10 replies to this topic

[HistoryFan]

We hadn't yet any Chinese driver in F1 (except from test drivers like Tung, Ma and Fong), but were there any (good) Chinese drivers in the past? So from 1900-1990 or something like that?

[ensign14]

I think you'd struggle to find any motor races of any sort in China in that period, short of the Beijing-Paris. You'd have to look to the Macau GP for some Hong Kongers and Macanese.  Albert Poon for instance was a regular and won the race once.  The level of competition was fairly low - probably club racer spec - so there could have been hidden gems, but most likely not.

[Vitesse2]

Lim Peng Han Probably the only driver of Chinese extraction to race at Brooklands.

[GMiranda]

I think that, unlike in Eastern Europe, there were no competition inside mainline P.R.C., but I have also wondered about that question and it would be great to discover

[Rob Semmeling]

Peking-Paris aside, there was no racing in China until the March 1993 street race in Zhuhai. The first permanent venue opened at the same city in 1996, but only since the 2000s has motorsport really taken off in China. For that reason I doubt you'll find many, if any, Chinese racing drivers prior to 1990 or so. Certainly not in international racing.

And to count someone like Tung as Chinese is stretching it, IMHO.

[LotusElise]

Rallying has a longer history there, hasn't it?

[Darren Galpin]

Actually there was an event in Kangwan, Shanghai, on the 27th August 1921 over a 1.3 mile circuit. However, most of the participants were expatriates from Europe.

[Richard Jenkins]

Not really what you're after, I know, but John Duff was born in China. http://www.oldracing...river/John_Duff

[ensign14]

So was Mille Miglia co-driver Louis Klemantaski. 

[nexfast]

Depends a lot on what one considers as chinese drivers. If we are talking about ethnic chinese drivers there were several successful ones in the fifties and in the sixties (the above mentioned Lim Peng Han, Saw Kim Thiat, brothers Chen Lye Choon and Chen Lye Huat, etc.) that lived around and competed in the Singapore, Malaya, Johore GP's and sometimes even in the Macao races. Hard to say what was exactly their nationality as for most of their racing careers Malaya was a British protectorate, Malaysia as such is only in existence since 1963 and Singapore as an independent state starts in 1965.

Edited by nexfast, 22 April 2015 - 19:45.

[HistoryFan]

Thank you.