Bruce Johnstone (born William Bruce Gordon Johnstone on 30 January 1937 in Durban – died 3 March 2022) is a former racing driver from South Africa.
He participated in one Formula One World Championship Grand Prix, on 29 December 1962. He scored no championship points. Info from Wiki
Bruce Johnstone raced a Volvo PV544 in local events during the late 1950s and results included fourth place in the 1960 Pietmaritzburg Six Hours. He finished sixth in the Formule Libre South African GP at the end of the year when driving a Cooper T43-Alfa Romeo.
The 1960/61 South African Championship was run to F1 rules and Bruce continued with the car and only lost the title to defending champion Syd van der Vyver at the last round when forced out by a puncture.
He drove Reg Parnell’s Yeoman Credit Cooper T56-Climax in the 1961/62 season. He was fifth in the Rand GP, but crashed during the Natal GP and while practising for the South African GP with the car too badly damaged to start.
The summer of 1962 was spent working as a mechanic at BRM in England. He made his European racing debut in the Nürburgring 1000Kms when sharing Ian Walker’s eighth placed, class-winning Lotus 23-Ford with Peter Ashdown. He was then entered in a third BRM P57 for the Oulton Park Gold Cup and stayed out of trouble in a race of attrition to finish fourth.
He won the 1962 Rand Nine Hours at Kyalami, sharing David Piper’s Ferrari 250GTO, before driving for BRM in that year’s winter F1 races. He impressed in the Natal GP by leading Jim Clark during his heat before finishing second and retiring from the final. The South African GP was granted full championship status in December 1962 and Bruce’s BRM P48/57 came from the back of the grid to finish ninth.
Although only 25 years old, he stopped racing and ran a business importing Yamaha motorcycles to South Africa, then later retired to Cape Town.
