Leslie Johnson

Leslie Johnson

Nation:	United Kingdom
Automobile world championship
First start:	Great Britain Grand Prix 1950
Last start:	Great Britain Grand Prix 1950
Constructors
1950  TASO Mathieson
statistics
World Cup balance:	no World Cup placement
Starts Victories Poles SR 1 - - -
World Cup points :	-
Podiums :	-
Leadership laps :	-

Leslie George Johnson (born March 22, 1912 Walthamstow , † June 8, 1959 in Foxcote ) was a British car racing driver and racing team owner.

life and career

Leslie Johnson was born in Walthamstow, London. Two years before the outbreak of World War I , this district was one of the poorest in the British capital. Johnson's father was a carpenter who died soon after opening his own business. As a teenager, the young Johnson took over the management of the company with his mother. The people-friendly and unprejudiced way of running the company thanked him with great loyalty. This community spirit was the key to the joinery’s success and laid the basis for the motorsport activities of the Londoner.

He belonged to the illustrious circle of racing drivers who competed in the first world championship run in Formula 1 history . A defective compressor prematurely stopped his ambition at the 1950 British Grand Prix in Silverstone . Johnson had already driven the ERA E-Type in car races in the late 1940s.

Johnson had already taken over ERA as the new owner in 1947 and drove car races only for pleasure. Surprisingly, he had his greatest successes in motorsport almost exclusively with vehicles from competing companies.

In 1948 he won the Spa-Francorchamps 24-hour race together with John Horsfall in an Aston Martin DB1 . A year later he finished second in this long-distance classic. In 1950 he was third in the Tourist Trophy and fifth in the Mille Miglia . In 1952 he shared a Nash-Healey with fellow countryman Tommy Wisdom at the Le Mans 24-hour race and came third in the overall standings.

• 

  Aston Martin DB1 Spa

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  Rear view

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  cockpit

At the 1954 Monte Carlo Rally , Johnson suffered several heart attacks from which he was never able to fully recover. He died in 1959. Johnson was married to the widow of the French racing driver Pierre Maréchal , who had a fatal accident at the first 24-hour race at Le Mans after the Second World War in 1949 .

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	TASO Mathieson	ERA E-Type	ERA 1.5 L6s	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
total				1	-	-	-	-	-	-

Single results

season	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1950
	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
1949	Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd.	Aston Martin DB2	Charles Brackenbury	failure	No radiator water
1950	Leslie Johnson	Jaguar XK120S	Bert Hadley	failure	Clutch damage
1951	Clemente Biondetti	Jaguar XK120	Clemente Biondetti	failure	Oil pump
1952	Donald Healey Motor Company	Nash-Healey 4 liter	Tommy Wisdom	3rd place and class win
1953	Nash-Healey Inc.	Nash-Healey Sports	Bert Hadley	Rank 11

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th
1953	Leslie Johnson Nash-Healey	Jaguar C-Type Nash-Healey Sport	SEB	MIM	LEM	SPA	ONLY	RTT	CAP
				DNF	11

literature

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

Web links

Commons : Leslie Johnson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Leslie Johnson at Racing Sports Cars