Tommy Byrne (racing driver)

Thomas Byrne (born 6 May 1958) is a former racing driver from Ireland. He participated in two Formula One Grands Prix in with the backmarker Theodore team, failing to qualify for another three. He failed to finish in either of the Grands Prix he started and scored no Formula One championship points.

After performing well in the Irish Formula Ford Championship in 1981, Byrne won the 1982 British Formula 3 Championship even though he missed some races while he competed in Formula One. At that time, he also tested a McLaren MP4/1 Formula One car in October 1982 against Marlboro-backed Spirit Racing's European F2 drivers like Stefan Johansson and Thierry Boutsen. During this test he set a time quicker than the works drivers, Watson and Lauda, despite the car being specifically detuned for him and not the other drivers at the test. After a brief return to Formula Three in 1983, where he raced for Eddie Jordan, Byrne moved to the United States and began racing in the American Racing Series in 1986, where he won ten races in 55 starts, both second place in the series record books. He also was the championship runner-up in 1988 and 1989. He raced in the series until 1992 and then retired. Despite his extended career in the States, Byrne never made a Champ Car start. He lives in Florida, and teaches Honda Teen/Adult Defensive Driving, Advanced Defensive Driving, Acura High Performance and Acura Advanced Performance Driving during the race season at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio. He is also a driver coach for Indy Lights team Brian Stewart Racing. He co-authored a book with Mark Hughes which was released in the UK on 8 August 2008, titled Crashed and Byrned: The Greatest Racing Driver You Never Saw. The book won the William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year for 2009.

Byrne was the subject of Seán Ó Cualáin's documentary Crash and Burn in 2016.

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