OBSCURE F1 A-Z: MARK BLUNDELL

In this 26 part series of posts I will be going through the alphabet and for each letter, a profile piece on an obscure driver - some you may have heard of before some you may never knew even sat in an F1 car let alone raced one. I have chosen a driver for each letter choosing them based on their surnames.

Mark Blundell is a British racing driver who raced for four years in Formula One, in two stints the first for a year in 1991 and then for three more years from 1993-95. In that time Blundell raced for four different teams including Brabham, Ligier, Tyrrell and McLaren. In his four years of racing at the top Blundell entered 63 races starting 61. The first race being his debut at the 1991 US Grand Prix - he made his final F1 appearance at the 1995 Australian Grand Prix.

In his debut season in 1991 Blundell finished a very respectable sixth place in his Brabham Yamaha at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Unfortunately Blundell was left without a seat for 1992 but was able to achieve a testing deal with McLaren. Then in 1993 Blundell returned to the sport this time in the Ligier outfit. It was with the Ligier team that Blundell secured two (of three) podium finishes at the South African Grand Prix and the German Grand Prix. These good results ended in a tenth place in the overall Drivers Championship standings at the end of the year. In 1994 now racing for Tyrrell after his one year deal had expired with Ligier - Blundell was able to get himself once again onto the podium at the Spanish Grand Prix.

However due to a lack of funding Blundell found himself without a race seat but after Nigel Mansell retired McLaren signed Blundell but not to a testing role but a full race seat alongside future World Champion Mika Hakkinen. Although Blundell never managed a podium with McLaren he still had five points finishes in the 1994 season. This lead to Blundell finishing tenth once again in the final standings. 1995 would prove to be the end of the road for Blundell in terms of Formula One as McLaren decided to sign David Coulthard.

Blundell finished on the podium three times scoring a career total of 32 points.