David Richards (racing)
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David Richards CBE |
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| Born |
3 June 1952 Wales, United Kingdom |
| Residence | Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Chairman of Prodrive and former Chairman of Aston Martin |
| Children | 3 |
David Pender Richards CBE (born 3 June 1952) is the chairman of Prodrive, former chairman of Aston Martin, and a former team principal of the BAR and Benetton Formula One motor racing teams. He lives with his wife, Karen, in Warwickshire and has three children. In the 2005 New Year Honours List Richards was appointed a CBE for his services to motorsport.
Richards grew up in North Wales, attending Brynhyfryd School in Ruthin, Denbighshire. On his 17th birthday, he passed his driving test in a Lotus Cortina. At the age of only 17 years and 3 months he became the then youngest person in the UK to hold a private pilot's licence and was awarded an RAF university scholarship. After completing his first year of A-Levels, he left school to spend five years studying for his articles as a British Chartered Accountant. It was during this period that he established his early career as a professional rally co-driver winning his first national rally championship with Tony Drummond in 1974.
In 1976, he established his own motorsport consultancy and created a new rally series in the Middle East, before joining the British Leyland factory team, co-driving Tony Pond, winning the Tour of Britain. In the same year, he married his wife Karen.
The following year he took up the position of team manager for Fiat, before returning to competition with the Ford factory team in 1979. Here he formed a successful and long-standing partnership with the Finnish rally driver, Ari Vatanen. The two won both the British and Scandinavian Championships before going on to win the World Rally Championship in a Ford Escort RS1800 in 1981.
After winning the World Rally Championship he took the decision to retire from active competition and focussed his attention on organising rallies on behalf of Rothmans in the Middle East and setting up his own rally team. In 1984, Richards brought together Rothmans and Porsche and took his next major step in motorsport management, creating Prodrive to engineer and run the newly formed Rothmans Porsche Rally Team in the European and Middle East Rally Championships.
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