David Ruff Piper (born 2 December 1930) is a British former Formula One and sports car racing driver from England. He participated in 3 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 18 July 1959. In 2001 he won the Le Mans Legend race.
Piper was born in Edgware, Middlesex and began his career in the mid-1950s by competing in sprints and hill-climbs, before beginning circuit racing with a Lotus Eleven. He then moved up to a Lotus 16 which he used in 1959 and 1960 to compete in both Formula One and Formula Two, by means of changing engines as appropriate. His best result with the car was a second place in the Lady Wigram Trophy, in 1960, behind Jack Brabham in a Cooper.
In 1961, Piper competed in European Formula Junior alongside Jo Siffert but drove the Gilby F1 car in the Gold Cup. He also competed in non-championship races in 1962, but had become disenchanted with single-seater racing and moved into sports car racing initially with a Ferrari 250 GTO.
Between 1962 and 1970, Piper raced frequently in many locations worldwide using his personally owned Ferraris and, later, a Porsche 917. He was moderately successful and gained a reputation for reliability and consistency.
Piper mainly raced Ferrari, sometimes factory prototypes of which very few were made, but mainly raced and owns GTs and Group 4 sportscars which were made and sold by the dozens, like the Ferrari 250 LM, the Lola T70, and the Porsche 917 which exploited the rules to the maximum when the minimum number was lowered to 25. Porsche decided to built a series of what basically were 4.5 liter flat-12 prototype-like sportscars similar to the 3 liter flat-8 Porsche 908.
When the 917 had is debut at the 1969 1000km Spa, like Le Mans a very fast race track on public roads for which the 917 was made for, Porsche factory drivers preferred the 908 which won several races in a row, and the 917 raced only one lap. Even worse at the 1969 1000km Nürburgring, a bumpy twisty race track in which the factory entered a 917 only once, in 1969, without any of its numerous drivers willing to race the overpowered aerodynamically unstable 917. All factory drivers chose the 908/02 spyder, won the race 1-2-3-4-5 and the 1969 World Sportscar Championship for Porsche. Having spend millions to develop and build two dozens of the 917, the factory needed results to sell them to privateer racers. Porsche hired BMW factory drivers Hubert Hahne and Dieter Quester to practise with the 917, which they did on Friday before BMW vetoed them driving the Porsche. Then, David Piper was contacted; he and his neighbour Frank Gardner were flown in on Saturday, but could not do much on a now wet track. On Sunday, Piper started the 1000km race with the 917. Together with Gardner, finished the race in 8th place, 4 laps behind the winners on the 908.
At the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans, the factory 917s were very fast and led for most of the race, but did not finish, while the very first 917 customer, John Woolfe, was killed in a lap 1 crash which also eliminated the Ferrari 312 P of Chris Amon. The other 312 P of Scuderia Ferrari was driven by Piper and Pedro Rodriguez, but they did not finish either.
In August, the WSC season ended with the 1000km of Zeltweg in Austria. The factory brought two 917 to be driven by factory drivers, but entered by potential customer teams. Even though chassis 009 of Freiherr von Wendt won the race with Jo Siffert and Kurt Ahrens, the car remained with the factory and was assigned to Gulf-Wyer. Chassis 010 entered by David Piper Racing finished 3rd at the hands of Richard Attwood and Brian Redman and was purchased by Piper who himself drove his Lola T70-Chevy which overheated. In October 1969, at the Japanese Grand Prix, Piper raced his 917 for the first time, supported by Jo Siffert, for a 6th place finish. Back in Europe, Piper finished 3rd at the Hockenheimring, before winning the Kyalami 9 Hours in November, with Attwood.
During the shooting of the film Le Mans on 16 September 1970, Piper crashed a JWA-supplied Porsche 917K and lost part of one leg.
The active career of the Porsche 917K in WSC and similar Group 4 races ended with the 1971 season. It still could enter for a few years in Group 7 racing like Can-Am and Interserie, but for that the regular 917 was underpowered as Porsche added turbocharging to the quite different 917/10 TC models. Piper later raced his personal and other cars in historic events.
Piper's personal sport cars of the period are typically painted in bright green, originally from his BP sponsor which replaced Esso after the 1956 Suez Crisis; eventually Piper liked the color and made it his own, having never liked the classic British racing green.
Complete Formula One World Championship results
Complete British Saloon Car Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)
† Events with 2 races staged for the different classes.