The top 10 TWR Jaguar drivers

10. Price Cobb

Texan Price Cobb shared the winning XJR-12LM with Martin Brundle and John Nielsen at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1990. Respected on the American IMSA scene, the former works Porsche driver has modestly claimed he was never the fastest. But, following a surprise call-up to the TWR ranks as part of Jaguar’s massive five-car Le Mans attack in 1988, he was signed full-time for IMSA the following year, winning three times across two seasons and claiming a pair of runner-up finishes at Daytona.

The Le Mans win was Cobb’s career pinnacle — although he was disenchanted by TWR’s mid-race decision to withdraw Chilean Eliseo Salazar from the car in favour of Brundle when the Englishman’s own entry retired. Cobb quit Jaguar for a Mazda deal at season’s end.

9. Teo Fabi

The Italian makes this list for claiming the 1991 Sportscar World Championship for TWR Jaguar in the stunning XJR-14. Five-foot-five Teo Fabi was a surprise signing for 1991 in the wake of Porsche pulling the plug on its IndyCar team.

Nevertheless, it was this least-fancied member of the team who claimed the title, thanks in part to Derek Warwick losing the points they earned for winning at Silverstone because he had swapped from his original car shared with Martin Brundle. Fabi also finished third at Le Mans that year in an XJR-12 with Kenny Acheson and Bob Wollek, but it was a race he never cared for.

8. Derek Warwick

Hampshire-born Derek Warwick always made it crystal clear Formula 1 was his priority. Nevertheless, when F1 left him high and dry he served TWR Jaguar splendidly across two separate stints. The first was in 1986, after Renault pulled the plug on its F1 team — and Ayrton Senna blocked him from joining Lotus. Sharing with best ‘frenemy’ Eddie Cheever, Warwick scored a memorable victory at Silverstone and only missed the World Championship by a single point.

But he’d spent the season jumping back and forth between sportscars and F1, having stepped in at Brabham following the tragic death of Elio de Angelis in a Paul Ricard test, and Warwick returned full-time to F1 with Arrows for ’87. He was back with TWR four years later when he snapped up the chance to race the fabulous Ford HB V8-powered XJR-14 and revelled in the Ross Brawn-designed Jaguar, but the death of his brother Paul in a Formula 3000 crash at Oulton Park cast the darkest of shadows. How Warwick dug deep, returned to action and won sharing with David Brabham at the Nürburgring showed the mettle of this gutsiest of racers.  

7. Eddie Cheever

American Eddie Cheever holds a particular distinction in TWR Jaguar’s driver rollcall he has the highest win rate from starts for the team, at 31 per cent. The Phoenix-born racer served TWR valiantly in the heart of the Group C years between 1986 and 1988 — despite initial doubts that the long game was for him… “Sportscar racing! We were Formula 1 drivers, for Christ’s sake!” That was his first response when Tom Walkinshaw approached him to share with Warwick for 1986. The pair bickered, regularly, but famously also became great friends.

In 1987, Cheever shared his Jaguar with Raul Boesel, while also racing with Warwick for Arrows in F1, but frustratingly missed out on a Drivers’ Title in the World Sports Prototype Championship because of the conflicting schedules. He harboured an ambition to win Le Mans, but the Indy 500 took greater precedence. His decision to head back home to the US eventually paid off: Cheever won at the Brickyard in 1998.

6. Raul Boesel

The forgotten man of TWR Jaguar’s Group C years? Perhaps. The Brazilian is too easily overlooked compared to some of the higher-profile drivers he raced with. Boesel, who made an unlikely switch from racing horses to cars in his youth, struggled in bad F1 drives but revived his reputation in IndyCar before joining TWR for 1987. That season, he broke the Porsche hegemony to become World Sports Prototype Champion, sharing five wins at Jerez, Silverstone, Brands Hatch, the Nürburgring and Spa, while also adding a solo ADAC Supercup victory at Hockenheim to his haul.

The title, clinched at Spa with Martin Brundle and Johnny Dumfries, helped convince Brundle to commit in 1988 to claim his own World Championship. Boesel also starred in Jaguar’s landmark Daytona 24 Hours triumph in 1988. Sharing with Brundle and Nielsen (Lammers also took a relief stint), the 1987 World Champion stamped his mark on a frantic race around 03:00 in the darkness, staying on soft and sticky Dunlop slicks while everyone else switched to grooves in mist and rain. High on the Florida speedway’s banking, that was brave.

5. Davy Jones

Chicago-born Davy Jones was held in high regard by TWR. That much is clear from his presence in four of Jaguar’s six attempts at Le Mans during the Group C years, with a best finish of second sharing with Boesel and Michel Ferté in 1991. But it’s in the American IMSA series where Jones served TWR best. In fact, he was its only driver to race in all six Daytona 24 Hours and all five Sebring 12 Hours the Big Cats competed in. Jones is second in the list of drivers who made the most TWR Jaguar starts, behind Jan Lammers.

He was just 21 when TWR plucked him for its first IMSA campaign in 1988, and he became its lynchpin. His high-point in the Castrol-backed Jaguars has to be Daytona in 1990, when he shared Jaguar’s second victory in the Florida classic with Lammers and Andy Wallace, sweating through an attritional race despite serious cooling issues that hampered the XJR12s towards the close. Jones would finally become a Le Mans winner in 1996, and even then the TWR link shone through. He won driving the Joest-run Porsche WSC-95 which famously started life as an XJR-14.

