Darren Manning
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Darren Manning (born April 30, 1975) is a motor racing driver from Yorkshire, England. He currently races in the A1 Grand Prix series for A1 Team Great Britain.
[edit] Early career
Darren began his racing career at the age of 10, competing in British and International karting events. In 1992, he took part in the Brands Hatch Formula First Winter Series, finishing second after recording two wins. His SpeedSport team took him in 1993 to race in the Formula Vauxhall championship again recording 2 victories en route to a second place finish in the championship. He was also a finalist for the McLaren Autosport Young Driver of the Year award. He continued in Formula Vauxhall in 1994 and 1995 and moved up to Formula 3 in 1996 and 1997. Budget constraints meant that he only raced a limited F3 schedule in 1998, but he did achieve two wins including at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix support race.
[edit] International career
In 1999 Darren won the All-Japan Formula Three championship, and was the first driver to achieve the "perfect victory" at the Macau Grand Prix since Ayrton Senna by winning from pole position, leading every lap and setting a lap record. He also tested with the Williams F1 team. In 2000 he began working for the BAR Honda F1 team as a test driver whilst also racing in the FIA International Formula 3000 championship for Christian Horner's Arden International team.
In 2002 he competed in the ASCAR (now SCSA) championship. He also made a one off drive at Rockingham in the CART series for Team St George, leading 18 laps on the way to 9th place. This led to a full-time drive for Derrick Walker in 2003, taking one top-3 finish and 9th overall in the championship.
He joined Chip Ganassi's IRL team for 2004, finishing 11th in the championship having achieved 8 top ten finishes but he was released from his contract in the middle of 2005 after 24 starts, including the 2004 and 2005 Indianapolis 500.
He raced at the last round of the 2005/6 A1 Grand Prix series at Shanghai, because main driver Robbie Kerr had other commitments and Darren helped secure A1 Team Great Britain third place in the overall standings. During 2006 he also drove a Nissan 350Z in the FIA GT Championship for RJN Motorsport.
For the 2006-7 A1 Grand Prix season he moved into a permanent role in the Great Britain A1GP team, alonside Robbie Kerr and Oliver Jarvis.
On November 14, 2006, Manning was named the driver of the A.J. Foyt Enterprises #14 car in the IndyCar series (formerly the IRL) for the 2007 season, marking his return to the league after a one year absence.[1]
[edit] External links
| Preceded by: Peter Dumbreck |
Macau GP winner 1999 |
Succeeded by: André Couto |
