Collin McDougall

**Collin McDougall** is a British racing driver. He is the son of ex-Rally driver Andrew McDougall.

## Early Life

Collin was born on 23rd April 1973 and grew up in the area surrounding Inverness, Scotland. Due to his father's rally career he spent most of his childhood with his mother Helen.

## Racing Career

Collin quickly became infatuated with motorsport, despite his mother's concerns that he would follow his father's footsteps into motorsport. He began karting at the age of 10, finding moderate success in various series and eventually moved into junior formula series.

### Junior Career

Collin started his first season of Formula Ford in 1991. He found a strong start of the series and even scored a few podiums and a win, but ended the season 6th overall due to his mother tragically dying in attendance at one of Andrew's rallies; one that she said Andrew shouldn't run. The death caused Collin to take a year out to process and grieve and he returned in 1993, where he found himself the victim of bad luck but often managing a solid recovery drive. Although Collin never found a win, he finished the series 4th overall, just one point behind 3rd.

### Formula One

A very late offer for McDougall to join Formula One came after Tyrrell's negotiations with Austin Rodriguez (a rival within the same Formula Ford league Collin raced in) fell through and Tyrrell found themselves short of a driver. The lack of testing was a problem early in the season, reflected with DNF's and poor results, Collin blamed this on a poor steering setup, which harmed the driveability of his Tyrrell. This caused him to even fail to pre-qualify for the Monaco Grand Prix. After this, Tyrrell worked with Collin to resolve the steering issues and he started bringing in good points finishes for the team, despite several more races filled with bad luck. He eventually finished his debut season in 11th in the Drivers' Championship, ahead of his teammate.

Heavily influenced by the death of his mother, McDougall also joined the GPDA on it's re-establishment in order to help promote safety within Formula One.

#### 1995

Thanks to impressing the Margheriti team with his strong recovery drives throughout his career so far, 1995 saw Collin move teams and thanks to a very strong car and teammate he took 5 back to back podiums including his first ever win that he took at Silverstone (His teammate Alexander Parker sadly retiring from 1st). Collin finished the season 2nd in the Driver's Championship and helped Margheriti not only get a 1-2 in the Driver's Championship but also a very easy Constructor's Championship.

#### 1996

1996 saw an unfortunate return to the midfield, with two retirements and two finishes outside of the points seeing Collin finish 10th in the Drivers' Championship.

#### 1997

During 1997, Collin convinced his father to retire from rallying after a particularly rough crash saw his car roll and impact a tree at around 100kph, Andrew had failed to complete a rally yet that season. He also became a bigger advocate for track safety during this year, likely linked to his father's crashes and the death of his former teammate Jasper Saetern on the opening lap of the Australian Grand Prix.

#### 1998

The 1998 season began as it meant to go on, with both McDougall and Armitage-Barnes’ results plagued by poor reliability. While Collin would win the Brazilian Grand Prix it would be his only visit to the podium this year. Despite this, good consistency yielded 6th place in the Driver’s Championship.

#### 1999

The poor reliability would continue into 1999 as Collin and his new teammate Carlinhos da Silva would find. With 5 retirements and no podiums, he felt frustrated at the poor car and looked elsewhere for the 2000 season.

#### 2000

McDougall’s penultimate season of F1 was arguably his unluckiest. Australia would show promise until the Scotsman had to retire the car due to fatigue, something which would happen again during the British Grand Prix that same year.

The luck worsened when Collin would return to the Belgian Grand Prix only to be involved in the worst accident to occur all season, from which he would fracture his leg. Eager to return to his lucky circuit, he finished the season at Japan in 4th place – a poor first lap and spin early into the race would remove him from the close battle for the win.

It was during this season that Collin started paying closer attention to the Japanese Grand Touring Car Championship – his love of the cars, Suzuka and general Japanese culture lead him to organise more frequent visits to the country.

With his teammate Otto Makkinen taking the championship, this would only serve to put doubt in the mind of Eddie Jordan about McDougall’s seat.

#### 2001

Although McDougall was back to full health for the 2001 season, he found himself far away from teammate Otto Makkinen. Critics of the team believed that Jordan was favouring Makkinen to the point of neglecting McDougall – while Collin would see his final win in F1 this year at the German Grand Prix, a high retirement rate and general poor performance was unconvincing.

McDougall would unfortunately leave the sport without finishing his final race; the Scot didn’t make himself available for interview, his last televised appearance showing him kicking the car as he left the circuit.

### Japanese Grand Touring Car Championship

##### 2002

During the 2001 F1 season, Collin negotiated with the team to secure a place in the 2002 season of JGTC through mutual sponsor Mugen Motorsports, taking a seat in the 18 car for Mugen x Dome Project. Collin was generally seen optimistic for the season despite fairly average results, even stating in an interview: “The [Honda] NSX is just truly a blast to drive - Every race is a joy here.”.

Notable moments with McDougall in the car this season included a comeback at the opening round for a top 5 finish, a pole lap at Fuji (although sadly ending in a retirement) and a maiden podium at Suzuka. International journalists remarked at how quickly he appeared to flourish in the new sport.

##### 2003

Having been signed on a single year contract, Collin was excited to receive an extension at Mugen. He would show his true ability out of the gate with a pole at Okayama which lead to his first win in the series, picking up several other podiums throughout the season. The car would finish the season in the top 5, a notable improvement over last season.

Nearing the end of the season, McDougall was contacted by Nismo regarding the 2004 season. As the offer was far better than anything the current team could offer, it was gladly taken.

##### 2004

McDougall’s final season in JGTC would prove to be his strongest yet, seeing multiple poles, podiums and wins at Twin Ring Motegi as well as Suzuka. He would be crowned JGTC champion of 2004.

During celebrations for the season at a bar, McDougall got involved in an incident that would result in his tearful announcement that he would be departing the Japanese Grand Touring Car Championship.

Witnesses heard the drunk insinuating the two drivers were homosexual. When they didn't respond to the man's taunts, he shoved McDougall's teammate; this was swiftly met with an elbow to the face from McDougall which knocked the man unconscious to the floor.

While McDougall apologised to the team for the unwanted media attention, he never apologised for his actions even stating in a later interview: "I wouldn't change a thing about how I responded to that man. Anyone doing that would get the same."

### Return To Europe

Despite a short lived time together as teammates in Formula 1, Collin kept in close contact with Jenrick Armitage-Barnes IV, with the two sharing stories of their respective sports when they found the time to catch up in the off-season. During the 2004 season, discussion started to turn to reuniting as teammates once again as Barnes confided his thoughts on retiring from F1.

Collin’s time in the JGTC earned himself the watching eyes of various sportscar teams as he announced his retirement the week after winning Suzuka and the championship. With both drivers free from commitment to a championship, the pair would settle on a 2005 entry to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

## Personal Life

### Salad Cream

There was a paddock rumour that McDougall repeatedly tried and failed to get a personal driver sponsorship with Heinz, specifically due to his love of their Salad Cream. Throughout his time in F1 he denied this consistently.

In 2005, McDougall funded the opening of a Japanese restaurant in Edinburgh. Food critics praised the quality and range of options available, but most notably the "Japanese Salad Cream" which was used in various salads. The cream was so popular McDougall started selling it as "Collin's Cream" - it saw relative success within it's niche and even appeared in some Scottish supermarkets.