Mike
Parkes

Mike Parkes was born in Richmond, Surrey, on 24 September 1931. He worked for the Rootes Group from 1950 to 1962, starting as an apprentice. Among other roles there, he was project engineer on the development of the Hillman Imp. In the mid-1950s he began racing, first in an MG and then in a Frazer Nash. In 1957 he drove a Lotus and was invited by Colin Chapman to be reserve driver for the works team at Le Mans. He took part in the Fry Formula Two project in 1958 and 1959. At the 1959 British Grand Prix at Aintree he was entered in a Fry-Climax but failed to qualify, and he then went back to sports cars.

In sports car racing he drove for Equipe Endeavour in 1961, as well as a Ferrari GT for Maranello Concessionaires. At Le Mans he shared a Ferrari Testa Rossa with Willy Mairesse and finished second. In 1963 he joined Ferrari officially as development and reserve driver, also working as a development engineer on the road cars, including the 330 GTC. With Umberto Maglioli he won the 1964 12 Hours of Sebring, with Jean Guichet the 1965 Monza 1000 km, and with John Surtees another sports car race at Monza in April 1966. In 1967 he finished second at Le Mans with Ludovico Scarfiotti in a Ferrari 330P4.

When Surtees left Ferrari in 1966, Parkes was promoted to the Grand Prix team. He was second straight away, in the French Grand Prix at Reims. Two retirements followed, then another second place at Monza, where he also started from pole position. He ended the season eighth in the World Championship. In 1967 he won the BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone, and at Syracuse he shared a dead-heat victory with Scarfiotti in honour of the late Lorenzo Bandini; neither race counted towards the World Championship. In the championship he finished fifth at Zandvoort. At the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa his race ended with a crash on the first lap, which brought his Grand Prix career to a close. He made six World Championship starts, with two podiums and one pole position, and was sixteenth in the 1967 standings.

In the 1970s he returned to sports cars. In 1970 he was fourth at the 24 Hours of Daytona with Sam Posey and sixth at Sebring with Chuck Parsons, and in 1972 he was seventh at Le Mans with Lafosse and Cochet. After returning to Ferrari in 1969 he worked for Scuderia Filipinetti as both engineer and driver, and from 1974 he was principal development engineer on the Lancia Stratos. Parkes died in a road collision near Turin on 28 August 1977.

Source: Wikipedia, “Mike Parkes”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.