Award win for Bennetts
DUNEDIN native Dick Bennetts has been recognised with an award from European motorsport industry publication and expo Professional Motorsport World.
Bennetts, originally from Dunedin, came to prominence as a championshipwinning race engineer for Niki Lauda and Stefan Johansson as part of Ron Dennis’s Project 4 organisation.
Dennis has his own Kiwi connection as the former chief executive and chairman of the McLaren Technology Group, which was created by New Zealander Bruce McLaren.
Now 71, Bennetts founded West Surrey Racing (WSR) in 1981 to compete in the British Formula 3 Championship, and 14 years later the team bowed out of F3 as the most success ful team in the history of the series, both in terms of race victories and titles.
Over the years Bennetts has been responsible for masterminding the careers of such names as Ayrton Senna, Mika Hakkinen, Jonathan Palmer, Rubens Barrichello, Mauricio Gugelmin and Eddie Irvine with his involvement in F3 and a racing academy in the 198090s.
In 1996, Bennetts directed WSR’s focus to the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), originally with Ford. Now as the official BMW team, WSR has won nine overall BTCC crowns with the BMW 125i M Sport in the past five seasons.
Following WSR’s 2018 BTCC success as the reigning Drivers’, Teams’ and Manufacturers’ Champions, the team was named the Euro pean Race Series Team of the Year in the Professional Motorsport World Expo Awards at a ceremony in Cologne, Germany, attended by 300 of the global motorsport industry’s leading figures.
Bennetts said it was a great honour for everybody at WSR to be named European Series Team of the Year by Professional Motorsport World.
‘‘The BTCC is a championship in which it’s incredibly hard to get to the front and even more difficult to stay there.
‘‘The fact that we’ve remained competitive throughout the past six seasons with the BMW 125i M Sport and won three titles this year speaks volumes about the ability and determination of every member of our team.’’
President of MotorSport New Zealand Wayne Christie said it was fantastic recognition for one of the quiet achievers of the sport.
‘‘While Dick Bennetts hasn’t lived in New Zealand for many years, he maintains strong and valued links with our motorsport community,’’ Christie said.