Michael Johnson Parkes (born 24 September 1931 in Richmond, Surrey – died 28 August 1977 near Riva presso Chieri, Italy) was a British racing driver, from England. Parkes was born into an automotive background as his father John, was Chairman of the Alvis Group. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Born in Richmond, Surrey, Mike Parkes was born into an automotive background as his father John, was Chairman of the Alvis Group. He joined the Rootes Group as an apprentice in 1949 and worked in various capacities, including being involved in the project which led to production of the Hillman Imp, and left the company at the end of 1962 and had .
He began his racing career initially with an MG, with his first race being at Silverstone in 1952, before acquiring a Frazer Nash. In 1957 he raced a Lotus and came to the attention of Colin Chapman who invited him to act as reserve driver for the works team at Le Mans. He then became involved with the David Fry F2 car in 1958 and 1959, then in 1960 drove a Lotus Elite for Sir Gawaine Baillie before moving to Tommy Sopwith’s Equipe Endeavour in 1961, where he drove in sportscars and Formula Junior.
He also drove a Ferrari 250 GT for Maranello Concessionaires and made headlines by beating Stirling Moss on more than one occasion in it plus at 1961’s Le Mans race he and Willy Mairesse finished second in a Ferrari Testa Rossa .
In 1962, he and Lorenzo Bandini co-drove a Ferrari at Le Mans, though retired from the race, and he drove a Ferrari 330LM to second place with Willy Mairesse in the Nurburgring 1000km race, behind the winning Ferrari of Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien. In 1963 he and Umberto Maglioli took third place at Le Mans in a Ferrari 250P plus at the RAC Tourist Trophy race at Goodwood Mike finished a car length behind winner Graham Hill. At 1964’s 12 Hours of Sebring, Ferraris were the top five qualifiers and as well as winning the race Mike set a speed record and completed the most miles ever for a winner.
Over the next few seasons he became a leading sports car driver, winning the Sebring 12 Hours (where he set a speed record and completed the most miles ever for a winner) and Spa 500km in 1964. However his season was cut short by an accident when his brakes failed during testing at Modena, in which he injured his back and was out of racing for the rest of the year.
In the following year Mike teamed with Jean Guichet to take the 1000 km Classic of Monza and they led most of the race after taking the lead from J.Surtees and L. Scarfiotti and also finished second at the Nürburgring 1000km.
1966 saw his Grand Prix debut when, after John Surtees left Ferrari, the team made a special long chassis to accommodate his 6ft 4in height, and he finished second in his debut at the French GP and second again at Monza. His successes in sports cars continued, winning the Monza and Spa 1000km in 1966, then taking victory in 1967 at Syracuse plus second place finishes at Daytona, Monza and Le Mans. There was an impressive win in that year’s International Trophy at Silverstone but disaster struck in the Belgian GP when he suffered a major accident after sliding on oil, and his car somersaulted. Mike ending up lying beside his overturned Ferrari 312 with head injuries and severe leg injuries and it would be 1969 before he raced again.
He continued in a management role at Ferrari while he recuperated then made a return in the Paris 1000km in 1969. He raced for NART and Scuderia Filipinetti through 1970 and 1971 (including a 1000 km race in Argentina in 1971 with Joakim Bonnier) and there were strong performances, including an impressive drive to fifth place in the 1972 Targa Florio with Peter Westbury in a Lola T212.
Following his retirement he managed the private Scuderia Filipinetti Ferrari team and ran a team of Fiat 128s in the European Touring Car Championship, plus was involved in the management of the Lancia rally team, being responsible over a period of years for the Lancia Stratos programme.
Alongside his racing, Mike also started flying (his first flight was in 1965 in Italy) and he went on to earn a full commercial pilot’s licence in America, plus held Italian and British air licences and was a pilot on the Safari Rally.
Sadly he was killed in 1977 in a road accident near Turin when his car was involved in a collision with a lorry.
Bio by Peter Hooper
Mike Parkes made his GP debut in 1966, at the relatively advanced age of 34, but he’d already made a name for himself in the motor racing world. He was a winner in British Saloons, in the Mk2 Jaguar, and also in Ferrari GT and sports prototypes, in the early to mid 1960’s, taking victory in a number of championship races, such as Sebring, Monza and Spa. His value to Ferrari was much more than his racing exploits. He was a fine engineer, and helped to develop a number of cars over the years, F1 included. Ferrari was reluctant for him to race in GPs, hence his late start. He only started 6 GPs, but from those, he twice finished 2nd, and he also won 2 non Championship races, in early 1967. But Ferrari’s fears proved justified, when he badly broke his legs in a nasty crash at the Belgian GP. He took a long time to properly recover, and returned to his development role within the Fiat group. He did race again, in sports cars, but not with the same speed as before. He finished 7th at Le Mans in 1972, his final race. He sadly died in a road accident in 1977, aged just 45.
