David Richards

David Richards is the chairman of Prodrive and of Motorsport UK, a former chairman of Aston Martin and a former team principal of the BAR and Benetton Formula One teams. He attended Ysgol Brynhyfryd in Ruthin and won the 1981 World Rally Championship as co-driver to Ari Vatanen. From 1987 Prodrive built a long-standing partnership with BMW in the British Touring Car Championship. Richards became chief executive of Benetton Formula in 1998 for about a year, and from 2001 he was team principal of the BAR team that Prodrive ran for British American Tobacco, which took second place in the 2004 Constructors Championship. In March 2007 he led a consortium that raised 925 million dollars to buy Aston Martin from Ford and became its chairman until the end of 2013. He was appointed a CBE in 2005 for services to motorsport.