John Wyer

John Wyer ( born December 11, 1909 in Kidderminster, † 1989 in Scottsdale ) was a British motorsport engineer and race director. John Wyer's racing cars were for many years in the blue- orange paint his sponsor Gulf Oil at the start.

John Wyer was one of the most successful team manager in sports car racing in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He started his career at Aston Martin, where he worked for nearly a decade as race director. His biggest success for this brand was the triumph at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1959, imports the Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby in the Aston Martin DBR1. Three times in a row, 1957, 1958 and 1959, Wyer led his team to the success of the 1000- km race at the Nürburgring.

1963 Aston Martin Wyer left and headed 1964, the racing activities of Ford in the 24- hour race at Le Mans. In 1965 he founded his own racing team. His partner was John Willment, the brother of the German racing driver Hans Herrmann. The John Wyer Automotive was the determining race team of this era. 1967 was still the team with the Mirage M1, actually a lightweight Ford GT40 at the start, had little success. It was followed by two Le Mans overall victories with Bianchi / Rodríguez 1968 Ickx / Oliver 1969.

1970 saw the triumph of the Porsche 917 restoration under the direction of Wyer and with great financial support from Gulf Oil, the team won in 1970 and 1971 for the Porsche sports car world championship. After the end of the 5- liter formula Wyer built their own racing cars that were brought back under the designation Mirage at the start. 1975 won Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell on a Gulf GR8 in Le Mans. It was the fourth victory of Wyer as race director or team leader in this race. At the end of the year Wyer sold his team and went into retirement.