David Hunt (racing driver)

David Hunt (20 May 1960 – 11 October 2015)^[1][2] was an English racing driver and younger brother of 1976 Formula One world champion James Hunt.

Hunt started racing at 15 and moved up to Formula Ford in 1981. He competed in the British Formula Three Championship for five seasons from 1983 to 1987 against the likes of Ayrton Senna, Martin Donnelly, Martin Brundle and Damon Hill. He raced in the International Formula 3000 championship in 1988 and in the same year tested for the Benetton Formula 1 team. He then quit racing.

At the end of 1994 he sold his multi-level marketing business, selling water filters, and purchased the bankrupt Lotus team to try to save it, but had no success. He continued to work on getting Lotus back into the top echelons of motor sport until 2009, when he sold the rights to the Lotus name to the Litespeed Formula 3 team. Litespeed applied to compete in the 2010 Formula One season but was refused entry.^[3] However, a Lotus entry backed by the Malaysian government was later given an entry for 2010 after the selection process was re-opened following the announcement that BMW Sauber would withdraw from the sport at the conclusion of the 2009 season. The team was called Lotus Racing.^[4]

In the summer of 2010, 1Malaysia which ran an F1 team as Lotus Racing under licence from Lotus Cars bought Team Lotus Ventures Ltd from David Hunt. After this 1Malaysia would run its team as Team Lotus from 2011 onwards.

Death

Hunt died in his sleep on the evening of Sunday, 11 October 2015, at the age of 55.^[5]

References