Credentials…
2005 8th
- FIA World Touring Car Championship
with Alfa Romeo, with one
win (at Monza ) and two 2nd
places.
2004 British
Touring Car Champion
(with VX Racing). Selected
European Touring Car Championship
rounds with Alfa Romeo -
finished 9th in the series
with one race win at Donington
Park.
2003 2nd -
British Touring Car Championship
(with VX Racing). Selected rounds
of the European Touring Car Championship
with Alfa Romeo (finished
12th in the series with one
race win at Monza ) and rounds
of the British Rally Championship.
2002 British
Touring Car Champion
(with Vauxhall). Contested
the Rally of Great Britain
in a privately-entered Mitsubishi,
finishing 19th overall and
2nd in class.
2001 3rd – British
Touring Car Championship
(with Egg Sport Vauxhall)
and selected European
Touring Car Championship
rounds with Honda, with two 2nd
place finishes.
2000 9th – British
Touring Car Championship
(with Honda)
and selected
DTM races with Audi.
1999 4th – British
Touring Car Championship
with
Honda.
1998 3rd – British
Touring Car Championship
with Honda.
1997 5th – British
Touring Car Championship
with Honda.
1996 10th – British
Touring Car Championship
with Vauxhall.
1995 7th – British
Touring Car Championship
with
Vauxhall.
1994 British
Touring Car Championship
Independents’ Cup
in a Peugeot 405.
1993 National
Saloon Car Cup Champion
(in a Honda Civic). Castrol
Honda Scholarship – 7
race wins.
1992 4th – Formula
Vauxhall Junior Championship.
1991 Formula
Vauxhall Junior Championship.
The
story so
far…
Talking
to James
Thompson, one of Britain ’s
most successful
touring car drivers, you’d
be forgiven for thinking that
his proudest moments have all
occurred behind the wheel of
a racing car. Not so; the Yorkshireman
has completed the London Marathon
three times
and ranks those experiences alongside
his two BTCC titles and his dozens
of race victories.
Add to the mix the fact that
he’s
recorded a top 20
finish in Britain ’s
round of the FIA
World Rally Championship
and you come to the conclusion
that James is something
of an all-rounder!
It was almost
inevitable that James
should be interested in motorsport.
His father David
(better known by his nickname “Piggy” Thompson,
as he was a pig farmer)
was well known for his exploits
rallying Porsches and Ford Escorts
in the 1970s and ‘80s.
The family farm gave
the youngster all the space
and opportunities he needed
to exercise his interest in
all things mechanical and his
first “car” was
a Fiat-powered buggy
at the tender age of six, although
James cheerfully admits that
he’d
been zipping around
on motorbikes from a much younger
age. “I
must have driven
everything from tractors to
fork lifts,” says
James, “but
it was from dad that
I got the bug for competing.”
It
wasn’t until 1991
that James was able
to do anything about that
bug. Rather than follow his
father into the forests,
the canny youngster had realised
that there was little reward
(and big bills) from rallying
and so, after an “apprenticeship” in
karting, James attended
the Jim Russell Racing School
instead. His very first race
resulted in a victory and
the bug had clearly bitten.
A limited programme in the
Formula Vauxhall Junior Championship
was followed in 1992 by an
assault on the full Formula
Vauxhall Junior series, in
which James finished 4 th – a
performance which
led to a place in the Castrol
Honda Scholarship the following
year.
While many graduates
of
the Jim Russell School headed
for the single-seater formulae,
James decided that ‘tin-top’ racing
was where his future
lay. “Growing
up on a farm, you
get used to having a roof over
your head in the car,” jokes
James. “It’s
a tough decision – to
go into touring cars rather
than aim for something
like Formula One - and it’s
one you have to accept, but
I’ve
got no regrets.”
The
decision
to race saloon cars quickly
began to pay off for James. In
1993, the Castrol Honda drive
in a Civic in the National Saloon
Car Cup saw James take seven
wins on his way to becoming
Champion. It was, he
freely admits, a turning
point in his career. “Until
that point,
I really wasn’t
sure that I could
make a living out of being a
racing driver. Until you’ve
proven yourself,
you don’t
really know
if you can make a career of it,
but I hadn’t
just won
the races – I’d
won the Championship
and that proved a lot.”
