Timothy Philip Sugden (born 26 April 1964, in Bradford) is a British racing driver. He is both driver and manager for his own racing team, Tim Sugden Motorsport, and owns Leeds-based car retailer Purple Dot.

Early career

Sugden started racing in karting, where he became British champion. He soon moved up to Formula Ford 1600, winning the Star of Mallory series in 1987. Despite working on a small budget, he gained top place finishes at senior level FF1600 driving the works Swift "Tredaire" car for Frank Bradley. He also drove in the Honda CRX challenge and British Formula 3000. In 1990 he finished third in the Formula Renault Championship, with one race victory along the way.

BTCC

Sugden first raced in the British Touring Car Championship came in 1990. He entered selected rounds for the Prodrive ran Junior BMW Team in the 2.0litre class. An impressive performance for the team in 1991 saw him win at Brands Hatch, finishing the year in tenth place, despite only competing in five rounds. Official 1991 BTCC standings. This led to a full season in 1992 for the works BMW team, where he ended the year eighth on points. Prodrive's contract with BMW ended but Sugden was retained for 1993 by Prodrive for an abortive Mercedes entry and Sugden then returned to the series again in 1994. He entered selected rounds for the Toyota works team as a third driver alongside 1991 champion Will Hoy and former F1 driver Julian Bailey in a Toyota Carina. He was promoted to a full-time drive the following year, but as the team were not front runners in the championship, another disappointing season followed in 1995. This was both Toyota's and Sugden's final year racing in the BTCC but he worked as test driver for Vauxhall in 1996 as they developed the Vectra, while simultaneously competing in the Volkswagen Ventro VR6 Challenge championship, finishing third.

GT Racing

Sugden's sports car racing career began in 1997 with an entry in the British GT Championship. In his first year, he won the GT2 title, alongside Steve O'Rourke in a Porsche 911 GT2. He then went on to win the GT1 titles in both 1998 and 1999, in a McLaren F1 GTR and a Lister Storm GTL, respectively. After already competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race (where he finished fourth overall in 1998 in the EMKA McLaren), he moved to full-time International GT racing in 2000 with the FIA GT Championship where he has nine wins and was runner-up in the GT2 class in 2005. He was winner of the Porsche Cup in 2005, awarded by Porsche to the driver of any privately entered Porsche car in selected racing or rally championships worldwide where points are scored through the season according to the ranking of the series. He is only the second British driver ever to win that Cup.

He has also competed in the American Le Mans Series in a Porsche, finishing second in GT2 in the Sebring 12 hours, the Daytona 24 Hours race, the Le Mans Series, and made a return to the British GT championship. In 2007, he was the Asian Porsche Carrera Cup champion, finished third in 2008 and finished second by one point in 2009.http://www.driverdb.com/drivers/1620/ Career highlights at driver database. In 2011, he finished second in GT in the Daytona 24 hours driving a Porsche for Paul Miller Racing.

BriSCA F2 Stock Cars

On 9 October 2010, Sugden won his debut F2 final in an evening race meeting at Skegness Stadium after working at Brands Hatch earlier that day getting an immediate upgrade to Yellow Top. He competed in selected F2 Stock car rounds this year(2010) and won the Grand National final at Birmingham in November. In 2011, he entered the Northampton meeting on 13 March again winning the GN final and then the Birmingham meeting on the 19th when he won the Final and so was again upgraded to Blue Top. In his first six meetings, he has two overall wins and two GN wins but meetings limited due to other commitments. Hednesford on 10 April saw another win in a heat this time.

