Tim Harvey (born 20 November 1961) is a British racing driver, best known for being the
1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
British Touring Car Champion, and the 2008 and 2010
Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain
The Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain is a multi-event one-make motor racing series that takes place in the United Kingdom for the Porsche 911 GT3. Being the fastest and most successful single marque GT championship in the UK, the Carrera Cup ...
champion. A household name in the 1990s, Harvey won sixteen races in the British Touring Car Championship between
1987
File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...
and
1995
File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...
, and competed in the series until
2002
File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...
. He was also the winner of the invitational
Guia Race of Macau
The WTCR Race of Macau, previously Guia Race of Macau and WTCC Guia Race of Macau, is an international touring car race, and currently a round of the World Touring Car Cup. It is held on the temporary 6.2 km Guia Circuit on the streets of Ma ...
touring car event, in 1989.
After leaving touring car racing, Harvey moved into the one-make
Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain
The Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain is a multi-event one-make motor racing series that takes place in the United Kingdom for the Porsche 911 GT3. Being the fastest and most successful single marque GT championship in the UK, the Carrera Cup ...
series; after two guest drives in 2003, including one victory, Harvey competed full-time from the 2004 season onwards. In seven full seasons in the championship, Harvey finished in the top four of the final championship standings in each season, and left the series after a class victory in the Porsche Carrera World Cup meeting at the
Nürburgring
The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Formula One, Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around t ...
, with a series record of 35 overall victories. Along with media commitments for television broadcaster
ITV4
ITV4 is a Television in the United Kingdom, British free-to-air television channel which was launched on 1 November 2005. It is owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc, and is part of the ITV (TV network), ITV network. The channel h ...
, and their coverage of the British Touring Car Championship, Harvey currently competes in the
British GT Championship
The British GT Championship is a sports car racing series based predominantly in the United Kingdom. The series was originally created by the British Racing Drivers' Club in 1993 and, for its first two seasons, was known as the National Sports GT ...
; sharing a Porsche with Jon Minshaw, for the Trackspeed team.
BTCC career
Born in
Farnborough, London
Farnborough is a village in south-eastern Greater London, England, located in the Historic counties of England, historic county of Kent. Situated south of Locksbottom, west of Green Street Green, north of Downe and Hazelwood, London, Hazelwoo ...
, Harvey first raced in the BTCC in 1987, taking three Class A wins in a Rover Vitesse In 1988 and 1989 he dovetailed sports car racing with BTCC outings, before finishing third in Class A in 1989 and 1990.
![Tim Harvey BTCC 1996](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Tim_Harvey_BTCC_1996.jpg)
He was 8th overall in 1991. His 1992 title was achieved while driving a BMW 318 coupe, run by
Vic Lee Motorsport
Vic Lee Racing (VLR), formerly Vic Lee Motorsport (VLM) was a UK auto racing team, most famous for running BMWs and Peugeots in the British Touring Car Championship, and most infamous for the drug-related convictions of its owner Victor "Vic" L ...
. He won five of the last seven races, having previously only won once. A dramatic final race saw him beat
John Cleland
John Cleland (c. 1709, baptised – 23 January 1789) was an English novelist best known for his fictional '' Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure'', whose eroticism led to his arrest. James Boswell called him "a sly, old malcont ...
and reigning champion
Will Hoy
William Ewing Hoy (2 April 1952 – 19 December 2002) was an English racing driver and the 1991 British Touring Car Champion, the highlight of a 20-year career in motor racing.
Biography
Born in Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, Hoy did not begin racing ...
to the title, after Hoy suffered an engine failure and Cleland clashed with Harvey's team-mate
Steve Soper
Steven Soper is a racing driver from Surrey, England, born in 1951.
He raced in major sports car and touring car categories in the 1980s and 1990s. He won the 24 Hours Nürburgring in 1987, the 24 Hours of Spa in 1995 and the Guia Race in ...
. He had a difficult 1993 season developing the
Renault 19
The Renault 19 is a small family car that was produced by the French car manufacturer Renault between 1988 and 1996. In Turkey and in Argentina, production continued until 2000. The internal development code for the 19 was X53, with the five doo ...
for the new Renault entry but still managed to win the
European Grand Prix support race in lurid conditions, while he was outpaced by team-mate
Alain Menu
Alain Menu (born 9 August 1963) is a Swiss racing driver who is currently working for Team BMR as a driving coach. He was one of the most successful touring car drivers of the 1990s, winning the prestigious British Touring Car Championship twice ...
in 1994 in the new Laguna. He raced for Volvo in 1995, using his wealth of experience to develop the all new Volvo 850 saloon, finishing 5th overall and taking 2 wins but generally unable to match team-mate
Rickard Rydell
Rickard Rydell (born 22 September 1967) is a retired Swedish racing driver. He won the 1998 British Touring Car Championship, the 2011 Scandinavian Touring Car Championship, and has also been a frontrunner in the European/World Touring Car Cham ...
