Tony Dron

Tony Dron
Dron in a Mercedes-Benz W125 at Donington Park
Born	(1946-08-29) 29 August 1946 Surbiton
Nationality	British
Occupation(s)	Racing driver, writer

Tony Dron (born 1946) is a British racing driver as well as being a motoring author and journalist.

Racing history

Dron is best known for racing Touring Cars in the 1970s (Triumph Dolomites for the works BL/Broadspeed team) and for competing in Porsches at the Le Mans 24 Hours in the early 1980s, including a class win at Le Mans in 1982 in a Porsche 934, and driving a Group C (Kremer CK-5) in 1983. He was a full-time professional race driver from 1974–79, for teams that included British Leyland, Unipart and Alfa UK, but his career as a racer first began in May 1968 and continued for a full 43 years.

Dron has achieved a remarkable range of victories, winning events in 24 makes and 41 models of car. (These are actual wins, not all the makes and models in which he has competed.) The total number of wins is not known but is well into the hundreds.

Race wins have been recorded in:

Alfa Romeo: 1600GT Junior, TZ1

Allard: JR

Aston Martin: DB4

Austin: Metro

Austin-Healey: 3000, 100/4

Bentley: 3-litre

BMW: Counties 3-Series, M3

Caterham: Seven (two types)

Chevrolet: Camaro

Datsun: 240Z

Ferrari: 330LMB, 246S

Fiat: 128 1300GT Coupé

Ford: Escort Mexico, Falcon, Zephyr Mk II, fwd RS2000

Jaguar: Mk 1, Mk 2, D-type

Lister: Jaguar 'Knobbly'

Lotus: Mk 9

Lola: Mk6GT

Mazda: 323

MG: Maestro, MGB

Morgan: Plus 8

Porsche: 924, 924GTR, 911RSL, 928S2, 928S4, 930, 934, '935', 911 Carrera 2

Renault: 5

Triumph: TR4, Dolomite Sprint

TVR: Tuscan

In recent years, he has also been seen racing (and winning in) an enormous variety of historic cars, including the Le Mans-winning 1959 Aston Martin DBR1 and the 1960 Ferrari 246S Dino. In the Ferrari, Dron won the Sussex Trophy at the Goodwood Revival for three consecutive years. Having competed numerous times in the modern Nürburgring 24 Hours, he is known to be a highly experienced competitor on the old Nordschleife, where historic racing victories include an outright win in the 1996 Eifel Klassik in a 1963 Ferrari 330LMB, from pole position in a field of 180 cars.

Dron retired from race driving in 2011, although he still works as a motoring journalist and test driver for Octane magazine.

Publications

Dron writes a regular column in Octane. He is the author of several books including Porsche: Engineering for Excellence (2008) and Alan Mann – A Life of Chance (2012, with Alan Mann).