John Colum Crichton-Stuart, 7th Marquess of Bute (26 April 1958 – 22 March 2021), styled Earl of Dumfries before 1993, was a Scottish peer and a racing driver, most notably winning the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans. He did not use his title and preferred to be known solely as John Bute, although he had previously been called Johnny Dumfries before his accession to the Marquessate. The family home is Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute. He attended Ampleforth College, as had his father and most male members of the Crichton-Stuart family, but did not finish the normal five years of study.
Bute was born in Rothesay, Argyll and Bute, into one of Scotland's oldest aristocratic families, the son of Beatrice Nicola Grace Weld-Forester and John Crichton-Stuart, 6th Marquess of Bute, and the descendant of the 18th-century Prime Minister, the 3rd Earl of Bute. Bute was heir to a large fortune, and turned his back on an expensive education at Ampleforth College and set about pursuing a career in motor racing.
In 1984, Bute, then known as Johnny Dumfries, was the sensation of the F3 season, scoring 14 race victories on his way to winning, and completely dominating, the British Formula 3 Championship for Team BP (Dave Price Racing). He also finished runner-up to Ivan Capelli in the European Formula Three Championship that year. In 1985, he graduated to the newly created FIA International Formula 3000 Championship, initially competing for Onyx Race Engineering before switching to Lola Motorsport. It was a disappointing season, with a sixth-place finish in Vallelunga being the highlight of the year.
In 1986, he made his breakthrough into F1, and raced a single season for the JPS Team Lotus. He was a late addition to the team, apparently as a result of Ayrton Senna not wanting Derek Warwick as a teammate. He competed in 15 Grands Prix for Lotus (not qualifying at Monaco), which used the turbocharged Renault engines and scored 3 championship points. During most of the 1986 season he was usually one of the midfield drivers, on par with the Tyrrell drivers Martin Brundle and Philippe Streiff. He was replaced for 1987 by the Japanese driver Satoru Nakajima as part of Lotus's deal to use Honda engines from that season onwards.
In 1988, Bute scored the biggest racing victory of his career when he won the Le Mans 24 Hours, driving a Jaguar XJR-9 for Tom Walkinshaw's Silk Cut Jaguar Team alongside Dutchman Jan Lammers and Englishman Andy Wallace.
Bute also participated in the 1-hour endurance race in the 1988 British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park with fellow ex-F1 Briton Guy Edwards for Andy Rouse's Kaliber Racing team in Ford Sierra RS500, finishing third overall and in Class A.
He died of cancer in March 2021.
Bute ranked 616th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, with an estimated wealth of £125m. In the 2006 list, he ranked 26th in Scotland with £122m.
He lived with his family in London and at the ancestral seat Mount Stuart House, 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. In December 2020 he was charged with breaching COVID-19 restrictions for allegedly travelling to his Isle of Bute home from London.
In 2007, the other family home Dumfries House in Cumnock, Ayrshire, was sold to the nation for £45 million.
In 1984, he married Carolyn E. R. Margaret "Freddy" Waddell, they were divorced in 1993. They had three children:
On the Isle of Bute in February 1999, he married his second wife, fashion designer Serena Solitaire Wendell, they had one child:
Original Wikipedia article last retrieved on 16 October 2022.