James Pickford

James Pickford is a British race car driver, born 30 April 1979 in Macclesfield, Cheshire. As a child his interest was in motorbikes; his father Keith ran bike racing teams. However, as with Damon Hill his mother led him towards the relatively safe world of car racing, beginning in karts in 1994. For a while he was coached by former BTCC racer Tim Sugden. His interest in saloon and sportscars began when he won a test in a BTCC car after being nominated for the BRDC McLaren Autosport Young Driver of the Year award in 1998.

His start in car racing was in 1997, in the Formula Honda series. He won this 2 years in a row, and also did a single Formula Ford race in 1998. He was a midfield runner in Formula Renault in 2000, but spent the next 2 seasons largely sidelined due to a lack of funds.

After a year working on marketing within the prestigious Abt Sportsline team in the DTM, he returned to full-time racing in 2003, in the SEAT Cupra Championship. He was fifth overall, but improved to win the title in 2004, with 11 top-four finishes in the 12 races including 3 wins. This earned him a factory British Touring Car Championship SEAT drive in 2005. He came ninth in the series, with a podium at Snetterton but did not retain the drive for 2006. For 2007 he is contesting the full Porsche Carrera Cup GB, having done the later races in 2006, starting at Knockhill . This means he has contested three of the five championships which support the BTCC and feature on ITV's Motorsport UK programme, as well as the BTCC itself.

Racing record

Complete British Touring Car Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 1 point awarded just in first race) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap – 1 point awarded all races) (* signifies that driver lead race for at least one lap – 1 point awarded all races)

Year	Team	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	DC	Pts
2005	SEAT Sport UK	SEAT Toledo Cupra	DON 1 9	DON 2 7	DON 3 7	THR 1 7	THR 2 4	THR 3 6	BRH 1 9	BRH 2 8	BRH 3 DSQ	OUL 1 9	OUL 2 7	OUL 3 7	CRO 1 10	CRO 2 8	CRO 3 4	MON 1 11	MON 2 9	MON 3 Ret	SNE 1 6	SNE 2 9	SNE 3 2	KNO 1 Ret	KNO 2 12	KNO 3 Ret	SIL 1 2	SIL 2 6	SIL 3 8	BRH 1 9	BRH 2 5	BRH 3 2	8th	116

Complete British GT Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position in class) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap in class)

Year	Team	Car	Class	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	DC	Pts
2011	MTECH Racing	Ferrari F430	GT3B	OUL 1	OUL 2	SNE	BRH NC	SPA 1	SPA 2	ROC 1	ROC 2	DON		36th	0
2011	Backdraft Motorsport	Lamborghini Gallardo LP560	GT3B										SIL 26	36th	0

External links

James Pickford official website

Awards and achievements
Preceded by Lewis Hamilton	Autosport British Club Driver of the Year 2004	Succeeded by Andrew Kirkaldy
Sporting positions
Preceded by Rob Huff	SEAT Cupra Championship 2004	Succeeded by Tom Boardman

Winners of Autosport's British Club Driver of the Year

1980s	1982–83 Martin Bolsover 1984 Rod Birley 1985 Chris Cramer 1986 Paul Warwick 1987 Eddie Irvine 1988 Allan McNish 1989 David Coulthard

1990s	1990 Warren Hughes 1991 Kelvin Burt 1992 Oliver Gavin 1993 Dario Franchitti 1994 James Matthews 1995 Guy Smith 1996 Peter Dumbreck 1997 Doug Bell 1998 Richard Lyons 1999 Andy Priaulx

2000s	2000 Michael Caine 2001 Mike Jordan 2002 Danny Watts 2003 Lewis Hamilton 2004 James Pickford 2005 Andrew Kirkaldy 2006 Sam Bird 2007 Duncan Tappy 2008 Adam Christodoulou 2009 Sarah Moore

2010s	2010 Tom Blomqvist 2011 Alex Lynn 2012 Scott Malvern 2013 Daniel Cammish 2014 Ben Barnicoat 2015 Will Palmer

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