Perry McCarthy

Perry McCarthy 2003 at Le Mans

Perry McCarthy (born March 3, 1961 in London , United Kingdom ) is a former British racing driver who was active in Formula 1 in 1991 and 1992 .

Career

In 1991 McCarthy was a test driver for Footwork Grand Prix International. For the 1992 season he was registered for the Andrea Moda Formula team, but could not qualify for any race and was largely crushed between the rules of Formula 1 during the period. The team had started the season with Alex Caffi and Enrico Bertaggia , whereby the team was excluded before the first race because of a controversial decision about the assessment as a new team; the team management saw Andrea Moda Formula as the successor to Coloni, from which the cars were also taken over. After the restart with cars developed by Simtek for BMW, Roberto Moreno and Perry McCarthy were signed on.

While Moreno was often slowed down by technology, McCarthy was unable to compete in the first race because he was refused entry due to a missing racing license. Another driver change was no longer possible at that time - a team was only allowed to make two driver changes per season - so McCarthy, who later got a racing license, had to stay on the team. McCarthy's car served as a replacement for Moreno rather than himself during the season, so he never got a chance to seriously compete even in pre-qualifying. However, Moreno's successes were also limited: only once - in Monte Carlo - he was able to qualify for a race; he fell out in the last place after eleven laps.

The Andrea Moda team was finally excluded from the Formula 1 World Championship at the Belgian Grand Prix because the team boss was arrested, which also ended Perry McCarthy's Formula 1 career. In the following years he competed in Le Mans several times. McCarthy only rarely competed in single-seater races; In 1996, for example, he competed in some races of the British Formula 3000 Championship .

From 2002 to 2003, the racing driver Perry McCarthy slipped into the role of Black Stig in the television series Top Gear .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1996	Société Viper Team ORECA	Chrysler Viper GTS-R	Dominique Dupuy	Justin Bell	failure	Engine failure
1997	David Price Racing	Panoz Esperante GTR-1	David Brabham	Doc Bundy	failure	Wagon fire
1999	Audi Sport UK	Audi R8C	Andy Wallace	James Weaver	failure	Engine failure
2002	Team DAMS	Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S	Marc Duez	Jérôme Policand	failure	Main shaft
2003	Audi Sport UK	Audi R8	Frank Biela	Mika Salo	failure	fuel pump

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1992	Tom Milner Racing	Intrepid RM-1	Les Delano		failure	Gearbox damage
1999	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi R8R	Emanuele Pirro	Frank Biela	Rank 5
2003	Audi Sport UK	Audi R8	Mika Salo	Jonny Kane	Rank 6

Web links

• Perry McCarthy at Racing Sports Cars