Robert Anderson

Robert Anderson (born October 16, 1970 in Leafield, England) is a controversial British racing driver who drove in F1 Rejects Grand Prix 2 Championship and Rejects Touring Car Championship as well as Prost GP Series. He is not related to American driver Dave Anderson.

Career
After having a relatively successful karting career, Anderson drove in F3 and F3000, scoring 10 podiums and 4 wins during his F3000 tenure between 1994 and 1995 seasons (although these were mostly because of attrition).

Anderson was notorious for impeding future fellow F1RGP2C driver Massimiliano Patrese in the Portugese round of 1995 F3000 season. This later opened rivalry between the two.

F1RGP2C
When Anderson entered F1RGP2C, he was initally signed by DAMS. However, Niko Nurminen got the nod instead of Anderson, resulting in Anderson suing the team for breach of contract. However, he did get an actual chance in F1RGP2C with Ligier to replace the suspended Reiko Megumi in Argentine Grand Prix, only to score a worse result than her, resulting in a Reject of the Race in that grand prix, and a counter-criticism from her.

Nonetheless, Anderson got a further chance when Pacific fired Artiom Zielenkovski for performance reasons. He was signed under pressure from Pacific's founder and "second-in-command" Keith Wiggins (the team was managed by Petr Chaddev at that time), who acted as Anderson's advisor, in Anderson's first race with Pacific team, in Canada, he retired from the race. He only finished once at Hungary, scoring a high 14th position. However, on the following Belgian round, he suffered a crash against Irishman Eadbhard O'Caiomhin, injuring Anderson and he missed the last races of the season. He evantually signed as DAMS' test driver for 1997, and together with Martin McFry, Robert was evantually signed by Gauthier (actually Tyrrell, as Anderson insisted) after Monaco when both of previous drivers, Lawrence Tucker and Samael Meerwick, were sacked. By this point, he was managed by Crash Rollock, and was backed by British American Tobacco.

At the Belgian Grand Prix, in lap 12, Anderson spun out and blocked Tom Douglas. Douglas evantually retired after he cannot avoid Anderson. He caused a roadjam than led to some more drivers crashing to desperately avoid him. Evantually he was black-flagged and disqualified from the race, scoring nine points on his penalty points, and he was fired from the team. Enraged, Anderson set his Gauthier-Tyrrell 025 chassis into fire (similar to what Frank Zimmer did to his Honda RA108 during the 2008 Formula One Grand Prix) and punched some journalists during the press session, destroying and damaging their equipments in process. He was banned from entering Belgium since, and WMSC took action that led to one-year suspension from racing in Europe and additional five penalty points.

Following the decision, the World Anti-Doping Agency revealed that Anderson took EPO prior to the race after it was discovered he failed a doping test. Anderson refuted those charges, but evidences compelled WMSC to act: Anderson were stripped of his results and banned permanently from the sport. Anderson attempted trying to appeal the decision by framing Rollock for injecting EPO to him.

RTCC and Prost GP
Despite his motorsport ban, in 1998, Anderson escaped to RTCC, where he drove for Team Wales, who ran a Honda Accord for the race. His teammate was Hywel Jones (not related to Sammy), a former driver from Team Wales in 1994 Microprose Alternate Formula One season. The series was however short-lived as owner Hermann Mann was arrested just after round two. It was revealed that Anderson paid a "cover-up fee" to Hermann Mann, the organizer of the series, to hide scrunity from WMSC. He was sentenced to two years in prison for another offense after the collapse of the series.

In 2001, Anderson returned to racing, this time in the Prost GP Series with DTM team Dominic Racing Team who was looking to expand after successful 2000 DTM campaign, but he was fired after an alleged robbery case, which he later was cleared from.

He spawned another controversy again in 2015, when he told Rosco Vantini to tell Vantini's comment against female drivers to then team-suspended Shinobu Katayama after the 2015 F1RWRS Australian Grand Prix.