Dan Gurney

Daniel Sexton Gurney (April 13, 1931 – January 14, 2018) was an American racing driver, engineer and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One from 1959 to 1970. Widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of motorsport, Gurney won four Formula One Grands Prix across 11 seasons. In endurance racing, Gurney won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1967 with Ford, as well as the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1959 with Ferrari.

Born in Long Island, Gurney was the son of bass-baritone John R. Gurney and born into a family of engineers. Interested by California hot rod culture, Gurney built his first car aged 19 and became an amateur drag racer. After serving in the United States Army as an artillery mechanic during the Korean War, Gurney entered the 1957 Riverside Grand Prix, beating numerous established drivers including Phil Hill and attracting the attention of Luigi Chinetti, who organised his professional debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1958 with NART. His performance at Le Mans prompted Ferrari to sign Gurney for the 1959 season, making his Formula One debut at the French Grand Prix after winning the 12 Hours of Sebring with the team two months prior. After achieving two podiums in only four races at Ferrari, Gurney joined BRM in 1960. Following a non-classified championship finish with BRM, Gurney moved to Porsche, where he scored frequent podiums and finished fourth in the 1961 World Drivers' Championship. He took his maiden win at the 1962 French Grand Prix, which remains Porsche's only victory as a constructor in Formula One.

Gurney moved to Brabham in 1963 as their first-ever driver, taking multiple wins in three seasons at the team, including another fourth-placed championship finish in 1965. Alongside Carroll Shelby, Gurney had founded All American Racing in 1964, entering Formula One with Gurney at the wheel in 1966 under the chassis name Eagle. Despite struggling for reliability with the Len Terry-designed Eagle T1, Gurney took his final victory at the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix, before leaving the sport at the end of 1968. He returned at three Grands Prix in 1970 for McLaren, following the death of Bruce McLaren. Gurney achieved four wins, three pole positions, six fastest laps and 19 podiums in Formula One, amongst winning the non-championship 1967 Race of Champions.

Outside of Formula One, Gurney entered ten editions of the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 1958 to 1967, winning the latter alongside A.J. Foyt in the Ford GT40 Mk IV. His celebration upon winning Le Mans—spraying champagne on the podium—has since become a custom throughout global motorsport. Gurney was a record five-time winner of the Winston Western 500 in the NASCAR Grand National Series and, in American open-wheel racing, was a six-time race winner in USAC Championship Car and twice runner-up in the Indianapolis 500 in 1968 and 1969. He was also a race-winner in the Canadian-American Challenge Cup, the Trans-Am Series and the British Saloon Car Championship. In aerodynamics, he is remembered for his invention of the Gurney flap, and became the first Formula One driver to wear a full-face helmet at the 1968 German Grand Prix. His All American Racers team won 78 official races, including the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Daytona. Gurney was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1990.

Gurney was born to John R. "Jack" Gurney and Roma Sexton. His father was a graduate of Harvard Business School with a master's degree. Dan's three uncles were each MIT engineers. His grandfather was F.W. Gurney who was responsible for the invention of the Gurney Ball Bearing. He had one sister, Celisssa. Jack was discovered to have a beautiful voice after taking voice lessons in Paris and changed his career path to become lead basso with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, eventually retiring in 1947. Jack moved his family to Riverside, California, when Dan was a teenager and had just graduated from Manhasset High School. Young Dan quickly became caught up in the California hot rod culture. At age 19, he built and raced a car that went 138 miles per hour (mph) (222 kilometres per hour [km/h]) at the Bonneville Salt Flats. He later studied at Menlo Junior College, a feeder school for Stanford University. He then became an amateur drag racer and sports car racer. He served in the United States Army for two years as an artillery mechanic during the Korean War.

Gurney's first major break occurred in the fall of 1957 when he was invited to test Frank Arciero's Arciero Special. It was powered by a 4.2-litre reworked Maserati engine with Ferrari running gear, and a Sports Car Engineering Mistral body. This ill-handling brute of a car was very fast, but even top drivers like Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles had found it difficult to handle. He finished second in the inaugural Riverside Grand Prix (behind Shelby), beating established stars like Masten Gregory, Walt Hansgen and Phil Hill. This attracted the attention of famed Ferrari North American importer Luigi Chinetti, who arranged for a factory ride for the young driver at Le Mans in 1958. Gurney, teamed with fellow Californian Bruce Kessler, had worked the car up to fifth overall and handed over to Kessler, who was then caught up in an accident. This performance and others earned him a test run in a works Ferrari, and his Formula One career began with the team in 1959. In just four races that first year, he earned two podium finishes, but the team's strict management style did not suit him. In 1960, he had six non-finishes in seven races behind the wheel of a factory-prepared BRM. At the Dutch Grand Prix, at Zandvoort, a brake system failure on the BRM caused the most serious accident of his career, breaking his arm, killing a young spectator and instilling in him a longstanding distrust of engineers. The accident also caused him to make a change in his driving style that later paid dividends: his tendency to use his brakes more sparingly than his rivals meant that they lasted longer, especially in endurance races.

After rules changes came in effect for 1961, Formula 2 cars became Formula 1, which put the Porsche 718 former sportscar into the single-seater World Championship. As works drivers, Gurney teamed with Jo Bonnier for the first full season of the factory Porsche team, scoring three second places with the overweight underpowered car. He came very close to scoring a maiden victory at Reims, France, in 1961, but his reluctance to block Ferrari driver Giancarlo Baghetti (a move Gurney regarded as dangerous and unsportsmanlike, especially in open wheelers) allowed Baghetti in the faster Ferrari 156 to pass him at the finish line for the win. After Porsche introduced the better Porsche 804 car in 1962 with an 8-cylinder engine, and a German worker strike causing Porsche to remain absent from the Belgian round, Gurney broke through at the French Grand Prix at Rouen-Les-Essarts with his first World Championship victory – the only GP win for Porsche as an F1 constructor, and the only GP win with an air-cooled engine. One week later, he repeated the success in a non-Championship F1 race in front of Porsche's home crowd at Stuttgart's Solitude Racetrack. Due to the high costs of racing in F1, Porsche did not continue after the 1962 season. While with Porsche, Gurney met the factory's public relations executive named Evi Butz, and they married several years later.

Gurney was the first driver hired by Jack Brabham to drive with him for the Brabham Racing Organisation. Brabham scored the maiden victory for his car at the 1963 Solitude race, but Gurney took the team's first win in a championship race in 1964 at Rouen. In all, he earned two wins (in 1964) and ten podiums (including five consecutive in 1965) for Brabham before leaving to start his own team. With his victory in the Eagle-Weslake at the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix, Gurney earned a distinction as the only driver in history to score maiden Grand Prix victories for three different manufacturers: Porsche, Brabham and Anglo-American Racers.