The
following year saw
the start of James’ long
association with the British
Touring Car Championship, when
he campaigned a Peugeot 405 in
the Independents’ Cup.
The youngest driver
on the grid might have finished
the season outside the top 20,
but his potential was clear to
see and he was signed by Vauxhall
for the 1995 season,
becoming the youngest driver
at the time to win a round of
the BTCC when he drove his Cavalier
to victory at Thruxton.
After
another year with
Vauxhall, the next four seasons
saw James contest the BTCC
at the wheel of a Honda. Both
1998 and 1999 saw him record
four victories during the course
of the season, finishing in 3
rd and 4 th places respectively
in the Drivers’ Championship.
2000 then saw a new
challenge for James – beginning
what would become a familiar
pattern – when,
on his weekends off
from the BTCC, he contested the
DTM series at the wheel of a
privately-run Audi TT. James
returned to Vauxhall for the
2001 BTCC, in which he finished
3 rd, but his association with
Honda continued with a limited
programme of races in the FIA
European Touring Car Championship.
With rallying playing such a
key part of his formative
years, it was no real surprise
that James chose to tackle
a number of events in 2002 and
2003. Again, rallies were
chosen to fit in with his BTCC
programme, but the highlight
of his brief flirtation with
rallying was undoubtedly
his performance on the 2002 Rally
of Great Britain, when he
finished 19 th overall and 2
nd in his class. “The
problem with rallying
is that you crash every now and
again,” recalls
James. “I had one crash
on the Manx Rally
in which I damaged my ribs
and I very nearly missed a
BTCC round because of it; I
had to dose myself up with
some painkillers. I enjoyed
the rallying, though,
and I’m
sure I’ll do a bit more
when I’m old and grizzly!”
Despite
his occasional
adventures in the forests
and guest drives in the ETCC,
James was able to realise his
ambition of winning the BTCC
title when, in 2002 and
again in 2004, he became
British Touring Car Champion. “Because
of the titles and
the race wins I’ve had,
people recognise my name and
that’s
nice. I’m very proud
to have been
British Champion twice and
if I never achieve anything
else, I’ll always
be proud
to have done that. I’m
not planning to rest on my
laurels, though, and I want
to win the World title one
day.”
James joined
Alfa
Romeo for a programme of
ETCC races in 2003 and 2004,
during which he won races
at Monza and Donington Park .
When the ETCC became the FIA
World Touring Car Championship
in 2005, James became
part of the four-strong Alfa
Romeo WTCC team and again
tasted victory at Monza.
For 2006, James has joined the
Barcelona-based SEAT
Sport WTCC team and alongside
the Englishman will be former
team-mates Yvan Müller and
Gabriele Tarquini (who won the
BTCC title, incidentally, in
1994 – James’ first
season in the series).
He relishes the challenge of
working with his two former colleagues. “I’m
feeling really good
about working with Yvan and Gabriele
in particular. We’ve
got a proven track record together
and he likes me as
a team-mate and while I’ve
only ever competed
against Rickard Rydell, I’ve
known him for years and played
golf with him. I don’t
know Jordi Gené or Peter
Terting all that well, but
that’ll
soon change. What
I do know about them, I like.”
James
also sees
his involvement with the
Spanish team as a long-term affair. “From
my point of view as a former
competitor, the Leon is a very
strong car in lots of areas.
I’m
looking forward to
a great working relationship
with SEAT Sport.”
James
will also contest
the six BTCC race weekends
which don’t
clash with the WTCC,
and will race a Leon for SEAT
Sport UK at Brands Hatch (April
9), Mondello (April 23), Oulton
Park (May 14), Croft (July 16),
Snetterton (August 13) and Silverstone
(October 15).
One thing James
won’t
be doing, however, is pounding
the streets of London for
the next few years. “I’ve
done the London Marathon
for three of the last four years
and, while I’d like to
get under the three hour
barrier, I’m not getting
any younger and so I think three
hours ten minutes will have to
stand as my personal best for
a couple more years.” Despite
the fact that James lists skiing,
golf, tennis and running
as his hobbies, his entries in
the London Marathon have been
about far more than keeping fit.
He’s
raised thousands of pounds
for the Marie Curie Charity,
after cancer claimed the life
of the man who sparked his original
interest in motorsport – his
father, David.
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