AFTER the sudden deaths of motorcyclist Steve Hislop and rally world champion Colin McRae in recent years following helicopter accidents, the Scottish motorsport scene has been diminished once again with the death of former British Touring Cars champion David Leslie, who died when his private jet crashed into a Kent housing estate on Sunday.
Leslie, born in Annan, Dumfriesshire, in November 1953, showed early promise behind the wheel of a racing machine and by the age of 16 he'd already won the first of what would eventually be five Scottish karting championships.
As he moved through
the ranks, Leslie graduated to the BARC Formula Ford 1600 championship and by 1981 he was in Formula 3 mixing it with the likes of Formula 1 world champion-in-waiting Nigel Mansell and Martin Brundle, who would also go on to race in F1.
"When he was racing in Formula Ford my father went along and helped him as a mechanic with his father, David snr," explained Scotland's former Le Mans 24-Hours winner Allan McNish from his home in Monaco last night.
"When I was six or seven years old, I was hearing stories of how he'd obliterated the opposition. I remember once, when he won the championship, he beat Mansell. The name Nigel Mansell didn't mean much to me then, but it did many years later when he joined Lotus.
"From my personal point of view he was probably the inspiration behind me wanting to follow him as a driver. I remember in 1978 when he was racing in Formula 2000 he had a sticker on the back of his car which read: 'Are you following David Leslie?'
"And that's exactly what I did. He and his father took me to my first ever kart race. They showed me around and got me going, and then in Formula Ford it went a stage further.
"In 1987, they effectively ran the car between them, so from that point of view they were instrumental in my career."
But in tandem with establishing the early racing careers of not only McNish, but also fellow Scots David Coulthard, Dario Franchitti and Ryan Dalziel, Leslie continued to develop his own hugely successful racing career.
After three seasons in F3, and despite racing in the British Formula 1 Championship, he never managed to burst through to full grand prix racing. That though was down more to his placid, softly-spoken nature – one which meant he would never wheel and deal his way into a top driving seat – rather than any lack of driving or racing ability.
A switch to sportscar racing beckoned and in the late 1980s he became a regular in the C2 class of the World Sportscar Championship, taking Ecurie Ecosse to second in the 1987 class championship while co-driving with his future British Touring Car Championship team boss, Ray Mallock. He also drove the Ecurie Ecosse C285 Ford and C286 Rover at Le Mans in 1985 and 1986.
That link with Mallock was one which would be a mainstay throughout his BTCC career, one which would see him bag nine race wins during stints with Ecurie Ecosse, Mazda, Honda, Nissan and Proton.
Leslie's first touring car win came, after several near misses and frustrations, behind the wheel of the Ecurie Ecosse Vauxhall Cavalier at Thruxton in late 1993. It was an era which his archrival and fellow Scot, John Cleland, remembers.
"It's fair to say our paths crossed a number of times," the double BTCC champion said from his home in Galashiels yesterday. "We were huge, huge rivals because David drove the Vauxhall for Ecurie Ecosse, and of course I drove the Cavalier for the full Vauxhall works' team.
"We were racing against each other in the same products but with different teams. We both wanted to win, and neither of us wanted to lose.
"I always remember David as being a proud Scot. He was also an integral part of the BTCC during its heyday, and very good at setting cars up. I also know he detested all the glitzy stuff which surrounded racing drivers. David was one of these guys who would turn up, set the car up, qualify, race, then walk away and leave someone else to do the talking afterwards."
After life with Ecurie Ecosse, Leslie spent a season at Mazda before joining Honda in 1995 where he led the manufacturer's return to touring cars. By 1996 Leslie was regularly winning races in the Accord, but the following year decided to switch to the Mallock-run Nissan team instead. Leslie's technical know-how and inherent ability to drive and engineer the same car proved priceless and, after many years of underachievement the RML Primera became the dominant force in the 1999 BTCC.
Frustratingly though for the Scot, he missed out on the championship he so desired, being pipped to the title by his French team-mate Laurent Aiello. That it took one of the world's leading touring car drivers to deny him his cherished crown spoke volumes for the ability Leslie himself had. The Scot, though disappointed, found no shame in finishing second.
Two seasons with Proton followed, during which the Scot took the car to an unexpected podium finish. Most recently Leslie, perhaps enjoying his racing more than at any other time in his life, won what was to be his final race when he brought his BMW M3 E46 home to victory in the Britcar race at Silverstone on 22 March.
Such was Leslie's reputation as a test and development driver that he was en route to Pau, in France, where he was scheduled to work on the brand new Jaguar GT3 race car. The resulting plane crash, coming in the same six months that saw the deaths of former world rally champ Colin McRae and Sir Jackie Stewart's grand prix-racing brother Jimmy, robbed Scotland of yet another leading light in motorsport.
The full article contains 997 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
