Peter Whitehead

Peter Whitehead

Nation:	United Kingdom
Automobile world championship
First start:	Monaco Grand Prix 1950
Last start:	1954 British Grand Prix
Constructors
1950–1951 Peter Whitehead • 1951 Ferrari , Graham Whitehead, GA Vandervell • 1952–1953 Peter Whitehead • 1953 Atlantic Stable • 1954 Peter Whitehead
statistics
World Cup balance:	World Cup ninth ( 1950 )
Starts Victories Poles SR 10 - - -
World Cup points :	4th
Podiums :	1
Leadership laps :	-

Peter Whitehead (born November 12, 1914 in Menston , Yorkshire , England , † September 21, 1958 , Lasalle , France ) was a British racing driver . Among other things, he took part in Formula 1 and sports car races.

Life

The wealthy landowner and wool merchant was considered one of the last pure gentlemen's drivers who only competed in races for pleasure - albeit with success.

In 1934 he was seen at the wheel of a Riley 9 , the following year he won the mountain race "Dancer's End Hill Climb" on a Alta , 1936 but already in his favorite race car, an ERA Type B again, the same race. Incidentally, he shared this preference with Prince Bira , who also remained loyal to this brand for a long time. After two third places at the Donington Grand Prix and Brooklands , he dared to start in distant Australia in 1938 in order to chase his little car over the slopes at the Grand Prix there at the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst in such a disrespectful manner that the audience and the competition only amazement remained.

The Second World War also marked a turning point in Whitehead's driving pleasure. But in 1946 the audience saw him win the Prescott hill climb on his favorite black ERA again.

Thereupon he decided to replace the already outdated model with a new, but unfortunately technically immature 1.5-liter ERA-E , which he quickly regretted because he won the Isle of Man Trophy, the unofficial English championship, the necessary horsepower was missing and he “only” took second place. Logically, the “mad farmer” survived an accident at the airport race in Croydon in 1948 with only serious injuries.

At this point, he had long since decided to swap the unpopular ERA-E model for an Italian racing car. After his recovery, he made up his postponed trip to Milan in 1949 , where he surprisingly bought a 1.5-liter Ferrari 125 . This made him the only private driver who wanted and could afford such a vehicle.

With his latest achievement, he won the Masaryk Grand Prix in Brno , Czechoslovakia , on September 25, 1949 , although it should be noted that this race was already held according to the technical regulations of next year's first Formula 1 World Championship. Second at the Goodwood Grand Prix , fourth at the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps and finally third at the French Grand Prix in Reims , so Whitehead could be more than satisfied with his new acquisition and confident about the coming season could see.

During the automobile world championship in 1950 it was again the race in Reims , where he knew how to shine. He was already in the lead with the 12-cylinder racer, which distributed its 1.5-liter displacement among cylinders the size of a shot glass, when a gearbox defect forced him to slow down. Nevertheless, he was still on the podium as third behind Juan Manuel Fangio and Luigi Fagioli (both Alfa Romeo ) - albeit two laps behind. In the final statement of the year, he finished ninth with four points.

The following season, 1951 , Whitehead played again on the model from the previous year, but quickly exchanged it for the better type 375F1 V12 , just like Ferrari itself . As a wealthy gentleman driver, the farmer never afforded to go to a works team or order works cars , but he clearly enjoyed it. In that season, however, for lack of luck, he was unable to survive against the armada of Alfa Romeo and Ferrari factory racing drivers, who had already taken almost all of the placements from each other. Overall, 1951 was a disappointing year for all private drivers and smaller teams. In return, Whitehead held with the victory on the side of Peter Walker at the 24-hour race at Le Mans on a Jaguar 120 C XK harmless. He also took third place in the non-World Championship Grands Prix of Rouen and Bordeaux .

The following two years saw Whitehead due to the overwhelming dominance of the works teams in the nearby Formula 2 , in which an Alta -F2 / 4 and a Ferrari 125 V12 F2 collected good placements.

