Neil Cunningham

Neil Cunningham started the 2004 Le Mans 24-hour race on a Morgan Aero 8

Neil Cunningham (born June 12, 1962 in Auckland , † May 24, 2016 ) was a New Zealand car racing driver and stuntman .

Racing career

Neil Cunningham started motorsport in the 1980s. He competed in touring car races in his home country and in 1981 drove a Holden Commodore VC in the Australian championship . In the mid-1980s he settled in the United Kingdom , where he competed in Formula Ford . In 1990 he moved to Formula Renault , was the Monopostokarriere but in the following years due to lack of financial resources can not continue.

He was successful in European touring car and sports car racing . In 1996 he won the overall classification of the Eurocar V6 Championship and from 1998 drove regularly in the British GT Championship . In 2003 he became a works driver at Morgan Motor and also drove their Aero 8 in the FIA GT championship . At the 2004 Le Mans 24-hour race , the Aero was the favorite of the tens of thousands of British spectators. The Morgan achieved a time of 4: 24.080 minutes in qualifying and was 53 seconds slower than the fastest Audi R8 of Jamie Davies , Johnny Herbert and Guy Smith . That meant last place on the grid, almost three seconds behind the second slowest GT2 car. In the race, the Morgan was not rated because it was too short

In 2005, Cunningham won the GT2 class of the British GT Championship in a Porsche 996 GT3-RSR from Embassy Racing and was second overall in the 2008 Silverstone 24-hour race in his last race .

Stuntman

After the end of his driving career, he worked as a vehicle tester at Top Gear and as a stuntman . Among other things, he was one of the stunt drivers in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace .

Sickness and death

In 2010, Neil Cunningham was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , an incurable degenerative disease of the motor nervous system from which British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking also suffered. Until his death, Cunningham was active in charity events that raised funds for research to cure the disease. He was supported time and again by fellow drivers, including the then Formula 1 driver Mark Webber , with whom he was close friends. He died in May 2016 as a result of the disease.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2004	Morgan Works Race Team	Morgan Aero 8R	Adam Sharpe	Steve Hyde	not classified
2006	Barazi epsilon	Courage C65	Michael Vergers	Juan Barazi	Rank 21

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2004	Morgan Works Race Team	Morgan Aero 8	Adam Sharpe	Keith Ahlers	Rank 19

Web links

• Neil Cunningham at the Driver Database
• Neil Cunningham at Racing Sports Cars
• On the death of Neil Cunningham
• About Neil Cunningham

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Australian Touring Car Championship 1981
2. ↑ Eurocar V6 Championship 1996
3. ↑ British GT Championship 2005
4. ↑ 2008 Silverstone 24 Hours