Team Bentley names driver line-ups for 2003

Sebring, 14th March 2003... Team Bentley is delighted to confirm the drivers with whom it will contest the 2003 Le Mans 24-hours and Sebring 12-hours. Johnny Herbert, Mark Blundell and David Brabham will form one team driving the latest evolution of Bentley's successful Speed 8 Le Mans GT Prototype. The second car crewed by Tom Kristensen, Rinaldo 'Dindo' Capello and Guy Smith.

This line up will first be seen driving Bentley's Speed 8s to contest the Sebring 12-hours in March on the team's debut in the event. They will then try to win Le Mans at only the team's third attempt in 73 years.

Johnny Herbert
Born: June 25, 1964
Nationality: British
Lives: Monte Carlo, Monaco

It is unthinkable that Johnny needs any introduction at all to any racing fan. A veteran of 161 Grands Prix and winner of three, Johnny has been part of the fabric of global motorsport since he won his first Formula 3000 race back in 1988. That was also the year he had his horrific accident at Brands Hatch, which left people wondering whether he would ever walk, let alone race again. In the event Johnny made a miraculous recovery and went on to defy all those who said no racing driver ever reached the top after an accident like that. Still far from recovered, he made his Formula One debut for Benetton in Brazil the following year, coming home a superb fourth.

Even before that, it was clear that Johnny was going to be one of the superstars of the future. Like so many, Johnny started in karts before progressing to Formula Ford, winning the 1985 Formula Ford Festival and then becoming British Formula 3 champion in 1987. He progressed to F3000 in 1988 before his accident.

But despite such a promising F1 debut, it would take several seasons in uncompetitive machinery before Johnny's star was allowed to shine again, this time in the toughest job in F1, as Michael Schumacher's team-mate in 1995. Even so, Johnny still managed to claim his first and second Grand Prix wins that season, finishing fourth overall in the championship. A move to Sauber provided no more wins, but one more victory was to come at Stewart in 1999 at the European Grand Prix before a final season as part of the struggling Jaguar team in 2000.

In the light of such a record, it is often forgotten that Johnny is also a highly accomplished sportscar racer and former winner of Le Mans. In 1991, Johnny drove for Mazda at Le Mans, an unfancied team ranged against the might of the works Jaguars. But by putting in an heroic final triple stint despite food poisoning and a broken drinks bottle, Johnny held out long enough to provide Japan's first ever win at Le Mans before being removed to hospital suffering from dehydration.

Most recently he has contested the 2002 ALMs series for Audi and came second at Le Mans for the marque and fourth overall in the championship.

Mark Blundell
Born: April 8, 1966
Nationality: British
Lives: Cambridge, England

Mark provides the proof that a childhood racing karts is not the only way to reach the very top flight of motor-racing; indeed Mark's route to the top proved perhaps the most unorthodox of all. In fact it was on two wheels that Mark first made his name, as a 14-year old in motocross. Three years and many championships later, Mark decided his talents deserved a wider audience and turned his attention to cars. Contesting two Formula Ford championships in his debut season (1984), Mark won a staggering 25 races, an account to which he added the British Formula Ford 1600 championship the following year and the European FF2000 title in '86.

Again veering off the traditional route to the top, Mark moved straight from Formula Ford to Formula 3000 - effectively junior Grand Prix cars - and missing out Formula Three altogether. In an underfunded car he performed well enough to net a works drive for Lola in 1988.

In the following two seasons, he performed the twin roles of Williams F1 test driver and Nissan sportscar racer, jobs he did sufficiently well to earn a full time F1 drive in 1991. In all Mark would contest four seasons in Formula One and score podium places too, but when he was replaced at McLaren by David Coulthard, Mark thought it time to show his talents in another arena and duly went to America where he was to work for five seasons, the high point coming in 1997 when he won three cart races at Portland, Oregon and Fontana and was named by Autosport magazine as its British Competition Driver of the Year.

