14 Dec 2010
Mike Newton, the entrepreneur and CEO of CCTV specialist AD Group - the parent company of Dedicated Micros - is not just a fast mover in the field of business, his motorsport prowess was spotlighted recently as the well deserved recipient of the prestigious Woolf Barnato Trophy from the BRDC (British Racing Drivers Club) which recognises the highest-placed British and/or Commonwealth driver, in a British car, in the Le Mans 24 Hours race. Newton, who was singled out for this accolade alongside his former teammate Andy Wallace, has by any measure had an extremely successful 2010 motorsport season.
During 2010, campaigning in the AD Group sponsored Lola HPD Coupé - run by the RML team - Newton, with fellow Briton Andy Wallace and Brazilian Tommy Erdos, returned to the famous Le Mans 24 Hours, the scene of two previous class wins, and against the odds - in what is probably the most challenging of all endurance races - came out with a credible third-place LMP2 ranking. It was a memorable finish to the race for Newton, a Le Mans 24 Hours veteran, as he had the distinction of driving the final leg to take the chequered flag in front of 200,000 spectators, securing the all important podium spot. Also in 2010, Newton, alongside his co-drivers, was able to celebrate his second LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype) class title in the Le Mans Series Championship, which saw the team battling through five gruelling six-hour long endurance races, with strong results in every round.
Newton's passion for motorsport is a longstanding one and stretches back to the late 1970's. In fact Newton's first real taste of motorsport was as a marshal - the unsung heroes of racing - and he was appointed as Vice-President of British Motorsport Marshals Club (BMMC) in 2008.
As a driver he started out in Formula Ford 1600 in 1985 and his personal landmarks on the race track include: Le Mans 24 Hours class wins in 2005 and 2006, plus this year's podium finish, and two Le Mans Series Championships (2010 and 2007). Newton has also raced on tracks across the globe with one of the memorable highlights for him being his victory in Florida in the 2002 Daytona Grand-Am finale (GTS class).
Said Mike Newton, CEO of AD Group: "I am delighted to have been honoured by the BRDC as the joint winner of the Woolf Barnato Trophy, our result at the Le Mans."
24 Hours was a real team effort. It is certainly a privilege to follow in the footsteps of all the famous drivers who have flown the flag for Britain at the Le Mans 24 Hours race over the years with Joel Woolf Barnato - the three times winner at Le Mans after whom the Trophy is named and the first recipient in 1928 - serving as a real inspiration to us all. He was one of the original BRDC-founding Bentley Boys and famously beat 'Le Train Bleu' in the car-versus-train race from Cannes to London."
Alongside the thrill of driving in prestigious events such as the Le Mans 24 Hours, Newton sees motorsport as providing an invaluable, commercially focused, platform to further AD Group's CCTV business interests: "We use AD Group's sponsorship of our race entries to deliver business networking and hospitality for carefully selected guests, who are key decision makers with regard to the specification and purchase of professional CCTV systems, including the latest Closed IPTV IP Video solutions. Critically, our race programme has created a unique, high quality, business environment where our key customers have access to the business and technology leaders of the Group. Without a doubt, our investment into the programme has helped us to understand our customers' needs better and as a result win major long term contracts."
Says Pauline Norstrom, Marketing and Motorsport Director of AD Group and responsible for the sponsorship of the race programme: "We are delighted that our CEO, Mike Newton has received the BRDC award, which, ranks him as one of the best British racing drivers of all time alongside other great names in the history books. We take the AD Group race programme very seriously, which now forms a key part of our marketing strategy. No other Company has achieved such a consistent, and long term, marketing and sponsorship success in both Le Mans Series and Le Mans 24 Hours with such a unique approach to making motorsport an effective part of a technology company's marketing strategy."
The #25 Lola HPD race car also provides AD Group with a highly arduous test platform for the award-winning TransVu mobile DVR (Digital Video Recorder) which delivers dramatic in-car images, linked to all-important telemetry data, to assist the drivers in improving their performance. The combination of data with video is a key tenet for all security and surveillance applications and one which is critical to AD Group's marketing strategies.
| Sir Jackie Stewart OBE at the BRDC Awards with Mike Newton and Andy Wallace holding the Woolf Barnato Trophy' |
During 2010, campaigning in the AD Group sponsored Lola HPD Coupé - run by the RML team - Newton, with fellow Briton Andy Wallace and Brazilian Tommy Erdos, returned to the famous Le Mans 24 Hours, the scene of two previous class wins, and against the odds - in what is probably the most challenging of all endurance races - came out with a credible third-place LMP2 ranking. It was a memorable finish to the race for Newton, a Le Mans 24 Hours veteran, as he had the distinction of driving the final leg to take the chequered flag in front of 200,000 spectators, securing the all important podium spot. Also in 2010, Newton, alongside his co-drivers, was able to celebrate his second LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype) class title in the Le Mans Series Championship, which saw the team battling through five gruelling six-hour long endurance races, with strong results in every round.
Newton's passion for motorsport is a longstanding one and stretches back to the late 1970's. In fact Newton's first real taste of motorsport was as a marshal - the unsung heroes of racing - and he was appointed as Vice-President of British Motorsport Marshals Club (BMMC) in 2008.
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| Pictured on the podium at the Le Mans 24 Hours is AD Group's CEO Mike Newton (far right) with his co-drivers Andy Wallace and Tommy Erdos |
Said Mike Newton, CEO of AD Group: "I am delighted to have been honoured by the BRDC as the joint winner of the Woolf Barnato Trophy, our result at the Le Mans."
24 Hours was a real team effort. It is certainly a privilege to follow in the footsteps of all the famous drivers who have flown the flag for Britain at the Le Mans 24 Hours race over the years with Joel Woolf Barnato - the three times winner at Le Mans after whom the Trophy is named and the first recipient in 1928 - serving as a real inspiration to us all. He was one of the original BRDC-founding Bentley Boys and famously beat 'Le Train Bleu' in the car-versus-train race from Cannes to London."
| The finishing line beckons for AD Group's CEO Mike Newton in the Lola LPD racecar at the Le Mans 24 Hours |
Says Pauline Norstrom, Marketing and Motorsport Director of AD Group and responsible for the sponsorship of the race programme: "We are delighted that our CEO, Mike Newton has received the BRDC award, which, ranks him as one of the best British racing drivers of all time alongside other great names in the history books. We take the AD Group race programme very seriously, which now forms a key part of our marketing strategy. No other Company has achieved such a consistent, and long term, marketing and sponsorship success in both Le Mans Series and Le Mans 24 Hours with such a unique approach to making motorsport an effective part of a technology company's marketing strategy."
The #25 Lola HPD race car also provides AD Group with a highly arduous test platform for the award-winning TransVu mobile DVR (Digital Video Recorder) which delivers dramatic in-car images, linked to all-important telemetry data, to assist the drivers in improving their performance. The combination of data with video is a key tenet for all security and surveillance applications and one which is critical to AD Group's marketing strategies.