Andrew Kirkaldy (racing driver)

Andrew Kirkaldy (born 1 March 1976 in St Andrews) is a British racing driver and Managing Director of McLaren GT.

Andrew Kirkaldy
British racing driver and Managing Director of McLaren GT Andrew Kirkaldy
NationalityBritish
Born (1976-03-01) 1 March 1976
St Andrews (Scotland)
FIA GT Championship GT2 career
Debut season2006
Current teamCRS Racing
Car number56
Former teamsScuderia Ecosse
Starts36
Wins4
Poles10
Best finish5th in 2009
Previous series
2007
2004–05
2004
2003
2002
2002
2001
2001
1999–2000
1998
1996–97
Porsche Carrera Cup GB
British GT Championship
Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0
ASCAR
FIA GT Championship N-GT
Renault Clio Cup GB
Atlantic Championship
German Formula Three
British Formula 3
Formula Opel Europe
Formula Vauxhall
Championship titles
2005British GT Championship GT2
Awards
1997McLaren Autosport Award

Career

Single-seaters

Kirkaldy began his career competing in karting, winning the Scottish Junior Championship in 1989 and the Scottish Senior Championship in 1993.[1] He raced in the Formula Vauxhall championship in 1996 and 1997, finishing runner-up in 1997.[2] He also won the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award in that year, which earnt him a prize test with the McLaren Formula One team.[1] He was runner-up in Euroseries Formula Opel in 1998.[2] He raced in the British Formula Three Championship in 1999 and 2000.[2]

Sports cars

In addition to finishing runner-up in the Renault Clio Cup in 2002, Kirkaldy made his FIA GT Championship debut.[2] In 2004 he moved to the British GT Championship, winning the series in 2005 with teammate Nathan Kinch for Scuderia Ecosse.[1] He also made his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut in 2005 for the team.[2] He returned to the FIA GT Championship in 2006 with Scuderia Ecosse, racing in the GT2 class.[2] In 2008, he drove for his CRS Racing team in the championship.

Team AKA & CRS Racing

As well as his racing career, Kirkaldy is a successful team principal, founding his own Team AKA team in 2004. The team ran for four seasons in the British Formula Renault Championship, ending up with a second in the 2006 teams championship. The team also achieved two top-three drivers championship positions with James Jakes, who was third in 2005, and Patrick Hogan, who was second in 2006 only after losing a tie-breaker to Sebastian Hohenthal. In 2007 Chris Niarchos approached Kirkaldy with sponsoring of Team AKA in their fourth season of the British Formula Renault Championship, with the two having previously been team-mates on the Scuderia Ecosse team which competed in the FIA GT Championship. Team AKA then became known as AKA Cobra.[3]

Following the 2007 season, Niarchos' interest in the team expanded as the two wished to enter their own team in not only the FIA GT Championship but the British GT Championship as well, ending their relationship with Scuderia Ecosse. The team was renamed once more and was relaunched as CR Scuderia, reflecting their choice of Italian Ferraris for their entry into grand tourer racing.[4] The team was again renamed for 2009, becoming CRS Racing.[5] Subsequently CRS agreed a deal with McLaren to develop the GT3 version of the McLaren MP4-12C.[6]

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Year Team Co-Drivers Car Class Laps Pos. Class
Pos.
2005 Scuderia Ecosse Nathan Kinch
Anthony Reid
Ferrari 360 Modena GTC GT2 70 DNF DNF
2006 Scuderia Ecosse Chris Niarchos
Tim Mullen
Ferrari F430 GT2 GT2 311 17th 3rd
2007 Scuderia Ecosse Chris Niarchos
Tim Mullen
Ferrari F430 GT2 GT2 241 DNF DNF
2009 JMW Motorsport Robert Bell
Tim Sugden
Ferrari F430 GT2 GT2 320 23rd 4th

References

  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 5 June 2010. Retrieved 2009-12-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Profile at CRS Racing
  2. http://www.driverdb.com/drivers/368/career/ Career at Driver Database
  3. "AKA Cobra - A Winning Team". AKA Cobra. Archived from the original on 17 October 2008. Retrieved 8 December 2009.
  4. van Dijk, Sander (5 December 2007). "New British Racing Team to take to the track in 2008". PlanetLeMans.com. Planet Le Mans. Retrieved 8 December 2009.
  5. "CRS launches FIA GT title assault". PlanetLeMans.com. Planet Le Mans. 9 January 2009. Retrieved 8 December 2009.
  6. "formulaA winning". Leicester Mercury. 25 January 2011. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 2 July 2014.
Sporting positions
Preceded by
Jonathan Cocker
British GT Champion GT2 Class
with:
Nathan Kinch

2005
Succeeded by
Tim Mullen
Chris Niarchos
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Darren Turner
McLaren Autosport BRDC Award
1997
Succeeded by
Jenson Button
Preceded by
James Pickford
Autosport
British Club Driver of the Year

2005
Succeeded by
Sam Bird
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