead of the more common British racing green), continued to race in British club events in the following years. From 1954 to 1956, Walker made a few scattered appearances, only winning a Formula 2 race at Brands Hatch in 1956 with Tony Brooks. Walker returned full-time in 1957 with an F2 Cooper-Climax. Tony Brooks, who shared driving duties during the season with Jack Brabham and Noel Cunningham-Reid, won the Lavant Cup, but the team failed to finish most of its races.
Internationalization
In 1958, Rob Walker abandoned club racing and concentrated only on the large international events. Pre-WWII veteran
Moss and Trintignant remained with the team for 1959, with the British driver winning at the
Walker decided to concentrate solely on Moss and switched to a Lotus in 1960, starting from Monaco, which Moss won, the first time a Lotus won a Formula 1 race. Moss would triumph only at the non-championship International Gold Cup in Oulton Park and the US GP at Riverside, but still managed to finish the season in third place overall, as had happened the previous year. After the end of the season, in December, Walker took Moss to two South African races, which he won.
In 1961, F1 adopted the new 1.5 L engine regulations, and Walker flirted with the idea of building his own chassis,[1] but retained the Lotus 18 for the season. Moss won the non-championship races at Goodwood in the 2.5 L Intercontinental Formula and Vienna, as well as the Monaco and German Grands Prix. At the 1961 British Grand Prix, Rob Walker Racing became the first team ever to enter a four-wheel drive car for a World Championship Grand Prix, when they entered the Ferguson P99 on behalf of Ferguson Research. Moss later won that season's Oulton Park International Gold Cup race in the same car; to date, this is the only win ever recorded by a four-wheel drive car in a Formula One event.
The post-Moss era
The 1962 season started well enough, with the returning Trintignant winning at Pau, but Walker's plans were shaken when Moss had an accident at the Goodwood Glover Trophy meeting driving a
Rob Walker changed strategy for 1963, employing
With the new 3.0 L regulations starting in 1966, Bonnier left Walker to restart Ecurie Bonnier, and Siffert remained alone with Walker, with the Maserati-engined Cooper T81. The car was uncompetitive in 1967, and in 1968 Walker, now partnered with entrepreneur Jack Durlacher, purchased a Cosworth-powered Lotus 49. That year, Siffert won the British Grand Prix through attrition, after the works Lotuses retired, and Siffert overpowered Chris Amon to take what would be Rob Walker's final win.
Siffert left the team at the end of 1969, after finishing the year in 9th place, and Rob Walker Racing Team competed for the last time in 1970, entering a Lotus 72 for driver Graham Hill, who was now 40 years old, and refused to retire after a major accident in the previous year with Lotus. Hill's best score was a 4th placement at the Spanish GP, but he left to join Brabham at the end of the year.
Walker after Walker Racing
Retirement from racing
Instead of continuing with the team, Rob Walker took his Brooke Bond Oxo sponsorship to Surtees for the 1971-73 seasons, and took to managing Mike Hailwood's career. The last vestiges of Rob Walker Racing Team ended in 1974 when he retired from active participation in motorsports at the age of 57.
Journalism
Rob Walker also gained some measure of recognition as a motorsports journalist, covering Formula 1 events for Road & Track magazine. Beginning with a report on the Italian Grand Prix in 1967, Walker wrote race reports, annual reviews, and historical articles for Road & Track well into the 1990s.
Walker's death and legacy
Considered one of the elder statesmen of Grand Prix racing, Walker died at the age of 84 in 2002, of pneumonia.[3]
Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap; † indicates shared drive.)
£ Formula Two car
‡ Formula Two cars occupied fifth to tenth positions on the road in the 1969 German Grand Prix. However, as the Formula Two cars were technically competing in a separate race drivers of these cars were not eligible for championship points. The points for fifth and sixth were awarded to the drivers of the eleventh and twelfth placed cars.
Notes
- ISBN 0-946627-46-0.
- ^ Motor Sport, June 1962, Page 413.
- ^ "F1 legend Walker dies". BBC Sport. 29 April 2002. Retrieved 16 December 2014. News report about Rob Walker's death
References
External links
- Grand Prix History: Hall of Fame Rob Walker