. His experience was then used to develop the new Peugeot 406, signing with the French marque in 1996 but was unable to deliver the win that eluded Peugeot during the heyday of the
supertouring
Super Touring, Class 2 or Class II was a motor racing Touring Cars category defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for national touring car racing in 1993. It was based on the "2 litre Touring Car Formula" created ...
years. He drove for Peugeot in the
1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...
,
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
and
1998 seasons, his best year being 1997 where he finished 9th in the championship, which included two 2nd-place finishes, and strong drives in the wet at
Thruxton.
After a couple of years away, his last BTCC years were 2001 (8th overall in a JSM
Alfa Romeo
Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A. () is an Italian luxury car manufacturer and a subsidiary of Stellantis. The company was founded on 24 June 1910, in Milan, Italy. "Alfa" is an acronym of its founding name, "Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili." ...
) and 10th in 2002 (reuniting with Vic Lee to drive one of his
Peugeot
Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis.
The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and the ...
s, before quitting the series to pursue a media career).
The Alfa Romeo 147 that Tim Harvey raced is now owned by Allitalia – an Independent Italian Auto Specialist based in North Wales.
Porsche Carrera Cup
He has raced in the
Porsche Carrera Cup
Porsche Carrera Cup (sometimes abbreviated PCC) is a number of one-make racing by Porsche premier series competed with, initially Porsche 911 Carrera Cup, then later Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars. The cars are specifically built by Porsche for one-m ...
for several years, finishing second to
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 ...
in 2004 and
Damien Faulkner
Damien Faulkner (born 15 February 1977) is an Irish race car driver from Moville County Donegal. Beginning his professional career in Formula Vauxhall Junior in 1995, he competed in the Formula Ford Festival in 1996 and finished 11th. He f ...
in 2006. In 2007, Harvey drove for
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 ...
in the new 997
Porsche
Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, usually shortened to Porsche (; see #Pronunciation, below), is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans, headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany ...
GT3 in the British edition of the Carrera Cup. With stars such as Faulkner, Westbrook,
Danny Watts
Danny Watts is a British professional racing driver.
Career
He was born in Aylesbury, and started racing in 1993, when he began karting. After five seasons of karting, he stepped up to single seater racing in 1998 in the UK Formula First ch ...
and
Richard Williams no longer competing, and Tim now in the top team of 2006, he started as title favourite, but finished up second again, by just four points behind
James Sutton.
In 2008 he continued to battle for the title, making his 100th series start (from just 106 races in total). Tim won the Porsche Carrera Cup Drivers Championship, on 21 September at
Brands Hatch
Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Originally used as a grasstrack motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently host ...
. He holds series records for podium finishes and fastest laps. He finished third in 2009, taking his first win of the year in race 6 at Thruxton and a double win at Snetterton. He then opened 2010 with nine wins in the first ten races (by contrast, he took 4 wins en route to the 2008 title). He wrapped up the 2010 title with one race to spare at Brands Hatch on 9 October with a second-place finish behind
Stephen Jelley
Stephen Jelley (born 12 May 1982) is a British auto racing driver.
Career
Single-seaters
Born in Leicester, Jelley moved up from Formula Ford to the National Class of the British Formula 3 Championship for 2004, taking three class wins. In 20 ...
to ensure that he could not be caught by championship runner up Michael Caine. Following a puncture in race 20 which saw Harvey fail to score points for the first time in the season, Harvey claimed the 2010 Porsche Carrera Cup GB Championship by 10 points, with 11 race wins (vs. Caine's 7). Harvey's two wins at Croft on 20 June saw him become the most successful driver in the history of the championship, with 33 race wins at the time (beating Richard Westbrook's 31 wins). He would end the season 4 clear, with 35 wins, and over 150 podiums.
At the end of May 2011, Harvey announced he was quitting the championship with immediate effect, citing difficulty in adapting to regulation changes as his motivation and allowing up and coming Kieran Vernon the opportunity to benefit from his seat in the Motorbase Performance car. He explained during the ITV4 coverage of the Oulton Park BTCC round on 5 June 2011 that he was not entirely retiring from racing and would be reappearing somewhere before long whilst continuing to commentate for ITV.
In what may have been his last Porsche race, Harvey won the Porsche Carrera Cup GB race held at a wet
Nürburgring
The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Formula One, Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around t ...
in Germany as part of the Porsche Carrera World Cup. Harvey finished 13th overall, ahead of a number of the faster Supercup models.
Other racing
Harvey has also been a prolific winner in sports cars. A distinguished career in international motorsport has given him a deep-seated knowledge of the business and substantial reserves of experience. A factory driver for
Spice
A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Spices a ...
in the halcyon days of the
World Sportscar Championship
The World Sportscar Championship was the world series run for sports car racing by the FIA from 1953 to 1992.
The championship evolved from a small collection of the most important sportscar, endurance, and road racing events in Europe and No ...
saw Tim battling the Jaguars and Mercedes Benz during the 1989 and 1990 seasons. He twice won the
BRDC C2 Championship The BRDC C2 Championship (sometimes referred to as the British C2 Championship) was a short lived sports car racing series which ran from 1988 to 1990. The series was for Group C cars which fit into the smaller, less powerful, and cheaper C2 catego ...
in 1988 and 1989. He has also contested the
24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance r ...
four times, winning his class in 1987. He won the British Sports Car Championship in 1999.
