Mark Blundell…….a triple threat

Back in 1991 Mark Blundell made his Formula One debut driving for the Brabham-Yamaha team alongside Martin Brundle. Mark had progressed through junior formula in the UK in the mid 1980’s, winning Formula Ford titles and progressing to Formula 3000 where he scored 5 podium finishes over the course of 3 seasons, finishing 6th overall in the 1988 drivers championship.

Marks progress to Formula One was slightly unusual; becoming test driver for Williams in 1989 allowed him to sample grand prix machinery for the first time, but he also signed to drive for Nissan at Le Mans (and sportscar racing seemed to be the priority at the time) culminating in becoming the second youngest Pole winner at Le Mans in a time 6 seconds faster than the 2nd place car!!! Clearly Mark was fast.

Brabham were not as strong a team as they had been during the 1980’s, but the Brundle / Blundell partnership saw the cars qualify for almost every race (Mark outqualifying his more experienced team mate 9 times to Brundle’s 7) and his first points finish came at the Belgian Grand Prix. This points finish led to 19th place in the drivers championship, but no drive in 1992, so a return to sports cars, this time with Peugeot beckoned.

Peugeot dominated Le Mans in 1992 and Blundell, partnered with Yannick Dalmas and Derek Warwick won the famous 24 hour race ahead of the leading Toms Toyota. He also had signed as test driver for McLaren driving the machine Ayrton Senna drove to victories at Monaco, Hungary and Italy , and that Gerhard Berger won in Canada and Australia. Like his earlier Williams testing role Mark had fitted in a lot of testing miles in several class leading cars.

1993 led to the Blundell / Brundle dream team being reformed, this time for Ligier. It was the first and only time that an all-English line up had driven for the famously French team. In fact it was the only season where Ligier didn’t have a French driver in their line up, although their test driver was Eric Bernard.

The season started in fine style with Mark gaining his first podium at the South African grand prix, and although both drivers failed to finish a lot of races during the season another podium finish in Germany and a 5th place at the Brazilian grand prix saw Blundell achieve 10 points and 10th place in the drivers championship.

The following season saw a move to Tyrrell, and Mark reuniting his relationship with Yamaha power, alongside new team mate Ukyo Katayama from Japan. A third career podium, this time at the Spanish GP was backed up with two 5th places in Hungary and Belgium. Whilst Katayama managed to outqualify Mark more often than not ( 11 to 5 across the season), Mark finished more races and scored more points; 8 in fact which gave him 12th place in the end of season standings.

Three seasons completed, three podiums achieved for three different teams – not a bad return for any driver in Formula One, especially one who had raced for middle of the grid teams, rather than front running outfits. 1995 however looked like a return to racing outside of Formula One was on the cards until a certain Nigel Mansell struggled to fit comfortably into his McLaren – Mercedes race car.

As Nigel sat out the first two races of the season, whilst a modified chassis was built for his, Mark stepped into his race seat alongside Mika Hakkinen. A point on his team debut, a couple of places behind Mika who had been with the team for two years, was an excellent start, and when Nigel returned for the San Marino and Spanish races to then chose to “retire” (a very Nigel Mansell decision!) Mark completed the rest of the season in the red and white car. Five more points finishes followed, leading to 12th in the drivers championship and only four points behind his more established team mate Hakkinen.

1995 also saw Mark return to Le Mans, also in a McLaren, to gain a podium finish in class (which he added to several years later in a Bentley by finishing 2nd in 2003). Four seasons, three podiums and a total of 32 career points scored, and whilst his career should of gone on for many more years the opportunity for 1996 didn’t happen as new Sauber sponsor Red Bull wanted a driver who had won a previous Grand Prix, where Mark was being considered for a seat.

Johnny Herbert took the Sauber seat, and Mark was forced to consider where to take his next career move. In a similar step to the one Nigel Mansell had taken at the end of 1992 Mark moved across to the USA, and he signed to race for the PacWest team. CART was at its peak in 1996/97 – incredibly fast cars, especially on the superspeedways, and 3 wins in the 1997 season saw a 6th place finish in the championship; a really strong season against a really good field of drivers including Alex Zanardi, Jimmy Vasser, Greg Moore and many, many others.

Eventually hanging up his helmet in America in the year 2000, Mark continued to race right up until 2019 – a mixture of sportscars and more recently British Touring cars; although he has also been managing drivers over the past 20 years and this year is involved in the management of the MB Motorsport team (which as a side note I have been very fortunate to witness over the season so far as part of their Virtual Race Days).

What is fair to say is that Mark Blundell was (and still is) a very fast race driver; winning Le Mans, scoring grand prix podiums and winning races at the peak of the CART series are all incredible achievements, and competing successfully with Mika Hakkinen and Martin Brundle is not a bad comparison to make for any driver. As with many other drivers however building a long lasting and successful Formula One career requires a huge amount of luck on top of the speed and determination to succeed, and what could Mark have achieved with a few more years in competitive grand prix cars is obviously impossible to say.

Two of his racing rivals in the 1980’s Damon Hill (World Champion) and Johnny Herbert (3 time grand prix winner) show what a little luck added to the mix could achieve (and I fully appreciate life isn’t quite that simple…..and clearly Damon and Johnny weren’t simply lucky!), but even so it’s a Formula One career to be proud of……and any footage of his pole position lap at Le Mans in 1990 is well worth watching!