Richard Lloyd
(February 18, 1945 - March 30, 2008)

Taken from his wife Philippa, daughters Sophie, Chloe and Amy and countless friends in motorsport and far beyond when the executive jet he was a passenger aboard crashed just after take off from Biggin Hill, Richard Lloyd was nothing less than a cornerstone of British motorsport.

The fact that he plied his trade away from the bright lights of Formula One might have meant that he wasn’t a household name but his contribution to sporting excellence was far, far greater than many figures perhaps better known amongst the general public.

With a successful career in the record industry already under his belt Richard began racing almost by accident after going to what amounts to a trackday at Brands Hatch with a friend in the mid 1960.

The racing bug bit him hard that day, and continued to do so for more than 40 years as he first started up the ladder of competition, starting in club races with a succession of rather special Triumph Spitfires in which he enjoyed no little success.

A change in career came as the 1970s dawned as Richard started a PR Agency, Motor Race Relations, one of the first truly modern outfits of its kind in the sport. The client list included Mike Hailwood, Chris Craft and Peter Gethin amongst others.

His racing exploits in the early to mid 1970s mostly involved the fearsome Chevrolet Camaros that contested the British Saloon Car Championship, a campaign that saw Lloyd duelling successfully with the legendary Stuart Graham over a four year period.

By the end of that period Richard had become a full time racing driver, not only because of his considerable on-track success but also with his business acumen. Attracting sponsorship to fund his racing efforts became a major part of the Richard Lloyd formula with Simoniz, Mobil and Vladivar Vodka amongst a host of household names which backed his efforts and drew the benefits from his success.

His next racing exploit could barely have been more different from the bellowing Camaros but it was no less successful and, time would prove it to be a far more significant step on the road to racing success as the iconic VW Golf GTI took a bow.

The 1977-1979 period saw Richard’s Golf GTIs take a hat-trick of class titles in the British Saloon Car Championship including a second place overall in 1978. That campaign was the starting point which would take him to a Le Mans win a quarter of a century later.

Before that though there was the first of several high profile campaigns with Audi as, in 1980 his GTi Engineering team ran a pair of works supported Audi 80s in the British Saloon Car Championship, for none other than a returning Stirling Moss, together with a young Martin Brundle, the youngster sharing driving duties with the team owner.

1981 and 1982 would see another change in direction with the team bringing yet another high profile sponsor, this time Canon, to motorsport for the very first time.

The now iconic red and white livery first appeared on the team’s Porsche 924 GTR for a shot at the World Sportscar Championship with Jonathan Palmer, Hans Volker, Tony Dron and Andy Rouse joining Richard on the driving squad. The little Porsche scored some impressive class wins in a two year campaign before the team, now renamed Richard Lloyd Racing started a legendary seven year campaign with the 924’s big sisters, the 956 and 962.

Not content with the already very quick Group C cars, Richard commissioned Nigel Stroud to re-design the chassis, six such ‘specials’ would eventually be built which, between them, took four overall wins in the World Sportscar Championship between 1983-1990, and a second place overall finish at Le Mans in 1985 for Palmer, Weaver and Richard Lloyd himself.

The roll of honour of drivers who competed in the World Sportscar Championship aboard a Richard Lloyd-run 956/962 is an astonishing one, with Lloyd himself joined by a trio of F1 World Champions (Jack Brabham, Keke Rosberg and Damon Hill), plus no less than eight overall Le Mans winners (Derek Bell, Jan Lammers, Johnny Dumfries, JJ Lehto, Manuel Reuter, Vern Schuppan, Bertrand Gachot and Mauro Baldi).

Damon Hill remembers Richard very fondly: “He very generously gave me an opportunity to drive one of his cars at Le Mans in 1989 at a time when I had no money and no prospects. I am entirely grateful to him for that.”

It was typical of a man who knew talent where he saw it and offered the outlet for a ‘find’ to prove it to a wider audience.

There were many others too including the past, then present and future F1 talents of Tiff Needell, Thierry Boutsen, Jonathan Palmer, Christian Danner, Kenny Acheson, Martin Donnelly, Luis Perez-Sala, Mike Thackwell and Perry McCarthy, F3000 man Steven Andskar, sportscar veteran George Fouche and not forgetting sportscar racing legends James Weaver, David Hobbs, Klaus Niedzwiedz and the late Bob Wollek.

Palmer would be an almost ever present in the Canon-liveried cars and it is no surprise that he regards his time alongside Richard as an important time in both his driving and business career:

“Richard was a true enthusiast and was always determined to run professional teams with professional drivers, often spotting promising young drivers and providing prestigious opportunities for them to shine.

