- Michael Bentwood
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Michael Bentwood (born 10 January 1978 and based in Altrincham) is a British auto racing driver. After starting racing in Karting, he entered the 1994 Formula First Winter Series, finishing the season in tenth. In 1995 he finished fifth in the Formula Vauxhall Junior Winter Series. He then spent four years between 1997-2000 in the British Formula 3 Class A Championship where he finished the highest placed British driver in the year 2000; winning the Raymond Mays Trophy and the BRDC Spencer Charrington Trophy. This was followed in 2001 with a drive in the Euro Formula 3000 Series where he finished the season in twelfth place with a handful of top six finishes.
He first drove in the BTCC in 2003, racing in a BMW 320I for Edenbridge Racing. He finished the season third in class with a number of wins, in what was the championships final year of the production class. With only one class in 2004, he continued racing in the BTCC in a four year old Vauxhall Astra Coupe for VX Racing Junior with Techspeed. In the Independents Championship he placed seventh, and thirteenth in the overall standings with a couple of wins in the Independents and a number of podiums in the main championship.
In 2005 he raced in the British GT Championship in a Nissan 350Z for RJN Motorsport. That year also drove in the Britcar 24 Hour race at [[Silverstone Circuit] in a Lotus Elise Sport. He dove in selected rounds in 2006, in a Barwell Motorsport ran Aston Martin DBRS9, as well as some rounds in the FIA GT3 Championship. He finished twelfth in the 2007 season, which included one race win. He stayed with an Aston Martin DBRS9 in 2008 for the 22GT Racing Team with a pole position at Thruxton and a number of podium finishes sharing the car with Tom Alexander, Adrian Wilmot and Andy Jenkinson. In the same year, he also worked with Prodrive developing the latest Traction Control software for their GT3 customer cars and drove at Classic Le Mans with Tom Alexander in a 1959 DB4 GT.
In 2009 he drove for RPM Motorsport in a Ford GT in selected races sharing with Philip Walker. For 2010 he returned to the Aston Martin DBRS9 with Barwell Motorsport sharing the car with Paul Whight. They finished joint seventeenth in the championship with a couple of third places but did not complete the whole championship. He also drove at the Merdeka millennium 12-hour race at the Sepang F1 circuit again in an Aston Martin DBRS9 with drivers Frank Yu and Alain Li. They finished in fifth place and Michael was the highest placed British driver in the highest placed British car.
He has rarely completed a whole season but has been a regular front runner finishing on the podium in most categories including Formula 3, Touring cars and GT racing.
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