4. Andy Wallace 

Just three wins for the former gasman in TWR Jaguars, but two of them are as big as they come. Like the three drivers ahead of him in this list, Andy Wallace won both Le Mans and the Daytona 24 Hours for Tom Walkinshaw and the Big Cats. Wallace’s performance at Le Mans in 1988 has gone down in legend, because it was also his first time at the great race. Intimidated by Walkinshaw (having turned down a TWR Le Mans drive the year before), the 1986 British Formula 3 Champion cautiously played himself in.

He took three goes before managing to stay flat through the kink on the Mulsanne — but hey, that’s fair enough at 248mph. Over the course of practice and into the race, Wallace listened to and learnt from Lammers and fellow Brit Dumfries to play a full part in one of the most celebrated victories. After Le Mans, Wallace shared another big win at Brands Hatch and landed a full-time deal for 1989. After victory at Daytona in 1990 with Lammers and Jones, Wallace continued to rack up wins at the big sportscar races through the decade and beyond. But he’ll never forget the first time, and neither will we.

3. John Nielsen

The big Dane was TWR Jaguar’s longest-serving driver. He first drove an XJR-6 at Shah Alam in 1985 and signed off when the team did, at Daytona in 1993. Across the span of those eight seasons, Nielsen became a popular team-mate at TWR, especially for Brundle with whom he formed one of the era’s most formidable partnerships. Although it’s somewhat ironic that when the pair scooped the Le Mans win they most desired, they hadn’t been originally drawn to share a car. At La Sarthe in 1990, Brundle was in the no.1 car with Alain Ferté and David Leslie, with Nielsen sharing with Price Cobb and Eliseo Salazar in no.3. It was in practice that Nielsen noted how Salazar was “hard on the gearbox,” so Walkinshaw quietly made a call to keep the Chilean out until at least Sunday morning.

As it happened, when Brundle’s entry retired at dawn in a cloud of steam due to a torn water pump belt, Salazar’s fate was sealed. Brundle was in, he was out. As lunchtime approached, fourth gear had already failed and the drivers were having to shift from third straight to fifth. Then an enforced right-front brake change allowed the chasing Brun Porsche to close to within a lap. But while the Brun effort suffered heartbreak just 15 minutes from the flag, the Jaguar held on. On the podium, Nielsen clambered on to a narrow ledge to punch the air. He’d earnt this.

2. Martin Brundle

Martin Brundle was Tom Walkinshaw’s driver, his number one. That’s the way it had been since a young Brundle had written to the Scot asking for a drive in his BMW County Championship 323i. When TWR won the deal to step up from XJ-Ss in touring cars to lead Jaguar’s assault on Le Mans, it was only natural that Brundle should be on board. When he wasn’t racing F1 cars, that is. Burned by his Tyrrell and Zakspeed experiences, it wasn’t until 1988 that Brundle fully committed to sportscar racing and his old mentor. Sharing in the groundbreaking victory at Daytona was a great start, then in the World Championship three wins on the bounce with Cheever, at Jarama, Monza and Silverstone, set him on his way.

He was in the wrong car at Le Mans… but the win at Brands Hatch with Wallace and Nielsen put Brundle back on track, and a fifth victory of the season at Fuji with Cheever topped it off. Brundle was a World Champion. But the Le Mans win was what he so desperately wanted, and it came, by hook or by crook, in 1990. Then Brundle got his hands on the XJR-14 and contrived to finish first and second at both Suzuka and Monza by switching between cars, before going solo at Silverstone. That hero performance helped convince designer Ross Brawn that Brundle really would be spot on for the new project he and Walkinshaw were just taking on, at Benetton. Walkinshaw, needless to say, already knew as much.  

1. Jan Lammers

Lammers ahead of Brundle? Yes — but there’s very little in it. The Dutchman gets the nod largely thanks to his heroics in delivering the all-important 1988 Le Mans win. Just 40 minutes were left on the clock when Lammers heard an alarming ‘clunk’ from the gearbox. Recalling a chat with Boesel about his own retirement earlier in the race, Lammers made a crucial — and correct — decision (the gearbox fell to bits when it was stripped back at the factory). From now to the end he wouldn’t touch the gear lever again, leaving the big Jag to trundle home in fourth. Negotiating the final pitstop with an illegal push from the mechanics (while also being careful to hide his plight from anyone at Porsche who might be listening on the radio) Lammers was the right man in the right place at the right time.

Recruited when all his racing hopes appeared to be over, Lammers became an almost ever-present talisman for TWR Jaguar. Second with John Watson to Boesel in the 1987 World Championship, he was kept busy the following season with a parallel IMSA campaign. He was in the winning car when it took the flag at Daytona that year, ahead of what became his signature Le Mans performance. Lammers added a second Daytona victory in 1990 and was in the runner-up car at Le Mans to complete Jaguar’s 1-2. Light-hearted and a genuine team player, Lammers was low-maintenance, and as quick as anyone during a truly great sportscar era. That’s why he’s our number one.

Main image courtesy of William Murenbeeld/Stringer via Getty Images.

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