In his career, Mark has also proven to be a remarkable sportscar racer. He was first introduced to Le Mans in 1989, right in the thick of the fearsome Group C era though he was unable to drive in the race on account of a team-mate crashing his Nissan before his first stint. He made up for it in 1990 though, qualifying his Nissan on pole-position with a lap that is still talked about at Le Mans to this day. But his day of days came in 1992 when, driving the Peugeot 905 he won Le Mans at his third attempt.

Mark has also raced at Le Mans for the last two years in the fast but hitherto fragile MG-Lolas, proving to all there that he has lost none of his ferocious speed nor the will to win.

David Brabham
Born: 5 September 1965
Nationality: British/Australian
Lives: Maidenhead, England

David is a true stalwart of sportscar racing in general, having contested the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) for five years in succession, and Le Mans in particular with nine events already under his belt.

His surname alone reveals him as a member of one of motor-racing's most successful dynasties, but it is his achievements over the last 20 years he has been racing that make him stand out. A veteran of 24 Grands Prix (including for Brabham in 1990) and numerous Formula 3000, Formula 3, Formula 2 and sportscar races, David's talents have been seen at all levels of the racing discipline.

Yet, compared with some of his team-mates, David did not come to prominence until relatively late, winning the New South Wales Country Championship in a 100cc kart at the age of 18 in 1984. David started winning regularly in cars while contesting the Australian Formula Ford championship in 1987, and won the Australian F2 championship the following year.

Two years later and with his star really starting to shine, David won the British F3 championship with six wins and won the prestigious F3 World Cup in Macao.

It was enough to earn him a drive in Formula One with the Brabham team his father had started in 1962. Sadly by then the team was a poor shadow of its former self, so for 1991 David found himself racing the formidable Jaguar XJR-14 sportscar winning the Nurburgring and Sugo 1000km races and also claiming his first 24-hour victory, at Spa in a Nissan Skyline.

The following year David drove for Toyota and won his class at the Daytona 24-hours and went on to share a Jaguar XJ220 with David Coulthard at Le Mans the following year. He duly won the class again, only to be disqualified due to a minor technical infringement.

A brief return to F1 in 1994 with the ill-fated Simtek team produced no meaningful results, and by 1996 David would be back in sportscars where he has remained.

Since then David has won all over the world, in Europe, Asia, Australia and America, claiming the Japanese GT Championship in 1996, winning the legendary Bathurst 1000kms with his brother Geoff and claiming the Professional Sports Car Championship in 1998, a year in which he also won his class in the Sebring 12-hours.

In 1999 he was second overall in the ALMS championship driving for Panoz and has figured strongly in the series since, as one of just a handful of drivers proven to be capable of offering resistance to the all-conquering works Audi team.

Tom Kristensen
Born: July 7, 1967
Nationality: Danish
Lives: Monte Carlo, Monaco

It is indisputable that Tom Kristensen is one of the greatest sportscar drivers of any generation. His record in the Le Mans 24-hours puts him among an elite handful who can truly be said to have mastered this most gruelling of races. Jacky Ickx and Bentley Motors consultant Derek Bell are the only people to have won Le Mans more often, but what sets Tom's race record apart from all others is the fact that his four victories have come from just six races. That is a starts to wins record that perhaps only Woolf Barnato - who drove a Bentley to victory in every one of the three Le Mans he contested - can better.

Tom started racing karts at the age of 10 in his native Denmark and took a hat trick of Danish karting championships from 1982-4. In 1985 he widened his scope to take the Scandinavian karting championship and won the title in both Denmark and Italy in 1986. Moving up to the global karting stage, he was second in the world championships in both 1987 and '89 before finally turning is attention to cars, winning the German F3 championship in 1991 and the Japanese equivalent in 1993.

Tom then took on both the Japanese Touring Car Championship and Japanese F3000, coming second in both disciplines in 1994 and '95 respectively, before coming a highly respectable 6th in International F3000 in 1996.

Tom won his first Le Mans 24-hrs in 1997 and made the move to F1 with a testing contract for 1998 before returning to sportscars for 1999. Since then he has not looked back, not only taking the hat-trick of Le Mans victories from 2000-2002, but also winning the Sebring 12-hrs in 1999 and 2000, and Petit Le Mans in 2002. Tom is also the reigning American Le Mans Series Champion.

