David attended Coventry University and graduated in 1980 with an engineering degree.He started his career at Peugeot Talbot in Coventry as an engine engineer. At the time, the company was running the Peugeot Talbot Sport team in the World Rally Championship, with drivers Henri Toivonen and Guy Frequelin. David became team engineer and in 1981 Peugeot won the manufacturers’ World Rally Championship, but were beaten to the Drivers' title by Ari Vatanen, co-driven by David Richards.In 1984, David joined David Richards’ at Prodrive to develop the Porsche 911 SC RS for the Rothmans Porsche Rally Team, which went on to claim the Middle East Rally Championship title the same year. Since then he has overseen the development of every works rally car Prodrive has created, including the Porsche 911, MG 6R4, BMW M3 and every works Subaru, helping the Japanese marque to win six World Rally titles. He oversaw the technical development of the MINI World Rally Car and more recently has been involved in the development of Prodrive’s VW Golf SCRC rally car, which has won the 2015 and 2016 Chinese championship and the Subaru WRX TT Attack car with which Mark Higgins set a new car lap record of the Isle of Man TT Circuit in June 2016.As a senior practitioner in the sport, David Lapworth has been one of the leading figures in the development of technical regulations for rallying as well as improvements in safety of race and rally cars. Outside of motorsport he is an advisor to the Land Rover BAR America’s team through Prodrive’s technical partnership with the team.
