Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan (born 26th March 1955 in Chelmsford, Essex) is a British former racing driver known for his long career in Formula One. Over the span of his 12 year career Kagan drove for multiple teams - chiefly Tyrrell and March.

Formula One

1977: British F1 Team

After spending the first half of the year desperately attempting to seek out a drive with little success, Kagan would make his Formula One debut at the 1977 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, for the British F1 Team. Kagan and team-mate Stephen South would fail to make the grid due to the team's privateer nature, and lack of understanding of the privateer March 761 cars. The inaugural running of the non-championship Tony Brise Memorial Trophy, a race organised for those who had failed to pre-qualify for the British Grand Prix, would follow main qualifying on Saturday. Starting his first ever Formula One race from second position, but an outstanding drive would see him overtake polesitter John Watson's Shadow on his way to victory.

1977-: Tyrrell

This result attracted the attention of Tyrrell, who were growing disillusioned with Héctor Rebaque. After Rebaque was fired following the race after another underwhelming performance, Kagan signed a contract that same day to race for the team from the Dutch Grand Prix onward. Another impressive drive would see Kagan finish his debut race for Tyrrell in 7th position, higher than Rebaque had finished all season.

Kagan was retained by Tyrrell for 1978. Kagan would open the season with a strong 7th place in the Argentine Grand Prix but would fail to improve on that in the first half of the season. After matching his seasonal best with another finish just outside the points at the British Grand Prix, Kagan would then score his first career points finish at the French Grand Prix as attrition from the front-runners saw the Briton take fourth place, only 8 seconds behind his teammate Didier Pironi. His season however suffered a setback as in Germany, Kagan crashed hard at the Ostkurve and missed the next three rounds, where he was replaced by regular March driver Tom Pryce.

1987-1990: March, Benetton & Brabham

By 1987, Kagan had joined the March team and was partnered by Ivan Capelli. Both drivers would have a good season, with the reliability of the March-Ford package allowing the pair to take advantage of attrition to score regular points. Kagan would score points on 3 separate occassions, coming home 5th in Monaco and Germany along with a 6th in the season-ending Mexican Grand Prix. Although both Kagan and Capelli would end the season on 5 points, March decided to not enter Formula One in 1988, instead focusing on supplying cars to the lower formulae and working on a 1989 challenger.

Kagan would be retained by the team for his development abilities, meaning he went into 1988 without a Formula One drive. However, he would be offered a seat at Benetton replacing the injured Thierry Boutsen for three races, but would struggle with the car. He failed to finish the two races he started and failed to qualify for the Hungarian Grand Prix, his last race for Benetton.

March would rejoin Formula One for 1989, but as a consequence for skipping 1988 would the team would be placed into pre-qualifying. The Adrian Newey-developed CG891 partnered with a supply of Judd CV engines promised to be a midfield contender, but Kagan and new team-mate Mauricio Gugelmin would struggle to get the car working in the first three races of the season leading to three failures to pre-qualify. A minor upgrade package for the French Grand Prix would fix most of the teething issues with the car, allowing the team to pre-qualify for the first time. Despite the improved car allowing the team to pre-qualify for every race thereafter, the team would not escape pre-qualifying until the last re-shuffle of the season after Gugelmin scored two points in the Portuguese Grand Prix. Kagan, meanwhile, struggled with the car in race trim throughout the season, with a best finish of 8th place in the Soviet and Portuguese Grands Prix.

For 1990, Kagan chose to return to his developmental role within the team, test driving the 1990 March F1 car (the CG901) as well as the company's Formula 3000 challengers. However, Brabham came calling before the Hungarian Grand Prix as the team sacked Kazuki Fushida, which meant that Kagan drove in the last six Grands Prix for that team. Unfortunately, Kagan did not make the grid in any of those races and he ended his Formula One career before returning back to March as the chief test driver at the end of the season.

After Kagan left March, he embarked on a moderately successful touring car career.