With a ready wit that disguises a totally professional, dedicated approach, Tom's record qualifies him as probably the most sought-after driver in sportscar racing today and Team Bentley is delighted to have him behind the wheel of the Speed 8.

Rinaldo Capello
Born: June 17, 1964
Nationality: Italian
Lives: Canelli, Italy

Refer to Rinaldo Capello by his first name in the paddock of Le Mans and most people will wonder whom you are talking about - everyone from his friends to his legion of fans just calls him Dindo. He is also the man who proved that although starting your professional career as a child racing carts is a well proven way to the top of the sport, it is not the only one.

Indeed Dindo's racing career did not start until his was 18 years old, some years after his team-mates, but that did not stop him making his name first in Italian Formula Three and then in the Italian Super Touring Car championship. In the five seasons between 1994-98 he came fifth twice, third once, second once and, in 1996, was the outright winner.

His sportscar career really took off in 1999 and nowhere have his talents been more conspicuously displayed than in the Sebring 12-hours. In 1999 he came third, went one place higher up the podium in 2000 and has won outright for the last two years. In the last three years he has twice come second overall in the American Le Mans series and third once. He has also won 'Petit Le Mans' at Road Atlanta twice.

But the place that has best proven Dindo's speed is the one place yet to grant him outright victory. For the last two years it has been Dindo's qualifying laps that have brought his team pole position, in 2002 he was the only man to lap the track in under 3min 30sec. But while these efforts have been translated into podium finishes at the last three Le Mans, he has yet to stand on the top step - a situation he intends to rectify with Bentley.

Dindo Capello has been the quickest racer to drive at Le Mans for the last two years, but the fact that he has been there at the flag for all of the last four (he was 4th in 1999), proves he knows not only what it takes to go fast, but also how to keep machinery on the track and in good condition from start to finish.

Guy Smith
Born, September 12, 1974
Nationality: British
Lives: Hull, England

The faith that Guy Smith put in Team Bentley when he turned down a competitive drive for a rival team at the 2002 Le Mans to be the team's test driver has proven well founded. Guy's unquestioning dedication to the team, his superb work as a test and development driver, not to mention his formidable pace and mechanical sympathy, made him a natural choice as team-mate for the vastly experienced pairing of Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello. It is also to be remembered that Guy was part of the driver line up for the Bentley EXP Speed 8 that actually led Le Mans in 2001 before its electronics fell foul of the appalling weather that visited the circuit that year.

And Guy has hardly been short of success in the interim despite not racing for Bentley, coming 2nd and 3rd respectively in the 2002 Daytona 24-hours and Sebring 12-hours, the only two races sufficiently gruelling to stand comparison with Le Mans.

Indeed Guy's Le Mans record started with winning the coveted Rookie of the Year award in 1999 when he qualified 20 places higher than the next quickest driver making their debut at Le Mans.

In a broader context, however, Guy is no rookie at all and he already has 15 seasons under his belt, thanks to starting in karts at the age of 12, winning four championships in five years, earning the McLaren/Autosport young Kartist of the Year title, graduating to Formula First in 1991 and finishing second in the championship in his debut year.

In 1992 he drove a Vauxhall Junior winning five races to finish the season second overall, a feat he repeated in British Formula Ford the following season, earning him a nomination for the coveted McLaren/Autosport Young Driver of the Year award.

Third place in the 1994 Formula Vauxhall championship led to the 1995 Formula RenaultSport championship, which he won outright, creating the step to Formula Three in 1996. In his first ever race in this new and testing discipline, he qualified on pole and won the race.

After a further season in F3, Guy went to the US to race in the PPG-Dayton Indy Lites championship, finishing third in the championship and claiming another 'Rookie of the Year' title.

More podiums and pole positions followed in Indy Lites during 1999 before a more permanent career in sportscars beckoned in 2001, gaining him valuable endurance racing experience at both Daytona and Sebring before his starring role at Le Mans was cut short in the race by mechanical failure.

Team Bentley believes that these six drivers will provide the team with the best possible chance of outright victory at Le Mans this year.