Patrick ‘Paddy’ McNally was a major figure in motorsport who transcended the achievements of many of his contemporaries in raising the profile of the sport in the late 20th Century.
Born in Gravesend, Kent and educated at Stonyhurst College, McNally was a journalist for Autosport magazine in the 1960s and competed in sports cars but it was the rapidly-growing commercial side of the sport that attracted his attention.
McNally became a sponsorship consultant for Marlboro as the tobacco brand established a major presence in Formula 1 and he also managed James Hunt’s business affairs for a while.
With Bernie Ecclestone building F1 into a global sport at the same time, it was inevitable that the pair would work together and in 1983 McNally formed Allsport Management SA. Securing the exclusive rights to trackside advertising at Grands Prix and raising the standards of presentation to the new global TV audience, he turned his attention to trackside hospitality. Creating the high-end Paddock Club operation that exists to this day, McNally applied his attention to detail to making F1 races the go-to sporting event for blue-chip companies.
Having raised the commercial bar in global sport, McNally remained at the helm of Allsport until selling to CVC Capital Partners in 2006. Now in his late 60s, McNally was still Chief Executive but retired in 2011.