David Kennedy (born 15 January 1953 in Sligo) is a former racing driver from the Republic of Ireland.
He was one of his country’s first Grand Prix drivers, and is widely seen as having helped pioneer the Irish move into international racing.
He finished sixth in the series in 1978 but switched to the British Formula One series before the end of the year scoring a win on his debut with a Theodore Racing run Wolf WR3 at Snetterton. He finished runner up in British F1 in 1979 which helped him to moved into Grand Prix racing with the Shadow team in 1980.
However, the team was chronically underfunded and had a poorly engineered DN11 chassis. Teddy Yip of Theodore Racing fame took over ownership of the team after a few races but a new DN12 design turned out to be a similar disappointment. Kennedy did qualify and race in the 1980 Spanish Grand Prix, an event subsequently stripped of its World Championship status. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
After starting racing in Formula Ford 1600, David Kennedy would go on to become a driver manager, racewear business owner, F1 TV analyst, shareholder with top single seater teams and a board member at Mondello Park Circuit.
Born in Sligo on the 15th January 1953, he grew up in Dublin and it was seeing a copy of Motorsport News in a shop window that started a passion for racing. He told how “I can still see it to this day, it was a picture of an F3 race with 25 cars all going into Gerrards bend on the Mallory Park circuit with a bridge with ‘Shell’ across it in the background. So I went in and bought it and studied it and looked at it and read it day after day, week after week, and thought that this is what I wanted to do.”
After telling his bemused and disbelieving parents his career plan, as with many drivers his early exploits in racing had a slapstick element to them but also showed the determination and commitment. By the mid-1970s a Lotus 51 FFord was purchased to compete in the Irish Championship but as well as not having a clue mechanically about the FFord racer he didn’t even have a road car. A good friend, Tommy Goodwin “put me in touch with a young guy that worked as a mechanic in a garage in Dundrum in Dublin who was around our age and reckoned he could help and that he had a road car”. The guy in the garage was Derek Daly, who had a car though no trailer but they set off for Mondello Park with one driving a Ford Anglia and using a tow rope to pull the other behind in the Lotus 51. From this start, they gained support from Larry Byrne and a Merlin 11A was eventually obtained though to finance his racing he was also doing a number of jobs. These included working in a factory and as a window cleaner, despite not having a ladder, plus in car sales, delivering new cars to their owners, until he was sacked after overtaking his boss’s wife on one of his deliveries. During his early racing, when depositing money into his account, he would have lengthy chats and be quizzed about his racing with a person working in the bank-named Eddie Jordan!
To fund their racing David and Derek realised they needed to earn good money, quickly, and options were working on Alaskan oil rigs or in Australian iron ore mines. The result was decided on the toss of a coin and despite receiving no replies to their letters they set off for the Australia mines but it almost never happened due to numerous errors. They first mixed up the times of the flight, thinking it was 9 at night but theirs had left at 9 in the morning, the first of many plane changes to get there. Flying to London, and already having run out of money, at the airport check-in Derek’s passport was in his suitcase that had already checked through and they were told they couldn’t fly. However, after somehow persuading the officials, they were allowed to go into the plane’s hold to search and find the suitcase! After eventually reaching Australia, the work in the mines sorted their financial worries and after working 16 hours a day, seven days a week, they eventually returned to Ireland with enough money to fund their racing for the following season.
David now found himself taking wins or podiums and his first great success came when he won 1975’s Irish FFord championship. He then became Ireland’s first winner of a British single seater championship by winning the RAC and Townsend Thoresen FFord 1600 Championships in 1976 with his Crossle-Minister 30F. For 1976 an old 1951 Bedford ex-army troop carrier was purchased to help him travel between races and to save money they lived and slept at the side of the roads on the bus. While contesting that European FFord championship, at one point with sponsorship featured on the bus from a Dutch sex club, he went on to finish second in the series. He had strong support from John Crossle, Dunlop Ireland and John Hynes of Group Waterworks but his title challenge appeared under threat after he suffered a back injury at a race. His girlfriend Fiona (who later became his wife) drove the bus back to Northern Ireland, and after repairs by Crossle he was ready to contest the final race at Brands Hatch. Although he had to be lifted into the car due to his injury, a sixth place finish was all that was required to be crowned RAC Champion. Wearing his old two piece race suit (the only one he had) he was presented with the trophy by James Hunt who told him “Young man you look a bit dishevelled, you must go to my tailor and get yourself kitted out!” Ironically, he would later go on to establish a successful Grand Prix Racewear business during the 1980s.
