Watts in 2012
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Born |
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire |
31 December 1979
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24 Hours of Le Mans career | |
Participating years | 2007, 2009 – 2013, 2015- |
Teams | Team LNT, Strakka Racing |
Best finish | 5th (2010) |
Class wins | 1 (2010) |
Danny Watts (born 31 December 1979) is a British professional racing driver.
He was born in Aylesbury, and started racing in 1993, when he began karting. After five seasons of karting, he stepped up to single seater racing in 1998 in the UK Formula First championship, in which he dominated with 12 wins. He also competed in the Formula Palmer Audi Winter Series, in preparation for running the main Formula Palmer Audi championship the following year.
2000 saw a step up to the British Formula Renault Championship, when he was team mate to Kimi Räikkönen. In his third year of Formula Renault, he won the championship with 6 wins.
Watts ascended another tier in 2003, stepping up to the British Formula 3 Championship, with HiTech Racing. He took his first win in the series the same year in the second race at Castle Combe, having crashed out of the lead in race one. In 2004 he became the first driver for eleven years to win a round of the British Formula 3 Championship whilst not driving a car from the Dallara company.
2005 saw a mixed year for Watts. Unable to remain in Formula Three, he contested a handful of races in various disciplines. The same occurred in 2006, though he did make a brief return to F3 for the penultimate race of the season, at Thruxton, for champions Räikkönen Robertson Racing (co-owned by former British FRenault teammate, and now F1 star Kimi Räikkönen). In that race, Watts led the field and dominated proceedings with a convincing win.
In 2006 he raced in the Porsche Carrera Cup for the Redline Racing team. Initially he shared this drive with Richard Westbrook, only contesting races which clash with Westbrook's Porsche Carrera Cup racing, but after a run of 8 successive victories in the races he started, Richard conceded the drive full-time.