Here at Hockenheim, this Irishman’s Grand Prix career started on a low. After that, it never got much higher…
Tommy Byrne’s interest in motor sports was fuelled by helping out a friend at local Irish stock-car derbies. Tommy bought an old Mini in the mid 1970s to compete in local rallies but after a crash his career seemed over. Then another friend suggested he’d go to Mondello Park and pay a visit to the Racing Driver School located on that track. He paid £15 which allowed him to do 15 laps in a Formula Ford. His reaction? “It was fantastic! After that, I couldn’t think of anything else.” He started to save money for a race car and in early 1977 he had bought himself a Crosslé 20F Formula Ford. He entered in a few races but didn’t go anywhere. In his own words, “a complete waste of money”. Tommy went back to the Mondello Park Racing Driver School to hone his skills.
Former driver John Murphy spotted Tommy’s raw talent and under his supervision the Irish lad was ready for the annual Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch late in 1977. Byrne got himself a Royale RP21 and impressed onlookers but a spin ruined any chances to reach the final. For 1978 he once again had his sights set on Formula Ford. A Hawke DL17/19 was bought but he did not score any results until he had got himself a new PRS RH01/78F. He realised that he needed a new car to shine in and try to outperform the works drivers. He put the PRS on pole on his first attempt with the car and actually won the race. It was a lucky win since the two leaders collided on the last lap, but as they say: a win is always a win…
He achieved his goals for 1979 when he got the works seat in the PRS team, courtesy of one of the Pro Race Services principals, fellow Irishman Derek Daly, who in 1980 gave Michael Andretti a PRS ride in the USA. This time, Byrne was entered in the developed RH01/79F but the season went bad for the talented man from the Green Isle as the pressure to deliver made him ran off the track too many times. For 1980 Tommy was on the pace again in a Van Diemen RF81. His greatest career moment came in the autumn by finishing second in the Formula Ford Festival. Unable to secure money for a season in F3 he took a half-step up the ladder by moving to FF2000 for 1981. There, he duly took Bitish and European honours and stood in for a young Ayrton Senna da Silva at the famous end-of-season Formula Ford Festival, FF1600’s unofficial “World Championship” at Brands – and won.
Then, after choosing to do British F3 with Murray Taylor Racing for 1982, his career suddenly went boom, reaching a climax by getting into a Formula 1 car the same year!
The reason for that was his stunning early-season form in Taylor’s Ralt-Toyota RT3. Within months Tommy was on the brink of GP racing, which first knocked on his door in the form of an offer to join the new McLaren International team as their test driver. Amazingly, Tommy turned their offer down to take go racing with Theodore! So when Messrs Daly, Lammers and Lees failed to impress in Theodore Yip’s perennial back-marker team, new blood was injected into the team, and F3 frontrunner Byrne was the man. But as we have seen so many times before when young and unexperienced drivers take the plunge into F1, Byrne’s fast arrival was yet another case of having eyes bigger than your stomach. In the end, three DNQs and two starts from the final position on the grid were his meagre results. He mixed that with his commitments in F3, where he was far more successful, lifting the British title by two points from Argentinian WSR driver Enrique Mansilla, with the likes of Martin Brundle, James Weaver and Roberto Moreno further down the ranks. Ironically, his championship title’s prize included a McLaren F1 test drive. And he took full use of it by setting the third fastest ground-effect time ever recorded at Silverstone!
Unfortunately, his star drive at the Silverstone test did not open any doors in F1, so Byrne signed to join Eddie Jordan Racing for the European F3 championship, winning two rounds and finishing fourth in the overall ranking, albeit at a considerable distance from the season’s stars, Pierluigi Martini, John Nielsen and Emanuele Pirro. At the end of the season Tommy switched to the Gary Anderson-penned works Anson-Alfa Romeo SA4B. Here he is seen at the Macau season finale.
For the 1984 season Byrne stayed in F3 for another attempt at the European F3 title, again driving for the Anson team. Highlights of his final F3 year were a third at Magny-Cours and a fine fourth at the Monaco GP support race. He finished 6th in the final classification with Ivan Capelli taking the 1984 championship for Enzo Coloni.
With no European prospects forthcoming, Tommy diverted his attention to North America, where he became a mainstay in the American Racing Series (later known as Indy Lights). The cars used for the series were March 85B F3000 chassis fitted with 4.5-litre Buick stock-block pushrod V6 engines instead of the 3.0-litre Cosworth V8s used on the Old Continent. In 1988 Tommy nearly forced a career breakthrough but he narrowly lost out on the ARS title. Although he won three races and led for 114 laps, a missed race at Milwaukee and a mid-season switch of teams damaged his efforts enough to see him finish runner-up with 144 points. In the end, Byrne was trailing champion Jon Beekhuis only by three points.
His Irish luck once again saw him finishing second in the 1989 season. Again he could have snatched the title but he missed out once more: he was on pole for the final race at Laguna Seca and cruising in the lead when a backmarker spun in front of him, forcing him to take evasive action. He rejoined but finished fourth while his rival Mike Groff finished second and won the championship with 163 points, ten ahead of Byrne. Tommy’s ARS momentum was lost after that. The 1990 ARS season was dominated by Canadian Paul Tracy, who swept the first seven races before Byrne took his only win of the season at Detroit. When the season closed, Tracy had won nine of his 14 starts, winning the title with 214 points. Byrne finished outside the top ten, his career now truly on hold.
After a season in Mexican F3 he seems to have disappeared from the racing scene. It’s only recently that Tommy has revived his international career, returning to race a Greenman Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R in Grand-Am, with American gentleman racers Millman and Peterson.
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