Richard Westbrook

Richard Westbrook

Richard Westbrook in the Prospeed Porsche at Hungaroring 2009

Richard Westbrook (born July 10, 1975 in Chelmsford ) is a British automobile racing driver .

Career

Richard Westbrook began his motorsport career in karting in 1986 . In 1990 he became British champion. In 1993 he took part in Formula First , Formula Renault and the Formula Vauxhall winter series , in which he was runner-up. In the following two years he drove in the Formula Opel Euroseries and reached fourth championship place twice. In 1996 he played half a season in the Austrian Formula 3 Championship and in the German Formula 3 Championship . In 1999 he was a test driver in Formula 3000 .

After a three-year break in motorsport, Westbrook switched from formula vehicles to sports cars and in 2002 took part in individual races in the Porsche Supercup . From 2003 he started in the British Porsche Carrera Cup and was runner-up in his first season with nine race wins. A year later he took the title with seven wins. Despite 13 victories, he failed to defend his title in 2005 and was runner-up again. Westbrook also took part in the Porsche Supercup again and finished ninth in the championship with two race wins. In 2006 he had his breakthrough in the Porsche Supercup: he came on the podium in every race, celebrated four race wins and won the championship early. Westbrook also contested a few races in the British Porsche Carrera Cup, in which one race could win, and in the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany , in which he was victorious three times. In 2007, now driving for the HISAQ Competition team , he was only twice at the top of the Porsche Supercup podium, but successfully defended his title. In the German Porsche Carrera Cup he was runner-up after five race victories. In the same year Westbrook contested his first race in the United States. He was fourth in the race at 6 hour Watkins Glen and also attended, among others, with Richard Lietz at the 24 Hours of Daytona in part. There he first took pole position in the GT class and was well ahead of the field in the beginning of the race, but was later thrown back by a brake change and thus only finished the race second in its category.

In the 2008 season, Westbrook was a works driver for Porsche and drives a Porsche 997 GT3 RSR . He contested the FIA GT Championship , the Le Mans Series and some races in the American Le Mans Series . In every championship he was able to celebrate at least one class win. He finished second in the GT class again at the Daytona 24-hour race. At the 24-hour race at Spa-Francorchamps , he drove together with Marc Lieb and Emmanuel Collard to sixth overall and second in the GT2 class. In the HISAQ Competition team , he took part in the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring with Emmanuel Collard, Marino Franchitti and Frank Stippler , but dropped out after taking the lead. In the course of the downsizing of the works driver squad, Westbrook's contract with Porsche was not renewed in 2009, but remained loyal to the make and after a year break drove again in the Porsche Supercup for the Jetstream Motorsport team , where he was champion in 2006. He also competed for VICI Racing in the American Le Mans Series and for Prospeed Competition in the FIA ​​GT Championship. He won this alone because Porsche ordered his team-mate Emmanuel Collard to start for Brixia Racing at the last race in Zolder in order to increase the probability of winning. Westbrook and Marco Holzer won the last championship run in their class, but Collard was only sixth. Westbrook commented on the situation after the race: "I won the title, he is now only third in the championship. Under these circumstances I can't really look forward to the title, I hope it might come tomorrow."

For the 2010 season it was initially planned that Westbrook would start for Prospeed in the FIA GT2 European Championship and for JMW Motorsport in an Aston Martin V8 Vantage in the Le Mans Series. With the cancellation of the European Championship, Prospeed also switched to the Le Mans Series and Westbrook decided in favor of the Belgian Porsche team.

successes

• 1990: British kart champion
• 2004: British Porsche Carrera Cup champion
• 2006: Porsche Supercup Champion
• 2007: Porsche Supercup Champion
• 2009: GT2 champion of the FIA ​​GT championship

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2010	BMS Scuderia Italia SpA	Porsche 997 GT3 RSR	Timo Scheider	Marco Holzer	Rank 14
2011	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Oliver Gavin	Jan Magnussen	failure	accident
2012	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Oliver Gavin	Tommy Milner	not classified
2013	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R-ZR1	Oliver Gavin	Tommy Milner	Rank 23
2014	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C7.R	Oliver Gavin	Tommy Milner	Rank 18
2016	Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA	Ford GT	Ryan Briscoe	Scott Dixon	Rank 20
2017	Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA	Ford GT	Ryan Briscoe	Scott Dixon	Rank 23
2018	Ford Chip Ganassi Racing	Ford GT	Ryan Briscoe	Scott Dixon	Rank 39
2019	Ford Chip Ganassi Racing USA	Ford GT	Ryan Briscoe	Scott Dixon	Rank 24

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2011	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6-ZR1	Oliver Gavin	Jan Magnussen	Rank 14
2012	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1	Oliver Gavin	Tommy Milner	Rank 20
2013	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Oliver Gavin	Tommy Milner	15th place and class win
2014	Spirit of Daytona Racing	Chevrolet Corvette DP	Michael Valiante	Mike Rockenfeller	Rank 29
2015	VisitFlorida.com Racing	Chevrolet Corvette DP	Michael Valiante	Mike Rockenfeller	Rank 3
2016	Ford Chip Ganassi Racing	Ford GT	Ryan Briscoe	Scott Dixon	Rank 14
2017	Ford Chip Ganassi Racing	Ford GT	Ryan Briscoe	Scott Dixon	Rank 10
2018	Ford Chip Ganassi Racing	Ford GT	Ryan Briscoe	Scott Dixon	Rank 13
2019	Ford Chip Ganassi Racing	Ford GT	Ryan Briscoe	Scott Dixon	Rank 15

Web links

Commons : Richard Westbrook  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Private website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Oliver Rutschke: http://www.speedweekmagazin.com/news/8072/Der-traurige-Champion.html  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Status: October 26, 2009  
2. ↑ Oliver Runschke: http://www.speedweek.de/news/10509/Prospeed-in-der-LMS.html Status: March 10, 2010