Derek
Daly

Derek Daly was born on 11 March 1953 and grew up in Dublin. He first built up experience in Irish Formula Ford. In 1977 he won the British Formula Three Championship and also took part in the European Formula Two Championship for the first time. In 1978 and 1979 he raced in both Formula Two and Formula One, finishing third in the Formula Two championship in each of those seasons.

He made his Formula One debut at the 1978 United States Grand Prix West. He drove for Ensign and Hesketh that year, for Ensign and Tyrrell in 1979, for Tyrrell in 1980, for March in 1981 and for Theodore and Williams in 1982. In total he was entered in 64 races and started 49. In 1980 he took two fourth places and finished 11th in the drivers' championship. He was the first Irishman to score world championship points in Formula One. At Monaco in 1980 he crashed at the first corner after being launched over three other cars. In 1982, late in the race, he suddenly found himself on course for victory, but a gearbox failure put him out. He finished that season 13th in the standings.

In 1982 Daly began racing in the American CART series, where he stayed until 1989. He started 66 races, including every Indianapolis 500 from 1983 to 1989 except 1986, and finished third at Milwaukee in 1987. In September 1984 he was involved in a serious accident at Michigan. He won the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1990 and 1991 in a Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo. He also worked as a commentator on American broadcasts of Champ Car racing. His son Conor is also a racing driver and has competed in the IndyCar Series.

Source: Wikipedia, “Derek Daly”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.