Tom Walkinshaw Dies of Lung Cancer at 64

Former Arrows team boss and owner Tom Walkinshaw has died of lung cancer aged 64. The news appeared via Twitter this past weekend, when former F1 driver Mark Blundell paid tribute to the “good driver and team owner, RIP”.

The second confirmation for the unfortunate news came from professional English rugby club Gloucester, which was owned by the Walkinshaw.

Having started his adventure in motor racing as a professional driver, Scottish-born Walkinshaw made a huge contribution to the sport as a team manager and owner. Back in 1975, he started Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) and began running racing programmes in touring cars. Later on, the team entered the World Sportscar Championship, winning 3 titles and clinching two wins in the famous Le Mans 24 Hour race.

In the early '90s, Walkinshaw joined the Benetton F1 Team as an Engineering Director, a team which he helped win the title in the series 4 years later, in 1995.

After an attempt to buy the Ligier F1 Team, the Scot went on to purchase the Arrows F1 Team and, in his first year as team owner, signed none other than reigning F1 champion Damon Hill. The team eventually went bankrupt in 2002.

In recent years, Walkinshaw was mostly involved in Australian touring car series V8 Supercars. In fact, 2009 was the debut year of Walkinshaw Racing in the series (the squad was revived after his company Walkinshaw Performance bought into the Holden Racing Team), which fielded 2 cars for the aforementioned campaign.