“I first met Richard in 1981 when I lead the British Formula 3 championship. He asked me if I'd like to drive with him in an Audi 90 in the 1981 Silverstone Tourist Trophy touring car race. I was thrilled to accept, and I think we won the class. The relationship developed and in 1982, Richard's team GTi Engineering, graduated to a Porsche 924GTR which we drove together at Spa and Daytona, amongst other events. Richard's obsession with professionalism and quality was rewarded when he convinced Canon to increase their sponsorship and GTi Engineering became one of the first, very proud owners of a customer Porsche 956. I distinctly remember Richard, Jan Lammers, Mick de Haas from Canon and I visiting Porsche to collect our pristine white 956 in Spring 1983. We were all just so excited to be entering the top echelon of world sportscar racing with the car of the moment. None of us could quite believe it!

”As part of the intensive preparation the most beautiful livery ever in motorsport was created with the Canon Porsche 956. It's the only car I've raced that I would just look at and swoon over! They were amazing days. We would all meet in Richard and Philippa Lloyd's house in Barnes in London and brainstorm the project; Peter Stevens the designer and Grahame White being key members.

”The GTi Engineering team evolved to Richard Lloyd Racing and earned the respect of the top factory Porsche motorsport manager; Norbert Singer, as we would keep the Rothmans Porsches honest. Our biggest and sweetest success was winning the Brands Hatch 1000km World Endurance race in 1984, after team manager Keith Greene and I had pioneered a supplementary front wing on the nose. The Porsche factory did not approve - but Jan Lammers and I destroyed the opposition partly as a result! Richard threw a major party that evening at Brands Hatch. He was good at that too!

”Richard was always pushing to improve the car and our 956 would continually feature not only detail tweaks but also our own special stiffer chassis and aerodynamic improvements by Peter Stevens.

”In 1985 Le Mans all came right. Or pretty much. The driver line up was me, James Weaver and Richard. After an epic battle for the lead with the Joest Porsche driven by Stefan Johansen that lasted until midnight, we lost a couple of laps with a minor brake problem. With the Joest Porsche never missing a beat we couldn't make up the deficit, but we finished a wonderful second overall and Richard appropriately took the car across the line for the final stint. It was surely his finest hour as a driver and manager of his own racing team.

”By the end of 1987 F1 teams were less enthusiastic about their drivers racing in sports cars, including Ken Tyrrell, and I pretty much stopped. But Richard and I remained close friends with I think it's fair to say a great deal of respect for each other. Over six years of intensive international motor racing we had some great successes, some average results and a few disasters. But we had a fantastic time also got on so well socially. Richard was the most sincere and honest person you could imagine too.

”As I developed my business interests, Richard developed his, and he was instrumental in getting Bentley not just back in to motor racing, but to mastermind the remarkable achievement of winning Le Mans. Without Richard I would never have met John Britten, who has been an invaluable friend, investor, mentor and director of our business (Motor Sport Vision). “

Richard Lloyd Racing sadly though became one of the high profile casualties of a thinly veiled hatchet job on top line sportscar racing, seen by the F1 powers that be as a threat to the desired manufacturer’s route into top rank motorsport.

A period consolidating other business interests followed with successful ventures into component manufacturing (including bespoke parts for companies including Rolls Royce) providing a challenge which Richard found most enjoyable after the recent politicking of motorsport.

The bug though still had him firmly gripped and he made a return to the driving seat most successfully, winning the overall title in the Porsche 924 Championship, after a fifteen year lay-off!

By now Richard was advising Audi UK around a potential BTCC campaign with their new A4 Quattro. Richard’s effortless and unselfish networking had paid dividends once again as David Ingram, Audi UK’s top PR man had found himself working as a fueller for the Porsche team after befriending Richard when attending Saloon car racing as a spectator.

“Even at that time when I met him in the paddock I thought he was astonishingly unpretentious, entirely understated. I became a friend very early on simply because he was so approachable and so generous with his time.

“I got involved in the Porsche effort simply because, it seemed, he needed a tall bloke to help with the refueling!”

That contact, and many others within VAG helped to deliver a huge vote of confidence in Richard’s abilities when Audi UK decided that rather than using his advice to source an existing team to run the BTCC effort, “everyone concerned just came to the conclusion that we should ask Richard to do it himself.”

