24 Facts About Roy Salvadori

Roy Francesco Salvadori was a British racing driver and team manager.

Roy Salvadori was born in Dovercourt, Essex, to parents of Italian descent.

Roy Salvadori graduated to Formula One by 1952 and competed regularly until 1962 for a succession of teams including Cooper, Vanwall, BRM, Aston Martin and Connaught.

Roy Salvadori returned to the sport in 1966 to manage the Cooper-Maserati squad for two seasons, and eventually retired to Monaco.

Roy Salvadori then decided to become a professional racing driver, and drove a number of different makes as his career progressed.

Roy Salvadori knew his limitations, and realized that chasing the likes of Stirling Moss at circuits like steeply cambered, high-banked Dundrod or Pescara, with its blind bends and flat-out blinds, was futile, verging on suicidal.

Roy Salvadori twice won the Oulton Park's International Gold Cup where there were plenty of trees to hit and a lake to plunge into, which he did once driving a Jaguar Mk.

Roy Salvadori would continue to race the Ferrari, winning the Joe Fry Memorial Trophy.

Between 1954 and 1956 Roy Salvadori drove a Maserati 250F in Formula One for Syd Greene's Gilby Engineering team, taking a numerous good results in predominantly non-championship F1 races, with one entry for Officine Alfieri Maserati in the 1954 Swiss Grand Prix where he did not start and the car was driven by Sergio Mantovani.

Roy Salvadori did win the London Trophy at Crystal Palace with a Formula Two Cooper.

The Aston Martin team continued into 1960 but again without success and Roy Salvadori continued with the privately entered Cooper.

For 1961, Roy Salvadori moved to Reg Parnell's Yeoman Credit Racing team as partner to John Surtees, competing in five Grands Prix and achieving three sixth-place finishes with the team's 1.5-litre Cooper T53-Climax.

The Cooper now had strong competition in the form of Colin Chapman's Lotus cars, but Roy Salvadori was catching Innes Ireland for the lead in the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen when the engine failed.

Roy Salvadori continued with Parnell for 1962, now under the Bowmaker Racing Team name with the Lola Mk4-Climax, but eight attempts yielded seven retirements and one failure to start.

Roy Salvadori would follow this victory up with another at Snetterton and Goodwood later on in the season.

Roy Salvadori impressed with his aggressive press-on attitude, when he finished second in the Internationales ADAC-1000 km Rennen Weltmeisterschaftslauf Nurburgring in an Ecurie Ecosse Jaguar C-Type, shared with Ian Stewart.

Roy Salvadori was entered in the race by David Brown Racing Dept.

Roy Salvadori followed the '59 season with another successful season in 1960, scoring five victories, including a run of four wins in five races.

Jean-Pierre Manzon in his Aerodjet LM6 hit Roy Salvadori and stopped in the middle of the track.

The accident ultimately led to Roy Salvadori retiring from racing in early 1965, after finished second in the Whitsun Trophy race at Goodwood, abroad a Ford GT40.

Roy Salvadori returned to Formula One as a team manager for the Cooper racing team in 1966 and 1967.

Roy Salvadori was involved in the early stages of the Ford GT40 project but resigned, when the machine's handling appeared problematic, without accepting a fee for his services.

Roy Salvadori died in Monaco on 3 June 2012 at the age of 90, three weeks after the death of his co-driver at Le Mans in 1959, Carroll Shelby.

Roy Salvadori married Susan Hindmarsh, one of the daughters of racing driver, long distance record breaker and 'round the world' driver Violette Cordery and her husband, the racing driver and aviator John Stuart Hindmarsh.