Biography
Michael May was born in Stuttgart in 1934 and raced as a Swiss driver. He studied engineering. In 1956 he and his brother Pierre entered a modified Porsche 550 Spyder in the 1000km race at the Nürburgring. The car carried an adjustable wing above the cockpit that produced downforce. In qualifying it was quicker than the Porsche factory cars, but May was refused permission to start with the wing. In 1959 he won the Formula Junior Grand Prix at Monaco.
In 1961 he contested Formula One for Scuderia Colonia in a Lotus 18. At Monaco he qualified 13th and retired with an oil leak. At the French Grand Prix he came home 11th after starting 22nd. He crashed in practice for the German Grand Prix and afterwards turned to his engineering work at Porsche. In total he made two starts from three entries.
As an engineer he worked on fuel injection systems, in 1963 for the Ferrari 158. At the end of the 1960s he developed a turbocharger conversion kit for Ford V6 engines that raised output from 79 to 138 kW.
Source: Wikipedia, “Michael May (racing driver)”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Rates
Season by season
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Statistics: F1DB by Marcel Overdijk and contributors, licence CC BY 4.0, prepared by Hotlap Delta.