Julian Bailey

Julian Terence Bailey (9 October 1961 - Present): British former Formula One driver from England who raced for the Tyrrell and Lotus teams. Although born in the United Kingdom, Bailey was raised in Menorca, Spain. He became an accomplished Formula Ford 1600 racer in Britain, winning the important Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch. In 1987 he got his chance to race in Formula 3000 in a GA Motorsport Lola, in which he won in only his third Formula 3000 race, becoming the first British driver to win a race in the formula.

This attracted the attention of Ken Tyrrell and Bailey was recruited to drive for the Formula One team the following year. The car was very uncompetitive and he did not score a single point while his teammate Jonathan Palmer scored five. During his Formula One career he was entered in 20 Grands Prix, qualifying for seven at a time when the grids were over-subscribed, and scored a total of one championship point. In 1989 he joined the Nissan sports car factory team with former driver Keith Greene as team manager and Mark Blundell as co-driver, describing it as the start of the two happiest years of his life.

He finished sixth in the San Marino Grand Prix but didn't retain his drive after Monaco (this refers to his 1991 Lotus return). Bailey never felt he truly belonged at the pinnacle (as he tells us, perhaps it was a class thing), and with just seven F1 starts to his name—six with Tyrrell in 1988 and another for Lotus in 1991—his career is best remembered for the raw promise of its early years, a Group C cameo with Nissan, Toyota tin-top shenanigans in the British Touring Car Championship's golden era, a fruitful Indian summer in a Newcastle United-backed Lister Storm, and a final flourish with MG at Le Mans in 2001 and 2002.