26/4/1964
Record updated 26-Apr-07
Tim Sugden raced in F3000 before joining the BMW Junior team run by Prodrive in the BTCC. In 1997 he moved to GT racing, winning the Porsche Cup, awarded by Porsche to the most successful driver of customer owned Porsche, in 2005.
Tim Sugden is an established international professional racing driver. He bought his first Kart at the age of 11 and has been racing and winning ever since.
Tim got his first works support contract through the UK importer of DAP karting equipment aged 13 and won his first national championship at the age of 16. He also led the British Junior team to the World Karting championships. After starting in racing cars with self run Formula Fords he raced works loaned or backed cars for Van Dieman and Swift in Formula Ford and Formula Renault winning races, championships and podium places throughout these junior formulae.
Tim raced in F3000 and then broke into full professional racing when he was selected from 50 young drivers in 1990 to be part of the BMW Junior team run by Prodrive in the BTCC. Works contracts for Toyota, Vauxhall and Mercedes followed until in 1997 he moved to GT racing with the long established private EMKA team.
In his first year with EMKA racing he raced a GT2 Porsche with which he and Steve won the British GT Championship, this was followed by a second championship in 1998, with a McLaren F1 GTR with which they also scored a magnificent 4th place overall in the 24 hour race at Le Mans winning the Wolff Barnarto Trophy for the highest placed private entry.
The change to full time international GT racing came in 2000 with one of the new Porsche GT3R cars run by EMKA in the FIA championship. In 2002 the team returned to the British Championship and finished 2nd in the series by just 2 points. In 2003 EMKA returned to the FIA GT series with the Porsche GT3RS scoring two wins and finishing 4th in the points. Tim also drove one of the works TVRs at Le Mans. Sadly, at the end of 2003 Steve O'Rourke died.
In 2004 Tim moved on to race Porsches for J3 Racing in the ALMS series, Aasco in the Daytona 24 hours and GruppeM in the British GT Championship where the team won both drivers and team titles. In 2004 Tim competed in 29 races, finishing in the top 6 - 21 times with 13 podiums including 5 wins, 5 second places and 3 third places.
In 2005 Tim raced with the Porsche factory backed team GruppeM Racing in the FIA GT Championship with factory driver Emmanuel Collard in the GruppeM owned RSR no 88. Tim also competed with GruppeM Racing in the Le Mans Endurance Series with Jonathan Cocker renewing their successful partnership of 2004 and in selectived ALMS races with J3 Racing. In all he had 17 top 6 finishes from 22 races including 9 podium positions. He only had 4 races where he failed to finish and the remaining result was a 9th place at Road America in the ALMS. The result of this highly successful programme was that he won the Porsche Cup for 2005 which is awarded annually by Porsche to the most successful driver of customer owned Porsche cars, world wide.
For 2006 Tim moved to a pair of Ferrari F430 GTC cars with Virgo in the Le Mans Series and JMB-GruppeM in the FIA Championship.
www.timsugden.co.uk