Jamie Campbell-Walter

Jamie Campbell-Walter is a British professional racing driver. He was born in Oban, Scotland in 16 December 1972. He won the FIA GT Championship in 2000.

Early career

Like many young drivers, Jamie Campbell-Walter started racing in single seaters. He made his debut in the Formula Vauxhall Junior Winter Series in 1993, taking second place in the championship, followed by a third place in the British national championship in 1994. Campbell-Walter moved to the higher Formula Vauxhall series in 1995 where he was fifth in the championship, which he hoped would propel him into the British Formula Three Championship the following year. However, even though he did perform one test in a British Formula Three car, he was unable to find the funding necessary and did not race for the whole of 1996.

National and international GT racing

In 1997, Campbell-Walter returned to racing, taking a drive in the TVR Tuscan Challenge, a one-make trophy organized by the British manufacturer. He took fourth place in the series championship after winning two rounds for Colin Blower Motorsport. Blower, who was in charge of development for the TVR Cerbera's motorsport program, invited Campbell-Walter to co-drive with him in the racing Cerbera in selected rounds of the British GT Championship. The pair won the Donington Park round before the both of them made their debut in the FIA GT Championship at the 4 Hours of Donington Park, retiring after 38 minutes.

The following year, Campbell-Walter stayed with Colin Blower for the TVR Tuscan Challenge, where he took five wins but was only able to finish fourth in the drivers championship once more. In the British GT Championship, he moved to the Harrier team, finishing 21st in the overall classification and 10th in the GT1 class.

A move to Lister Racing in 1999 saw Jamie Campbell-Walter take his first ever drivers championship, winning the British GT title driving alongside Julian Bailey in the Lister Storm GT1. The pair took seven wins in eleven rounds, including the Oulton Park Gold Cup, and lead the Blue Coral G-Force Porsche 911 GT1 driving line-up of Magnus Wallinder and Geoff Lister by 20 points, securing the championship before the season was even over.

Having taken part in selected rounds of the FIA GT Championship in the previous season, Lister Racing made a full force assault on the international series in 2000, retaining the line-up of Campbell-Walter and Bailey. The duo were once again successful, taking the GT1 title with 59 points after five wins in ten races. Campbell-Walter also won the two rounds of the British Championship he took part in, alongside David Warnock, and won six events with a partial season in the TVR Tuscan Challenge. At the end of the season, Jamie Campbell-Walter was awarded the John Cobb Memorial Trophy for most outstanding performance by a British driver in international competition.

For the following three seasons, Campbell-Walter remained at Lister Racing, taking another seven wins, and finishing fifth (2001), third (2002) and sixth (2003) in the drivers championship. Over those years he was partnered by Tom Coronel, Nicolaus Springer and Nathan Kinch.

In 2004, Lister reduced its commitments to GT racing and Jamie Campbell-Walter moved to privateer Creation Autosportif. However, Creation's Lister was not as competitive as the works car had been on previous years, and Campbell-Walter, driving alongside partner Jamie Derbyshire scored no podium position and finished the championship in 13th place. In 2005, he made a lone appearance in FIA GT to drive in the Spa 24 Hours for Russian Age Racing, taking the wheel of a Ferrari 550 Maranello.

Le Mans and prototype racing

Following their years in FIA GT, Creation Autosportif bought its own prototype program, having acquired the Reynard-built DBA 03S from RN Motorsport, later becoming known as the Creation CA06/H. Jamie Campbell-Walter was partnered with Nicolas Minassian for the 2004 Le Mans Endurance Series, taking two pole-positions and podium positions at Nurburgring and Spa.

In 2005, the teams fortunes improved and Campbell-Walter and Minassian (occasionally partnered also by Jean-Denis Délétraz) achieved a second place at Silverstone, a third place at Spa, and another third at Istanbul. Campbell-Walter also made his competition debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, following a failed attempt in 2003, where his Lister Storm LMP was crashed in qualifying. The Creation team took 14th place overall, with Campbel-Walter driving alongside Minassian and Andy Wallace.

For the 2006 season, while Creation expanded to two cars later in the season, Campbell-Walter was forced to drive an Aston Martin DBR9 on occasion for Cirtek Motorsport. Once reunited with Creation, he drove alongside Felipe Ortiz and Beppe Gabbiani to take third place at Donington. He also ran at Le Mans with Ortiz and Gabbiani, but retired three hours before the finish.

For 2007, he was once more a driver for Creation Autosportif, driving alongside Shinji Nakano and Felipe Ortiz, taking the first points for the Creation CA07 at Nurburgring. Then contributed to getting the teams first podium of the year at Laguna Seca.

References

* [http://www.creationsport.com/drivers/drivers.htm Drivers' page in the official Creation Autosportif site]
* [http://www.fiagt.com/driverinfo.php?drivername=Jamie+Campbell-Walter Jamie Campbell-Walter biography in the official FIA GT Championship site]