Frederick Charles Kenneth Wharton (21 March 1916 – 12 January 1957) was a British

racing driver Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. In North America, the term is commonly used to describe all forms of automobile sport including non ...

from

Smethwick Smethwick () is an industrial town in the Sandwell district, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire and then Worcestershire before bei ...

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. He competed in off-road trials, hillclimbs, and

rallying Rallying is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests (sometimes called "rally racing" in United States), navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed ...

, and also raced

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and single-seaters. He began racing in the new National 500cc Formula in his own special, and later acquired a Cooper. His World Championship Grand Prix debut was at the 1952 Swiss event, run to Formula 2 regulations, where he started from 13th position on the grid and finished 4th. He participated in a total of 15 World Championship Grands Prix, from which he scored three championship points. On 17 August 1935, he was involved in a crash at

Donington Park Donington Park is a motorsport Race track, circuit located near Castle Donington in Leicestershire, England. The circuit business is now owned by Jonathan Palmer's MotorSport Vision organisation, and the surrounding Donington Park Estate, sti ...

while driving an

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in an 850 c.c. race. The incident, which saw him overturn at Redgate corner occurred on lap one of five. Wharton escaped with abrasions to the arm. In 1951 he "travelled abroad, with Peter Bell's 2-litre E.R.A., to finish 3rd overall in the Susa/Mont Cenis hill-climb and 4th overall in the Aosta/Grand Saint Bernard hill-climb. With a Cooper 500, he also competed in the German Freiburg hill-climb where he was runner-up in the 500 cc class to

Stirling Moss Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss (17 September 1929 – 12 April 2020) was a British racing driver and sports broadcasting, broadcaster, who competed in Formula One from to . Widely regarded as one of the greatest drivers to never win the Formula On ...

." Wharton won the Freiburg event outright in the E.R.A. on 5 August, climbing the 7.4 miles of the

Schauinsland The Schauinsland (literally "look-into-the-country"; near Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) is a mountain in the Black Forest with an elevation of above sea level. It is a popular destination for day trips. Due to the high amount of silver mining, ...

Pass, in 8 minutes 5.33 seconds. On 19 August he was fastest at the Vue des Alpes hill-climb, with a time of 3 minutes 57.8 seconds. He won the British Hill Climb Championship every year from 1951 to 1954, and remains the only driver to have won four successive BHCC titles. Other successes with ERA R4D included winning the Brighton Speed Trials in 1954, 1955 and 1956. Success in rallies included winning the Tulip Rally in 1949, 1950 and 1952, driving Fords. He also became the British Trials Champion. On 4 July 1954, he and Peter Whitehead won the

Reims Reims ( ; ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French Departments of France, department of Marne (department), Marne, and the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 12th most populous city in Fran ...

12-hour race in a Jaguar D-Type. In 1957 Wharton was fatally injured when his

Ferrari Monza The Ferrari Monza is one of a series of cars built by Ferrari. In the early 1950s, Ferrari shifted from using the compact Gioacchino Colombo-designed V12 engine in its smallest class of sports racers to a line of straight-4, four-cylinder engine ...

crashed in a sports-car race at the Ardmore Circuit in

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. More than 1,100 people attended his funeral, including his mother, father, sister, aunt, uncle and cousins.

Complete World Championship results

( key)

References

External links

Ken Wharton profile at The 500 Owners Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wharton, Ken 1916 births 1957 deaths 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers Brighton Speed Trials people British hillclimb drivers BRM Formula One drivers English Formula One drivers English racing drivers Racing drivers who died while racing Sport deaths in New Zealand Sportspeople from Smethwick Vanwall Formula One drivers World Sportscar Championship drivers 12 Hours of Reims drivers 20th-century English sportsmen