Innes Ireland

Former F1 driver
Name = Innes Ireland
Nationality = flagicon|UK British | Years = F1|1959 - F1|1966
Team(s) = Lotus, BRP, BRM
Races = 53 (50 starts)
Championships = 0
Wins = 1
Podiums = 4
Poles = 0
Fastest laps = 1
Points = 47
First race = 1959 Dutch Grand Prix
First win = 1961 United States Grand Prix
Last win = 1961 United States Grand Prix
Last race = 1966 Mexican Grand Prix
Le Mans drivers
Years = 24hLM|1958-24hLM|1959, 24hLM|1962-24hLM|1966
Team(s) = Team Lotus
Ecurie Ecosse
UDT-Laystall Racing Team
Aston Martin
Maranello Concessionaires
Alan Mann Racing
Comstock Racing
Best Finish = 6th (24hLM|1964)
Class Wins = 0

Robert McGregor Innes Ireland (b. 12 June 1930 – d. 22 October 1993), was a Scottish military officer, engineer, and motor racing driver. He was a larger-than-life character who, according to a rival team boss, "lived without sense, without an analyst and provoked astonishment and affection from everyone."Fact|date=April 2007

Ireland was born June 12, 1930 in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, England, the son of a Scottish veterinary surgeon. His family returned to Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and Galloway, in Scotland during his youth, and he trained as an engineer with Rolls-Royce, first in Glasgow and later in London. Commissioned as a lieutenant in the King's Own Scottish Borderers, he served with the Parachute Regiment in the Suez Canal Zone during 1953 and 1954.

Ireland's first serious year of auto racing was 1957, by which time he was running a small engineering firm in Surrey. Success in sports car racing saw him make his Formula One debut for Team Lotus in 1959. In 1960 he won three non-championship Formula One races and finished fourth in the World Drivers Championship. Badly injured in the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix, Ireland recovered to win the Solitude and Austrian Grand Prix races, then finished the season with a victory in the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.

Ireland upset Lotus Cars boss Colin Chapman and the team sponsors by giving up his car to Stirling Moss of the rival Rob Walker team at the 1961 Italian Grand Prix. This led to him being arbitrarily sacked at the end of the '61 season. Despite occasional successes, Ireland never again had a car to match his talent, and his last serious race was the Daytona 500 in 1967.

A talented writer, Ireland produced a classic autobiography, "All Arms and Elbows" (ISBN 0-85184-050-7), and worked as a journalist for the American Road & Track magazine, as well as skippering fishing trawlers in the North Atlantic. Towards the end of his life, he was elected president of the prestigious British Racing Drivers' Club, which post he still held at the time of his death from cancer on October 22, 1993, at Reading, Berkshire, England.

Complete Formula One World Championship results

() (Races in "italics" indicate fastest lap)

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/tredelyn An Innes Ireland fan site]