Racing record

Complete British Touring Car Championship results (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position – 1990 in class) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap – 1990 in class)

Year Team Car Class 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 OverallPos Pts ClassPos 1990 BMW Team Finance BMW M3 OUL DON THR SILovr:9cls:4 OULovr:9cls:2 SIL BRHovr:5cls:2 SNEovr:8cls:3 BRH BIR DONovr:8cls:2 THR SIL 12th 67 6th 1991 BMW Team Finance BMW M3 SIL SNE DON THR SIL12 BRH SIL DON1 DON2 OUL BRH1 BRH2 DON THR SIL 10th 32 1992 M Team Mobil BMW 318is SIL THR OUL SNE BRH DON1 DON2 SIL KNO1 KNO2 PEM BRH1 BRH2 DON SIL 8th 43 1994 Toyota Castrol Team Toyota Carina E THR BRH1 BRH2 SNE SIL1 SIL2 OUL DON1 DON2 BRH1 BRH2 SIL KNO1 KNO2 OUL BRH1 BRH2 SIL1 SIL2 DON1 DON2 19th 9 1995 Team Toyota GB Toyota Carina E DON1 DON2 BRH1 BRH2 THR1 THR2 SIL1 SIL2 OUL1 OUL2 BRH1 BRH2 DON1 DON2 SIL KNO1 KNO2 BRH1 BRH2 SNE1 SNE2 OUL1 OUL2 SIL1 SIL2 14th 48

– Race was stopped due to heavy rain. No points were awarded.

24 Hours of Le Mans results Year Team Co-Drivers Car Class Laps 1998 Gulf Team Davidoff EMKA Racing Steve O'Rourke Bill Auberlen McLaren F1 GTR GT1 343 4th 4th 2003 DeWalt Racesports Salisbury Mike Jordan Michael Caine TVR Tuscan T400R GT 93 DNF DNF 2004 Thierry Perrier Perspective Racing Ian Khan Nigel Smith Porsche 911 GT3-RS GT 283 23rd 10th 2006 Russian Age Racing Cirtek Motorsport Nigel Smith Christian Vann Ferrari 550-GTS Maranello GT1 124 DNF DNF 2008 Virgo Motorsport Rob Bell Tim Mullen Ferrari F430 GT2 GT2 289 DNF DNF 2009 JMW Motorsport Rob Bell Andrew Kirkaldy Ferrari F430 GT2 GT2 320 23rd 4th 2010 JMW Motorsport Rob Bell Bryce Miller Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT2 GT2 71 DNF DNF 2011 JMW Motorsport Rob Bell Xavier Maassen Ferrari 458 Italia GTC GTEPro 290 24th 9th

Complete Super GT results Year Team Car Class 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 DC Pts 2010 ThunderAsia Racing Mosler MT900MGT300SUZOKAFUJSEPSUGSUZFUJMOTNC0

Complete 24 Hours of Spa results Year Team Co-Drivers Car Class Laps 1994 Toyota Racing Philip Verellen François Chatriot Toyota Carina E ST 86/Belt of distribution DNF DNF 1999 Foss-Tech Racing Mark Lemmer Stephen Day Honda Integra Type R SP45212th12th 2001 EMKA Racing Steve O'Rourke Porsche 996 GT3-RN-GTN/ADid not arriveDid not arrive 2003 EMKA Racing Emmanuel Collard Chris Goodwin Porsche 996 GT3-RN-GT301/GearboxDNFDNF 2004 Gruppe M Jonathan Cocker Warren Hughes Tim Mullen Porsche 996 GT3-RSRN-GT268/GearboxDNFDNF 2005 Gruppe M Emmanuel Collard Stephane Ortelli Porsche 996 GT3-RSRGT247719th4th 2006 JMB Racing Iradj Alexander Jean-Michel Martin Stephane Daoudi Ferrari F430 GTCGT2133DNFDNF 2007 Scuderia Ecosse Andrew Kirkaldy Chris Niarchos Ferrari F430 GTCGT247415th6th 2008 Trackspeed Racing Richard Williams David Ashburn Xavier Pompidou Porsche 997 GT3-RSRGT2382/DNFDNFDNF 2009 Trackspeed Racing David Ashburn Stephane Ortelli Jorg Bergmeister Porsche 997 GT3-RSRGT248618th7th

References

External links Official Site.