Jackie Oliver
Oliver at the1969 German Grand Prix
Born	Keith Jack Oliver (1942-08-14)14 August 1942 (age 83) Chadwell Heath, Essex, England
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	British
Active years	1967–1973,1977
Teams	Lotus,BRM,McLaren,Shadow
Entries	52 (50 starts)
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	2
Careerpoints	13
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	1
First entry	1967 German Grand Prix
Last entry	1977 Swedish Grand Prix
24 Hours of Le Mans career
Years	1968–1969,1971
Teams	Ford
Best finish	1st(1969)
Class wins	1(1969)

Keith Jack Oliver (born 14 August 1942) is a British formerracing driver andmotorsport executive, who competed inFormula One between1967 and1977.^[a] Inendurance racing, Oliver won the24 Hours of Le Mans in1969, the12 Hours of Sebring in1969, and the24 Hours of Daytona in1971, all withJ.W. Automotive. From1978 to1996, he served as co-founder and team principal ofArrows in Formula One.

During his early career, Oliver achieved several class victories in theBritish Saloon Car Championship between1966 and1968. Oliver contested 52Formula One Grands Prix forLotus,BRM,McLaren, andShadow, achieving two podiums at theMexican Grand Prix in1968 and theCanadian Grand Prix in1973. He won theCanadian-American Challenge Cup in1974. Oliver was also the fourth person to complete the informalTriple Crown of endurance racing.^{[citation needed]}

Oliver began a long career in motorsport in 1961, driving aMini in British club saloon racing. In 1962 and 1963 he raced for Ecurie Freeze in aMarcos GT. In 1964 He raced in aLotus Elan driving for D.R. Fabrications team and entered GT racing, scoring some excellent results, and then having a difficult time inFormula Three, where his natural speed was blighted by mechanical failures.

Nevertheless, for 1967 he was drafted into theTeam LotusFormula Two team, which also saw him making his Grand Prix debut in the F2 class at theGerman Grand Prix, where he came fifth overall and won the F2 class. In 1968, he was called up to F1 byColin Chapman to take over the worksFormula One seat for Team Lotus after the death ofJim Clark. The season would turn out to be difficult, with Oliver struggling for finishes. He led theBritish Grand Prix until an engine failure, and would only finish twice, his best result being third place at the season-closingMexican Grand Prix. In F2 he was reasonably successful driving a Lotus running for the Herts and Essex Aero Club team. At the end of the year the team was invited to compete in the four races making up the Argentine Temporada. The Herts and Essex Team finished third overall in the series.

WithJochen Rindt signing for Lotus for 1969, Oliver switched toBRM. He was to suffer disappointing two years at theBourne team, which would effectively kill off his Grand Prix career. In two years, he would muster just four finishes, with his only points scores being sixth place in the1969 Mexican Grand Prix, and fifth in the1970 Austrian Grand Prix. However, in 1970, he led much of the Race of Champions holding off Stewart and was a strong third for most of the Dutch and British GP. The poor result in the Austrian GP which Team boss,Louis Stanley thought he should have won, saw the best car go toPedro Rodríguez from then on, but Oliver still led some laps at the slipstream Italian race. Stanley described Oliver, as 'good, but not nearly as good as he thought'.^[1] The majority of his other races saw the BRM break down. Most pundits and sponsor, Yardley, were surprised and disappointed after Oliver was sacked by BRM. Jackie Stewart, judged Oliver a very good GP^[2] and Can-Am driver.^{[citation needed]}

His best results in these seasons would come fromendurance racing, inJohn Wyer's GulfFord GT40, winning the12 Hours of Sebring and24 Hours of Le Mans events withJacky Ickx in 1969, and the24 Hours of Daytona and the1000 km Monza in 1971 with Rodríguez.

In 1969, he debuted inCanAm, initially for Autocoast^[3] in the TI-22, and then forDon Nichols'Shadow team. 1971 saw him out of a full-time Formula One drive, though he had three drives in a thirdMcLaren. 1972 saw him concentrate mainly on CanAm with Shadow, though he would take a one-off drive for BRM at the1972 British Grand Prix, where he retired.

