Denny Hulme

Denny Hulme
OBE

Hulme sitting in his car before the 1965 German Grand Prix
Born	(1936-06-18)18 June 1936 Motueka, New Zealand
Died	4 October 1992(1992-10-04) (aged 56) Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	New Zealander
Active years	1965–1974
Teams	Brabham, McLaren
Entries	112
Championships	1 (1967)
Wins	8
Podiums	33
Career points	248
Pole positions	1
Fastest laps	9
First entry	1965 Monaco Grand Prix
First win	1967 Monaco Grand Prix
Last win	1974 Argentine Grand Prix
Last entry	1974 United States Grand Prix

Denis Clive Hulme OBE (18 June 1936 – 4 October 1992) was a New Zealand racing driver who won the 1967 Formula One World Drivers' Championship for the Brabham team. Between his debut at Monaco in 1965 and his final race in the 1974 US Grand Prix, he started 112 Grands Prix, resulting in eight victories and 33 podium finishes. He also finished third in the overall standing in 1968 and 1972.^[1]

Hulme showed versatility by dominating the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am) for Group 7 sports cars. As a member of the McLaren team that won five straight titles between 1967 and 1971, he won the individual Drivers' Championship twice and was runner-up on four other occasions.^[1]

Following his Formula One tenure with Brabham, Hulme raced for McLaren in multiple formats—Formula One, Can-Am, and at the Indianapolis 500. Hulme retired from Formula One at the end of the 1974 season but continued to race Australian Touring Cars.

Hulme was nicknamed 'The Bear', because of his "gruff nature" and "rugged features"; however, he was also "sensitive (...) unable to express his feelings, except in a racing car".^[2] During the early part of his career, Hulme preferred to race bare foot as he believed that it gave him a better feel of the throttle. This changed in 1960 when he started competing in the more highly regulated European championships.^[3]

During his career, Hulme drove the most powerful cars of his era. He raced in F1, F2, Indycars, saloon/touring cars, CanAm and endurance races, all during the same season. After retiring from F1, he even drove in truck races.

Hulme's death by heart attack, while driving a BMW M3 during the Bathurst 1000 in Australia, made him the seventh former Formula One champion to die, and the first to die of natural causes (versus three racing incidents, two incidents on public roads and one incident involving aircraft).