He is a double winner of the
Oulton Park Gold Cup in 2000 and 2001, joining previous winners
Stirling Moss
Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss (17 September 1929 – 12 April 2020) was a British Formula One racing driver. An inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, he won 212 of the 529 races he entered across several categories of comp ...
,
Jim Clark
James Clark Jr. OBE (4 March 1936 – 7 April 1968) was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965. A versatile driver, he competed in sports cars, touring cars and in the Indianapol ...
,
Jackie Stewart
Sir John Young Stewart (born 11 June 1939), known as Jackie Stewart, is a British former Formula One racing driver from Scotland. Nicknamed the "Flying Scot", he competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Cha ...
and many others. Tim has made sporadic albeit successful outings in the
British GT Championship
The British GT Championship is a sports car racing series based predominantly in the United Kingdom. The series was originally created by the British Racing Drivers' Club in 1993 and, for its first two seasons, was known as the National Sports GT ...
, winning alongside various drivers in 2004 and 2005.
Harvey has also been a Touring car winner internationally, coming first in the
Macau Grand Prix
The Macau Grand Prix ( pt, Grande Prémio de Macau; ) is a motorsport road race for automobiles and motorcycles held annually in Macau. It is the only street circuit racing event in which both cars and motorcycles participate, and one of onl ...
street race in 1989 and the Wellington International in 1994. He has successfully raced in Japan, Australia, South Africa and all over Europe.
On 19 June 2011, Tim won a Round of the
Ginetta GT Supercup
The Ginetta GT4 Supercup is a one-make racing, Sports car racing series based in the United Kingdom, using identical Ginetta G50 and G55 sports cars. The championship currently supports the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC).
The cham ...
at
Croft
Croft may refer to:
Occupations
* Croft (land), a small area of land, often with a crofter's dwelling
* Crofting, small-scale food production
* Bleachfield, an open space used for the bleaching of fabric, also called a croft
Locations In the Uni ...
.
Tim also competes occasionally in enduro events on a motorcycle.
Other work
Aside from his racing, Tim combines his commentary and presenting work for
ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of:
** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
and
Motors TV
Motorsport.tv was a pan-European digital television channel dedicated to motorsport. It ceased broadcasting in late September 2018 to concentrate on web-streaming only.
Launched in 2000 as Motors TV, it broadcast an extensive range of nationa ...
with various other motorsport roles, including acting as driver coach for many up and coming young British drivers. He has also coached the Oxford University Motor Drivers Club to success in the British Universities Karting Championship.
In 2008, Tim was appointed Director of the British Racing Drivers' Club (
BRDC) SuperStars program, designed to support the most promising young British drivers both financially and in an advisory role.
In 2021 he appeared at a event in his hometown at Motorsport UK's new HQ to talk with
Jason Plato
Timothy Jason Plato (born 14 October 1967) is a British racing driver who last competed in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) for BTC Racing. He has twice been BTCC Champion, in 2001 for Vauxhall and 2010 for Silverline Chevrolet. He ...
,
Matt Neal
Matthew Neal (born 20 December 1966) is a British motor racing driver. Neal is a triple BTCC Champion having won the British Touring Car Championship in 2005, 2006 and 2011. Neal is also a record 6 time BTCC Independents Champion having won the ...
and the former's Fuelling Around co-host
Dave Vitty
David Lloyd Vitty (born 24 April 1974) is a radio presenter working in the UK. He worked alongside Chris Moyles at BBC Radio 1, having originally been a broadcast assistant on Moyles' early morning show. He became the show's head writer and ' ...
.
Racing record
Complete European Touring Car Championship 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) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)
Complete British Touring Car Championship 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 (1 point awarded all races 1996 onwards) Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap (1 point awarded – 1987–1990, 2001 onwards, 1987–1990 in class) (
* signifies that driver lead feature race for at least one lap – 1 point awarded 1998 onwards)
# – Race was stopped due to heavy rain. No points were awarded.
‡ Endurance driver
Complete World Touring Car Championship 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) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)
Complete Japanese Touring Car Championship 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) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)
Complete Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship 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) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Complete Bathurst 1000 results
* Super Touring
Super Touring, Class 2 or Class II was a motor racing Touring Cars category defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for national touring car racing in 1993. It was based on the "2 litre Touring Car Formula" created ...
race
Le Mans 24 hours results
Complete British GT 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 in class) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap in class)
† Not eligible for points as invitation driver.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harvey, Tim
1961 births
Living people
British Touring Car Championship drivers
British Touring Car Championship Champions
English racing drivers
24 Hours of Le Mans drivers
British GT Championship drivers
British Formula 3000 Championship drivers
People from Bicester
People from Farnborough, London
Porsche Supercup drivers
World Sportscar Championship drivers
Porsche Carrera Cup GB drivers
Ginetta GT4 Supercup drivers
Peugeot Sport drivers
BMW M drivers