For 1973, Shadow entered F1, and Oliver was nominated as team leader. TheShadow DN1 proved a difficult chassis, and once again his season was blighted by mechanical errors. However, in theCanadian Grand Prix he ran well, and many believe he actually won the race, but the lap charts were thrown into confusion by a rain shower meaning multiple pit-stops, and a staggeringly inept deployment of a pace car by the organisers. As it was, Oliver was classified third, his only points finish of the year.

1974 saw Oliver concentrate on CanAm, taking the series title for Shadow. He was becoming more involved in the management side of Shadow, but would compete inFormula 5000 for the team for three seasons, and even briefly returned to F1, finishing fifth in the 1977Race of Champions, and taking 9th in theSwedish Grand Prix.

He also competed in 8NASCAR Cup Series races between 1971 and 1972, the majority of them forDonlavey Racing. He attempted the1972 Daytona 500 but failed to qualify.^[4]

At the end of 1977 he left Shadow along with financer Franco Ambrosio, designersTony Southgate andAlan Rees, engineer Dave Wass and driverRiccardo Patrese to form theArrows Grand Prix team.

Arrows would become famous for competing in a record 382 Grands Prix without achieving a single victory.^[5] However, the team would always have well-presented cars which would usually be competitive, if not front-runners, and would often give breaks to talented drivers - besides Patrese,Thierry Boutsen,Gerhard Berger,Marc Surer andMartin Donnelly would all drive for the team early in their respective racing careers.

Oliver sold much of his stake to the Japanese Footwork Corporation in 1990, remaining as director, but the team failed to move forward and the company pulled out at the end of 1993 due to financial trouble. Oliver had his team back, but money was tight, and in 1996 he again sold most of his shares toTom Walkinshaw'sTWR group. Oliver remained on the board until 1999, when he sold his remaining shares.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)

† Events with 2 races staged for the different classes.

^ Race with 2 heats - Aggregate result.

(key) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)

* First in the Formula Two (F2) class, Oliver was ineligible to score points in the1967 German Grand Prix because he was driving a F2 car.

(key) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Co-drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class pos.
1968	JW Automotive Engineering	Brian Muir	Ford GT40 Mk.I	S 5.0	15	DNF	DNF
1969	JW Automotive Engineering	Jacky Ickx	Ford GT40 Mk.I	S 5.0	372	1st	1st
1971	JW Automotive Engineering	Pedro Rodríguez	Porsche 917LH	S 5.0	187	DNF	DNF
Sources:[9][10]

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position) (Races initalics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time.Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

Sources

• "DRIVER: Oliver, Jackie".Autocourse Grand Prix Archive. Archived from the original on 21 December 2007. Retrieved11 September 2007.
• "Jackie Oliver".Grand Prix Racing. Archived fromthe original on 14 November 2007. Retrieved11 September 2007.
• Widdows, Rob (April 2007)."Jackie Oliver: Nearly Man".Motor Sport magazine archive. p. 85. Retrieved4 December 2017.

• 1942 births
• Living people
• Businesspeople from the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
• English Formula One drivers
• European Formula Two Championship drivers
• Formula One team owners
• Formula One team principals
• Team Lotus Formula One drivers
• BRM Formula One drivers
• McLaren Formula One drivers
• Shadow Formula One drivers
• Can Am drivers
• NASCAR drivers
• People from Chadwell Heath
• Sportspeople from the London Borough of Redbridge
• Sportspeople from the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
• British Touring Car Championship drivers
• 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers
• 24 Hours of Le Mans winning drivers
• 24 Hours of Daytona drivers
• World Sportscar Championship drivers
• Sportspeople from Essex
• 12 Hours of Sebring drivers
• Arrows Grand Prix International
• 20th-century English sportsmen
• Coca-Cola 600 drivers

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