Thomas Dobbie Thomson Walkinshaw (14 August 1946 – 12 December 2010) was a British racing car driver from Scotland and the founder of the racing team Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR). He was also involved in professional rugby union, as owner of Gloucester Rugby, and chairman of the team owners organisation for the

Aviva Premiership Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is an English professional rugby union competition. The Premiership has consisted of thirteen clubs since 2021, and is the ...

Racing career

Walkinshaw was born at Mauldslie Farm, near Penicuik, Midlothian, Scotland. He began racing in 1968, starting in an

MG Midget The MG Midget is a small two-seater sports car produced by MG from 1961 to 1979. It revived a name that had been used on earlier models such as the MG M-type, MG D-type, MG J-type and MG T-type. MG Midget MkI (1961–64) The first version, a ...

, before moving on to a

Lotus Lotus may refer to: Plants *Lotus (plant), various botanical taxa commonly known as lotus, particularly: ** ''Lotus'' (genus), a genus of terrestrial plants in the family Fabaceae **Lotus flower, a symbolically important aquatic Asian plant also ...

Formula Ford car. The following year he won the Scottish FF1600 title at the wheel of a Hawke. In 1970, he entered the British Formula Three championship with Lotus. He later moved to the March 'works' team, where he broke his ankle in a racing accident. Continuing his career despite this setback, he drove in many classes, including Formula 5000 and Formula Two. Ford hired Walkinshaw to drive a

Capri Capri ( , ; ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town of Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has been ...

on the British Touring Car Championship circuit in 1974. This resulted in him winning his class that year. In 1976 Walkinshaw established Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR), continuing to drive for his own team. He competed in the 1976 World Championship for Makes, sharing a Hermetite-sponsored BMW 3.5 CSL with John Fitzpatrick. The pair achieved several good results including a dramatic victory, by just 1.3 seconds, in the Silverstone 6 Hours. In 1984 he won the European Touring Car Championship in a 5.3-litre,

V12 V12 or V-12 may refer to: Aircraft * Mil V-12, a Soviet heavy lift helicopter * Pilatus OV-12, a planned American military utility aircraft * Rockwell XFV-12, an American experimental aircraft project * Škoda-Kauba V12, a Czechoslovak experim ...

Jaguar XJS. In September 1984, Walkinshaw had teamed up with Australian driver John Goss to drive an Australian Group C spec XJS in the Bathurst 1000. After qualifying in 10th spot, Walkinshaw never left the starting line after transmission failure and was hit from behind by a Chevrolet Camaro. Several cars also joined the crash causing the race to be red flagged and restarted 30 minutes later (the first restart in the race's history). In 1985, Jaguar retired the XJS from Group A racing and TWR was forced to use the cars they'd been racing in the British Touring Car Championship, the 3.5-litre V8 Rover Vitesse in the European Touring Car Championship. Walkinshaw and Percy won 6 of the 14 races in the championship but could only finish the championship 3rd behind the Eggenberger

Volvo 240T The Volvo 200 Series (or 240 and 260 Series) is a range of mid-size cars produced by Swedish company Volvo Cars from 1974 until 1993, with more than 2.8 million total units sold worldwide. Like the Volvo 140 Series (1966 to 1974), from which it ...

's of Gianfranco Brancatelli and Thomas Lindström. With Australia's move to Group A in 1985, Walkinshaw vowed to return to Bathurst with his ETCC Jaguars in a bid to win the Australian classic. The three ETCC Jags were brought out of retirement and shipped to Bathurst with the help of "Jaguar Rover Australia" (JRA) and proceeded to dominate practice and qualifying, with Walkinshaw claiming pole position, Jeff Allam claiming second spot on the grid and provisional pole sitter John Goss starting 6th. Driving with regular ETCC co-driver Win Percy, Walkinshaw finished 3rd in the race after leading for over ⅔ distance following a split oil line late in the race. The Allam/

Ron Dickson Ron is a shortening of the name Ronald. Ron or RON may also refer to: Arts and media * Big Ron (''EastEnders''), a TV character * Ron (''King of Fighters''), a video game character *Ron Douglas, the protagonist in ''Lucky Stiff'' played by Joe A ...

