With his ambitions delayed by World War II, Salvadori began racing in 1946 in minor events, driving an MG and an ex-Brooklands offset Riley before stepping up to an ex-Tazio Nuvolari Alfa Romeo P3 in 1947. In the 1947 Grand Prix des Frontières, with the Alfa stuck in top gear late in the race, he still finished fifth. He then committed to professional racing, driving a variety of makes as his career progressed.
In May 1951, at the BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone, Salvadori suffered a serious accident when his Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica somersaulted two and a half times, ejecting him into the hay bales. He sustained a fractured skull and other severe injuries and was given the last rites. He nonetheless recovered sufficiently to enter Formula One the following year.
Salvadori recognised the limits of chasing drivers such as Stirling Moss at technically demanding circuits like Dundrod or Pescara. He instead accumulated wins at Silverstone, Snetterton and flat English airfield tracks, earning the "King of the Airfields" nickname. He twice won the Oulton Park International Gold Cup, and once drove a Jaguar Mk.II 3.8 saloon into a lake there.
Salvadori made his Formula One debut in 1952, driving a two-litre four-cylinder Ferrari 500 for G. Caprara at the British Grand Prix, finishing eighth. He continued racing the Ferrari and won the Joe Fry Memorial Trophy. For 1953 he joined the Connaught team and contested five Grands Prix with the Connaught "A type", retiring from all of them, though securing non-championship victories during the season.
Between 1954 and 1956, Salvadori drove a Maserati 250F for Syd Greene's Gilby Engineering team, achieving good results predominantly in non-championship Formula One races. He also had one entry for Officine Alfieri Maserati in the 1954 Swiss Grand Prix, though the car was ultimately driven by Sergio Mantovani. At the 1956 RAC British Grand Prix at Silverstone, only Moss shaded him, and a possible victory was lost to a fuel line problem.
In 1957, Salvadori signed with Cooper, managing a fifth place at the RAC British Grand Prix. His 1958 season was his most successful in Formula One: as teammate to Jack Brabham, he finished fourth in the World Drivers' Championship behind Mike Hawthorn, Stirling Moss, and Tony Brooks, earning podium finishes of third at the British Grand Prix and second at the German Grand Prix. Cooper did not retain him for 1959, when he drove a privately entered Cooper alongside the works Aston Martin, achieving two sixth-place finishes. He won the London Trophy at Crystal Palace with a Formula Two Cooper.
For 1961, Salvadori joined Reg Parnell's Yeoman Credit Racing team as partner to John Surtees, contesting five Grands Prix and achieving three sixth-place finishes with the 1.5-litre Cooper T53-Climax. He was catching Innes Ireland for the lead of the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen when his engine failed. He continued with Parnell's operation for 1962, now the Bowmaker Racing Team, with the Lola Mk4-Climax; eight attempts yielded seven retirements and one failure to start. The season had begun with a qualifying accident in Australia for the Warwick Farm '100' that left him with temporary facial paralysis. 1962 was his final Formula One season.
Throughout his Formula One career Salvadori raced extensively in sports cars, particularly within the United Kingdom. He became a regular on the podium during the 1951 and 1952 seasons, winning first at the BARC Goodwood in 1952, then at Snetterton and Goodwood again later that year. He drove a works Aston Martin at his first attempt at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1953, co-driving with George Abecassis, but retired early with clutch failure. He impressed at the Nürburgring, finishing second in the Internationales ADAC-1000 km Rennen Weltmeisterschaftslauf in an Ecurie Ecosse Jaguar C-Type shared with Ian Stewart.
Salvadori's association with tractor magnate David Brown and his Feltham-built Aston Martin sports cars underpinned much of his career; he joined Brown's team in mid-1953. He would later describe his 1963 defeat of Ferrari's 250 GTO at Monza in the Aston Martin DP214 in the Inter-Europa Cup as his favourite victory.
Salvadori was entered in the 1959 race by David Brown Racing Dept. in an Aston Martin DBR1/300, partnered by Carroll Shelby, who had also co-driven with him at the 12 Hours of Sebring earlier that year. Attrition reduced the field to just 13 cars, with the Salvadori and Shelby Aston Martin leading the survivors. Salvadori brought the car to the finish, giving himself and David Brown the Le Mans victory each had sought for years. Shelby was afflicted by dysentery, so Salvadori completed the lion's share of the driving. Before the end of the season he added four more victories, making 1959 his best year in motorsport.
Salvadori scored five victories in 1960, including a run of four wins in five races. At Le Mans that year he drove a Border Reivers DBR1 shared with Jim Clark, finishing third. In 1961 he took two victories at Crystal Palace on the same day, plus a string of other podium finishes.
In 1962 he shared a Jaguar E-Type with Briggs Cunningham at Le Mans, finishing fourth overall and winning their class. At the 1963 race, Salvadori spun on oil dropped by Bruce McLaren's Aston Martin DP214 during the early stages and flipped his E-Type onto its roof; the car burst into flames. Jean-Pierre Manzon in his Aerodjet LM6 struck Salvadori's wreckage and stopped in the track. Christian Heins was unable to avoid the wreckage; his car hit another car, spun into a lamp car, and exploded. Salvadori and Manzon were both injured; Heins died instantly. This accident ultimately led Salvadori to retire from racing in early 1965, after finishing second in the Whitsun Trophy race at Goodwood in a Ford GT40. His last sports car victory came the previous season in the Scott-Brown Memorial at Snetterton.
Salvadori returned to Formula One as team manager for the Cooper racing team in 1966 and 1967. After a disagreement with the team he left and concentrated on his own business, operating a car dealership in Surrey between 1968 and 1969. He was also involved in the early stages of the Ford GT40 project but resigned when the machine's handling appeared problematic, without accepting a fee.
Salvadori retired to Monaco in the late 1960s. He had married Susan Hindmarsh, one of the daughters of racing driver and long-distance record breaker Violette Cordery and racing driver and aviator John Stuart Hindmarsh. Salvadori died in Monaco on 3 June 2012, aged 90, three weeks after the death of his 1959 Le Mans co-driver Carroll Shelby.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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