Charlie Whiting

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Charlie Whiting at the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix.

Charles "Charlie" Whiting (* 12. August 1952 in Sevenoaks , Kent , England ; † 14. March 2019 in Melbourne , Australia ) was a British motor sports official , who as race director of the FIA , safety officer and head of the technical department of Formula 1 worked . In this role, he also mainly coordinated the logistics of the Formula 1 races , inspected the cars in the Parc fermé before each Grand Prix , enforced the FIA ​​rules and operated the signaling system that starts every race.

Career

In his first career, he assisted his brother Nick in preparing touring and rally cars near the Brands Hatch Circuit , a motorsport circuit in England. In the mid-1970s, the brothers worked for the Formula 1 team Surtees for the racing driver Divina Galica . In the 1977 season , Whiting joined Hesketh Racing . After the team's demise, he moved to Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham Formula 1 team at Weybridge , where he stayed for the following decade and was chief mechanic since the success of Nelson Piquet , who became Formula 1 World Champion in 1981 and 1983 . He later rose to head technician while his brother Nick opened a motorsport parts shop near the Brands Hatch Circuit. Nick was murdered in 1990.

For the 1988 season , Whiting was appointed technical representative of Formula 1 and in 1997 he was appointed race director and safety officer of the FIA.

Whiting died of a pulmonary embolism on the Thursday before the 2019 Australian Grand Prix .

2005 USA Grand Prix

He was involved in a controversy during the 2005 United States Grand Prix when none of the tires Michelin brought to Indianapolis were safe to use. The French tire manufacturer was unable to produce new tires to replace the unsafe tires of its seven customers. Instead, Whiting was asked to have a new chicane built at Turn 13 of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway . He refused on the grounds that it was unfair to the other teams who were able to safely drive the existing route.

Web links

Commons : Charlie Whiting  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ La F1 rend hommage à son directeur de course, Charlie Whiting, mort à 66 ans ( French ) Nice Matin. March 14, 2019. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  2. ↑ SID : Formula 1 racing director Charlie Whiting is dead. T-online.de , March 14, 2019, accessed on March 14, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Kim Sengupta: Life and times of Britain's most infamous villain (The Independent). April 14, 2000, archived from the original on April 11, 2008 ; Retrieved September 25, 2011 (English).
  4. ^ Statement by Charlie Whiting. FIA.com, March 14, 2019, accessed March 14, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Dominik Sharaf: 2005: A US Grand Prix for Eternity. In: motorsport-total.com. October 28, 2014, accessed March 13, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Whiting, Charlie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Whiting, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British motorsport official
DATE OF BIRTH August 12, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH England
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 2019
Place of death Melbourne , Australia