Andrew Kirkaldy (born 1 March 1976 in St Andrews) is a British racing driver and managing director of

McLaren GT The McLaren GT is a sports car designed and manufactured by British automobile manufacturer McLaren Automotive. It is the company's first dedicated grand tourer and is based on the same platform underpinning the 720S with the addition of a car ...

Career

Single-seaters

Kirkaldy began his career competing in karting, winning the Scottish Junior Championship in 1989 and the Scottish Senior Championship in 1993. Profile at CRS Racing He raced in the

Formula Vauxhall In science, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically, as in a mathematical formula or a ''chemical formula''. The informal use of the term ''formula'' in science refers to the general construct of a relationship betwe ...

championship in 1996 and 1997, finishing runner-up in 1997.http://www.driverdb.com/drivers/368/career/ Career at Driver Database He also won the

McLaren Autosport BRDC Award The Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award is an award set up in 1989 to reward and recognise young racing drivers from the UK. As its names suggest, the award is backed by Aston Martin, motorsport magazine Autosport, and the British Racing Drivers' Cl ...

in that year, which earnt him a prize test with the McLaren

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

team. He was runner-up in Euroseries Formula Opel in 1998. He raced in the

British Formula Three Championship British Formula Three Championship may refer to: *British Formula 3 International Series The British Formula Three Championship was an international motor racing series that took place primarily in the United Kingdom with a small number of ev ...

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

and 2000.

Sports cars

In addition to finishing runner-up in the

Renault Clio Cup The Renault Clio Cup Series is a one-make racing series created and managed by Alpine Racing (until 2020 known as Renault Sport). The championship was born after merge the 4 active Renault Clio national cups at that moment plus the Clio Cup E ...

in 2002, Kirkaldy made his

FIA GT Championship The FIA GT Championship was a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) at the behest of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship was mostly concentrated in Europe, but throughout ...

debut. In 2004 he moved to 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 the series in 2005 with teammate Nathan Kinch for Scuderia Ecosse. He also made his

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose ...

debut in 2005 for the team. He returned to the FIA GT Championship in 2006 with Scuderia Ecosse, racing in the GT2 class. In 2008, he drove for his

CRS Racing CRS Racing is a British auto racing team founded by British driver Andrew Kirkaldy and Canadian-Greek driver and entrepreneur Chris Niarchos. The team was founded in 2007, but is based on the former team of Kirkaldy known as Team AKA which comp ...

team in the championship.

Team AKA & CRS Racing

As well as his racing career, Kirkaldy is a successful team principal, founding his own Team AKA team in 2004. The team ran for four seasons in the

British Formula Renault Championship British Formula Renault Championship referred to one of two Formula Renault championships that were held in the United Kingdom. The main series was Renault Sport UK's Formula Renault 2.0 UK championship which was held from 1989 to 2011 and was ge ...

, ending up with a second in the 2006 teams championship. The team also achieved two top-three drivers championship positions with

James Jakes James Jakes (born 4 August 1987 in Leeds, West Yorkshire) is a British racing driver. Career T-Cars Jakes started his racing career in 2002 competing in 5 rounds of the T-Car Championship. In 2003 James continued in T-cars, finishing 2nd ...

, who was third in 2005, and Patrick Hogan, who was second in 2006 only after losing a tie-breaker to

Sebastian Hohenthal Sebastian Hohenthal (born 5 November 1984 in Mora) is a former racing driver from Sweden. Career Karting Hohenthal competed in kart racing from 1995 to 2000. During this period he won the Dalacupen Formula Micro in 1996, the Tom Trana Trophy IC ...

. In 2007 Chris Niarchos approached Kirkaldy with sponsoring of Team AKA in their fourth season of the British Formula Renault Championship, with the two having previously been team-mates on the Scuderia Ecosse team which competed in the

. Team AKA then became known as AKA Cobra. Following the 2007 season, Niarchos' interest in the team expanded as the two wished to enter their own team in not only the FIA GT Championship but the

as well, ending their relationship with Scuderia Ecosse. The team was renamed once more and was relaunched as CR Scuderia, reflecting their choice of Italian Ferraris for their entry into

grand tourer A grand tourer (GT) is a type of car that is designed for high speed and long-distance driving, due to a combination of performance and luxury attributes. The most common format is a Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout, front-engine, rear-wh ...

racing. The team was again renamed for 2009, becoming

. Subsequently, CRS agreed a deal with McLaren to develop the GT3 version of the

McLaren MP4-12C The McLaren MP4-12C, later known simply as the McLaren 12C, is a sports car that was designed and manufactured by McLaren Automotive. It was the first ever production car wholly designed and built by McLaren, and their first production road ...

24 Hours of Le Mans results

References

External links

Career statistics at Driver Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirkaldy, Andrew Living people 1976 births Sportspeople from St Andrews Scottish racing drivers British Formula Three Championship drivers German Formula Three Championship drivers Atlantic Championship drivers Formula Renault Eurocup drivers 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers FIA GT Championship drivers British GT Championship drivers European Le Mans Series drivers Blancpain Endurance Series drivers International GT Open drivers 24 Hours of Spa drivers Sports car racing team owners Porsche Carrera Cup GB drivers ASCAR drivers People educated at Madras College CRS Racing drivers Alan Docking Racing drivers McLaren people Paul Stewart Racing drivers