Peter Whitehead
Nation: | United Kingdom | ||||||||
Automobile world championship | |||||||||
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First start: | Monaco Grand Prix 1950 | ||||||||
Last start: | 1954 British Grand Prix | ||||||||
Constructors | |||||||||
1950–1951 Peter Whitehead • 1951 Ferrari , Graham Whitehead, GA Vandervell • 1952–1953 Peter Whitehead • 1953 Atlantic Stable • 1954 Peter Whitehead | |||||||||
statistics | |||||||||
World Cup balance: | World Cup ninth ( 1950 ) | ||||||||
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World Cup points : | 4th | ||||||||
Podiums : | 1 | ||||||||
Leadership laps : | - |
Peter Whitehead (born November 12, 1914 in Menston , Yorkshire , England , † September 21, 1958 , Lasalle , France ) was a British racing driver . Among other things, he took part in Formula 1 and sports car races.
Life
The wealthy landowner and wool merchant was considered one of the last pure gentlemen's drivers who only competed in races for pleasure - albeit with success.
In 1934 he was seen at the wheel of a Riley 9 , the following year he won the mountain race "Dancer's End Hill Climb" on a Alta , 1936 but already in his favorite race car, an ERA Type B again, the same race. Incidentally, he shared this preference with Prince Bira , who also remained loyal to this brand for a long time. After two third places at the Donington Grand Prix and Brooklands , he dared to start in distant Australia in 1938 in order to chase his little car over the slopes at the Grand Prix there at the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst in such a disrespectful manner that the audience and the competition only amazement remained.
The Second World War also marked a turning point in Whitehead's driving pleasure. But in 1946 the audience saw him win the Prescott hill climb on his favorite black ERA again.
Thereupon he decided to replace the already outdated model with a new, but unfortunately technically immature 1.5-liter ERA-E , which he quickly regretted because he won the Isle of Man Trophy, the unofficial English championship, the necessary horsepower was missing and he “only” took second place. Logically, the “mad farmer” survived an accident at the airport race in Croydon in 1948 with only serious injuries.
At this point, he had long since decided to swap the unpopular ERA-E model for an Italian racing car. After his recovery, he made up his postponed trip to Milan in 1949 , where he surprisingly bought a 1.5-liter Ferrari 125 . This made him the only private driver who wanted and could afford such a vehicle.
With his latest achievement, he won the Masaryk Grand Prix in Brno , Czechoslovakia , on September 25, 1949 , although it should be noted that this race was already held according to the technical regulations of next year's first Formula 1 World Championship. Second at the Goodwood Grand Prix , fourth at the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps and finally third at the French Grand Prix in Reims , so Whitehead could be more than satisfied with his new acquisition and confident about the coming season could see.
During the automobile world championship in 1950 it was again the race in Reims , where he knew how to shine. He was already in the lead with the 12-cylinder racer, which distributed its 1.5-liter displacement among cylinders the size of a shot glass, when a gearbox defect forced him to slow down. Nevertheless, he was still on the podium as third behind Juan Manuel Fangio and Luigi Fagioli (both Alfa Romeo ) - albeit two laps behind. In the final statement of the year, he finished ninth with four points.
The following season, 1951 , Whitehead played again on the model from the previous year, but quickly exchanged it for the better type 375F1 V12 , just like Ferrari itself . As a wealthy gentleman driver, the farmer never afforded to go to a works team or order works cars , but he clearly enjoyed it. In that season, however, for lack of luck, he was unable to survive against the armada of Alfa Romeo and Ferrari factory racing drivers, who had already taken almost all of the placements from each other. Overall, 1951 was a disappointing year for all private drivers and smaller teams. In return, Whitehead held with the victory on the side of Peter Walker at the 24-hour race at Le Mans on a Jaguar 120 C XK harmless. He also took third place in the non-World Championship Grands Prix of Rouen and Bordeaux .
The following two years saw Whitehead due to the overwhelming dominance of the works teams in the nearby Formula 2 , in which an Alta -F2 / 4 and a Ferrari 125 V12 F2 collected good placements.
However, his greatest success in those years was the 12-hour race in Reims behind the wheel of a Jaguar D-Type , together with Ken Wharton, and thus celebrated the first victory of a Jaguar D-Type. In general, Whitehead was considered an excellent driver and co-pilot in long-distance races for sports cars. He drove with Ian Stewart in the victory of the Goodwood 9-hour race , and with Ken Wharton in the 1954 victory.
