Mark
Blundell

Mark Blundell was born in London on 8 April 1966. He raced motocross bikes from the age of 14 and moved to Formula Ford at 17. In 1986 he won the European Formula Ford 2000 title. He stepped up to Formula 3000 in 1987 and finished sixth in the 1988 standings with the works Lola team. In 1989 he joined Nissan as a factory sports car driver, and in 1990 he took pole position at Le Mans in a Nissan R90CK, becoming the youngest driver to do so at the race.

Blundell made his Formula One debut with Brabham in 1991, finishing sixth in Belgium and 18th in the championship, while also keeping a testing role with Williams. He had no race seat in 1992, worked as a McLaren test driver and won the Le Mans 24 Hours with Peugeot. He returned to Formula One with Ligier in 1993, took podiums in South Africa and Germany, and ended the year tenth in the championship. In 1994 he drove for Tyrrell, finished 12th overall and took third place in Spain, the team's last podium. In 1995 he partnered Mika Häkkinen at McLaren, scored points five times and was tenth in the championship again. It was his final Formula One season. In total he made 61 starts and finished on the podium three times, with no wins or pole positions.

Blundell raced in CART from 1996 to 2000. He joined PacWest in 1996 and also drove for the team in his final season, 2000. In 1997 he won at Portland by 0.027 seconds ahead of Gil de Ferran, added wins at Toronto and Fontana, and finished sixth in the championship. Autosport named him British Driver of the Year that season.

He then returned to sports car racing. In 2003 he finished second at Le Mans and third at Sebring for Bentley, sharing the car with Johnny Herbert and David Brabham. From 2002 to 2008 he worked as an analyst for ITV, and in 2019 he went back to the track in the British Touring Car Championship with Trade Price Cars.

Source: Wikipedia, “Mark Blundell”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.