car was out after 3 laps with engine failure when broken glass from the cars right headlight got sucked into the intake system, while the Goss/ Armin Hahne car would win for TWR after having to battle for over 100 laps of the 6.172 km (3.835 mi) long

Mount Panorama Circuit Mount Panorama Circuit is a motor racing track located in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is situated on Mount Panorama (Wahluu) and is best known as the home of the Bathurst 1000 motor race held each October, and the Bathurst 12 Hour ...

with a broken drivers seat which had to be held in place by cable ties attached to the roll cage. The Rovers, with sponsorship from Bastos/ Texaco, were again the TWR cars for the renamed ETCC (which had become the FIATCC in 1986 in anticipation of the

1987 World Touring Car Championship The 1987 World Touring Car Championship season was the inaugural World Touring Car Championship season. It commenced on 22 March 1987 and ended on 15 November after eleven races. The championship was open to Touring Cars complying with FIA Group A ...

). Walkinshaw was again a favourite to take out the title, but once again would finish 3rd. Co-driver Win Percy was originally announced as the 1986 champion before results from earlier races were amended following protest hearings. Walkinshaw had intended to return to Bathurst in

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal ente ...

with the V12 Jaguars but withdrew when JRA refused to help with funds following a downturn in the Australian car market. With sponsorship from the NZ based Strathmore Group, Walkinshaw took the Jaguars to Japan and New Zealand for the 1986 Fuji InterTEC 500 and the XJS' final race, the

1987 Wellington 500 The 1987 Nissan Mobil 500 was the tenth round of the inaugural World Touring Car Championship. The race was held for cars eligible for Group A touring car regulations. It was held on October 26, 1987, at the Wellington Street Circuit in the dock ...

. After some engine work which lifted the V12's power output to , Walkinshaw proved that the 1984 spec Jags were still competitive in 1986 by qualifying on pole at the fast Fuji circuit in front of the new Nissan Skyline RS DR30s and Holden VK Commodore SS Group As. Walkinshaw comfortably led the race for the first 6 laps from teammate Jeff Allam and Australian

Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, al ...

in his Holden Dealer Team VK Commodore before retiring with no oil pressure. After entering into a partnership with Australian car manufacturer

Holden Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, was an Australian subsidiary company of General Motors. It was an Australian automobile manufacturer, importer, and exporter which sold cars under its own marque in Australia. In its last thre ...

in February 1987 (at the expense of Brock's HDT Special Vehicles operation), Walkinshaw fully intended to compete in the inaugural World Touring Car Championship driving a 4.9-litre V8

Holden VL Commodore SS Group A The Holden Commodore (VL) is a mid-size car that was produced by Holden from 1986 to 1988. It was the final iteration of the first generation of the Holden Commodore and included the luxury variant, Holden Calais (VL). Between February 1986 and ...

, but withdrew before the first race at

Monza Monza (, ; lmo, label=Lombard language, Lombard, Monça, locally ; lat, Modoetia) is a city and ''comune'' on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po River, Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capit ...

in protest at the

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

60,000 entrance fee imposed by

Bernie Ecclestone Bernard Charles Ecclestone (born 28 October 1930) is an English business magnate. He is the former chief executive of the Formula One Group, which manages Formula One motor racing and controls the commercial rights to the sport, and part-owns ...

who had put in charge of the WTCC by the FIA. Walkinshaw and Jeff Allam appeared with the car 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 ...

round of the championship but the car was uncompetitive against the new Ford Sierra RS Cosworths and

BMW M3 The BMW M3 is a high-performance version of the BMW 3 Series, developed by BMW's in-house motorsport division, BMW M GmbH. M3 models have been produced for every generation of 3 Series since the E30 M3 was introduced in 1986. The initial model ...

s, retiring with brake problems. In 1988 TWR developed the

Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV The Holden Commodore (VL) is a mid-size car that was produced by Holden from 1986 to 1988. It was the final iteration of the first generation of the Holden Commodore and included the luxury variant, Holden Calais (VL). Between February 1986 and ...

and Walkinshaw again teamed with Jeff Allam at the

RAC Tourist Trophy The RAC Tourist Trophy (sometimes called the International Tourist Trophy) is a motor racing award presented by the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) to the overall victor of a motor race in the United Kingdom. Established in 1905, it is the world's ol ...

