RACING DRIVERS from Egypt

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Egyptian Racing Drivers of all time. This list of famous Egyptian Racing Drivers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Jonathan Williams (1942 - 2014)

With an HPI of 47.55, Jonathan Williams is the most famous Egyptian Racing Driver.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages on wikipedia.

Jonathan James Williams (26 October 1942 – 31 August 2014) was a British racing driver. Born in Cairo, Egypt, he participated in one Formula One World Championship Grand Prix, on 22 October 1967. He finished 8th, scoring no World Championship points. His racing career began in the early 1960s, competing in saloons and various junior formulae, graduating to Formula Three in 1963 and in 1966 drove for the de Sanctis team. During this time he worked with the young Sir Frank Williams, Sheridan Thynne and Piers Courage. In 1967, he was signed by Scuderia Ferrari, initially competing in sports car racing. That year, Ferrari lost several drivers, including team leader Lorenzo Bandini who died from injuries sustained at that year's Monaco Grand Prix and Williams' sports car co-driver, Günter Klass, killed during practice at the Mugello Circuit in July. Later that year, Williams was offered a drive in F1, but after only one Grand Prix he was dropped by Ferrari and a subsequent F1 project with Abarth did not come to fruition. However, he did compete in some Formula Two events in 1968 winning the Rhine Cup race in a car entered by Sir Frank Williams, before driving the works Serenissima. In 1969 he helped develop the De Tomaso F1 car for Frank Williams as well as continuing to compete in F2. He continued also to be active in sports car racing. At the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans, he co-drove the Porsche 908/02 which carried cameras for the Steve McQueen movie Le Mans. Williams retired from racing in 1972 and became a pilot, (initially for Alessandro de Tomaso) an occupation he claimed to dislike and subsequently a writer and photographer. Williams died on 31 August 2014, aged 71. He appeared in the documentary film Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, released nine months after his death and which closes with a clip of Williams driving in the 1971 film Le Mans.

2. Mike Beuttler (1940 - 1988)

With an HPI of 44.13, Mike Beuttler is the 2nd most famous Egyptian Racing Driver.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Michael Simon Brindley Bream Beuttler (13 April 1940 – 29 December 1988) was a British Formula One driver who raced privately entered March cars. He was born in Cairo, Egypt, the son of Colonel Leslie Brindley Bream Beuttler, Duke of Wellington's Regiment, O.B.E., and a descendant on his mother's side of the Scottish ornithologist William Robert Ogilvie-Grant, grandson of the 6th Earl of Seafield. He was a talented Formula Three driver from the late 1960s, who then graduated to Formula Two and then to Formula One in 1971. The finance for the team came from a group of stockbroker friends from whom the team took its name – at first Clarke-Mordaunt-Guthrie Racing, and in 1973 it became Clarke-Mordaunt-Guthrie-Durlacher Racing. This approach of funding the team earned his car the nickname of the "Stockbroker Special". He raced on one occasion, at the 1971 Canadian Grand Prix, for the works March team. Beuttler's best result was a seventh place in the 1973 Spanish Grand Prix. While Beuttler did not achieve a points-scoring finish during his career in Formula One, he did achieve five top-ten finishes in the 28 races in which he competed, results that would have delivered points by today's championship regulations. When his backers suffered amid the 1973 oil crisis, Beuttler retired from racing the following year, at the age of 34, after competing in the 1000 km of Brands Hatch.