TOURING CARS/Life after Formula 1...

Following Derek's departure from F1 at the end of 1993, he took a year off from driving (although was strongly rumoured to return to F1 at Monaco in 1994 in place of the banned Eddie Irvine at Jordan), and then raced in the BTCC for Alfa Romeo in 1995 and  Vauxhall in 1997 - 1998 (scoring one victory in the 1998 series at Knockhill) before standing down from driving duties to become a Director of Triple 8 which ran Vauxhalls in the BTCC. Murray Walker, in his recent autobiography, states that Derek never got to grips with touring cars and proved to be a disappointment. Certainly, on the face of it, this would appear so, but similar to his F1 career, I would say that Derek never really had a competitive car in the BTCC.

These days, Derek regularly features in the media as a "motor racing pundit" and is always keen to offer an opinion. Derek has appeared on ITV's F1 coverage from time to time and he featured on the Channel 4 (UK) documentary entitled "Faking It" in December 2002, in which a "member of the public" tries to pass him or herself off as something else - in this case a computer games programmer tried to pass himself off as an F1 driver... Subsequently, Derek has returned to racing in the GP Masters series.

Gallery