He raced a March 773 for Scuderia Allegrini Euroracing SpA in 1977 and had some good placings but switched to Anglia Cars and outings with their Argo JMI-Toyota saw fifth and seventh at Thruxton and Donington Park plus three consecutive second place finishes at Kassel-Calden, Jarama (both times to Nelson Piquet) and Monza.
He continued with Argo in 1978 but the car was not as competitive though was second in the Monza Lottery, and he finished sixth in the European Championship. The year saw his Formula One debut at Snetterton in the British Championship with Theodore Racing and he promptly took pole and victory in the Wolf WR3. His winning ways continued into the next year by taking the first two races at Zolder and Oulton Park’s Gold Cup with a Wolf WR4. He looked in a strong position after a further victory at Mallory Park but he eventually finished second in the Championship, losing out by two points to Rupert Keegan when he crashed out of the Silverstone title decider.
The results saw him join Shadow in the F1 World Championship but it proved a disappointing time with the underfunded team as he failed to qualify with the DN11 in five races. At Argentina, he said if “the skirts worked and stayed down you went round the corner, if they stayed up you’d crash. You’d get about 2 laps in qualifying before the skirts failed and the suspension broke and earlier on the Saturday morning I’d noticed they’d parked a load of old 50s style fire trucks on the outside of this corner and during qualifying I got into a slide at around 160 mph and I knew that if I didn’t take this corner flat out I would not be quick enough to qualify. As a young driver you just keep your foot in and hope against hope that it will work. It didn’t and I spun and I waited to hit those fire engines and die. The car stopped, I was still alive, so I poked my head back out of the car and saw they’d decided to move the trucks to the other side of the track! In qualifying at Brazil his steering locked as the chassis used to flex and he described how “you’d have position both your hands on one side of the steering wheel to try and lever it round at 180 mph as the Armco barrier was approaching. It was insane. I remember coming into the pits sweating blood from my eyeballs from the effort of it all and I looked in the mirrors as Stefan came in behind me and I could see the fear in his eyes. The car used to move and you could hear it creak as you were committed to the corner and you didn’t know if you could turn into the corner or not.”
Even when trying to sort the car’s problems there was a lucky escape for him when they tested at Snetterton. He suffered another big accident after his suspension broke; he ‘went to turn but the car didn’t’ and just missed the sleepers they used as barriers and went off into a field of potatoes. He himself saw the irony in this, thinking “Oh great, this is just perfect I can see my epitaph now, Irishman dies in a field of potatoes.” The team were taken over by Teddy Yip and a new DN12 was entered for the French GP at Paul Ricard but he did not qualify. He finally managed to qualify for the Spanish race at Jarama but retired from it due to an accident but the race was later stripped of its World Championship status and declared a non-championship race. Unfortunately the team folded that year and this signalled the end of his F1 career.
Looking at other options, he considered Indy Car but decided it wasn’t for him did a part season in Can-Am racing in 1981, driving US Racing’s Chevrolet powered Frisbee and he took fourth at Watkins Glen though retired at Road America.
In 1981 he co-drove Richard Cleare’s Porsche 934 at the Nurburgring and Brands Hatch 1000Km races while 1982 saw him in Forx Clothing Limited’s Chevron B36 at the Brands Hatch 1000 Kms (with Gerry Amato and Martin Birrane). He competed in Thundersports the following year with Peer Racing’s Ford C100 prototype and there was a win and second place at Donington and Brands Hatch plus he made a one off appearance at Phoenix Park for a Formula Atlantic event in a Ralt RT1. The year also saw his Le Mans debut, co-driving a Ford C100 with Francois Migault and Martin Birrane, though they retired after 16 laps and
He had become involved with the Mazdaspeed team by now and would forge a successful career in their rotary engined cars. He set about helping develop the team and drivers who would be brought in over time included Stefan Johansson, Volker Weidler, Maurizio Sandro Sala, Bertrand Gachot and Johnny Herbert. He was a Mazda regular over the next eight years and won his class three times at Le Mans. In his first race for them in 1984 he, Jean-Michel Martin and Philippe Martin finished nineteenth overall and fourth in C2 class with their 727C. Later in the year he had a further WEC drive for the team with Yojiro Terada at the Fuji 1000 Kms while in a Thundersports race he took third place at Oulton Park with Eric Paterson in Colin Bennett’s Ibec P6.
