Damien Magee (born 17 November 1945 in Belfast) is a British former racing driver from Northern Ireland.
He participated in two Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 8 June 1975. He scored no championship points.
His only World Championship Grand Prix start came in 1975 when he replaced Arturo Merzario at Williams at short notice for the Swedish Grand Prix. The following year he tried to qualify a RAM-entered Brabham at the 1976 French Grand Prix, but missed out. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Born in Belfast in 1945, Damien Magee initially raced in Ireland before moving to England. It was due to his aggressive style while contesting Formula Ford that he gained the nickname ‘Mad Dog’ but he nevertheless showed early potential. However, he was constantly thwarted by a lack of funding which led to continual wheeler dealing and searching for drives.
In 1967 he raced a Lotus X1 and on his debut won a Clubmans heat, final and handicap at Bishopscourt plus also contested a number of Formula Libre races with a Cooper. In the following year he finished second at Kirkistown in his Lotus 35 plus was third there in a handicap race with a Merlyn. He continued with the Lotus 35 in Formula Libre in 1969 and had two victories and a podium place at Mondello Park. Racing his Cooper he had third and fifth place finishes at Mondello Park and the Leinster Trophy and raced a Crossle 16F to third place in a FFord race at Kirkistown.
He was runner up with the Crossle in the Northern Irish and Eire FFord Championships in 1970 though was the winner of that year’s Scottish Championship. His results included four victories at Mondello, a victory and three podiums at Kirkistown, a win and second place at Bishopscourt plus four victories and second at Ingliston. Competing in Libre races he had a win at Mondello plus took fourth and third at Ingliston.
Continuing the next year in FFord, this time with a Palliser, his best results were five podium finishes at Mondello, podiums at Snetterton, Ingliston and Bishopscourt plus two wins at Brands Hatch.
After FFord he graduated to Formula 3 and started with the elderly Palliser WDF3 he had raced the year before plus a Brabham and best results were podiums at Oulton Park and Thruxton, fourth at Rufforth and two podiums and a fourth place at Brands Hatch. After getting himself in the cockpit of A.W.Brown Racing’s Brabham BT41 he brought it home third at the prestigious Monaco F3 race but the car was sold and a promised F5000 never materialised. A debut in F5000 saw seventh at Snetterton with Hexagon’s Trojan T101 while racing a Brabham BT37 he won his heat in in a Players No.6 Grand Prix at Phoenix Park
Campaigning a Lola T330, Chevron B24 and a Trojan T101 in 1974’s Rothmans F5000 Championship his best results were second at Brands Hatch, third at Monaco and fourth at Oulton Park. Racing A.EW.Brown’s Lola T330, he retired from the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch and wasn’t classified in Silverstone’s International Trophy. Towards the end of the year he took third, fourth and fifth place finished with a Palliser in Formula Libre races at Brands Hatch.
In 1975 he drove in FF2000, Formula Atlantic in Canada plus British F5000 and the year also saw his Grand Prix debut. The opportunity came at very short notice when he replaced Arturo Merzario at Williams in the Swedish GP at Anderstorp and after qualifying twenty second he went on to finish fourteenth in the FW03. However, the fact he was even able to make it into Formula 1 was down to his tenacity as well as skill. In the race he felt the car was understeering a bit but “even had a couple of spins to show Frank how hard I was trying!” Describing the race, he said “right at the start my car was showered with dust and my throttle slides were sticking throughout the race from then on, making the understeer worse than before. I couldn’t believe it – after all the bad luck I’ve had, I thought I might get a break on that day.” He told how Vittorio Brambilla showed amazing speed with his March and during practice he was quicker than anyone else. Nobody could understand why he was so quick and ‘it was thought it was down to balance as he could hold the car through bends without the front or rear ends running wide. However, many years later “the March guys admitted that they had been cheating- the timing beam was located on the pit wall close to the March pit and one of them decided to wave his hand in front of the beam just before Vittorio crossed the line! It’s a shame we weren’t near the beam …”
He won with the Palliser at Brands Hatch in a FFord 2000 race and followed this with podiums at Silverstone, Oulton Park and Mallory Park plus fourth at Snetterton to finish sixth in the Championship. There were F5000 appearances with the Trojan at Brands Hatch, Snetterton, Silverstone and Mallory Park with the best finish being third at Brands. He took fifth place with the Crossle 22F in a Formula Atlantic round at Mondello and he also contested the Canadian Formula Atlantic series with a Tui.
In the following year he drove RAM Racing’s Brabham BT42 in Silverstone’s International Trophy though did not finish but he secured a regular drive with Hexagon Racing in the British ShellSport Group Eight Championship. Racing their March 75A, the season started well, taking second at the opening race at Mallory Park then victories at Snetterton and Oulton Park and he found himself leading the series. A third at Brands Hatch (though followed by no points at Thruxton) and a second at Brands Hatch kept up his title challenge. Retirements at Mallory Park and a big accident at Snetterton set him back but the team then acquired a Penske PC3-02 and he took fourth at Brands then second at Thruxton. However, after crashing heavily at Oulton Park he was replaced by Derek Bell for the final round at Brands and he finished the season second to David Purley. There was another F1 opportunity when he was entered in RAM’s Brabham BT44B for the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard though he failed to qualify by 0.7 seconds.
