Career setback instead of top team: Blundell on his biggest mistake

– Mark Blundell turns 60 today, Wednesday, and even if the Brit is only a marginal figure in Formula 1 history in Germany, it is worth taking a look at his career and above all a decision he regrets in hindsight: giving up a contract with Williams for a backmarker team.

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Born on April 8, 1966, in London, Blundell gained his first experience in motorsport on motorcycles before moving to formula racing in 1984. This earned him two championship titles in Formula Ford, followed by mixed results in the higher classes of the junior series.

Blundell’s path soon led him to endurance racing with Nissan. There, in 1990, aboard the R90CK, which he shared with Julian Bailey and Gianfranco Brancatelli, he became one of the youngest drivers ever to take pole position in the illustrious history of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

His lead over the second-placed driver in qualifying was six seconds – a record at Le Mans to this day. “It was one of those moments where time stood still and everything went perfectly,” Blundell recalled in 2015. However, a gearbox failure knocked the trio out of the race.

Rejection for backmarker cockpit

In the same year, Blundell signed a contract as a test driver for the Williams Formula 1 team. For 1991, an endurance deal with Jaguar was on the table, but the then unpromising Brabham team offered him a regular cockpit in Formula 1. So he gave up both Jaguar and Williams to fulfill his dream of actually competing at the top of racing.

“Originally, I had made an agreement with Tom Walkinshaw to drive for Jaguar in 1991,” Blundell told Motor Sport magazine in 2022. “However, when the documents arrived for signature, a six-figure sum was missing – a potential bonus in the event of winning the world championship.”

“I called Tom to talk about it, but while these talks were going back and forth, Brabham approached me. ‘Would you like to be a paid Formula 1 driver?’ I wasn’t going to say no, was I?” he described.

“I asked Williams if they would release me from my contract, and they agreed, although their advice was to stay with them and not take the Brabham offer – and in hindsight, they were absolutely right,” he had to admit. “But I was still young and wanted to be a Formula 1 driver more than anything else. I thought all my dreams had come true.”

Reality hits at Williams test

In his first Formula 1 season, which he described as “pretty terrible from day one,” Blundell’s best result was an eleventh starting position in qualifying at Monza, 2.359 seconds behind the lead. He scored a single point at Spa-Francorchamps, aided by several retirements ahead of him – as was often the case at that time.

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“What I didn’t really realize at first was that I had absolutely zero chance of achieving anything with the Brabham,” said Blundell. “There was no money – my paychecks bounced a few times! – and reality hit me hard when Williams asked me to fill in for Damon Hill, their new development driver, at a test in Imola shortly after the San Marino Grand Prix.”

There, he was said to have been more than two seconds faster on racing tires than on qualifying tires with the Brabham.

“I think Damon actually still owes me a drink, because I called him as soon as I knew I was going to Brabham to suggest that he should apply for the Williams seat I was just vacating …”

Hill follows in his footsteps – and becomes world champion

Blundell lost his place on the grid in 1992, while Hill took over his Brabham seat (in addition to his Williams duties), which laid the foundation for his later world championship career at Williams.

However, Blundell celebrated victory at Le Mans that year, where he steered the Peugeot 905B to triumph together with Derek Warwick and Yannick Dalmas. This was followed by a short but respectable Formula 1 career at Ligier, Tyrrell, and McLaren, in which he achieved three podium finishes over three seasons.

Further highlights in the Englishman’s career were his 1997 CART season with three wins and sixth place in the overall standings, as well as a second place overall at the 2002 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Bentley Speed 8, which he shared with David Brabham and Johnny Herbert.

In 2004, Blundell founded the agency 2MB Sports Management together with his former Formula 1 fellow driver Martin Brundle, which managed a number of British drivers such as Gary Paffett and Mike Conway.

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