Tim Sugden (born 26 April 1964, in Bradford) is a British racing driver. He is both driver and manager for his own racing team, Tim Sugden Motorsport.

Early career

Sugden started racing in karting, where he became British champion. He soon moved up to Formula Ford 1600, winning the Star of Mallory series in 1987. Despite working on a small budget, he gained top place finishes at senior level FF1600 driving the works

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"Tredaire" car for Frank Bradley. He also drove in the Honda CRX challenge and British Formula 3000. In 1990 he finished third in the

Formula Renault Formula Renault are classes of formula racing popular in Europe and elsewhere. Regarded as an entry-level series to motor racing, it was founded in 1971, and was a respected series where drivers can learn advanced racecraft before moving on to hig ...

Championship, with one race victory along the way.

BTCC

His first racing in the

British Touring Car Championship The Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organised and administered by TOCA. It was established in 1958 as the British Saloon Car Championship and was renamed as ...

came in 1990. He entered selected rounds for the

Prodrive Prodrive is a British motorsport and advanced engineering group based in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. It designs, constructs and races cars for companies and teams such as Aston Martin, Bahrain Raid Xtreme and Team X44. Its advanced technolo ...

ran Junior BMW Team in the 2.0litre class. An impressive performance for the team in 1991 saw him win at

Brands Hatch Brands Hatch is a motor racing circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Originally used as a grasstrack motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently hos ...

, finishing the year in tenth place, despite only competing in five rounds. This led to a full season in 1992 for the works BMW team, where he ended the year eighth on points. Prodrive's contract with BMW ended but Sugden was retained for 1993 by Prodrive for an abortive Mercedes entry and Sugden then returned to the series again in 1994. He entered selected rounds for the

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

works team as a third driver alongside 1991 champion Will Hoy and former F1 driver

Julian Bailey Julian Bailey may refer to: * Julian T. Bailey (born 1859), American lawyer, writer and educator * Julian Bailey (racing driver) (born 1961), British racing driver *Julian Bailey (actor) Julian Bailey (born May 25, 1977) is a Canadian actor who ...

in a

Toyota Carina The is an automobile which was manufactured by Toyota from December 1970 to December 2001. It was introduced as a sedan counterpart of the Celica, with which it originally shared a platform. Later, it was realigned to the Corona platform, but r ...

. The team were not front runners in the championship, and another disappointing season followed in 1995, which was both Toyota's and Sugden's final year racing in the BTCC but he worked as test driver for Vauxhall in 1996 as they developed the Vectra.

GT Racing

Sugden's sports car racing career began in 1997 with an entry in the

British GT Championship The British GT Championship is a sports car racing series based predominantly in the United Kingdom. The series was originally created by the British Racing Drivers' Club in 1993 and, for its first two seasons, was known as the National Sports ...

. In his first year, he won the GT2 title, alongside Steve O'Rourke in a

Porsche 911 GT2 The Porsche 911 GT2 is a high-performance, track-focused sports car built by the German automobile manufacturer Porsche from 1993 to 2009, and then since 2010 as the GT2 RS. It is based on the 911 Turbo, and uses a similar twin-turbocharged eng ...

. He then went on to win the GT1 titles in both 1998 and 1999, in a McLaren F1 GTR and a Lister Storm GTL, respectively. After already competing in the

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose w ...

race (where he finished fourth overall in 1998 in the EMKA McLaren), he moved to full-time International GT racing in 2000 with the

FIA GT Championship The FIA GT Championship was a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) at the behest of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship was mostly concentrated in Europe, but throughout ...

where he has 9 wins and was runner-up in the GT2 class in 2005. He was winner of the Porsche Cup in 2005, awarded by Porsche to the driver of any privately entered Porsche car in selected racing or rally championships worldwide where points are scored through the season according to the ranking of the series. He is only the second British driver ever to win that Cup. He has also competed in the

American Le Mans Series The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) was a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada. It consisted of a series of Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance and sprint races, and was created in the spirit of the 24 Hours of Le M ...

in a Porsche, finishing second in GT2 in the Sebring 12 hours, the

Daytona 24 Hours The 24 Hours of Daytona, also known as the Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is run on the Sports Car Course layou ...

race, the Le Mans Series, and made a return to the British GT championship. In 2007, he was the Asian Porsche Carrera Cup champion, finished third in 2008 and finished second by 1 point in 2009.http://www.driverdb.com/drivers/1620/ Career highlights at driver database. In 2011 he finished 2nd in GT in the Daytona 24 hours driving a Porsche for Paul Miller Racing.

BriSCA F2 Stock Cars

On 9 October 2010 Tim won his debut F2 final in an evening race meeting at Skegness Stadium after working at Brands Hatch earlier that day getting an immediate upgrade to Yellow Top. He is competing in selected F2 Stock car rounds this year(2010) and won the Grand National final at Birmingham in November. In 2011 he entered the Northampton meeting on 13 March again winning the GN final and then the Birmingham meeting on the 19th when he won the Final and so was again upgraded to Blue Top. In his first 6 meetings he has two overall wins and two GN wins but meetings limited due to other commitments. Hednesford on 10 April saw another win in a heat this time.

Racing record

Complete British Touring Car Championship results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 1990 in class) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap – 1990 in class) # – Race was stopped due of heavy rain. No points were awarded.

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Complete Super GT results

Complete 24 Hours of Spa results

References

External links

Official Site.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sugden, Tim 1964 births Living people English racing drivers Formula Ford drivers British Formula Renault 2.0 drivers British Formula 3000 Championship drivers American Le Mans Series drivers British Touring Car Championship drivers FIA GT Championship drivers European Le Mans Series drivers 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers 24 Hours of Daytona drivers Super GT drivers 24 Hours of Spa drivers Porsche Carrera Cup GB drivers British GT Championship drivers BMW M drivers CRS Racing drivers Strakka Racing drivers TOM'S drivers