Silverstone Silverstone is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is about from Towcester on the former A43 main road, from the M1 motorway junction 15A and about from the M40 motorway junction 10, Northampton, Milton Keynes and B ...

. Although still not a match for the Ford Sierra RS500s, Walkinshaw qualified the Commodore in 9th place. The pair finished the race in 15th place following various problems with the car. Tom Walkinshaw's last race as a driver was the

1988 Tooheys 1000 The 1988 Tooheys 1000 was a 1000 km endurance motor race for Group A Touring Cars.Larry Perkins, TWR shipped the ETCC Commodore to Australia for the race as part of the Holden Special Vehicles team. Following a messy lead up to the race, which included Walkinshaw illegally protesting the five leading Australian built Sierras, Walkinshaw and Allam qualified in 13th place (slower than the Perkins Engineering built team car), and was the second retirement after just 5 laps with rear suspension failure. Walkinshaw himself was cross-entered in the Perkins/ Denny Hulme car and drove the car later in the race. The car was retired with engine failure after 137 laps while in 2nd place. Walkinshaw's protest against the Sierras was later found to be illegal because Perkins Engineering was the entrant for the HSV team and not TWR. The stewards of the meeting had erred in letting Walkinshaw lodge the protest under TWR's FIA licence as only a race entrant was entitled to lodge protests under the rules of the meeting. In an ironic twist to Walkinshaw's last race meeting as a driver, the three HSV team cars, including the team's spare car, were found to have illegal modifications to the steering racks after a counter-protest by Dick Johnson Racing team manager

Neal Lowe Neal (Neil) is a given masculine name and surname of Gaelic and Irish origin. The name is an Anglicisation of the Irish Niall which is of disputed derivation. The Irish name may be derived from words meaning "cloud", "passionate", "victory", "hono ...

, though no action was taken as the spare car didn't start the race and both race cars failed to finish. Following the Tooheys 1000, Walkinshaw retired from driving to concentrate on the management of TWR's increasing motorsports portfolio.

Team management

In 1975 Walkinshaw established Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR), a group whose business was the manufacture and design of racing and road cars. TWR ran touring car programmes in the mid-1970s and early 1980s. In 1983 the TWR team took eleven wins in eleven races in the British Saloon Car Championship running

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Vitesses, before being stripped of the title for a technical infringement. TWR also ran a

Jaguar XJ-S The Jaguar XJ-S (later called XJS) is a luxury grand tourer manufactured and marketed by British car manufacturer Jaguar Cars from 1975 to 1996, in coupé, fixed-profile and full convertible bodystyles. There were three distinct iterations, ...

ETCC The European Touring Car Championship was an international touring car racing series organised by the FIA. It had two incarnations, the first one between 1963 and 1988, and the second between 2000 and 2004. In 2005 it was superseded by the World T ...

touring car programme before taking on their World Sportscar Championship programme. In six years the programme won

Le Mans Le Mans (, ) is a city in northwestern France on the Sarthe River where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Man ...

twice and the World Championships three times. The same team brought engineer

Ross Brawn Ross James Brawn (born 23 November 1954) is a British Formula One managing director, motor sports and technical director. He is a former motorsport engineer and Formula One team principal, and has worked for a number of Formula One teams. Serv ...

to prominence. In 1991 Walkinshaw was recruited as Engineering Director of the Benetton F1 team which subsequently won the 1995 Formula One World Championship. He was involved in the recruitment of Michael Schumacher by Benetton after the German's Formula One debut with the Jordan team. As Engineering Director, his role also came under scrutiny when the team was investigated for suspected technical infringements during the 1994 season, including the potential use of banned electronic aids and unauthorised modifications to the refuelling apparatus used on the cars. Although illegal software was found in the Benettons, the FIA had no evidence that it had ever been used in a race and no action was taken against the team. For 1995 Walkinshaw bought 50% of the Ligier team from Benetton team principal

Flavio Briatore Flavio Briatore (; born 12 April 1950) is an Italian businessman. He started his career as a restaurant manager and insurance salesman in Italy. Briatore was convicted in Italy on several fraud charges in the 1980s, receiving two prison senten ...

