Wexford boy goes east

On the surface, it seems an unlikely proposition that one of the movers and shakers in motor sport in the Far East should be a design engineering draughtsman from Wexford, but Peter Thompson has made creating Asian racing heroes his goal.

He started Meritus in 1980 and has operated championship teams in Ireland, England and continental Europe in GTs, Formula Vauxhall Lotus, Formula Opel, Formula 3 and Formula 3000.

Thompson is clearly happier talking about the team and the drivers than he is talking about himself. He is a classic team leader when it comes to the drivers, constantly fussing, micromanaging endlessly.

Motors and engines of all kinds feature in Thompson's curriculum vitae, from armoured cars to high-performance racers. His career began with his qualification as a draughtsman at Philip Pierce's Engineering Co in Wexford, where he specialised in high-end agricultural equipment design. The breakthrough into motor sports came when he set up TMC sports cars with his brothers Val, Sean and Anthony in 1980. Motor racing fans in Ireland remember the TMC fondly - loosely based on the Lotus 7 but designed to take powertrains of over 350bhp.

In 1989, Thompson set up PTM Motorsport, running successful teams in Formula Vauxhall, Formula Opel, Formula 3 and Formula 3000.

During the 1990s, Meritus racked up the honours in Europe, including support races at the British, Portuguese and Spanish Grand Prix. Formula One beckoned.

Meritus stepped back to Formula 3 in 1993 and then had to regroup back a rung lower in 1994 to Formula Open.

"By the mid-1990s, I was looking eastwards. I always felt that I missed out on the early boom of motor sport in Europe and looked to Asia as the last under-developed auto market that was going to open up with WTO and the then only-rumoured Malaysian and Chinese Grand Prix."

Eventually he discovered Narain Karthikeyan in India, competing in a local kart event.

"It took me four internal flights from Madras to get to the event. Narain won the Asia Formula 2000 championship in the first year. I called him the fastest Indian in the world, and the tag has stuck since," he says.

In November 2002, he was back leading Meritus again and launched a Formula BMW and Renault Team and won the inaugural Formula Renault race at the Macau Grand Prix as well as the Formula BMW Asia series in 2003.

The Meritus team has won the last 20 Formula BMW Asia races and looks set to clinch the 2004 Championship during the supporting Formula BMW round at the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai next Sunday.

Thompson lives with his wife Miriam and their four children, Aaron, Ariella, Luke and Aliza in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

"We love living in Asia and the children live exciting lives exploring the virgin jungles of Asia and the crystal clear diving waters of Malaysia. They know places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing and Malacca in the same way any child would know the back lanes of their village in Ireland."