Guy Edwards, former grand prix racer and sports car race winner, has died at the age of 83 following a long illness.
Edwards is perhaps best known for his bravery in saving the life of Niki Lauda in 1976 at the Nürburgring, for which he was awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal.
Edwards was among the first on the scene of Lauda’s crash and stopped to pull the Austrian from his burning Ferrari, alongside fellow drivers Arturo Merzario, Brett Lunger and Harald Ertl.
Edwards, who was born in Cheshire in 1942, was known by many as ‘Mr Sponsorship’ for his expertise in raising funds and attracting backers.
He went straight from university into motor racing, talking his way into free track time at Brands Hatch Racing School in exchange for secretarial work, before saving enough to buy a Mini Cooper S and beginning to climb the ladder.
Having begun racing in a Ford Anglia, Edwards worked his way into grand prix racing in 1974 to drive for Embassy Racing with Graham Hill, having claimed a brace of race wins in European F5000 the year before.
Edwards running behind Lauda in the 1973 non-championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch
Grand Prix Photo
He started seven grands prix for Hill’s squad that season, finishing eighth at Monaco and seventh in Sweden. He contested nine F5000 rounds, also under the Embassy Racing banner, winning the penultimate round of the season at Mallory Park.
Edwards finished third in the 1975 F5000 championship and returned to F1 the following year with Hesketh Racing – famously with Penthouse and Rizla backing – to race four times.
His final F1 appearance, at the British Grand Prix in 1977, resulted in a DNQ, but by this point he was enjoying further success at home. He scored three wins in the 1977 ShellSport International Championship with his RAM RacingMarch and finished the season as runner-up.
He was a high-profile winner in British F1, taking victories for March, Charles Clowes Racing and RAM Racing before focusing on sports car outings.
In nine appearances at Le Mans, he scored a best finish of fourth with John Fitzpatrick Racing in 1985 alongside David Hobbs and Jo Gartner.
In 1980 he shared a class podium in John Paul Sr and Jr’s Porsche 935, returning a year later with Emilio de Villota and Juan Fernandez to claim third in class.
Edwards in the Penthouse-livered Hensketh in 1974
Grand Prix Photo
He and de Villota won twice that season for Lola in the World Endurance Championship, including in the season-ending Brands Hatch 1000kms.
Away from the cockpit, Edwards built a reputation as the sport’s foremost sponsorship broker, a role he moved into almost as soon as his racing career wound down.
Among his deals, he is credited with bringing Skoal Bandit – and its striking livery – to the sport, and also Kaliber beer to the British Touring Car Championship.
The elite world of Formula 1 might not appear to have much in common with the door-banging melees of the British Touring Car Championship, but there have been plenty of drivers — including world champions and race winners — who have bridged the two worlds
By
Marcus Simmons
He later took his expertise into other sports, including America’s Cup sailing.
He later became commercial director of Team Lotus and published Sponsorship and the World of Motor Racing, a book that spans 447 pages and weighs approximately 2.5 kg, described as one of the ‘Holy Grails of motor book collecting’.
Those who worked with him remembered Edwards as much for his character as his deal-making: a meticulous, generous figure happy to spend hours talking a young hopeful through a sponsorship pitch, and one regarded by many as one of the last of a generation of gentlemen racers.
Edwards’s son Sean, also a racing driver, was killed in a crash while coaching in Australia.
Edwards had lived for a number of years in Galway, Ireland, having suffered a stroke some years before his death.
