Derek Warwick

Derek Stanley Arthur Warwick (born 27 August 1954) is a British former racing driver from England, who lives in Jersey. He raced for many years in Formula One, but never won a Grand Prix. 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. He is president of the British Racing Drivers Club, succeeding Damon Hill.

Early life and career
Warwick was born in Alresford, Hampshire, England. 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. 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 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. Warwick had a mainly dismal 1983 season in the Toleman car, but bounced back, scoring points in the final four rounds of the championship.

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. 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 tally. 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.

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

Sports and Touring cars


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.

Complete Formula One results
(key) $†$ Driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance.

Complete British Touring Car Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 1 point awarded 1996 onwards all races) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) ( * signifies that driver lead feature race for at least one lap – 1 point awarded in 1998 only)

Complete Porsche Supercup results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) † Not eligible for points due to being a guest driver.

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.