They wouldn’t regret that decision as the team, Audi Sport UK, was formed and went on to utterly dominate the 1996 British Touring Car Championship with Frank Biela and the A4 gaining a clean sweep of BTCC Drivers, Manufacturers and Teams titles that year. Following years wouldn’t see a repeat of that level of success as the rulemakers reeled in the Audi but it would re-launch a dormant relationship between VAG and Richard which would continue through to 2003.

There were two further Audi projects, the team’s engineering base producing five Audi S4s for Audi North America which won the Speedvision GT Championship in 2001.

Before that though there had been the Audi R8C adventure in 1999, the pretty coupe proving though that the development time available had been insufficient but laying foundations for one of the 21st century’s most evocative racing cars and Apex were once again in the frame to run them.

That campaign was, of course, the factory Bentleys of 2001, 2002 and 2003. A three year programme which would net consecutive class wins in LM GTP in the first two years and, of course, a 1-2 finish overall in 2003.

Again another feature of Richard’s long career showed itself, his investment of time, guidance and trust in young talent. One man who benefited in this period was Guy Smith:

“Richard along with John Wickham were responsible for me getting big break into top line sportscars.

“I instantly got on with Richard and was fascinated by his passion for racing and in particular sportscars Richard was one of the driving forces in getting Bentley back to Le Mans and he was instrumental in selecting Bentley’s drivers. “He took a huge gamble and choose me, a rookie whom he knew very little about.

“Richard was also a tough task master he would push you hard but you would take a lot of inspiration from him as he was such a driven man and looking back at his career his results as a driver and as a team owner speak for themselves.”

Perry McCarthy too remembers Richard’s human qualities very vividly:

“When I think about Richard it brings back all of my very best memories about motorsport and about life.

“I’ve been a very lucky boy. I have a lot of very close friends but Richard I value as not only a very close friend but as one of my very favourite people.

“He was really passionate about everything he did. He would put absolutely everything into it, often pulling it all off well against the financial odds.

“He was a fighter and he was so looking forward to what came next.”

After the Bentley years Richard once again retreated to his other business interests with Apex Motorsport on tick-over before a friend of Richard’s, VW Cup racer Alan Sawyer, suggested GT3 and Jaguar as a possible programme.

Once the spark was lit, the old familiar process began in earnest once again and, after carefully breaking down the resistance within a Jaguar badly scarred by their F1 experience, a deal was signed in October 2006 that would see Apex gain the rights to build, race and represent Jaguar back in the heartland of its racing heritage – sportscars.

A difficult first year with the gorgeous XKR GT3 looked set to be turned around by close season progress, masterminded by Richard with the early forming testing at Monza just a few short weeks ago seeing new test driver David Leslie right in the thick of the GT3 pace setters.

Watching it all unfold was the first buyer of one, then a second XKR GT3, national racer Stuart Scott, another man tempted into the Apex fold by a combination of Alan Sawyer and Richard Lloyd. Stuart though had a very personal reason for being attracted by a link with Richard:

“In my teens as a fan I used to love the big American muscle cars and nobody could drive them better than Richard and Stuart Graham. It’s absolutely fair to say that I was a Richard Lloyd fan.

“Through the Jaguars, and through the Golf that Alan and Richard built for me at Frazero and right back to his Camaro racing days it’s extraordinary how Richard has been such a big part of my motorsport life in a number of ways. I’ll miss him terribly.”

GT3 may not have had the glamour of the Porsche and Bentley years but it was, if anything, a campaign that Richard took even greater pride in – These were his words to dsc last November:

“It’s been a heck of a ride and I still get a huge amount of pleasure out of business of racing, particularly this project with the Jaguars, which has presented a huge number of new challenges and new dimensions. The frustration with many of our previous projects is of course that we never had ownership of them, we were a contractor. That meant that no matter how good an idea we had, there was no guarantee that we could act upon it.

“Of course it has brought difficulties with it but overall it’s a more rewarding way to go racing. I’m enjoying it more now than some of the past glories on behalf of others.”

It was in just that spirit that Richard and David, with new young engineer Chris Allarton alongside, left Biggin Hill with hopes soaring for a truly competitive 2008 season.

The final word on Richard comes from his racing and business protoge, Jonathan Palmer:

“When we were striving to make it to the big time with the Canon Porsche 956, Richard used to always wear a prized baseball cap. It carried the slogan 'Pursuit of Perfection'. That says it all."

It certainly does, and in everything he achieved in motorsport it’s fair to say that Richard Lloyd achieved that aim.  He will be missed more than we yet know.

1 April 2008 www.dailysportscar.com