Ricardo Londoño

Ricardo Londoño-Bridge (born August 8, 1949 in Medellín , † July 18, 2009 in Córdoba ) was a Colombian racing car driver .

Londoño-Bridge gained a certain degree of notoriety in motorsport circles due to the fact that although he took part in free practice for a single Formula 1 race, he was not allowed to start the race itself. In the UK, he is therefore referred to as the man who "narrowly missed a Formula 1 start".

Career

Londoño-Bridge raced motorcycle and stock car races in Colombia in the 1970s. Little information is available on this.

Endurance racing

In 1979 he took part in races outside his home country for the first time, using a Porsche 935 in two races in the IMSA GT series. Londoño-Bridge made his debut at the 12 Hours of Sebring , where he was eliminated; at the following 250-mile race in Daytona , he finished 18th.

At the beginning of 1980 Londoño-Bridge was registered for the 24-hour race of Daytona , which he (with his co-drivers) finished in seventh overall. This was followed by a deployment at the Sebring 12-hour race, in which he and Mauricio de Narváez finished 26th.

Can-Am

While his long-distance engagement was of a sporadic nature, Londoño-Bridge took part in the Can-Am Championship of 1980 with some regularity . He entered his own team, Londoño Bridge Racing , and started the season with a Lola T530 with a Chevrolet eight-cylinder. He started nine races and was one of the first ten drivers to cross the finish line in six of them. The best result was a fifth place in Mosport, Canada . Londoño-Bridge finished the season with five championship points in twelfth place.

Aurora F1 Championship

After completing his Can-Am engagement, Londoño-Bridge made the leap to Europe. His first appearance was in the Aurora F1 Championship , a British racing series that was advertised for both Formula 1 and Formula 2 vehicles. Colin Bennett Racing entered him for the final race of the season. The Colombian received a used Lotus 78 that had repeatedly been involved in serious accidents in the course of previous races. In practice he qualified 18th (11 seconds behind Emilio de Villota's pole time ), and even some Formula 2 cars managed to position themselves in front of Londoño-Bridge. Londoño-Bridge finished the race in seventh place.

formula 1

The following year Londoño-Bridge had the opportunity to get involved in Formula 1. The deal was brokered by Colin Bennett, last year's team boss of the Colombian, who had become a minority owner of the financially troubled racing team Ensign Racing in early 1981 . At the beginning of the Formula 1 World Championship in 1981, Ensign needed another injection of funds, which Londoño-Bridge was prepared to make.

After the British team competed in the first race of the season with Swiss driver Marc Surer , they entered the second world championship round, the Brazilian Grand Prix on the Jacarepagua circuit in Rio de Janeiro , with Riccardo Londoño-Bridge as the only driver.

For the first time since 1978, the racetrack, located right by the sea, hosted the Brazilian Grand Prix. So that the drivers could get to know the racetrack, the FIA had some so-called acclimatization laps carried out on the Wednesday before the race, March 25, 1981. Londoño-Bridge took part in this event for the Ensign team, although his super license had not yet been confirmed. On his fastest lap, the Colombian was a good four seconds slower than Carlos Reutemann in the Williams , who set the fastest time.

The following day, the FIA ​​refused to issue a super license to Ricardo Londoño-Bridge. Apart from the subtle - if not extremely bad - driving performance in the acclimatization event, the Colombian’s lack of experience with monoposti was cited as a reason. Ensign then used Marc Surer again for qualifying training and the race , who qualified as 18th and ultimately finished fourth.

There was no further involvement in Formula 1 for Londono-Bridge.

More races

After his Formula 1 attempt, Londoño-Bridge started repeatedly, but not continuously, in some IMSA races between 1981 and 1985, using different vehicles.

In the second half of the European Formula 2 season in 1981 , there was also the opportunity to drive some races in the (European) Formula 2 championship. In three races, Docking Spitzley Racing , a team that emerged from Toleman's Formula 2 program, fielded a third car for Londoño-Bridge, an outdated Toleman TG280 with a Hart engine . In his first outing, the Grand Prix de Pau , he started last and crossed the finish line in ninth. At the Gran Premio del Mediterraneo in Enna-Pergusa, Sicily, and in Spa-Francorchamps , he started from midfield, but was canceled due to technical problems.

Vita

Ricardo Londoño-Bridge ended his motorsport career in the fall of 1985. There are few sources on his activities after his involvement in motorsport. An American press release from the 1990s reports that he traded yachts, airplanes and helicopters in Colombia. In 2000 Londoño-Bridge had to cede a large part of its assets, which were supposedly to be estimated at 10 million US dollars, to the Colombian state; The background was the allegation that he had acquired his fortune from the drug trade.

Londoño was killed in a shooting in Colombia in 2009.

statistics

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1979	Ricardo Londoño	Porsche 935	John Gunn	George Garces	failure	malfunction
1980	de Narváez Enterprises	Porsche Carrera RSR	Mauricio de Narváez		failure	malfunction
1983	Holly Racing	Phoenix JG1	John Gunn		failure	Engine failure

literature

• Adriano Cimarosti: The Century of Racing . Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01848-9

Web links

• Biography of Londoño-Bridge on the website www.f1rejects.com
• Aurora series statistics website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Former Formula 1 driver shot dead , Motorsport-total.com, July 20, 2009