Paul Hawkins (racing driver)
Hawkins in 1966
|
|
| Born |
12 October 1937 Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
|---|---|
| Died | 26 May 1969 (aged 31) Oulton Park, Cheshire, England, UK |
| Formula One World Championship career | |
| Nationality |
 Australian |
| Active years | 1965 |
| Teams | non-works Brabham and Lotus |
| Entries | 3 |
| Championships | 0 |
| Wins | 0 |
| Podiums | 0 |
| Career points | 0 |
| Pole positions | 0 |
| Fastest laps | 0 |
| First entry | 1965 South African Grand Prix |
| Last entry | 1965 German Grand Prix |
Robert Paul Hawkins (12 October 1937 – 26 May 1969) was an Australian motor racing driver. The son of a racing motorcyclist-turned-church minister, Hawkins was a capable single-seater driver but really made his mark as an outstanding sports car competitor driving Ford GT40s and Lola T70s. In 1969 Hawkins was included in the FIA list of graded drivers, an elite group of 27 drivers who by their achievements were rated the best in the world.
Hawkins was hugely popular and known as Hawkeye; the son of a gentleman of the cloth he was a colourful character with a wide colourful vocabulary. He was also famous for being one of two racers to crash into the harbour at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hawkins began racing in Australia with an Austin-Healey in 1958. He left Australia and arrived in England in 1960. He found employment with the Donald Healey Motor Company Ltd., under John Sprinzel:
"I put an ad in the Evening Standard newspaper looking for
a mechanic and employed a really good guy to be our works
foreman; his name was Paul Hawkins. Paul literally came in
straight off the boat from Australia. He’d done a little bit of racing
and was a very good mechanic, very good as he knew his stuff, and
certainly knew the best parts of the English language, too."
Hawkins was soon behind the wheel of an Austin-Healey Sprite, racing at the Aintree 200 meeting on 30 April 1960, and winning his class in the GT race. He then finished 38th at the 1960 Nürburgring 1000 km race, with co-driver Cyril Simson, known as Team 221, on a "miserable foggy day in May". In 1961 at Le Mans Hawkins teamed with John Colgate in an Austin-Healey Sprite, but they retired in the eighth hour with engine problems. On Whit Monday, 1962, at Crystal Palace Hawkins drove Ian Walker's Lotus-Ford to victory in the up to 1,150 c.c. sports car race, setting lap and race records. At Le Mans in 1965 Hawkins, with John Rhodes, finished twelfth overall, and first in class, in a 1.3-litre Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite entered by the Donald Healey Motor Company, completing 278 laps.
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