Tiff Needell

Tiff Needell

Nation:	United Kingdom
Automobile world championship
First start:	1980 Belgian Grand Prix
Last start:	1980 Belgian Grand Prix
Constructors
1980  Unipart Racing Team
statistics
World Cup balance:	no World Cup placement
Starts Victories Poles SR 1 - - -
World Cup points :	-
Podiums :	-
Leadership laps :	-

Timothy Richard "Tiff" Needell (born October 29, 1951 in Havant ) is an English racing driver and television presenter .

Motorsport career

Tiff Needell began his motorsport career in Formula Ford and secured the title in the British 1600 cc championship in 1975. In 1976 he had to be satisfied with second place overall in the championship of the 2000 cc vehicles. After a year in Formula 3 and first Formula 1 attempts in the Aurora series , Needell contested his only world championship run in 1980. At the Belgian Grand Prix in Zolder he drove a factory Ensign N180 , but retired with engine failure.

After a detour to the Japanese Formula 2 Championship , he became one of the top drivers in Group C in the 1980s and 1990s . Needell drove in all major sports car races like the 24 Hours of Le Mans , the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring .

Television career

After the end of his racing activities, Needell worked as a motorsport journalist. He still practices this profession today.

Needell is best known here as one of the presenters of the BBC car magazine Top Gear , which he accompanied as co-presenter from 1987. After the program was discontinued in 2001 (Top Gear was relaunched with a new team of moderators in 2002), Needell was involved in a new program called Fifth Gear until 2019 , which competes with today's Top Gear program.

The highlights of Needell in the programs are u. a. driving the supercars McLaren F1 , Mercedes SLR , Ferrari Enzo and Bugatti Veyron .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1981	Ian Bracey	Ibec P6	Tony Trimmer		failure	Cylinder overheated
1982	Nimrod Racing Automobiles	Nimrod NRA / C2	Bob Evans	Geoff Lees	failure	Engine failure
1983	Emka Productions Ltd.	Emka C83 / 1	Steve O'Rourke	Nick Faure	Rank 17
1984	Porsche Kremer Racing	Porsche 956	David Sutherland	Rusty French	Rank 9
1985	Emka Productions Ltd.	Emka C84 / 1	Steve O'Rourke	Nick Faure	Rank 11
1987	Toyota Team Tom's	Toyota 87C-L	Masanori Sekiya	Kaoru Hoshino	failure	Cylinder overheated
1988	Tom's Team Toyota	Toyota 88C	Hitoshi Ogawa	Paolo Barilla	Rank 24
1989	Richard Lloyd Racing	Porsche 962C GTI	James Weaver	Derek Bell	failure	Wagon fire
1990	Alpa Racing Team	Porsche 962C	Anthony Reid	David Sears	Rank 3
1991	Porsche Kremer Racing	Porsche 962CK	Gregor Foitek	Tomas Lopez	failure	accident
1992	ADA engineering	Porsche 962C GTI	Justin Bell	Derek Bell	Rank 12
1995	PC Automotive Jaguar	Jaguar XJ220	James Weaver	Richard Piper	failure	malfunction
1996	Newcastle United Lister	Lister Storm GTL	Anthony Reid	Geoff Lees	Rank 19
1997	Newcastle United Lister	Lister Storm GTL	George Fouché	Geoff Lees	failure	accident

literature

• Steve Small: Grand Prix Who's Who. 3rd edition. Travel Publishing, Reading 2000, ISBN 1-902007-46-8 .

Web links

Commons : Tiff Needell  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Tiff Needell at Motorsport Magazine

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/tiff_tv/status/1171067840700571648