Background
Trevor Taylor was born in Sheffield, the son of a garage owner from Rotherham.
Formula One driver racecar driver
Trevor Taylor was born in Sheffield, the son of a garage owner from Rotherham.
He finished equal first in the Formula Junior championship with Jim Clark, although he competed in two more races that counted towards the championship than Clark who was already driving regularly for Team Lotus in Formula One.
He began his racing career in 500 cc (305 cu in) Formula Three racing, initially in a Staride and later a Cooper-Norton. Ten victories in 1958 earned him the British Formula Three Championship. After a frustrating year in 1959 spent with his own Formula Two Cooper, he received an invitation to run his Lotus 18 as a second works car for 1960.
At the end of 1961 Taylor got a regular Formula One drive with Team Lotus and proved competitive with Clark and Moss in the South African series in December 1961.
Taylor participated in 27 (plus 2 where he failed to qualify) World Championship Formula One Grands Prix. He made his debut on 18 July 1959, in the British Grand Prix held that year at Aintree, driving a privately entered 1.5-litre Cooper T51 but did not qualify.
In 1961 he was thirteenth at that year"s Dutch Grand Prix, his only World Championship drive that year. He was second in the 1962 Formula One season opening Dutch Grand Prix, his first and, as it would turn out, only World Championship podium finish.
He continued with Team Lotus in 1963, but after a handful of top three finishes in non-championship events, his best World Championship result was sixth place in the opening race at Monaco, and thereafter he was rarely competitive, not helped by two serious accidents at Spa and Enna-Pergusa.
Team owner Colin Chapman suggested Taylor take a sabbatical after the end of the 1963 season. Taylor is credited with inventing the yellow stripe that ran down the middle of Team Lotus cars during the 1960s. After 1964 Taylor enjoyed lesser forms of racing, and tested a Cosworth Formula One car in 1969 which was entered for Grands Prix but did not race.In that the opening year of F5000, Trevor Taylor was a strong contestant in the Guards Championship winning F5000 rounds in a Surtees TS5 in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Ireland and finished runner up to Peter Gethin in the 1969 F5000 series.
Taylor died at the age of 73 after contracting cancer.
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Non-Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap).