Bob
Anderson

Bob Anderson was born in Hendon, north London, on 19 May 1931. He began motorcycle racing in 1953 and won the 500cc class of the North West 200 in Northern Ireland in 1956, followed by the 350cc class in 1957. In 1958 he finished second to John Surtees in the Senior TT on the Isle of Man. He competed in the motorcycle Grand Prix world championship from 1958 to 1960. At the end of 1960 he was injured in a race in South Africa, and at the age of 29 he turned to car racing.

In 1961 he drove a Lola in a Formula Junior race at Snetterton and later raced in that category for Team Lotus, winning at Montlhéry and finishing second at Monaco. In 1963 he entered Formula One with his own Lola Mk4 under the name DW Racing Enterprises, a team made up of just himself and a few mechanics. That year he won the Rome Grand Prix, a non-championship race. From 1964 to 1967 he ran private Brabhams. His best result in the World Championship was third place in the 1964 Austrian Grand Prix, and he finished that season eleventh in the standings. He made 25 starts from 29 entries. For 1964 he was awarded the Von Trips Memorial Trophy as the most successful private entrant. He was one of the last independent privateers in Formula One.

In 1967 Anderson crashed while testing at Silverstone in wet conditions. He died on 14 August 1967 at Northampton General Hospital.

Source: Wikipedia, “Bob Anderson (racing driver)”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.