Tim Harvey

Timothy James Harvey (born 20 November 1961) is a British racing driver, best known for being the

After leaving touring car racing, Harvey moved into the one-make Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain series; after two guest drives in 2003, including one victory, Harvey competed full-time from the 2004 season onwards. In seven full seasons in the championship, Harvey finished in the top four of the final championship standings in each season, and left the series after a class victory in the Porsche Carrera World Cup meeting at the Nürburgring,^[5] with a series record of 35 overall victories.^[6] Along with media commitments for television broadcaster ITV4, and their coverage of the British Touring Car Championship, Harvey currently competes in the British GT Championship; sharing a Porsche with Jon Minshaw, for the Trackspeed team.^[7]

BTCC career

Born in Farnborough, London, Harvey first raced in the BTCC in 1987, taking three Class A wins in a Rover Vitesse^[8] In 1988 and 1989 he dovetailed sports car racing with BTCC outings, before finishing third in Class A in 1989 and 1990.

He was 8th overall in 1991. His 1992 title was achieved while driving a BMW 318 coupe, run by

After a couple of years away, his last BTCC years were 2001 (8th overall in a JSM Alfa Romeo) and 10th in 2002 (reuniting with Vic Lee to drive one of his Peugeots, before quitting the series to pursue a media career). The Alfa Romeo 147 that Tim Harvey raced is now owned by Allitalia – an Independent Italian Auto Specialist based in North Wales.

Porsche Carrera Cup

He has raced in the Porsche Carrera Cup for several years, finishing second to Richard Westbrook in 2004^[10] and Damien Faulkner in 2006. In 2007, Harvey drove for Redline Racing in the new 997 Porsche GT3 in the British edition of the Carrera Cup. With stars such as Faulkner, Westbrook, Danny Watts and Richard Williams no longer competing, and Tim now in the top team of 2006, he started as title favourite, but finished up second again, by just four points behind James Sutton.

In 2008 he continued to battle for the title, making his 100th series start (from just 106 races in total). Tim won the Porsche Carrera Cup Drivers Championship, on 21 September at Brands Hatch.^[11] He holds series records for podium finishes and fastest laps. He finished third in 2009, taking his first win of the year in race 6 at Thruxton^[12] and a double win at Snetterton.^[13] He then opened 2010 with nine wins in the first ten races (by contrast, he took 4 wins en route to the 2008 title). He wrapped up the 2010 title with one race to spare at Brands Hatch on 9 October with a second-place finish behind Stephen Jelley to ensure that he could not be caught by championship runner up Michael Caine. Following a puncture in race 20 which saw Harvey fail to score points for the first time in the season, Harvey claimed the 2010 Porsche Carrera Cup GB Championship by 10 points, with 11 race wins (vs. Caine's 7).^[14] Harvey's two wins at Croft on 20 June saw him become the most successful driver in the history of the championship,^[15] with 33 race wins at the time (beating Richard Westbrook's 31 wins). He would end the season 4 clear, with 35 wins, and over 150 podiums.

At the end of May 2011, Harvey announced he was quitting the championship with immediate effect, citing difficulty in adapting to regulation changes as his motivation and allowing up and coming Kieran Vernon the opportunity to benefit from his seat in the Motorbase Performance car.^[16][17] He explained during the ITV4 coverage of the Oulton Park BTCC round on 5 June 2011 that he was not entirely retiring from racing and would be reappearing somewhere before long whilst continuing to commentate for ITV.

In what may have been his last Porsche race, Harvey won the Porsche Carrera Cup GB^[18] race held at a wet Nürburgring in Germany as part of the Porsche Carrera World Cup. Harvey finished 13th overall, ahead of a number of the faster Supercup models.

Other racing

Harvey has also been a prolific winner in sports cars. A distinguished career in international motorsport has given him a deep-seated knowledge of the business and substantial reserves of experience. A factory driver for

Harvey has also been a Touring car winner internationally, coming first in the Macau Grand Prix street race in 1989 and the Wellington International in 1994. He has successfully raced in Japan, Australia, South Africa and all over Europe.

On 19 June 2011, Tim won a Round of the

(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	DC	Pts
1984	Computervision Racing with Esso	MG Metro Turbo	MNZ	VAL	DON	PER	BRN	ZEL	SAL	NUR	SPA	SIL Ret	ZOL	MUG	NC	0
1988	John Maguire Racing	BMW M3	MNZ	DON	EST	JAR	DIJ	VAL	NÜR	SPA	ZOL	SIL Ret	NOG		NC	0

Complete British Touring Car Championship results

(key) Races in bold indicate pole position (1 point awarded all races 1996 onwards) Races in italics indicate fastest lap (1 point awarded – 1987–1990, 2001 onwards, 1987–1990 in class) (* signifies that driver lead feature race for at least one lap – 1 point awarded 1998 onwards)

1. ^  – Race was stopped due to heavy rain. No points were awarded.

‡ Endurance driver

Complete World Touring Car Championship 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	DC	Pts
1987	Team Istel	Rover Vitesse	MNZ	JAR	DIJ	NÜR	SPA	BNO	SIL Ret	BAT	CLD	WEL	FJI	NC	0

Complete Japanese Touring Car Championship results

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

Complete Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship 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	DC	Points
1994	Motorola Pagers Racing	BMW 318i	FUJ 1 17	FUJ 2 16	MAC 1 4	MAC 2 5	SEN 1 C	SEN 2 C	WEL 1 2	WEL 2 1	CLD 1 C	CLD 2 C	CHE 1 C	CHE 2 C	2nd	?

Complete Bathurst 1000 results

Year	Team	Co-driver	Car	Laps	Pos.
1997*	Esso Ultron Team Peugeot	Paul Radisich	Peugeot 406	70	DNF
1998*	Volvo S40 Racing	Jan Nilsson	Volvo S40	82	DNF

* Super Touring race

Le Mans 24 hours results

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
1988	Charles Ivey Racing Team Istel	Chris Hodgetts John Sheldon	Tiga GC287	C2	301	20th	3rd
1989	Spice Engineering	Thorkild Thyrring Wayne Taylor	Spice SE89C-Ford	C1	150	DNF	DNF
1990	Spice Engineering	Fermín Velez Chris Hodgetts	Spice SE90C - Ford	Gr.C1	308	18th	18th
1991	Euro Racing	Charles Zwolsman Cor Euser	Spice SE90C-Ford Cosworth	C1	72	DNF	DNF

Complete British GT results

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

† Not eligible for points as invitation driver.

References