Former F1 team boss Walkinshaw passes away

Former Arrows team boss and owner Tom Walkinshaw has died of lung cancer aged 64.

The sad news about the Scot broke on the Twitter network, with former driver Mark Blundell paying tribute to the "good driver and team owner, RIP".

It was later confirmed by the professional English rugby club Gloucester, which was owned by its Scottish-born chairman Walkinshaw.

His career began as a driver and Walkinshaw rose as high as Formula 2. He later established his TWR racing empire and in 1991 entered F1 as Benetton’s engineering director.

He bought 50 per cent of the Ligier team in 1995 and the Arrows team in 1997, until it collapsed financially in 2002.

In recent years he has been involved in the Australian touring car series V8 Supercars.

Racing career

Walkinshaw began racing in 1968, starting in an MG Midget, before moving on to a Lotus Formula Ford car. The following year he won the Scottish FF1600 title at the wheel of a Hawke. In 1970 he entered the British Formula Three championship with Lotus. He later moved to the March ’works’ team, where he broke his ankle in a racing accident. Continuing his career despite this setback, he drove in many classes, including Formula 5000 and Formula Two.

Ford hired Walkinshaw to drive a Capri on the British Touring Car Championship circuit in 1974. This resulted in him winning his class that year. In 1976 Walkinshaw established Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR), continuing to drive for his own team. In 1984 he won the European Touring Car Championship in a Jaguar XJS.

In 1985, Walkinshaw teamed up with Jaguar and entered a three-car team in the Bathurst 1000 touring car endurance race in Australia. The pairing of John Goss and Armin Hahne won the race, while Walkinshaw himself placed third, driving alongside Win Percy.

Walkinshaw retired from driving after 1988 to concentrate on the management of TWR’s increasing motorsports portfolio.

Team management

In 1975 Walkinshaw established Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR), a group whose business was the manufacture and design of racing and road cars. TWR ran touring car programmes in the mid 1970s and early 1980s. In 1983 the TWR team took an amazing eleven wins in eleven races in the British Saloon Car Championship running Rover Vitesses, before being stripped of the title for a technical infringement. TWR also ran a Jaguar XJ-S ETCC touring car programme before taking on their World Sportscar Championship programme. In six years the programme won Le Mans twice and the World Championships three times.

In 1991 Walkinshaw was recruited as Engineering Director of the Benetton F1 team which subsequently won the 1994 Formula One World Championship. He was involved in the recruitment of Michael Schumacher by Benetton after the German’s Formula One debut with the Jordan team. As Engineering Director, his role also came under scrutiny when the team was investigated for suspected technical infringements during the 1994 season, including the potential use of banned electronic aids and unauthorised modifications to the refuelling apparatus used on the cars. Although illegal software was found in the Benettons, the FIA had no evidence that it had ever been used in a race and no action was taken against the team.

For 1995 Walkinshaw bought 50% of the Ligier team from Benetton team principal Flavio Briatore. His intention was to take over the team completely, but he was unable to purchase 100% of the team and therefore pulled out of the deal. Instead he bought the Arrows team, achieving a coup for the 1997 Formula One season by recruiting reigning world champion Damon Hill to his squad.

1997 saw Walkinshaw voted Autocar Man of the Year. By this stage the TWR Group employed 1500 employees in the UK, Sweden, Australia and the United States. At the time, Tom was also Managing Director of Arrows Grand Prix International.

His TWR racing group went into liquidation in 2002 after the Arrows team ran out of money. This led to the Australian arm of the operation being bought by Holden Australia. However, since the V8 Supercar Championship forbids a manufacturer owning a race team, Holden had to divest the teams assets and sell the Holden Racing Team to lead driver Mark Skaife, and K-Mart Racing (later HSV Dealer Team) to John and Margaret Kelly (the parents of V8 Supercar drivers Todd and Rick).

In 2005 Tom Walkinshaw returned to the V8 Supercars Australia and began a new relationship with his former teams, HSV Dealer Team and Holden Racing Team, helping lead Holden to its first series win since 2002 through driver Rick Kelly (2006) and Garth Tander (2007). In late 2006 Walkinshaw Performance brought the small Australian sports car manufacturer Elfin Cars. In 2007 Walkinshaw Performance acquired a 50% stake in the Holden Racing Team, and in 2008 fully re-acquired the team from Skaife Sports. 2009 saw the debut of Walkinshaw Racing a two car operation known individually as Bundaberg Red Racing and Team Autobarn.

With Wikipedia