Ken Tyrrell, who died on August 25th aged 77, will be remembered not only as the man who built a formula one racing team, but also as the inspiration behind Jackie Stewart's run of three world championships in 1969, 1971 and 1973. The two forged a close personal bond which lasted to the end of Ken Tyrrell's life.
Ken Tyrrell, who ran his racing business from the family timber yard in Surrey, had given Stewart his first opportunity, driving one of his team's formula three Cooper-BMCs in the 1964 British Championship. Stewart won the title and earned a formula one drive with BRM the following year, but he continued to drive Ken Tyrrell's formula two cars in international events for the next three seasons.
In the summer of 1967, he decided to move up into formula one. He committed to an order for five of the new Cosworth-Ford DFV engines and signed a contract with Matra, the French aerospace company, for the loan of their brand new formula one chassis.
Unlike today's lavish global circus, formula one racing was relatively small-time in those days: Ken Tyrrell's team included a dozen mechanics, his wife Norah working the stopwatches from the pit wall, and a transporter built from a truck chassis that had survived a dunking in the Thames when the boat taking it to Cuba sank.
For 1968, Ken Tyrrell agreed with Matra that he would raise the sponsorship and operate the two-car team. Stewart duly won the first of his three world championships the following year. Then, in 1970, Matra wanted the team to use its own V12 engine, but Ken Tyrrell and Stewart were adamant that the Ford engine was the one to have. So he bought a customer chassis from the fledgling March company and installed his own Ford engines. But even by the time Stewart had qualified the March 701 on pole position for the 1970 South African Grand Prix, the Scot had concluded it was a dud and Ken Tyrrell had already taken the plunge to commission his own formula one chassis.
The blue-liveried Tyrrell 001 was unveiled in August 1970, having cost £22,500 to develop and manufacture. In 1971, it carried Stewart to his second world championship. Characteristically, the no-nonsense, lugubrious Ken Tyrrell told Stewart he would have to manage the stressed-out state the driver had plunged into during the 1972 season. This was the key to the relationship between the two. Ken Tyrrell was part mentor, part manager, but always a steadfast friend to his brilliant driver. They relied and fed on each other for their success.
Ken Tyrrell, who had served in RAF bombers as a navigator during the war, got involved in motor racing by accident. Post-war, he started a timber business, with his brother, in Ockham, Surrey. In 1951, his local football team, for which he played, organised a trip to Silverstone. From this moment, his life changed. He bought his first Cooper and began racing in formula three and formula two, continuing through much of the 1950s. "When eventually I discovered I could only finish fifth, sixth or seventh at this level, it didn't satisfy me," he said later. He switched to team management, entering other drivers in his cars.
His relationship with Stewart clicked from the moment he first saw him racing - at Goodwood in 1963 - and offered him a test drive. He recalled they fell out only once. "It was at an Oulton Park Gold Cup when Jackie was complaining bitterly about the March 701, and I do remember we had a few words. But we never fell out over money. He drove for me in F3, F2 and then F1, but the only year we had a written contract was in the first year."
After Stewart won his third world championship in 1973, Ken Tyrrell hoped to sustain the team's momentum into 1974, promoting Franτois Cevert to the team leadership when Stewart retired from racing. Sadly, Cevert was killed practising for the 1973 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen and the link was broken.
Ken Tyrrell always played down his reputation as a talent spotter, but there were plenty of fine drivers who served their apprenticeship under his banner. Apart from Cevert, they included Patrick Depailler, Jody Scheckter, Didier Pironi, Michele Alboreto, Martin Brundle, Stefan Bellof, Jean Alesi and Mika Salo. Alboreto won the team's last grand prix victory at Detroit in 1983, after which the team went into a steady decline. Ken Tyrrell and his family eventually sold out to British American Racing for £10 million in 1997 and retired from the sport the following year.
He is survived by his wife Norah and sons, Kenneth and Bob.
Alan Henry Robert Kenneth Tyrrell: born 1924; died, August 2001