Will Hoy

Will Hoy at Brands Hatch in 1995

Will Hoy with the Renault Laguna entered by Williams at Brands Hatch in 1995

1998 in the Ford Mondeo

William Ewing "Will" Hoy (born April 2, 1953 in Royston , † December 19, 2002 in London ) was a British automobile racing driver .

Career in motorsport

British Touring Car Championship

The name Will Hoy is closely linked to the British Touring Car Championship , where the Briton was active from 1987 to 2000. After unsuccessful first years, he secured the championship title in a BMW M3 in 1991 and one year later finished second in the championship just three points behind Tim Harvey . In 1992 a Toyota Carina was his emergency vehicle.

After three years at Toyota, he signed a contract with Williams in the fall of 1994 for the 1995 season . Frank Williams' racing team, which was involved in the Formula 1 World Championship , had an engine contract with Renault in the mid-1990s . When Renault entered the British Touring Car Championship with the Laguna , Williams became the team and Hoy became the second driver alongside Alain Menu . The first half of the season was not very successful for the British and was associated with many failures. While Menu was able to win the second round of the season opening weekend at Donington Park , Hoy had to wait until the 18th round at Brands Hatch in late summer 1995 before he could celebrate his first win of the season. After further successes in Snetterton and Silverstone , he finished the championship fourth overall. Teammate Menu was runner-up behind John Cleland and ahead of Rickard Rydell .

While team-mate Alain Menu was runner-up again in 1996 , Hoy had to be content with ninth place overall in his second year at Williams. At the end of 1996, his contract with the traditional British racing team was not renewed and he had to go looking for a cockpit. Since all the works cars were taken, he signed with West Surrey Racing , where he drove a Ford Mondeo for two years and won his last championship run in 1998 at Silverstone. After a year at Arena Motorsport , he drove seriously ill only two races in 2000 and then had to give up racing.

Sports car racing

In addition to his involvement in touring car racing, Hoy was also active as a sports car driver. In 1987 and 1988 he contested almost the entire sports car world championship in Martin Schanche's team . The best result of these two years was tenth overall in the 1988 Brands Hatch 1000 km race . Also worth mentioning is the second place overall in the 1990 Fuji 1000 km race - a race for the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship - together with Stanley Dickens in a Porsche 962 .

The Brit competed five times in the Le Mans 24-hour race ; In 1988 he finished the race in a factory Mazda 767 in 19th place in the final standings.

Will Hoy died of a brain tumor in December 2002 after a long illness .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1985	Roy Baker Promotions	Tiga GC285	Paul Smith	Nick Nicholson	Rank 21
1987	Team Lucky Strike Schanche	Argo JM19 C2	Martin Schanche	Robin Smith	failure	accident
1988	Mazdaspeed Co. Ltd.	Mazda 767	Takashi Yorino	Hervé Regout	Rank 19
1989	Team Schuppan	Porsche 962C	Jean Alesi	Dominic Dobson	failure	accident
1991	Team Salamin Primagaz	Porsche 962C	Eje Elgh	Roland Ratzenberger	failure	Cylinder overheated

Web links

Commons : Will Hoy  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Will Hoy at the Driver Database
• Will Hoy at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ↑ British Touring Car Championship 1991
2. ↑ British Touring Car Championship 1992
3. ^ British Touring Car Championship 1995
4. ↑ British Touring Car Championship 1996
5. ^ 1988 Brands Hatch 1000km race
6. ↑ Fuji 1000 km race in 1990