Mark Blundell

Mark Blundell (born 8 April 1966, in Barnet, London, England) is a British former racing driver famous for his appearances in Formula One.

Formula 3000

Blundell drove for the Onyx team in the 1988 F3000 season as the reigning champion. He won the final race of the season in Dijon, also taking the fastest lap, on his way to a disappointing 7th in the championship, with 21 points, but easily beating his teammate Joachim Winkelhock. In 1989, Blundell switched to the Madgwick outfit, until moving to Nissan in Japan. Despite this, Blundell managed to finish 10th in the championship, scoring 11 points.

Formula One

Blundell moved to Formula One for 1990, joining F3000 team Middlebridge Racing under the historic Brabham name, partnering David Brabham. The BT56 was a troublesome car, with the team failing to pre-qualify for the first race at Phoenix in the United States, although Blundell managed to beat the faster Rial of JJ Lehto in an impressive debut. He also failed to pre-qualify in Brazil. The team had a good chance of pre-qualifying at Autopolis, given the traffic problems blighting the Rial team, but Blundell also encountered traffic on his runs and failed to capitalise. A further unsurprising failure to pre-qualify at Imola followed, but at Monaco, Blundell would make it past pre-qualifying and qualifying to have his first ever Formula One start. He finished in 15th and last place, being the only finisher to be lapped 5 times, due to the lack of pace from the Brabham BT56 chassis.

A further DNPQ at the Canadian Grand Prix followed before Blundell would gain a new team-mate in the form of Kazuki Fushida, Brabham being let go falling out with the team management. Fushida's appointment failed to get the team out of pre-qualifying for the next two weekends. At the British Grand Prix, Blundell and Fushida were able to take advantage of a wet pre-qualifying session and progress from pre-qualifying. In a similarly wet main qualifying Blundell was able to make the grid, in contrast to Fushida, but he would not finish the race due to an engine failure.

Heading into the Hungarian Grand Prix it was announced that Blundell would have his third team-mate of the season in the form of veteran Robert Kagan.

After the failure at Brabham, Blundell opted to gain much more experience by becoming a test driver for Williams in 1991 and Mclaren in 1992. Blundell credited working with the championship caliber crew at Williams and Mclaren as key to him developing his skills. Refreshed by those two years of gaining experience, Blundell felt ready to come back to a full-time F1 seat, signing with Lotus for the 1993 season.

Career results

Complete International Formula 3000 results

Year	Team	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	DC	Pts
1988	Onyx Racing	March 88-B	Ford Cosworth DFY 3.0 V8	JER 3	IMO 2	PAU 5	SIL 17†	MNZ Ret	PER Ret	BHA 7	BIR Ret	BUG Ret	ZOL 15	DIJ 1	7th	21
1989	Madgwick International	Lola T89/50	Ford Cosworth DFY 3.0 V8	SIL Ret	IMO 3	PAU Ret	JER 3	ASS 4	PER Ret	BHA Ret	BIR	SPA	LEM	DIJ	10th	11

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	WDC	Points
1990	Motor Racing Developments Ltd	Brabham BT56	Ford DFR 3.5 V8	USA DNPQ	BRA DNPQ	PAC DNPQ	SMR DNPQ	MON 15	CAN DNPQ	MEX DNPQ	FRA DNPQ	GBR Ret	GER DNPQ	HUN DNPQ	BEL DNPQ	ITA DNPQ	POR Ret	JPN DNPQ	AUS DNPQ	—	0
1993	Team Lotus	Lotus 107B	Ford HBA7 3.5 V8	RSA Ret	BRA 14	PAC Ret	SMR Ret	ESP Ret	MON Ret	CAN Ret	FRA Ret	GBR Ret	GER 7	HUN Ret	BEL 14	ITA 7†	POR	JPN	AUS	-	0