Ralph
Firman

Ralph Firman was born in Norwich in 1975 and raced as an Irish driver. His father, Ralph Firman Sr., co-founded the racing car constructor Van Diemen, and his sister Natasha is also a racing driver. He went straight into motor racing after leaving school. In British Formula 3 he lost the 1995 title to Oliver Gavin at the final round, but won the championship in 1996 at his second attempt. That year he also won the Macau Grand Prix. In the second race he crashed at the hairpin and blocked the track, the race was stopped, and the result was taken from the previous lap, when he was ahead of Jarno Trulli. He then moved to Japan and won the Formula Nippon championship in 2002.

Firman reached Formula One with Jordan in 2003, as team-mate to Giancarlo Fisichella. He made his debut at the Australian Grand Prix and started 14 races in total. At the Spanish Grand Prix he scored a championship point, the first for a driver from the Republic of Ireland since Derek Daly in 1982, and he finished 19th in the standings. After a heavy crash in practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix he had to miss that race and the next one, with Zsolt Baumgartner taking his place.

In November 2003 he drove a Jordan EJ13 around the Guia Circuit for the 50th anniversary of the Macau Grand Prix, the first time a contemporary Formula One car had been seen there. In August 2004 he was an official test driver for the A1 Grand Prix series, and in August 2005 he was announced as the driver for A1 Team Ireland. He also took part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 2007 he and Daisuke Ito won the GT500 class of Japan's Super GT with the ARTA team, clinching the title before the final race of the season, which had never happened in the series before. Firman retired from racing in 2013.

Source: Wikipedia, “Ralph Firman”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.