We regret to inform Members that Darryl Kincade died on 7 September at the age of 81. He had not been well for some time and had been in Stoke Mandeville hospital.
Darryl became an Associate (Mechanic) Member of the BRDC in1992 after a long career in Formula 1. Initially he was with Team Lotus as a mechanic in its second John Player Special iteration with Mario Andretti, Gunnar Nilsson and Ronnie Peterson as the principal drivers. At this time Team Lotus was in the throes of moving from what had been the state of the art Type 72, which had first seen the light of day in 1970, enabling Jochen Rindt to win the Drivers’ World Championship posthumously, via the Type 77 of 1976, with which Mario Andretti won the last round of the 1976 World Championship in Japan, to the ground-breaking, ground effect Type 78 with which Mario won four races and Gunnar one 1977. For the 1978 season Colin Chapman and his team came up with the even more technologically advanced Lotus Type 79 while Darryl was recruited by Mexican driver Hector Rebaque to manage his eponymous team’s Type 78s. Although the latter were always immaculately presented, a combination of the young Mexican driver’s inexperience and Ford engines which were lacking the performance edge of the works teams meant that only once in 1978 did the team finish in a points-paying position with sixth place in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim. A second year for the team was no better despite a year-old Lotus Type 79 being added to the stable together with the team’s own creation, the Rebaque HR100 which appeared to be derived from the Type 79 design. At the end of the season the team closed down, and Hector Rebaque moved his substantial backing to Brabham.
For his part Darryl took on the role of Chief Mechanic at Team Ensign, now labelled Unipart Racing Team, with Clay Regazzoni as driver until his catastrophic accident at Long Beach which left the Swiss veteran as a paraplegic and ended his racing career. Darryl stayed with Ensign as its Chief Mechanic through its financial ebbs and flows, experiencing drivers of varying ability and levels of funding. In 1983 Team Ensign merged with Teddy Yip’s Theodore Racing team but money remained tight and, after some glimmers of a better future, Teddy Yip decided to pull the plug on F1 and turned his attention to IndyCar racing for a final fling, being rewarded with a fine fourth place for the late Jim Crawford at Long Beach.
With his years of experience, Darryl was much sought after when Team Ensign/Theodore Racing closed their doors and was recruited by the Brabham Racing Organisation as its Gearbox Engineer, becoming Head of the Brabham Gearbox Department in 1988. In later years Darryl worked for Jaguar and its successor Red Bull Racing.
To all his family and friends the BRDC extends its deepest sympathies.