Fighting Fit
Win a fitness package worth more than £3,000
Navigation - link to other main sections from here
On the move: Lord Drayson
Born in 1960 Lord Drayson became a pharmaceuticals multi-millionaire. In 2006 he was embroiled in the cash for honours scandal after being made a Labour life peer and minister for defence procurement. He is married with five children and has homes in Gloucestershire and London. Last month he came second in the British GT car championship driving a biofuel Aston Martin DBRS9
Minister of the adrenaline rush
'I am a car nut and I am a government minister,” says Lord Drayson, minister for defence procurement, as if opening a meeting of autoholics anonymous.
How refreshing: it’s rare these days that someone in his position is prepared to go off message, on the record. Far from being apologetic about using a car to get around rather than public transport or announcing that he’s just bought a Toyota Prius, Drayson – “Call me Paul” – wants to show off his monster, race-tuned Aston Martin.
Furthermore, he’s speaking up for drivers all over the country and even – Ken Livingstone beware – explaining why the status quo may have shifted too far in favour of the green lobby while ignoring the concerns of 33m British motorists.
“I think I have a role to play to explain to some of my colleagues why people feel the way they do about their cars,” says Drayson. “We have to make sure that in our natural drive to improve safety we don’t take all the fun out of life.”
Drayson was hooked on power (of the bhp variety) from an early age. Growing up within earshot of the Brands Hatch grand prix circuit in Kent, he would watch the likes of Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart competing in Formula One and dream of getting behind the wheel.
It took him until he’d passed his 43rd birthday in 2003 to actually get round to it but now Drayson, who was made a Labour life peer in 2004, is inseparable from his Aston Martin DBRS9 GT3-class track car. At the end of September the Barwell Motorsport team he drives for was pipped into second place in the British GT car championship during the final race at Rockingham, Northamptonshire, and Drayson’s sights are now on Le Mans.
As well as swapping his ermine for a fireproof racing suit, Drayson has unconventional views about some of the government’s central tenets of traffic control. Speed cameras, for example, have “made a contribution to road safety, but we need to recognise the valid concerns that people have about the effect they can have on quality of life”.
Congestion charging is a good idea on an “environmental level”, “but it is a question of what the level [of charging] is and whether it goes beyond that [the environment] and becomes a penal effect”. And he has no time at all for overzealous legislators trying to take the fun out of driving. “Risk in life is an important part of being alive and we need to accept that. We need a light touch.”
Such statements are not likely to endear him to large sections of the Labour party, but Drayson gives the impression that he doesn’t really care. As a life peer he can’t be sacked, of course. But perhaps it also has something to do with the fact he endured a baptism of fire during the cash for honours allegations.
His peerage was one of several that came under the spotlight after it was revealed he gave £100,000 to the Labour party before being ennobled and subsequently gave a further £1m to add to the party’s election fund, prompting speculation that his elevation to the House of Lords was bought rather than earned. Drayson insisted his donations had nothing to do with his honour, and defended his right to spend his hard-earned money the way he wanted.
After completing a PhD in robotics at Aston University in 1985 he became managing director of Lambourn Food Company, then left to found Powderject Pharmaceuticals, specialising in the production of vaccines. He sold the business in 2003 for £542m, netting himself an estimated £80m fortune.
With the money from the sale of his business burning a hole in his pocket Drayson decided it was time to follow his childhood dream before it was too late. One track day driving a Cobra at Oulton Park, Cheshire, and there was no turning back. “My wife thought it was just a midlife crisis and I’d get it out of my system,” he admits. “But now she realises that, if anything, it is totally embedded in my system.
“It’s about the physical and mental experience. When you’re in the car you can’t think about anything else, you have to just be in the moment. Then it’s just the physical experience of the sound, the forces on your body, everything moving fast around you.”
As we speak, he’s in the back of an uninspiring Vauxhall Vectra on his way from a conference in Reading back to parliament. But parked on the driveways at his homes in London and Gloucestershire are an Aston Martin Vanquish (his second and now about three years old), his wife’s Aston Martin DB9 and his old Lotus Elan, which he bought in 1990.
Drayson moved from track days to racing historic cars such as the E-type Jaguar and first competed in the British GT championship in the Barwell team’s DBRS9 in 2006.
This year he drove essentially the same car, but with a twist – his was the first car in the championship to run on E85, a mix of 15% petrol and 85% bioethanol, a petrol substitute made from plants such as maize and wheat. “We wanted to show you can be green and fast at the same time,” says Drayson. “We wanted to dispel some of the impressions that people sometimes get that being green means you’re a bit of a lentils and sandals man – that’s definitely not where I’m coming from.”
The team had to make some adjustments to the car and the rules of GT racing meant it was not allowed to benefit from the extra power generated by the biofuel. The team also had to add a larger tank as bioethanol is less economic than petrol and make some adjustments to engine mapping and fuel injectors.
At Snetterton in June, Drayson’s Aston became the first bioethanol car to win a GT race. It had the championship in its sights as it went into the final race at Rockingham on September 30, but was just beaten into second place, when Drayson blew his chances with about 12 laps to go. “I now know the true meaning of the word gutted,” he says.
Still, at least he experienced the thrill of the race away from the confines of Westminster. “The reason why dangerous sports are becoming more and more popular is because people need a bit of adrenaline in their lives,” he says. “I know I need it.”
My stuff...
On my CD changer Green Day, the American punk band
In my parking space An Aston Martin Vanquish and a Lotus Elan I bought
in 1990
On my DVD player Top Gear: The Races
I would never throw away Anything made by my children