Kenneth McAlpine obituary

Although he never scored a point in the Formula One world championship, for several years Kenneth McAlpine, who has died aged 102, held the title of the oldest surviving grand prix driver. His seven appearances in the series between 1952 and 1955 yielded a best result of 13th place at the Nürburgring in the German Grand Prix of 1954. In each of those races he was at the wheel of a Connaught, a car designed and built in a Surrey garage by a team whose efforts he subsidised from his personal wealth as a director of the vast construction company set up by his grandfather, Sir Robert McAlpine.

In the summer of 1955 Kenneth McAlpine retired from the cockpit, honouring a promise to his fiancee. That autumn, at Syracuse in Sicily, a Connaught became the first British car to win a postwar grand prix, beating the mighty works Maserati team on their home ground. At the wheel of the winning car was a 23-year-old dental student from Cheshire named Tony Brooks, making his Formula One debut.

Although the Syracuse Grand Prix was not a round of the championship series, the achievement was historic. But further success would be elusive, and the team’s demise followed the British government’s decision in 1957 to alter a tax concession that had enabled McAlpine to provide the finance that kept them going. With his help, however, Connaught had given British machinery a new standing in grand prix racing, preparing the ground for the subsequent championship victories of Vanwall, Cooper, BRM and Lotus.

McAlpine was born in Cobham, Surrey, to Sir Thomas McAlpine and the former Maud Dees. His father was one of the 10 children of “Concrete Bob”, the nickname of Sir Robert McAlpine, who began his working life as a child down a Scottish coalmine