. His intention was to take over the team completely, but he was unable to purchase 100% of the team and therefore pulled out of the deal. Instead he bought the Arrows team, achieving a coup for the

1997 Formula One season The 1997 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 51st season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It commenced on 9 March and ended on 26 October after seventeen races. The Drivers' Championship was won by Jacques Villeneuve and the Constr ...

by recruiting reigning world champion Damon Hill to his squad. In 1997 Walkinshaw was voted Autocar Man of the Year. By this stage the TWR Group employed 1500 employees in the UK, Sweden, Australia and the United States. At the time, Walkinshaw was also managing director of Arrows Grand Prix International. His TWR racing group went into liquidation in 2002 after the Arrows team ran out of money. This led to the Australian arm of the operation being bought by

. However, since the practice of teams being owned by manufacturers in the

Supercars Championship The Supercars Championship is a touring car racing category in Australia, running as an International Series under Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) regulations, governing the sport. Supercars events take place in all Australian ...

is banned, Holden had to divest the team's assets and sell the Holden Racing Team to lead driver Mark Skaife, and K-Mart Racing (later HSV Dealer Team) to John and Margaret Kelly (the parents of V8 Supercar drivers Todd and Rick). In 2005 Tom Walkinshaw returned to the V8 Supercars Australia and began a new relationship with his former teams, HSV Dealer Team and Holden Racing Team, helping lead

to its first series win since 2002 through driver Rick Kelly (2006) and Garth Tander (2007). In late 2006 Walkinshaw Performance bought the small Australian sports car manufacturer Elfin Cars. In 2007 Walkinshaw Performance acquired a 50% stake in the Holden Racing Team, and in 2008 fully re-acquired the team from Skaife Sports. 2009 saw the debut of Walkinshaw Racing a two car operation known individually as

Bundaberg Red Racing Walkinshaw Andretti United is an Australian motor racing team based in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton. The team currently fields two Holden ZB Commodores in the Supercars Championship for Nick Percat and Chaz Mostert, along with a Porsche 91 ...

and Team Autobarn.

Personal life

Walkinshaw died on Sunday 12 December 2010, aged 64, from complications arising from cancer. He is survived by his first wife Elizabeth Walkinshaw and their son Fergus Walkinshaw, and his second wife Martine Walkinshaw and their sons Ryan and Sean. Walkinshaw's memorial service was held at Gloucester Cathedral on 4 February 2011. Fergus Walkinshaw, who has been racing since 11 years old, inclusive of Ginetta Juniors and GTSupercup, has followed in his fathers footsteps and has restarted TWR in October 2023. Ryan and Sean followed their father into motorsport, Ryan in management as one of the team principals of the racing team that wears the family name, Walkinshaw Andretti United, the descendant of the Australian arm of Tom Walkinshaw Racing. The team is co-owned by Andretti Autosport and United Autosports and races in the Australian

. Sean as a racing driver who competes regularly in

GT racing Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built prototypes or grand tourers based on road-going models. Broadly speaking, sports car racing is o ...

, most often in GT3 spec series like GT World Challenge Europe.

Career summary

Results sourced from Driver Database and History of Touring Car Racing.History of Touring Car Racing
/ref>

Complete World Sportscar 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 Saloon / Touring Car Championship results

(

) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 1973–1990 in class) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap – 1 point awarded ?–1989 in class) † Events with 2 races staged for the different classes. ‡ Ineligible to score points.

Complete European Touring Car Championship results

(

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

Complete World Touring Car Championship results

(

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap) † Not eligible for series points

Complete Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship results

(

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

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

Complete Spa 24 Hour results

Complete Bathurst 1000 results

Notes

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/motorsport/tom-walkinshaw-racing-restablished-make-new-high-performance-road-cars

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Walkinshaw, Tom Scottish racing drivers Formula One team owners Formula One team principals Scottish motorsport people English rugby union chairmen and investors Gloucester Rugby Sportspeople from Midlothian 1946 births 2010 deaths British Touring Car Championship drivers 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers 24 Hours of Spa drivers Deaths from lung cancer World Sportscar Championship drivers European Touring Car Championship drivers Sportspeople from Penicuik Arrows Grand Prix International Benetton Formula 20th-century English businesspeople 20th-century Scottish businesspeople Ecurie Ecosse drivers Sportspeople from Chipping Norton