A1 Grand Prix, Kyalami - Great Britain 2

Danny Watts is a British professional racing driver.

Career

He was born in

Aylesbury Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, South East England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery, David Tugwell`s house on Watermead and the Waterside Theatre. It is in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wy ...

, and started racing in 1993, when he began

karting Kart racing or karting is a road racing variant of motorsport with open-wheel, four-wheeled vehicles known as go-karts or shifter karts. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits, although some professional kart races are also held on f ...

. After five seasons of karting, he stepped up to single seater racing in 1998 in the UK Formula First championship, in which he dominated with 12 wins. He also competed in the

Formula Palmer Audi Formula Palmer Audi, officially abbreviated to FPA, and sometimes informally abbreviated to Palmer Audi, was a one-make class of open wheel Formula racing founded in 1998 by former Formula One driver, Jonathan Palmer. It was based in the United ...

Winter Series, in preparation for running the main Formula Palmer Audi championship the following year. 2000 saw a step up to the British

Formula Renault Formula Renault are classes of formula racing popular in Europe and elsewhere. Regarded as an entry-level series to motor racing, it was founded in 1971, and was a respected series where drivers can learn advanced racecraft before moving on to hig ...

Championship, when he was teammate to

Kimi Räikkönen Kimi-Matias Räikkönen (; born 17 October 1979), nicknamed "The Iceman", is a Finnish racing driver who competed in Formula One between 2001 and 2021 for Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus, and Alfa Romeo. Räikkönen won the 2007 Formula One Wo ...

. In his third year of Formula Renault, he won the championship with 6 wins. Watts ascended another tier in 2003, stepping up to the

British Formula 3 Championship The British Formula Three Championship was an international motor racing series that took place primarily in the United Kingdom with a small number of events in mainland Europe. It was a junior-level feeder formula that used small single seat ...

, with

HiTech Racing Hitech Grand Prix (formerly known as Hitech Racing) is a British motor racing team. It was founded in 2002 by Dennis Rushen and David Hayle. The team started racing in the British Formula 3 Championship in 2003. The team also competed in the So ...

. He took his first win in the series the same year in the second race at

Castle Combe Castle Combe is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Wiltshire, England. The village is around north-west of Chippenham. A castle once stood in the area, but was demolis ...

, having crashed out of the lead in race one. In 2004 he became the first driver for eleven years to win a round of the British Formula 3 Championship whilst not driving a car from the

Dallara Dallara is an Italian race car manufacturer, founded by its current President, Gian Paolo Dallara. After working for Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini and De Tomaso, in 1972 in his native village of Varano de' Melegari (Parma), Italy he created "D ...

company. 2005 saw a mixed year for Watts. Unable to remain in Formula Three, he contested a handful of races in various disciplines. The same occurred in 2006, though he did make a brief return to F3 for the penultimate race of the season, at Thruxton, for champions Räikkönen Robertson Racing (co-owned by former British FRenault teammate, and now F1 star

). In that race, Watts led the field and dominated proceedings with a convincing win. In 2006 he raced in the

Porsche Carrera Carrera (''Spanish'' for "race" and "career") is a brand of Porsche automobile. The name commemorates the company's success in the Carrera Panamericana race. The following vehicles have been called ''Carrera'': * Porsche 356 * Porsche 904 * Porsch ...

Cup for the

Redline Racing Redline Racing is a British racing team that is currently competing in the Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain and are defending team and drivers champions. They have previously competed in the Porsche Supercup between 2007 and 2008. Early ...

team. Initially he shared this drive with

Richard Westbrook Richard Westbrook (born 10 July 1975) is a British professional racing driver noted for his success in racing Porsche and International sports cars. As a junior, he attended St Joseph's College, Ipswich. He has won both the Porsche Supercup i ...

, only contesting races which clash with Westbrook's Porsche Carrera Cup racing, but after a run of 8 successive victories in the races he started, Richard conceded the drive full-time. For 2007 Watts drove for Team LNT in the

Le Mans Series The European Le Mans Series (abbreviated as ELMS) is a European sports car racing endurance series inspired by the 24 Hours of Le Mans race and organized by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). The European Le Mans Series is similar to the fo ...

in a

Panoz Esperante The Esperante is a sports car made by Panoz, an American car manufacturer. First generation There have been several Esperante models: the base model GT, the GTLM, the GTS, the JRD (an aftermarket upgrade brand similar to Roush Mustangs), the ...

GT-LM. He was also invited to join

A1 Team Great Britain A1 Team Great Britain is the British team of A1 Grand Prix, an international racing series. Management A1 Team Great Britain was one of the first six-seat holders in the series announced, with chairman John Surtees hosting the event. The car ...

for the 4th season of the 2007/8 season held in Shanghai, China and took part in the rookie sessions. In 2008 he signed to the SAS Lechner Racing team with teammate Damien Faulkner for the F1-supporting Porsche Supercup series.

announced that Watts would race for A1 Team Great Britain in Chengdu; he came 3rd in both the sprint and feature race. For 2009 he raced for Strakka Racing in the Le Mans Series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans driving a

Ginetta Ginetta Cars Limited is a British specialist builder of racing and sports cars based in Garforth, Leeds, West Yorkshire. History 20th century Ginetta was founded in 1958 by four Walklett brothers (Bob, Ivor, Trevers and Douglas) in Woodbridge, ...

Zytek Gibson Technology is an automotive and motorsport company based at Repton, Derbyshire, England. It was founded by Bill Gibson as "Zytek Engineering" in 1981. In 1981 Gibson founded the "Zytech Group" with two main divisions: Zytek Automotive, b ...

GZ09S. In the opening round of the Le Mans Series at Barcelona he claimed overall pole on the teams LMP1 debut. In 2010 he retained his seat for Strakka Racing in the Le Mans Series however the team moved down to the LMP2 category now using a HPD ARX-01c. The car took the class victory at Le Mans finishing 5th overall. The 2011 Le Mans season was good for Watts, once again being the strongest link in the team constantly qualifying the Strakka car high up the LMP2 field. In 2012 Strakka retained Watts, who went on to put in a hero's drive at the World Endurance Championship round at Silverstone England, by doing a double stint of three-and-a-half hours to finish within 0.6 secs of 4th place.

Personal life

After retiring, he came out publicly in 2017 as gay. He was previously married to Fiona Leggate with whom he had one son.

Helmet

Watts' helmet colour is in honour of Oxford United Football Club, whom he supports.

Racing record

Career summary

Complete Porsche Supercup results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 2 points awarded 2008 onwards in all races) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap) † – Did not finish the race, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance. ‡ – Guest driver – Not eligible for points.

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Complete A1 Grand Prix results

(

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

Complete FIA World Endurance Championship results

References

External links

danny-watts.com

at Driver Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Watts, Danny 1979 births Living people Sportspeople from Aylesbury English racing drivers British Formula Three Championship drivers British Formula Renault 2.0 drivers Formula Renault Eurocup drivers A1 Team Great Britain drivers Formula Palmer Audi drivers 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers American Le Mans Series drivers European Le Mans Series drivers World Series Formula V8 3.5 drivers Porsche Supercup drivers FIA World Endurance Championship drivers Blancpain Endurance Series drivers English LGBT sportspeople LGBT racing drivers Gay sportsmen Porsche Carrera Cup GB drivers 21st-century LGBT people