Former Grand Prix driver Brett Lunger is celebrating his 66th birthday today!
An heir to the DuPont family fortune, Delaware-born Lunger started out racing in 1965 with a Corvette – ostensibly for fun, he would later admit – before he moved into Can-Am.
His motorsport career halted while he served with the US Marines in Vietnam, and he resumed racing again in 1971, finishing third in that year’s L&M Formula 5000 championship.
He moved to Europe in 1972, but his time racing a March 722 in Formula 2 yielded less than he’d hoped for.
He travelled to both sides of the Atlantic to compete in Formula 5000 until 1975, before he finally made his F1 debut with Hesketh, where he partnered James Hunt for three Grands Prix.
For the next three years he raced on the Grand Prix stage full-time, with his impressive budget not translating into any kind of breakthrough result. This was despite some quite decent equipment at hand, including McLaren M23 and M26 machinery run with the support of B&S Fabrications.
[Image via DayLife]
Richard Bailey
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