David Wishart Hobbs (born 9 June 1939 in Royal Leamington Spa, England) is a British former racing driver.
Originally employed as a commentator for the Speed Channel, he currently works as a commentator for NBC and NBC Sports Network. In 1969 Hobbs was included in the FIA list of graded drivers, a group of 27 drivers who by their achievements were rated the best in the world.
Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
From his first race in a Morris Oxford automatic, David Hobbs would go on to race in F1, NASCAR, Formula Junior, Indy, compete 20 times at Le Mans and become champion in Formula A and Trans-Am.
David had been raised around automobiles, thanks to his father’s work, and after he left school he joined Daimler Cars as an engineering apprentice. His father developed a compact automatic gearbox and made prototypes for BMC, Armstrong Siddeley, Fiat and BMW. Eventually Daimler took it up for a proposed new small car but the car never went into production and Borgward intended using they but went out of business.
In 1959, in his Mother’s Morris Oxford (fitted with one of his father’s automatic gearboxes), he raced at Snetterton but as the gearbox wasn’t homologated he had to race as a GT, against Lotus Elites and AC Aces. He raced around at the back, at peak revs, until the engine exploded. Following this they put an MGB engine into it, and entered it at Goodwood, and that also blew up.
While racing at Oulton Park in his father’s XK140, he rolled the car but when he phoned to tell him, his father had seen it on TV and told him that as he had broken it it was up to him to fix it; he repaired the car and would go on to win four races in it. The following year, racing a Lotus Elite fitted with his father’s Mecha Matic automatic transmission, he won 14 out of 18 races he entered. During this time both Stirling Moss and Jim Clark also had Hobbs Transmission LTD gearboxes in their cars.
Racing in 1961’s Nurburgring 1000Kms (with Bill Pinckney), the car was protested against because the gearbox was non-standard so they competed with the 1600cc sports cars and went on to beat the Porsches and win the class.
In 1962, he won on his open wheel debut in a F2 race at Oulton Park. During the year, he drove in the Daytona 3 Hours race plus entered his first 24 Hours of Le Mans, where he (and Frank Garner) would finish eighth overall, winning their class and the Index of Performance in a Lotus Elite Mk14. Over the next four years, he would take part in Formula Junior, sports car and saloon car races around the world.
In 1964 he raced a Triumph Spitfire at Le Mans (with Rob Slotemaker) and they won their class plus a non championship Aintree 200 F1 race in a Merlyn. Tim Parnell offered him an F1 drive in a BRM V8-engined Lotus 25 at the French Grand Prix but before it happened he sustained a broken arm, jaw, nose and cheekbones in a road accident and was in hospital for three weeks. During the year he raced a Lola T70 and finished third to Jim Clark and Bruce McLaren at Goodwood, then later won the Guards Trophy at Mallory Park. He also competed in the Can-Am Series with races at St Jovite, Mosport, Seattle, Laguna Seca and Riverside.
1966 saw his F1 debut in a BRM at a non-championship Syracuse GP, where he finished on the podium behind the Ferraris of J.Surtees and L.Bandini. There were also races in a Ford GT40 in the Springbok Series with Mike Hailwood and they took victory at Pietermaritzburg. He raced a BRM in the British GP, finishing eighth and also raced it in the Canadian GP where he finished ninth.
In 1967 he raced an Aston Martin-powered Lola T70 (with J.Surtees) at Le Mans, the Reims 12 Hours and Brands Hatch’s BOAC 500. In Formula One he drove Bernard White Racing’s BRM in Britain and Canada followed by the German GP for Lola Cars.
1968 saw him race Honda’s RA301 in the Italian GP plus Bernard White Racing’s BRM at non-championship races at Brands Hatch, Silverstone and Oulton Park and in that year’s Springbok Series he and Jacky Ickx won at Kyalami in a Mirage M1.
He raced Hogan Racing’s McLaren M10B in 1970 at the Questor GP, though did not qualify and then raced Hogan’s Lola T330 in 1974’s Brands Hatch’s Race of Champions and the BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone.
1971 saw him with Penske White Racing at Watkins Glen and then a Yardley Team McLaren in 1974 in Austria and Italy, finishing seventh and ninth. During this period there were also four Indy 500 races between 1971 and 1976, and his best result was fifth place in 1974.
He excelled at F5000 and won twenty-two F5000 races between 1969 and 1976 and in 1971 won the L&M 5000 Continental Championship in Carl Hogan’s McLaren M10B-Chevrolet. His 1969 Formula A (F5000) campaign only came about when plans for actor James Garner to race a Surtees TS5-Chevrolet did not happen. David made a late start because of this missed six out of fourteen races but he won four times and only lost the title to Tony Adamowicz by one point. He missed six races in the following year and finished third.
He competed in two NASCAR races in 1976 with DeWitt Racing at Daytona then later in the year at Michigan with Elliot Racing.
During his twenty Le Mans races, he drove for Team Lotus Engineering, Lola Cars, Standard Triumph Ltd, Maranello Concessionaires, Team Surtees, J.W. Automotive, Roger Penske, Equipe Matra-Simca, Ford Concessionaires France, EMKA, Skoal Bandit Porsche, John Fitzpatrick Racing, Joest Racing, Blaupunkt Joest Racing and Richard Lloyd Racing, in cars ranging from Triumph Spitfires, Lotus Elite, BMW M1, Ford GT40s, Ferrari 512s and Porsche 917, 956 and 962s.
He was an eleven times winner in IMSA and in 1983 was the Trans-Am champion in DeAtley Motorsport’s Chevrolet Camaro (team mate Willy T Ribbs finished second) plus during this period drove for JPS Team BMW 635 at 1981 and 1982’s Bathurst 1000 races.
