Tom Percival
British powerboat racer (1943–1984)
Thomas Colin Percival (28 March 1943 – 20 August 1984) was a British powerboat racer.
Career
Percival was educated at Gresham's School. He began his powerboat racing career in 1964, and won the Formula 1 (OZ) championship in 1978. He was also a twice winner of the Paris Six Hour Enduro.
He was twice the Canon European Series champion, in 1976 and 1978.
During his career, he won over two hundred trophies. As of 2022, he was still the holder of the lap record for Oulton Broad.
Death
Percival died in an accident during the 7th round of the 1984 F1 Powerboat World Championship in Liège, Belgium. After he collided with another boat, Percival, who had received severe head injuries was taken to Liège Hospital, but then lapsed into a coma and died some hours later on Monday morning.
Personal life
Percival's career outside sport was as a boat dealer, based in Norfolk.
“Tom Percival” enters the record as british powerboat racer (1943–1984). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Percival, British and powerboat can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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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 Jan 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28974334. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 1984, 1964 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tom Percival” 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.