Now in a Mazda 737C, the following season saw him teamed again with Y.Terada for 1000Km races at Silverstone, Suzuka and Fuji plus two 500km Fuji races. He raced for the team in the Japanese and World Championships in 1985 and at Le Mans finished third in the C2 class, sharing with Philippe Martin and Jean-Michel Martin. In 1986, his ride was a Mazda 757 in the GTP class at Le Mans but he, Pierre Dieudonne and Mark Galvin retired after 137 laps. He also raced the car in 500k and 1000km rounds at Silverstone, Fuji and Suzuka with Takashi Yorino, their best result fifth at Fuji. Away from Japanese machinery there was a 1000km race at Spa with with Martin Schanche’s Argo JM19 plus he teamed with Allan Grice and M.Birrane for a 500km race at Estoril to take eighth place with Australian National Motor Racing’s Holden Commodore.
The Le Mans trio returned the following year with the 757 and finished seventh overall but achieved victory in GTP plus there were strong placings with T.Yorino at Fuji and Suzuka. His best result in 1988 was fourth at Fuji with Y.Terada in the 767 and he continued campaigning the car in 1989 in Europe, Japan (and even a 480km event in Mexico, with P.Dieudonne) plus repeated the GTP victory in France, with P.Dieudonne and Chris Hodgetts. He continued with Mazda for two more years but though 1990 saw retirement from Le Mans with P.Dieudonne and Stefan Johansson, 1991 finally brought just reward for the team’s efforts. With the Mazdaspeed 787B, the team achieved its first overall Le Mans victory, with Volker Weidler, Johnny Herbert and Bertrand Gachot, while David, S.Johansson and Maurizio Sandro Sala took a creditable sixth place.
While he competed in the Japanese Sportcar Championship as well as Le Mans in the early 1990s, he moved to Japan and on one occasion there he and Fiona were eating with Mazda’s top people. When the chef put a fish on the large pan in front of them she jumped up screaming but fortunately there were no cultural etiquette issues caused and they found it highly amusing. However, Fiona turned the tables on David during a later train journey with Mazda personnel and she told them she knew the Japanese national anthem. He told how “Fiona stood up and sang it in front of them, as I looked on in shock. They were so impressed they handed me a contract to drive for them! Afterwards I asked Fiona where did she learn that ? ‘Oh I learned it in school from the nuns years ago’ she replied!”
In his final season of racing in 1994 he drove Chamberlain Engineering’s Lotus Esprit Sports in a number of Global GT series races before finally ending his career. Moving into driver management, among the drivers he helped were Ralph Firman, Richard Lyons, Damien Faulkner, all of whom went on to have successful careers in GT and sportscar racing. David organised racing car shows in Britain and Japan and one exhibition in Japan attracted 120,000 people, as he had all the top Japanese drivers appearing plus Lotus F1 driving Mika Hakkinen. He went on to develop a career as an F1 TV analyst, beginning on RTE in Ireland and then at F1 races for Setanta Sports plus had a regular column with the Sunday Independent newspaper for many years. During his racing he had been involved in managing duties at Mondello Park and has been a director and board member since 1986. In September 1999 he demonstrated the ‘Buzzin Hornets’ Jordan 199 F1 car at the circuit while in 2019 even formed a team with Tommy Byrne, Kevin McGarrity and Niall McFadden to contest the Fiesta Endurance race there. He was one of the leading officials of the Irish team in the A1 Grand Prix Series and they became series champions in 2008/09 with Adam Carroll behind the wheel. He was a shareholder and managing director when the team moved into GP3 in 2009 as Status Grand Prix and following this was managing director of Theodore Racing, whose team principal was Teddy Yip Jr.
Looking back on his F1 days, David later said he regarded the time with Shadow as a sort of success in that “my legs are still attached to my arse.”
Legend Series- Barry meets David Kennedy
