JULY 23, 2004

Wickham to run A1 Grand Prix development programme

A1 Grand Prix has appointed John Wickham to be its Technical Operations Advisor to oversee the testing programme of the new Lola-built A1 car. Wickham (54) will bring years of experience to the role, having started out in motor racing 30 years ago.

A1 Grand Prix has appointed John Wickham to be its Technical Operations Advisor to oversee the testing programme of the new Lola-built A1 car. Wickham (54) will bring years of experience to the role, having started out in motor racing 30 years ago as the competitions manager of the British Automobile Racing Club. He moved on to work with Surtees in Formula 2 and later ran the March F2 team. In 1981 he set up Spirit Racing and entered F2 and in 1983 moved into F1, developing the Honda turbo engines. With Honda going into partnership with Williams, Spirit had to switch to Hart engines in 1984 but the team quickly ran out of money and in 1985 the team left F1 and Wickham went to work as team manager of the RAS Volvo team in the European Touring Car Championship. There followed various roles in Group C, Group A and in the British Formula 3 Championship with TOM'S and an attempt to revive Spirit Racing in Formula 3000. In 1989 he moved on to run the Footwork Formula 3000 team and after Footwork bought the Arrows F1 team, Wickham became a director of the F1 team and became the Arrows team manager in 1991. He stayed with Arrows until the start of 1995 but then left to be team manager of the highly-successful Audi Sport UK operation in the British Touring Car Championship and in recent years has had strong links with Audi, overseeing wins at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2000 and in 2001. More recently he was the team director of Bentley Motors, with the team finishing first and second in the 2003 Le Mans 24 Hours.