Ray Bellm

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Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox racing driver

Raymond Anthony Bellm (born 20 May 1950) is a racing driver from the United Kingdom.

Driving career

He began his racing career in 1980, running in historic racing series and winning the British Historic 2-litre GT class in 1983 and 1984 driving his Chevron B19 sports car. He made the move to modern sports car racing in 1984, driving for Gordon Spice. The pair founded Spice Engineering in 1985 and construct Group C chassis.

As part of the Spice team, Bellm would win the World Sportscar C2 Championship in 1985, 1986 and 1988. He was also able to share a Le Mans win with Gordon Spice in each of those three years, before finally leaving the team in 1990.[1]

File:Mclaren F1 GTR - Ray Bellm & Maurizio Sandro-Sala at Donington 1995 (49673632742).jpg
Bellm driving a McLaren F1 GTR at Donington Park during the 1995 BPR Global GT Series.

In the early 1990s he moved to the British Touring Car Championship, driving for Vic Lee Motorsport, finishing fifth overall in 1991. Following Lee's arrest and imprisonment for drug trafficking, Bellm and Steve Neal co-founded Team Dynamics in 1993, eventually selling his share in the company to Neal.[2] He won the International GT championship in 1994, and the BPR Global GT Series in 1996 driving a McLaren F1 GTR to 11 wins in two years. He also won the 1991 Willhire 24 Hour at Snetterton in a BMW M3 co-driven with Kurt Luby and Will Hoy.

Since then he has returned to historics, including running the Le Mans Classic in 2004 and 2006. He also turned to rallying coming sixth in the 2000 London-Sydney Rally and in 2005 won three rounds of the British Historic Rally Championship in a Mk1 Ford Escort.[3] In 2005 he contested the British round of the World Rally Championship in Group N classed car finishing seventh. In 2006 he finished sixth in Finland and twelfth in Rally Great Britain.

He has served as chairman of the British Racing Drivers' Club (BRDC) from 2004 to 2005, and was responsible for negotiations with Formula One Management which resulted in the successful resigning of the British Grand Prix in 2005.

Bellm also owned and ran the Silverstone based motorsport equipment retailer, Grand Prix Racewear, having bought a majority stake in 1994.[4]

In 2011, Bellm started the 106 Drivers Club, an event based company to run social road car tours for owners of the iconic 3 seater Mclaren F1. Celebrating milestone anniversaries, the 20th and 25th anniversaries attracted 22 chassis of the 103 that remain.

Racing record

24 Hours of Le Mans results

(key)

Year Team Co-Drivers Car Class Laps <templatestyles src="Template:Tooltip/styles.css" />Pos.Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". <templatestyles src="Template:Tooltip/styles.css" />Class
Pos.
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Template:24hLM Template:Flagicon Spice-Tiga Racing Template:Flagicon Gordon Spice
Template:Flagicon Neil Crang
Tiga GC84-Ford Cosworth C2 69 DNF DNF
Template:24hLM Template:Flagicon Spice Engineering Template:Flagicon Gordon Spice
Template:Flagicon Mark Galvin
Spice-Tiga GC85-Ford Cosworth C2 312 14th 1st
Template:24hLM Template:Flagicon Spice Engineering Template:Flagicon Gordon Spice
Template:Flagicon Jean-Michel Martin
Spice SE86C-Ford Cosworth C2 257 19th 6th
Template:24hLM Template:Flagicon Spice Engineering Template:Flagicon Gordon Spice
Template:Flagicon Pierre de Thoisy
Spice SE88C-Ford Cosworth C2 351 13th 1st
Template:24hLM Template:Flagicon Spice Engineering Template:Flagicon Gordon Spice
Template:Flagicon Lyn St. James
Spice SE89C-Ford Cosworth C1 229 DNF DNF
Template:24hLM Template:Flagicon Bristow Racing
Template:Flagicon Erik Henriksen
Template:Flagicon Harry Nuttall
Template:Flagicon Charles Rickett
Porsche 911 Carrera RSR GT2 34 DNF DNF
Template:24hLM Template:Flagicon GTC Gulf Racing Template:Flagicon Mark Blundell
Template:Flagicon Maurizio Sandro Sala
McLaren F1 GTR GT1 291 4th 3rd
Template:24hLM Template:Flagicon Gulf Racing
Template:Flagicon GTC Racing
Template:Flagicon James Weaver
Template:Flagicon JJ Lehto
McLaren F1 GTR GT1 323 9th 7th
Template:24hLM Template:Flagicon Gulf Team Davidoff
Template:Flagicon GTC Racing
Template:Flagicon Andrew Gilbert-Scott
Template:Flagicon Masanori Sekiya
McLaren F1 GTR GT1 326 DNF DNF
Sources:[5][6]Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

Complete British Touring Car Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 1990 in class) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Team Car Class 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 DC Pts Class
1990 Hawaiian Tropic Ford Sierra Sapphire <templatestyles src="Template:Tooltip/styles.css" />BScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". OUL
ovr:10
cls:6
DON
Ret
THR
DNS
SIL
DNS
OUL SIL
DNP
BRH SNE BRH BIR
DNA
DON
DNS
THR SIL 32nd 6 20th
1991 BMW Team Listerine BMW M3 SIL
6
SNE
2
DON
6
THR
7
SIL
51
BRH
7
SIL
4
DON
1

6
DON
2

2
OUL
6
BRH
1

14
BRH
2

Ret
DON
4
THR
5
SIL
6
5th 90
1992 M Team Shell Racing with Listerine BMW 318is SIL
9
THR
Ret
OUL
10
SNE
12
BRH
Ret
DON
1

7
DON
2

10
SIL
6
KNO
1

6
KNO
2

8
PEM
DNS
BRH
1
BRH
2
DON SIL 13th 15
1993 Team Dynamics BMW 318is SIL DON
Ret
SNE
DNS
DON
18
OUL BRH
1

13
BRH
2

12
PEM
17
SIL
14
KNO
1
KNO
2
OUL BRH THR DON
1
DON
2
SIL 29th 0
Sources:[6][7]Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
  1. <templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>^ – Race was stopped due to heavy rain. No points were awarded.

References

Template:Reflist

External links

Template:S-sportsTemplate:S-end
Preceded byTemplate:S-bef/checkTemplate:Succession box/check BPR Global GT Series
Champion

1996 with:
James Weaver Template:S-ttl/check
Template:S-aft/check Succeeded by
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  4. Bio_Fiona Butterfield Template:Webarchive
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