David
Piper

David Piper was born in Edgware on 2 December 1930. He began racing in the mid-1950s in sprints and hill-climbs, and then moved on to circuit racing with a Lotus Eleven.

In 1959 and 1960 he ran a Lotus 16 in both Formula One and Formula Two, changing the engine to suit the category. He made his World Championship debut on 18 July 1959. He was entered for three Grands Prix in the championship and started two of them, one in 1959 and one in 1960, both for Lotus. In that car, his best result came in the 1960 Lady Wigram Trophy, where he finished second to Jack Brabham's Cooper. In 1961 he contested European Formula Junior alongside Jo Siffert and drove a Gilby Formula One car in the Gold Cup. He also took part in non-championship races in 1962, but then switched to sports cars, starting with a Ferrari 250 GTO.

Between 1962 and 1970 he raced in many parts of the world in his own Ferraris and later a Porsche 917. At the 1969 Nürburgring 1000km he shared the 917 with Frank Gardner and finished eighth, four laps behind the winning Porsche 908. At Le Mans in 1969 he shared a Ferrari 312 P with Pedro Rodriguez, but the car did not finish. In October 1969 he took sixth place in the Japanese Grand Prix with the 917, then finished third at Hockenheim, and in November he won the Kyalami 9 Hours with Richard Attwood. He later raced his own and other cars in historic events and won the Le Mans Legend race in 2001.

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