However, his greatest success in those years was the 12-hour race in Reims behind the wheel of a Jaguar D-Type , together with Ken Wharton, and thus celebrated the first victory of a Jaguar D-Type. In general, Whitehead was considered an excellent driver and co-pilot in long-distance races for sports cars. He drove with Ian Stewart in the victory of the Goodwood 9-hour race , and with Ken Wharton in the 1954 victory.

Between 1954 and 1957 Peter Whitehead tried again sporadically with a Cooper -T24- Alta and a Ferrari in races of the respective drivers' world championship, but as in 1953 either the engine or other technical defects made success impossible for him. Several second and third places in races in New Zealand and Australia as well as winning the “Wakefield Trophy” in Ireland on a Cooper-Jaguar were his last successful stations.

Despite his calm and reliable driving style, he too met the typical death of a racing driver of that era . With his half-brother Graham Whitehead , who was considered a reliable copilot in endurance races, he drove the Tour de France for automobiles in a Jaguar . On September 21, 1958 , after dark, Graham was driving the car when the car broke through a rotten bridge railing in Lasalle near Nîmes , crashed into a ravine and buried Peter under it on impact.

His colleagues described Whitehead as "calm as ten Englishmen (...) extremely reliable (...) with a good shot of subtle humor" who, despite his wealth and sporting success, had retained a natural modesty.

statistics

Statistics in the automobile world championship

general overview

season	team	chassis	engine	run	Victories	Second	Third	Poles	nice Race laps	Points	WM-Pos.
1950	Peter Whitehead	Ferrari 125	Ferrari 1.5 V12s	2	-	-	1	-	-	4th	9.
1951	Peter Whitehead	Ferrari 125	Ferrari 1.5 V12s	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC
	GA Vandervell	Ferrari 375 Thinwall	Ferrari 4.5 V12	1	-	-	-	-	-
1952	Peter Whitehead	Alta F2	Alta 2.0 L4	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC
		Ferrari 125	Ferrari 1.5 V12	1	-	-	-	-	-
1953	Atlantic stable	Cooper T24	Alta 2.5 L4	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC
1954	Peter Whitehead	Cooper T24	Alta 2.5 L4	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC
total				10	-	-	1	-	-	4th

Single results

season	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9
1950
		DNS				3	7th
1951
	DNF			DNF	9		DNF
1952
				DNF	10			DNQ
1953
						9
1954
					DNF

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1950	Peter Walker	Jaguar XK 120S	John Marshall	Rank 15
1951	Jaguar Cars Ltd.	Jaguar XK 120GS	Peter Walker	Overall victory
1952	Jaguar Cars Ltd.	Jaguar C-Type	Ian Stewart	failure	Cylinder overheated
1953	Jaguar Cars Ltd.	Jaguar C-Type	Ian Stewart	Rank 4
1954	Jaguar Cars Ltd.	Jaguar D-Type	Ken Wharton	failure	Gearbox damage
1955	Cooper Car Company	Cooper T38	Graham Whitehead	failure	Oil leak
1957	David Brown	Aston Martin DBR2 / 370	Graham Whitehead	failure	Gearbox damage
1958	Graham & Peter Whitehead	Aston Martin DB3S	Graham Whitehead	Rank 2

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1953	jaguar	Jaguar C-Type	SEB	MIM	LEM	SPA	ONLY	RTT	CAP
					4th			DNF
1954	jaguar	Jaguar D-Type	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	CAP
						DNF	6th
1955	Cooper Peter Whitehead	Cooper T38	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	TAR
						DNF	DNF
1956	Graham Whitehead	Jaguar D-Type	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
							6th
1957	Peter Whitehead Aston Martin	Aston Martin DB3S Aston Martin DBR2	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	LEM	KRI	CAR
						9	DNF
1958	Graham Whitehead	Aston Martin DB3S	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
						8th	2

Web links

Commons : Peter Whitehead  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Peter Whitehead on gpracing.net192.com ( Memento from April 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )