Denny Hulme
New Zealand racing driver (1936–1992)
Denis Clive Hulme (18 June 1936 – 4 October 1992) was a New Zealand racing driver, who competed in Formula One from 1965 to 1974. Nicknamed "the Bear", Hulme won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 1967 with Brabham, becoming the only New Zealander to do so, and won eight Grands Prix across 10 seasons. He is the World Champion with the fewest pole positions in his career, with only 1 career pole at the 1973 South African Grand Prix.
Born and raised in the South Island, Hulme was the son of Clive Hulme, who was a World War II sniper. Hulme achieved eight race wins, one pole position, nine fastest laps and 33 podiums in Formula One. He also finished third in the overall standing in 1968 and 1972.
Hulme showed versatility by dominating the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (Can-Am) for Group 7 sports cars. As a member of the McLaren team that won five straight titles between 1967 and 1971, he won the individual Drivers' Championship twice and was runner-up on four other occasions.
Hulme was nicknamed 'The Bear', because of his "gruff nature" and "rugged features"; however, he was also "sensitive (...) unable to express his feelings, except in a racing car". During the early part of his career, Hulme preferred to race bare foot as he believed that it gave him a better feel of the throttle.
The public source identifies “Denny Hulme” as new Zealand racing driver (1936–1992). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Denny, Hulme and Zealand.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3166. VIAF identifies the subject as 1921029. The Library of Congress control number is n2007055036. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 1992, 1965 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “Denny Hulme” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.