Between 1954 and 1957 Peter Whitehead tried again sporadically with a Cooper -T24- Alta and a Ferrari in races of the respective drivers' world championship, but as in 1953 either the engine or other technical defects made success impossible for him. Several second and third places in races in New Zealand and Australia as well as winning the “Wakefield Trophy” in Ireland on a Cooper-Jaguar were his last successful stations.
Despite his calm and reliable driving style, he too met the typical death of a racing driver of that era . With his half-brother Graham Whitehead , who was considered a reliable copilot in endurance races, he drove the Tour de France for automobiles in a Jaguar . On September 21, 1958 , after dark, Graham was driving the car when the car broke through a rotten bridge railing in Lasalle near Nîmes , crashed into a ravine and buried Peter under it on impact.
His colleagues described Whitehead as "calm as ten Englishmen (...) extremely reliable (...) with a good shot of subtle humor" who, despite his wealth and sporting success, had retained a natural modesty.
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 | Peter Whitehead | Ferrari 125 | Ferrari 1.5 V12s | 2 | - | - | 1 | - | - | 4th | 9. |
1951 | Peter Whitehead | Ferrari 125 | Ferrari 1.5 V12s | 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
GA Vandervell | Ferrari 375 Thinwall | Ferrari 4.5 V12 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | |||
1952 | Peter Whitehead | Alta F2 | Alta 2.0 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
Ferrari 125 | Ferrari 1.5 V12 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | ||||
1953 | Atlantic stable | Cooper T24 | Alta 2.5 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
1954 | Peter Whitehead | Cooper T24 | Alta 2.5 L4 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | NC |
total | 10 | - | - | 1 | - | - | 4th |
Single results
season | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1950 | |||||||||
DNS | 3 | 7th | |||||||
1951 | |||||||||
DNF | DNF | 9 | DNF | ||||||
1952 | |||||||||
DNF | 10 | DNQ | |||||||
1953 | |||||||||
9 | |||||||||
1954 | |||||||||
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 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1950 | Peter Walker | Jaguar XK 120S | John Marshall | Rank 15 | |
1951 | Jaguar Cars Ltd. | Jaguar XK 120GS | Peter Walker | Overall victory | |
1952 | Jaguar Cars Ltd. | Jaguar C-Type | Ian Stewart | failure | Cylinder overheated |
1953 | Jaguar Cars Ltd. | Jaguar C-Type | Ian Stewart | Rank 4 | |
1954 | Jaguar Cars Ltd. | Jaguar D-Type | Ken Wharton | failure | Gearbox damage |
1955 | Cooper Car Company | Cooper T38 | Graham Whitehead | failure | Oil leak |
1957 | David Brown | Aston Martin DBR2 / 370 | Graham Whitehead | failure | Gearbox damage |
1958 | Graham & Peter Whitehead | Aston Martin DB3S | Graham Whitehead | Rank 2 |
Individual results in the sports car world championship
season | team | race car | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | 6th | 7th |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1953 | jaguar | Jaguar C-Type | SEB | MIM | LEM | SPA | ONLY | RTT | CAP |
4th | DNF | ||||||||
1954 | jaguar | Jaguar D-Type | BUA | SEB | MIM | LEM | RTT | CAP | |
DNF | 6th | ||||||||
1955 |
Cooper Peter Whitehead |
Cooper T38 | BUA | SEB | MIM | LEM | RTT | TAR | |
DNF | DNF | ||||||||
1956 | Graham Whitehead | Jaguar D-Type | BUA | SEB | MIM | ONLY | KRI | ||
6th | |||||||||
1957 | Peter Whitehead Aston Martin |
Aston Martin DB3S Aston Martin DBR2 |
BUA | SEB | MIM | ONLY | LEM | KRI | CAR |
9 | DNF | ||||||||
1958 | Graham Whitehead | Aston Martin DB3S | BUA | SEB | TAR | ONLY | LEM | RTT | |
8th | 2 |
Web links
- Peter Whitehead on gpracing.net192.com ( Memento from April 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Whitehead, Peter |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English Formula 1 racing driver |
DATE OF BIRTH | November 12, 1914 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Menston , Yorkshire |
DATE OF DEATH | September 21, 1958 |
Place of death | Lasalle , France |