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F1 Beyond The Grid

Johnny Dumfries, the aristocrat racer who was team mate to Senna

F1 Beyond The Grid

karenellenbevan

News, Leisure, Sports News, Sports, Automotive

4.75.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2020

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Many of you may not have heard of this week’s guest. To give him his official title he’s John Crichton-Stuart, the 7th Marquess of Bute – though fans familiar with F1 in the 1980s will know him as Johnny Dumfries, one-time team mate of the great Ayrton Senna at Lotus. A descendant of legendary King of Scotland Robert the Bruce, Johnny was far from your average F1 driver – though if you think his connections made his route to the top easy, think again. He worked numerous jobs before entering Grand Prix racing  - including as a painter and decorator! 

On this week’s show he opens up about his unique career, with stories on Senna, Enzo Ferrari, winning Le Mans and being employed by Frank Williams as a van driver…

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, I'm Johnny Dumpfries and you're listening to Beyond the Grid.

0:10.8

Hello all and welcome to Beyond the Grid with me, Tom Clarkson.

0:15.1

The world of Formula One attracts all sorts. A team these days has up to 30 different

0:20.4

nationalities in it, of which some people are multimillionaires. And that's predominantly the drivers.

0:26.3

Some are highly paid members of management and some, in fact most, are just normal people

0:32.0

working all hours to grind out a living. Just occasionally though, you get someone who breaks

0:37.7

the mold. Remember the exuberant Jean-Pierre Van Rossum, the boss of Onyx in the late 80s,

0:43.3

or Don Nichols, the owner of Shadow in the 70s, who was allegedly a former CIA operative.

0:50.3

There's been blue blood too. Lord Heskith ran his eponymously named F1 team in the 70s.

0:56.4

And lots of drivers have shunned their wealth of family connections to join the F1 circus.

1:02.4

Prince Beera, Alfonso de Portago, Taffy Vron trips to name a few from the 50s and 60s.

1:08.8

And more recently, there was Johnny Dumpfries, who I'm delighted to say is my guest this week.

1:15.0

Johnny's official title is John Criton Stewart, the 7th Marcus of Bute. He's a descendant of the

1:20.9

famed King of Scotland, Robert the Bruce. But if you think his route to the top was easy on that

1:26.2

basis, think again, for Johnny was determined to make his own path, working as a painter and

1:32.0

decorator among other things, before Formula One, and even driving a van and doing odd jobs for

1:37.3

the Williams team. He splits his time these days between the family seat in Dumpfries in Scotland,

1:42.9

hence the alias Johnny Dumpfries, and his house in London, and he no longer has any connection

1:48.8

to the sport. F1 fans will remember him for his season at Lotus in 1986 alongside the great

1:55.8

Airton Centre. Although Johnny's day of days came at Le Mans 2 years later, when he won the race

2:01.7

for Jaguar alongside Jan Lammer's at Andy Wallace. Johnny's season at Lotus didn't work out as

2:08.1

he deposed, although he bagged a couple of points finishes in Hungary and Australia. But you should

...

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