Derek Bell was born in 1941 in Middlesex and started racing late, in his twenties, in a Lotus Seven. He reached Formula One and drove a handful of Grands Prix, including for Ferrari in 1968, but his career found its shape in sports cars, where the races were long and the virtues he had — smoothness, patience, mechanical sympathy — counted for more than raw aggression.
He won Le Mans for the first time in 1975, in a Mirage, sharing the car with Jacky Ickx. The two won again for Porsche in 1981 and 1982, and Bell took two more victories in 1986 and 1987 in the Porsche 962 with Hans-Joachim Stuck and Al Holbert — five in all.
He won the Daytona 24 Hours three times and was world sportscar champion in 1985 and 1986, the years when the Porsche 956 and 962 dominated endurance racing and ran through the night on the Mulsanne straight at close to 400 km/h.
He raced on into his fifties, at one point sharing a car at Le Mans with his son Justin, and remained one of the most popular men in the paddock long after he stopped.
He was appointed MBE for his services to motor sport.
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