- Rob Walker Racing Team
Former F1 team
Short_name = Rob Walker Racing
Long_name = R.R.C. Walker Racing Team
Base =Dorking ,Surrey ,UK
Founders =Rob Walker
Staff =
Drivers = flagicon|UKStirling Moss
flagicon|FRAMaurice Trintignant
flagicon|SWEJo Bonnier
flagicon|SUIJo Siffert
flagicon|UKGraham Hill
Constructors = Connaught
Cooper
Lotus
FergusonBrabham
Engines =
Debut =1953 British Grand Prix
Races = 124
Cons_champ =
Drivers_champ =
Wins = 9
Poles = 10
Fastest_laps = 9
Last race =1970 Mexican Grand Prix Rob Walker Racing Team was a privateer team in
Formula One during the 1950s and 1960s. Founded byJohnnie Walker heir Rob Walker in 1953, the team became F1's most successful privateer in history, being the first and last entrant to win a Formula One Grand Prix, without ever building their own car.Beginnings
Walker founded his team in 1953, debuting in the
Lavant Cup Formula 2 race, entering a Connaught for driverTony Rolt , where he achieved a third place. The next race, at Snetterton,Eric Thompson was the first winner with a Rob Walker car. Between Rolt and Thompson, the Rob Walker Racing Team had an auspicious debut season, with eight wins in British club racing series. Their international debut was at theRouen Grand Prix , a mixed F1/F2 race, withStirling Moss 's Cooper-Alta, who managed to take 4th place among the F2 cars. The1953 British Grand Prix was Walker's first World Championship outing, but Rolt's Connaught did not last the full distance.Walker, who entered his cars in Scottish national colours (blue with a white stripe, instead of the more common
British Racing Green ), continued to race in British club events in the following years. From 1954 to 1956, Walker made a few scattered appearances, only winning a Formula 2 race atBrands Hatch in 1956 withTony Brooks . Walker returned full time in 1957 with an F2 Cooper-Climax. Tony Brooks, who shared driving duties during the season withJack Brabham andNoel Cunningham-Reid , won the Lavant Cup, but the team failed to finish most of its races.Internationalization
In 1958, Rob Walker abandoned club racing and concentrated only on the large international events. Pre-WWII veteran
Maurice Trintignant was signed full time, with Moss and Brooks racing when they were free from theirVanwall commitments. The season started well enough for the team, with Moss and Trintignant winning at Argentina and Monaco, the first wins for a Cooper chassis. Those would be the only World Championship victories, but Trintignant also triumphed at Pau and Auvergne, while Moss took the victory at theBARC 200 ,Caen Grand Prix andKentish 100 .Moss and Trintignant remained with the team for 1959, with the British driver winning at the
Glover Trophy in Goodwood, but for the French and British GP races, he left Walker for his father'sBritish Racing Partnership outfit, where he failed to score. Moss returned in theGerman Grand Prix , where he retired, but returned to winning form in Portugal, Italy andInternational Gold Cup . Trintignant's best score was second place at theUS Grand Prix .Walker decided to concentrate solely on Moss and switched to a Lotus in 1960, starting from Monaco, which Moss won, the first time a Lotus won a Formula 1 race. Moss would triumph only at the non-championship International Gold Cup in
Oulton Park and the US GP atRiverside , but still managed to finish the season in third place overall, as had happened the previous year. After the end of the season, in December, Walker took Moss to two South African races, which he won.In 1961, F1 adopted the new 1.5 L engine regulations, and Walker flirted with the idea of building his own chassis [cite book| last = Lawrence | first = Mike | title = Grand Prix Cars 1945-65 | publisher = Aston Publications | date = 1989 | pages = p264 | isbn = 0-946627-46-0] , but retained the Lotus 18 for the season. Moss won the non-championship races at Goodwood (this one in the 2.5 L
Intercontinental Formula andVienna , as well as the Monaco and German Grands Prix. At the1961 British Grand Prix , Rob Walker Racing became the first team ever to enter afour-wheel drive car for a World Championship Grand Prix, when they entered theFerguson P99 on behalf ofFerguson Research . Moss later won that season'sOulton Park International Gold Cup race in the same car; to date, this is the only win ever recorded by a four-wheel drive car in a Formula One event.The post-Moss era
The 1962 season started well enough, with the returning Trintignang winning at Pau, but Walker's plans were shook when Moss had an accident at the Glover Trophy driving a BRP-entered BRM, finishing his career. Walker had planned to enter a Ferrari for the British driver in the World Championship, but was forced to retain Trintignant, the elder French driver becoming increasingly uncompetitive, not scoring a single championship point. The year's misfortunes continued in Mexico and South Africa, where Walker saw drivers Ricardo Rodriguez and
Gary Hocking die at the wheel of his cars.Rob Walker changed strategy for 1963, employing
Jo Bonnier and returning to the Cooper chassis (the Swede had raced for Walker at Oulton Park the previous year), but once more results were sparse and mechanical failures frequent. Still, the team beefed up its operations for 1964, first with a new Cooper (with which Bonnier was second at Snetterton) and then with aBrabham -BRM, with Bonnier and other guest drivers driving at several World Championship events. From the Italian GP, Walker had decided to run two cars, a BT11 chassis with BRM power, and a BT7 chassis with Climax power. In 1965,Jo Siffert partnered Bonnier, and although the more experienced Swede was fastest, it was the Swiss who managed to score 5 championship points. With constant mechanical failure plaguing him, Bonnier's best result was a third place at the non-championshipRace of Champions .With the new 3.0 L regulations starting in 1966, Bonnier left Walker to restart
Ecurie Bonnier , and Siffert remained alone with Walker, with theMaserati -enginedCooper T81 . The car was uncompetitive in 1967, and in 1968 Walker, now partnered with entrepreneurJack Durlacher , purchased aCosworth -poweredLotus 49 . That year, Siffert won the British Grand Prix through attrition, after the works Lotii retired, and Siffert overpoweredChris Amon to take what would be Rob Walker's final win.Siffert left the team at the end of 1969, after finishing the year in 9th place, and Rob Walker Racing Team competed for the last time in 1970, entering a
Lotus 72 for driverGraham Hill , who was now 40 years old, and refused to retire after a major accident in the previous year with Lotus. Hill's best score was a 4th placement at the Spanish GP, but left to join Brabham at the end of the year.Instead of continuing with the team, Rob Walker took his Brooke Bond Oxo sponsorship to
Surtees for the 1971 season, and took to managingMike Hailwood 's career. The last vestiges of Rob Walker Racing Team ended in 1974 when he retired from active participation in motorsports at the age of 57.Rob Walker also gained some measure of recognition as a motorsports journalist, covering Formula 1 events for
Road & Track magazine. Beginning with a report on the Italian Grand Prix in 1967, Walker wrote race reports, annual reviews, and historical articles for "Road & Track" well into the 1990s. Considered one of the elder statesmen of Grand Prix racing, Walker died at the age of 84 in 2002, ofpneumonia [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/1958822.stm News report about Rob Walker's death] .References
* [http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/cref-walrob.html Grand Prix Encyclopedia]
* [http://www.formula2.net/index.html F2 & Le Mans Register]External links
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