Results

Complete Formula 1 Results

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

Year	Entrant	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	Points	WDC
1977	Penthouse British Formula One Racing Team	March 761	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	ARG	RSA	USW	ESP	BEL	MON	FRA	TUS	SOV	GBR DNPQ								0	—
	Team Tyrrell	Tyrrell 009	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8											NED 7	GER 9	AUT Ret	ITA Ret	CAN Ret	USA 10	JPN Ret
1978	Penthouse Team Tyrrell	Tyrrell 010	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	ARG 7	RSA Ret	USW 12	ESP Ret	BEL 10	MON Ret	SUI Ret	TUS 11	GBR 7	FRA 4	NED Ret	GER Ret	AUT INJ	ITA INJ	CAN INJ	USA 6		4	13th
1979	Penthouse Team Tyrrell	Tyrrell 011	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	ARG 4	BRA 5	RSA 7	USW Ret	ESP Ret	BEL 8	MON 12	EUR 5	SMR Ret	FRA 3	GBR 10	GER Ret	AUT 8	NED C	ITA 9	CAN 5	USA Ret	13	10th
1980	Penthouse Team Tyrrell	Tyrrell 012	Ford Cosworth DFV 3.0 V8	ARG Ret	BRA 5	USW Ret	ESP 8	BEL 6	MON 4	MEX 5	SMR 8	FRA 14	GBR Ret	GER 3	AUT 5	ITA 2	CAN 7	CPL 5	DUB Ret		22	5th
1981	Penthouse BMW Team Tyrrell	Tyrrell 012T	BMW M12/13 1.5 L4t	ARG Ret	RSA Ret	BRA 6	USW 8	ESP WD	BEL Ret	MON Ret	SMR Ret	MEX Ret	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER 1	AUT 4	SUI 17†	TA Ret	CAN 6	USA 4	17	9th
1987	Leyton House March Racing Team	March 871	Ford Cosworth DFZ 3.5 V8	AUS Ret	SMR Ret	BEL Ret	MON 5	CAN Ret	DET 13	FRA Ret	GBR DNQ	GER 5	HUN Ret	YUG 7	ITA DNQ	POR 14	EUR DNQ	JPN 15	MEX 6		5	19th
1988	Benetton Formula Ltd	Benetton B188	Ford Cosworth DFZ 3.5 V8	BRA	SMR	MON	MEX	CAN	DET	FRA	GBR Ret	GER Ret	HUN DNQ	YUG	SOV	ITA	BEL	JPN	AUS		0	31st
1989	Leyton House March Racing Team	March CG891	Judd CV 3.5 V8	BRA DNPQ	SMR DNPQ	MON DNPQ	FRA 18†	USA Ret	CAN Ret	GBR 14	GER Ret	HUN Ret	SOV 8	POR 8	ITA Ret	BEL 11	JPN 14	AUS 10	MEX Ret		0	—
1990	Motor Racing Developments Ltd	Brabham BT56	Ford DFR 3.5 V8	USA	BRA	PAC	SMR	MON	CAN	MEX	FRA	GBR	GER	HUN DNPQ	BEL DNPQ	ITA DNPQ	POR DNQ	JPN DNPQ	AUS DNPQ		0	—

Complete World Touring Car Masters Results

Year	Team	Car	Class																						WDC	Pts	Class	Pts
1988	Roger Downson Engineering	Rover Vitesse SD1	B	Template:AUS				Template:USA								Template:FRA		Template:GBR				Template:BEL			N/A	0	22nd	18
				E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E
				BAT DNQ	BAT DNQ	FUJ DNQ	FUJ DNQ	GLN DNQ	GLN DNQ	NOR DNQ	NOR DNQ	KYA DNQ	KYA DNQ	HOC DNQ	HOC DNQ	CHA DNQ	CHA DNQ	BIR DNQ	BIR DNQ	MNZ DNQ	MNZ DNQ	SPA DNQ	SPA DNQ	NUR 26
1989	Roger Downson Engineering	Rover Vitesse SD1	B			Template:USA				Template:FRA						Template:FRA		Template:GBR		Template:BEL				Template:AUS	N/A	0	N/A	0
				E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E	S	E
				FUJ DNQ	FUJ DNQ	GLN DNQ	GLN DNQ	KYA DNQ	KYA DNQ	PAU DNQ	PAU DNQ			BRN DNQ	BRN DNQ					SPA DNQ	SPA DNQ