Jardine & Williams for Wales Rally GB
IRDC member Tony Jardine needs no introduction to motorsport enthusiasts, currently contracted to Sky Sports as an expert authority on their coverage of F1. It was whilst in Kuwait that he first started rally driving for the local Datsun importers in his spare time and he was comparatively successful, finishing eighth on the Kuwait International Rally in 1975. He's also competed in four Arctic Rallies and ten Network Q Rally GBs, finishing second in class in 2001 and winning the journalists' award three times.
In the seventies Tony worked for Goodyear's Grand Prix Team then moved to the Brabham F1 team, where he worked with Niki Lauda and designer Gordon Murray before moving to McLaren in 1980 as Assistant Team Manager with drivers Alain Prost and John Watson. After a short spell in the USA Tony joined Lotus where drivers included Nigel Mansell, Elio de Angelis and Ayrton Senna. In 1985 he formed his own sports PR Company, Jardine Communications Ltd.
Tony started working for the BBC in the 1980s and after the death of James Hunt in 1993, he became the BBC's full time pit lane reporter. When the Formula 1 coverage switched to ITV in 1997, he became one of their main pundits, a role he fulfilled until 2005. In 2006 he moved to Sky Sports as a studio expert on GP Masters, A1 GP and the Race of Champions and in 2010 he became a studio contributor for Sky Sports News and talkSPORT. When time allows he continues to be a keen competitor on national and international rallies and regularly races a variety of historic cars including competing at the Goodwood meetings.
Amy Williams MBE is a 31 year old English former skeleton racer and Olympic gold medalist. Originally a 400m runner she began competing in skeleton in 2002 after trying out at a push-start track at the University of Bath and began training in skeleton. At her first major event, the 2009 World Championships in Lake Placid, won a silver medal, becoming a member of Britain's team at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games at Vancouver breaking the track record twice and winning the woman's gold medal by more than a half a second. She became the first British individual gold medalist at a Winter Olympics for 30 years and the only British gold medalist at Vancouver.
Williams announced her retirement from skeleton in 2012 and in January 2013, BBC Two announced Williams as a co-presenter of the 35th series of the popular Ski Sunday. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Birthday Honours and is an Honorary Freeman of the City of Bath.
Jardine and Williams have now teamed-up to compete in the former's familiar Honda Jazz with the Wales Rally GB as their main target for 2013. So far they have successfully competed in 3 national rallies together, for the sole purpose of collecting the requisite number of signatures for Williams to gain her international licence before the final WRC round's November date.
Amy has approached her new vocation with the same steely resolve and determination she applied to her former ultra-successful career in Skelton and the new pairing look like a solid class-winning unit for Britain's round of the World Rally Championship.
15th October, 2013