The Road to Formula One

Derek was born in Hampshire, England in 1954 and entered motor racing at an early age. As a teenager, Derek spent his formative years, not at school, but preparing stock cars that he would race alongside his Father. He became a junior Southern Area kart champion and went on to become British, European and World Champion (1972) in Superstox. All this after entering oval racing a year earlier than the regulations allowed with a forged birth certificate! In fact, Derek turned up to a Wimbledon Stadium meeting in 1982 scrapping alongside the hot rod regulars leading the final by three quarters of a lap - what was more amazing about this than the performance itself was that Derek was an F1 driver by this stage of his career and had turned up because he enjoyed racing so much! Unfortunately, Derek retired from the final with a puncture...

Despite a rather unconventional start to his career, Derek moved to single seater racing via the tried and tested Formula Ford route in which Derek won 30 races from 60 starts - and finished 2nd in 18 of the other races...  Impressive to say the least! Derek was supported in the "early days" by the family business - "Warwick Trailers" run by his Father and his Uncle Stan. This sponsorship allowed him to move into Formula 3 in 1977 with a Chevron chassis and legend has it that a big export order to Saudi Arabia that year facilitated this move...  Interestingly, Derek played a full part in the family business well into his F1 career as this represented a different challenge away from the insular world of motor racing.

Derek battled with Nelson Piquet (later to become an F1 triple world champion) for the two F3 championships in 1978 driving  a Ralt RT1 for most of the season - Derek won 8 races overall that year and won the Vandervell series!

Derek recalls his time in F3 (reproduced courtesy of FOTA - the Formula 3 Association):

"When I moved up into the British F3 Championship, it was the turning point of my career. It was a big jump forward. I wasn’t certain what I would do, where my career was going, what sort of driver I was. It was only when I did F3 that I realised that I could make a future of it if I had the right breaks.

"It was the first professional formula where people were able to see whether I was a real driver or not. From there, I was recognised as a racing driver, and not just as a mad young fool wanting to race cars.

"Formula One still looked a million miles away, but it was a possibility. We all felt we could be champions, but when you get to F3 and have a certain amount of success – leading races, leading the championship, beating new people who were in most peoples’ eyes going to go on and be F1 greats such as Nelson Piquet, Chico Serra, Andrea de Cesaris and Derek Daly – it made you feel like you had somewhere to go."

His success in F3 signalled a further step up the motor racing ladder - Derek raced in European F2 (the final stepping stone to F1 at the time) in 1979 with Kallay Racing and while the season did not yield much in the way of tangible success, Derek secured a drive for the 1980 season with Toleman. Derek finished 2nd in the series behind Brian Henton including victory at Silverstone.

Derek's F2 team, Toleman Group Motorsport, decided to enter F1 after dominating the 1980 F2 season with Derek and Brian Henton. The ingredients were certainly unusual - they would use Brian Hart's brand new turbo engine, new Pirelli tyres and a new to F1 driver.... Derek had arrived in F1!

Gallery

Formula Ford

Formula Three

Formula Two