In a later race, in 1990 at Dijon in a Joest Porsche 962 with Jonathan Palmer he had not done much racing and found that after three laps of practice he could not keep his head up. He bought a dog lead from a pet shop and hooked it to his helmet to support his neck and after finishing eighth he decided it was time to call it a day after 32 seasons of racing.
He has done commentary work, covering F1, USAC and Nascar for CBS,plus worked for ESPN and joined the SPEED network in 1996.
He opened a Honda dealerships in Wisconson, which is still in operation today, does charity and public radio work and had a movie role as ‘David Hobbscap’ in Disney-Pixar’s ‘Cars 2’. David was inducted into the Motorsport Hall of Fame in 2009 and in 2015 was honoured by the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum with its Spirit of Competition award.
From starting in his Mother’s Morris Oxford automatic, he went on to race in Formula Junior, F1, NASCAR and Indy, compete 20 times at Le Mans and become champion in Formula A and Trans-Am. Athough this article focuses on his McLaren racing there are several Honda photos and a Trans Am race).
David met Bruce McLaren in 1965 when he was racing a Lola T70 in the UK and they raced against each other a few times. Despite being underfunded the team also went to America and Canada to compete in the USRRC, which soon became CanAm and he came third behind Bruce at St Jovite, and was on the front row with him at Mosport.
His first race in a McLaren was in CanAm and he drove the M6B in a couple of races in America in 1969 and followed this with an M20 in 1971 and an M8D in 1972.
His first successes with a McLaren were in 1971’s US F5000. He had been driving for John Surtees since 1969 and they did the American championship twice. However, both times they got there very late and in the first year he missed six out of 14 races (losing the championship by one point) and returning the following year they missed another six races, but came third.
In 1971, Roger Penske wanted him to race his Ferrari 512M sportscar and at Indy, but it meant he would have to change teams in F5000, because Surtees were using Firestone tyres and R.Penske were a Goodyear team. It was arranged for him to drive for Carl Hogan and victories in a McLaren M10B at Laguna Seca, Seattle, Road America, Edmonton and Lime Rock, plus second at Mid Ohio, saw him take the title.
At the end of the season Roger Penske asked if he would drive at the US GP. Mark Donohue had driven a M19 to third place in the Canadian GP but there was a clash at Watkins Glen as he was committed to driving in an IndyCar race at Trenton for Roger.
However, on the Friday night Mark decided not to go to Trenton which meant David only had Saturday to work on the car and without much practice time, and the car not set up as he would have liked, he finished tenth.
The last time he drove a CanAm car was in 1973 for Roy Woods, using Peter Revson’s M20 from the previous year. They missed the first race but he had one of his best races at Watkins Glen when came second behind Mark Donohue’s Porsche 917/30K, plus beat several other Porsches.
That year he also drove a Carling Black Label sponsored Eagle for Roy Woods at Indianapolis. In 1974, despite not having their sponsorship any more, Carling felt the Indy experience had been very positive, even though they finished tenth after a long pit stop. They still wanted to sponsor him so he took the sponsorship to McLaren for the one race.
He said he got on well with Tyler Alexander and Teddy Mayer and loved driving the car, which was very reliable. They did hundreds of miles of testing and and he finished fifth, with team mate Johnny Rutherford’s unsponsored car winning the race (after starting twenty fifth).
Later in the year, Mike Hailwood was driving the third Yardley M23 but broke his legs in a crash at the Nurburgring and he replaced him for the Austrian and Italian GPs. He said how he didn’t have much contact with Emerson Fittipaldi, as he was in awe of him, but knew Denny Hulme since they did Formula Junior together in 1963. He finished seventh in Austria (a very daunting track) and ninth at Monza but felt he would do well at Mosport and Watkins Glen, as he knew them well, but the team put Jochen Mass in the car.
1976 saw him race a McLaren again, at Indianapolis with the Dayton Walther team, though he retired due to a water leak. In 1977-1979 he raced for BMW in IMSA, which was run by McLaren North America; it was a joint effort between McLaren and BMW and McLaren did a lot of the engine work themselves. He drove with drivers including Ronnie Peterson, Marc Surer, Derek Bell and Eddie Cheever but though they didn’t win the championship they won a lot of races with the BMW320, until it eventually became outpowered by the Porsche 935.
He stated that McLaren “has played a big part in my racing life one way or another, and my experience with the company over the years has been pretty good. I was very happy when Ron Dennis invited me to the lunch when the Queen opened the new technology centre!”
In 1976, while still actively racing, David embarked on a career in broadcasting for networks such as CBS, ESPN, Fox Sports, Speed TV and NBC.
In 1986, he opened a car dealership, David Hobbs Honda which is still running and currently lives in Vero Beach, Florida. One of his sons, Guy, worked for Speed as a pit reporter on their sports car coverage.
In 2009, he was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America and in 2015 he was honoured with the Spirit of Competition Award, at the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum. Besides racing on tracks all over the world he competed in legendary events such as the Le Mans 24 Hours, Daytona 24 Hours, 12 hours of Sebring, Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500. Cars he raced included the Jaguar E-Type, Lotus Elite, Lola T70, Ferrari 250 LM, Ford GT40, Porsche 917K, Ferrari 512M, McLaren M8D, McLaren M20, Ferrari 365 Daytona, BMW 3.0 CSL, BMW 320 Turbo, BMW M1, Porsche 935, Porsche 956, Porsche 962 and Nissan GTP-ZX.
Gallery F1 F5000 SC Can-Am Other