He returned to contest 1977’s Shellsport series but didn’t appear until late in the season driving a Len Gibbs entered Lola-Chevrolet T332C. Damien took second to eventual champion Tony Trimmer at Snetterton and was eighth in the final round at Brands Hatch though he had three end of season Formula Libre wins with the car at Brands. Damien then disappeared from the international racing scene though later drives saw him race a Wimshurst FF2000 car to fourth place at Snetterton in 1979 and in the following year he made a brief return to race an Escort in Hot Rods, not finishing in the first and taking fifth in the second race.
Speaking of his Swedish GP drive, Damien himself still felt the Williams drive was a proud moment for him and humorously said it would help him to be featured on one of the ‘less well known F1 drivers’ websites one day.’
There was a time when Frank Williams hired (and fired) more drivers than mechanics. Between 1973 and 1976, when WGPE was still a far-away thought and Frank Williams Racing Cars acted as the cars’ entrant, Williams incessantly tried to field a fully fledged two-car Grand Prix team with a budget barely decent enough to maintain a singleton kit-car chassis. But while several one-car minimal-budget efforts failed to make it into their second year (see the Lyncar and Token story) Frank was marking himself out as the King of Perseverance.
Where did he succeed (in dragging on his effort to the next back-of-the-grid season) where others failed? Simply by getting people to like him so much that they would supply parts to him, lend him their tools and… race for him. Effectively, the difference was made by the class drivers who were willing to drive his number-one car and score some remarkable live-saving results with it. In the ISO-Marlboro year of 1973, Le Mans legend Gijs van Lennep dropped in to net sixth and a point for Williams at the Dutchman’s home GP. Then the highly touted Jacky Ickx stepped aboard as a guest driver in the season closer at the Glen, having disappointedly left Ferrari, and almost repeated the fact, before rejoining the team for 1976. Van Lennep and Ganley’s points were enough already for another year in F1. For 1974 the next Ferrari renegade joined Williams and would remain with them for one and a half season. Arturo Merzario surprised everyone with a string of amazing qualifying positions: 9th in Brazil, third at Kyalami, 7th in Spain and 6th in Belgium, before finally taking a vital three points at Monza. The next year Jacques Laffite’s brilliant performance at the ‘Ring, which lifted him from 15th on the grid to second at the finish, gave Frank another reprieve before Walter Wolf moved in during 1976.
The second car was another story though. In all, some 22 hired men (and one woman) temporarily occupied the number-two seat in those four years (including the embarrassing Wolf-Williams months), with Frank in some occasions even resorting to a double-pay scheme, although on the occasion of the 1975 Swedish GP it must be said that Williams were plainly forced to hire the services of other drivers as regulars Merzario and Laffite were out winning the ‘Ring 1000kms for Alfa Romeo.
Thus Arturo and Jacques missed one of the most likeable ways of cheating in the history of Grand Prix racing, the March mechanics slightly improving their man Vittorio Brambilla’s qualifying efforts by “accidentally” waving their hand in front of the timing beam as the Monza Gorilla was heading for the line. Vittorio couldn’t believe his luck when his time was almost four tenths faster than anybody else’s. But in the race the accident-prone Italian who recently befell us proved that he was fully deserving of that pole position by leading the first third of the race before his March succumbed to transmission problems.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the grid, Damien Magee was among the many one-time Williams drivers, and a perfect fit for the job. The Ulsterman was perenially cash-strapped and although reasonably talented he was always seen scratching around paddocks for a decent ride. Damien’s one-off rent-a-drive at Anderstorp was a typical Magee opportunity of the time, with Damien’s next F1 break following about a year later when the RAM driver merry-go-round stopped right in front of him at the French GP. But whereas at Anderstorp Magee had brought the car home a decent 14th, 2 laps down, he failed to qualify RAM’s old BT44B at Paul Ricard in the last year private Brabhams were seen entering GPs. He outpaced RAM’s mainstay Loris Kessel by a full two seconds, however.
It wasn’t his only job of the season. At the start of 1976, Damien had finally managed to secure a regular drive, racing a Cosworth GA-powered March 751 in the Shellsport Group 8 series, competing against Richard Robarts amongst others. Entered by John Goldie’s efficient Hexagon Racing team Damien got off to a magnificent start at Mallory Park, taking second, before going one up on that with a win at Snetterton. Round three at Oulton Park went his way again, and now Magee was leading the series comfortably. Then came a third and a second on the Brands Hatch Club circuit, interspersed by a non-classified finish at Thruxton. Two retirements at Mallory Park and Snetterton blunted his challenge.
Through his ties with John Watson, Goldie took delivery of Penske PC3-02, that Watson had campaigned in GP racing that season before the race-winning PC4-01 arrived. Magee debuted it at Brands but could not manage better than fourth, while RAM’s Andy Sutcliffe took 7th in the BT44B/1 that Damien tried to qualify at Ricard but was now transferred to Britain for Shellsport duties. At Thruxton Magee placed the car second and was led home by pole sitter Brian Maguire in his Williams FW (FW04). Then, at Oulton Park, Damien crashed heavily in the race and was replaced by Derek Bell for the season closer at Brands. With three rounds still to go, Damien had been in with a shout for the title, which eventually went to David Purley with 171 points. But Magee was still the championship runner-up with 107 points.
Driving a Lola-Chevy T332C F5000 car on his return to the series in late 1977, Damien took a strong second to later champion Trimmer at Snetterton and was 8th in the final round at Brands. After that the Ulsterman disappeared from the international scene.
Gallery F3 and F Atlantic F1 F5000
