(born
Alresford ,
Hampshire ,
England ,
27 August 1954 ) is an
English Racing driver. He raced for many years in
Formula One , but never won a
Grand Prix . During the early 1980s he was thought more likely to achieve World Championship success than his contemporary Nigel Mansell, but a series of wrong career choices held him back. In 2005 and 2006 he raced in the inaugural season of the
Grand Prix Masters formula for retired Formula One drivers.
When he joined
Renault in 1984 after success with
Toleman , he expected to have a race-winning car and led the Brazilian Grand Prix, his first drive for them, only to retire owing to a suspension failure. He went on to finish in second place in both the Belgian and British Grands Prix in 1984 and finished 7th in the championship. The turning point in Warwick's career was his decision to stay at Renault for 1985 and reject an offer to drive for Williams, the seat was instead offered to Nigel Mansell who, accepting the position, went on to win 2 races at the end of the season. 1985 was a poor year for Renault and the team withdrew from Formula 1 at the end of the year. Renault's withdrawal, and Ayrton Senna's refusal to let Warwick join him as team mate at Lotus, left Derek without a team for start of the 1986 season. Following the death of
Elio De Angelis in a testing accident in May, Derek was invited to take his place at Brabham. Derek subsequently drove mainly uncompetitive cars for,
Arrows (1987-1989),
Team Lotus (1990) and
Footwork (1993) with little success.
Earlier in his career, he also won the 1978
British Formula Three Championship . Warwick also raced successfully in
Sports Car Racing , winning the
World Sportscar Championship in 1992, and was also part of the
Peugeot team which was victorious at the
24 Hours Of Le Mans race that year. He drove sports cars for
Jaguar in 1986 and 1991. He raced in the
BTCC after retiring from Formula 1, winning a famous wet race at
Donington in 1998, and co-founding
888 Racing to run
Vauxhall s in the series as well as owning three car dealership in
Southampton and
Jersey .
He scored 71 Grand Prix points.
He was the older brother of
Paul Warwick , who was killed in a racing accident in 1991.
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