Tim Parnell 1932-2017

Father Reg’s successes left much to live up to, but Tim made his own mark on racing

RACING DRIVER, BRM team manager and past BRDC vicepresident Tim Parnell died on 7 April at the age of 84. His father was the legendary Reg Parnell, who took a podium position in his first GP, was an Aston Martin works driver and became its team manager, so Tim was inevitably destined for a career in motor sport.

Tim was born in Derby on 25 June 1932. His first race experience was while still a small boy, Reg hiding his son under a blanket to get into Brooklands on just one ticket.

Reg didn’t initially want Tim to race, but the bug bit and tall, wellbuilt Tim managed to race his Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica when not working on the family farm. He saved enough to buy a Cooper T39Climax, in which he finished second in their first race together at Mallory Park in 1957. Another second, a third and a win followed, his winnings – and belated paternal encouragement – enabling him to buy first a Formula Junior Cooper T52, then a Formula 2 Cooper T45Climax. This he raced with some success throughout Europe over the next two seasons, but he failed to qualify it for the 1959 British GP.

For 1960 he acquired FJ and F2 Lotus 18s and achieved some good placings. In the latter for 1961, with F2 now effectively transformed into F1, he raced as one of ‘The Three Musketeers’ alongside Gerry Ashmore and André Pilette. Results included 10th in the Italian GP, but Tim retired from his only other world championship race, at Aintree, his four-cylinder mount now outclassed among the new V8-powered machines.

After a bad crash he raced a Lotus 18/21 infrequently during 1962. For the following year he bought a Lotus 24-BRM, often raced for him by Masten Gregory. Tim’s last race was in this car, finishing sixth in the non-championship Austrian GP.

With Reg’s sudden death in January 1964, aged just 53, Tim switched to managing his father’s GP team, Reg Parnell Racing, running Lotus 25-BRMs for Chris Amon, Innes Ireland, Richard Attwood and Mike Hailwood. Their best result was Amon’s fifth place in the Dutch GP. A 2.0-litre Lotus 25-BRM was run for Mike Spence in 1966’s new 3.0-litre F1, then over the next two winters Tim ran BRM’s entries in the Tasman series with Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart, Attwood, Chris Irwin and Piers Courage.

By now, Tim’s equipe had effectively become BRM’s junior F1 team, fielding a pair of BRM P126s for Irwin and Courage. Tim then became BRM’s senior team manager, with Pedro Rodriguez, Jo Siffert, Peter Gethin, Howden Ganley, Jackie Oliver, Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Niki Lauda its drivers over the years, notching up BRM’s final four F1 victories.

In 1975, fed up with BRM’s autocratic hierarchy, Tim returned to farming. Before long, though, he was managing Mallory Park and Oulton Park, and, later, Donington Park for a brief spell. He became a BRDC director, then vice-president from 2007 to 2010. This popular figure, an entertaining raconteur and always approachable, will be much missed in the motor sport world.