Ryan Briscoe is one of those Australian internationals I tend to forget about as he raced so little in Australia. His formative Karting years were here and then – Oscar Piastri like – most of his secondary education was in Europe from the age of 15 as he and his family successfully chased The Dream.
Briscoe, born in Sydney on 24/9/1981, is shown above testing the Toyota TF106 Grand Prix car at Jerez in December 2005. He was in on the ground floor of Toyota’s F1 program – from 2002-2004 – but never quite cracked it for a race seat so he was switched to Indycars in 2005, initially racing a Toyota powered Panoz for Chip Ganassi.
During the climb, he won Australian , American and Italian Karting titles in 1994, 1998 and 1999 respectively.He switched to cars, Formula Renault in 2000, winning the Italian F Renault Championship in 2001.
During this most meteoric of rises Ryan also did some F3 in 2001, the shot below is at Zandvoort during the Marlboro Masters event on August 5, 2001. Car is Team Prema Dallara F300 Opel, DNF in the race won by Taka Sato, but third overall.
By the end of that year, aged 20, he was front and centre of Toyota’s F1 program as their test driver. Here he is at the launch of the Gustav Brunner designed Panasonic Toyota Racing TF102 V10 in Cologne, where the team was based, on December 17, 2001. The race drivers in 2002 – at the start of a rather grim eight year F1 sojourn for Toyota – were Mika Salo and Allan McNish.
Amongst his testing duties he raced initially in F3000, not going very well in the Nordic run car, and F3 later in 2002, and in 2003, winning the Euroseries that year. He progressed to being Toyota’s third driver, testing on the Friday of each grand prix, in 2004.
Briscoe won eight of the 20 races in the F3 Euroseries in his Prema Powerteam Dallara F303 Opel to take the title from Christian Klien. Other hotshots in the field that year included Niko Rosberg and Robert Kubica.
Ryan moved to Indycars (I’m using that word as a generic descriptor of the genre) with Chip Ganassi in 2005, showing extraordinary pace for a rookie; two poles and regular top-half qualifying on unfamiliar ovals. Tenth at Indy on debut was stunning, equally so was seven crashes in his 15 starts, the last of which was a massive accident after his Panoz GF09C Toyota climbed atop Alex Barron’s Dallara at Chicagoland Speedway in September that landed him in hospital and rehabilitation for four months.
In 2006 he did a mixed programme of Indycar, V8 Supercars and A1 Grand Prix, but it was a full season in the American Le Mans Series for Penske Racing driving a Porsche RS Spyder in 2007 that pushed his career forward with Penske. He won three rounds sharing with Sascha Maassen.
This sportscar success, together with some strong performance in limited Indycar outings – Q5 and fifth in the Indy 500 for Luczo-Dragon Racing, led to a full-time Indycar drive with Penske from 2008-2012.
In a strong Indycar career he won eight races, had 28 podiums and finished third in the title in 2009 (three wins), and fifth in 2008 and 2010 as his bests. In 2009 he led the championship going into the penultimate round but hit the wall exiting the pitlane at Motegi, then, in a three-way battle for the title finished second behind Dario Franchitti in the final round, who became champion.
Aviating at Surfers Paradise on the way to winning the Indy 300 in October 2008, Team Penske Dallara IR-04/05 Honda 3.5 V8. Scott Dixon was second, 5/10ths behind and Ryan Hunter-Reay a further nine seconds adrift.
And below doing the same thing at the same place in a V8 Supercar in October 2011, sharing the Holden Racing Team Holden Commodore VE in the Gold Coast 600 with Garth Tander. The pair were 11th in the first race, 23rd and last in the second. The winner overall was the Triple Eight VE Commodore crewed by Jamie Whincup and Sebastien Bourdais. Ryan’s best V8 Supercar result was at this event in 2013 when he shared a VF Commodore with Russell Ingall to third place.
“Ryan has driven more sportscars that I’ve had Sunday roasts,” would perhaps be the observation Australia’s greatest all-rounder, the late Frank Gardner would have made.
Briscoe’s best sportscar results are victory in the Daytona 24 Hours in 2020 (Cadillac Dpi-VR), and Petit Le Mans the same year.
He was runner-up in the 2016 (Ford GT), 2018 (Ford GT) and 2020 (Cadillac DPi-VR) IMSA Sportscar Championship GTLM class. He was third in the 2007 American Le Mans Series, winning the LMP2 class (Porsche RS Spyder),
His best results at Le Mans were fifth in 2021 sharing a Glickenhaus 007 LMH with Romain Dumas and Richard Westbrook, and third in 2022 in the same make/model, this time sharing with Westbrook and Franck Mailleux.
At Daytona he won outright in 2020 (as above) and was first in class in 2015 and 2018 racing a Cadillac DPi VR, Chev Corvette C7.R, and Ford GT respectively – with co-drivers of course. At Sebring he won his class in 2013 and 2015 aboard a HPD ARX-O3b and Chev Corvette C7.R.
Ryan married Nicole Manske in 2009, they have two children, and in 2018 he became a naturalised American.
Etcetera…
Here to zero at the Chicagoland Speedway, Joliet, Illinois on the Indy 300 September 10-11 weekend in 2005.
Here with the Gregory-Peck for pole, a handy $10k. It was Ryan’s second Indycar pole, he started from pole at Sonoma, the previous round but crashed out on the first lap. The car is a Chip Ganassi run Panoz GF09C Toyota.
Shortly after this happy scene the car failed post-practice scrutineering, so Ryan lined up last on the grid, perhaps sowing the seeds of the crash which followed.
‘Roger that, we have lift-off Houston.’
On lap 20 Briscoe’s Panoz GF09C Toyota ran into 15th placed Alex Barron’s Dallara Toyota (Q18) as he sought to go under him on his way up the field towards turn 3 of the 1.5-mile oval – look at the proximity of his right-rear to Barron’s head/roll bar area – and the staggering physics of a collision at 215mph were unleashed.
Briscoe hit the fence with the bottom of his Panoz first, it split in two as it ripped through a fence post, leaving a big hole. With a half-tank or so of fuel there was a spectacular explosion as the car split, with the cockpit safety cell spinning down the track narrowly avoiding other cars. Car 2 is Thomas Enge, #55 is Kosuke Matsuura.
After several anxious minutes Ryan was removed from the wreck – the monocoque had done its job well – and gave a reassuring wave as he was placed into the ambulance with injuries later diagnosed as two broken collarbones, a bruised lung, fractured right foot and contusions to his arms, legs and back.
Briscoe was hospitalised for nine days then had extensive rehab in the US and Italy before returning to the cockpit in a Riley Mk9 Pontiac 5-litre V8 in the Daytona 24-Hours on the January 28-29, 2006 weekend – four months after his Big One.
Credits…
LAT, MotorSport Images, Ryan Briscoe Collection
Tailpiece…
The Briscoe & Co Ford GT at Le Mans in 2018.
Finito…
primotipo... 