About us
A wealth of Motorsport experience across very different aspects of the industry
Why we set up Progressive Motorsport
After many years fulfilling key roles in top-level motorsport, Dave Ward (Managing Director) and Howden Haynes ‘H’ (Technical Director) had built an impressive record of success. Their experience includes Championship victories in the WEC, LMES, ALMS and BTCC, along with multiple outright wins at the Le Mans 24 Hours, Sebring 12 Hours and other ‘Blue Ribbon’ events.
In 2004, Dave and H decided to combine their knowledge and experience to create something special. Progressive Motorsport Ltd was born from a desire to apply their expertise further within the motorsport industry, with the company beginning full trading in 2009.
Race winning engineering and management
Progressive Motorsport history
Working together with clients on race cars and supercars allowed H and Dave to start building the other important part of the company which now excels in the restoration, modification and recreation of many classic and thoroughbred vehicles.
The business quickly expanded to also include CNC machining, 3D printing, rapid prototyping, and the production of Endurance Drink Systems.
Bentley, Ferrari, Porsche, Mercedes, Audi and Lamborghini are just some of the car manufacturers part of Progressive Motorsports customer list. We have also worked with race manufacturers such as Dallara, Ligier and Oreca along with different Formula 1 teams on bespoke projects over the years to help with the development of their race cars and support equipment.
Our history together
How we got together
H and Dave’s paths have crossed many times in the past with the pair never being too far apart. Both have spent many years within the VW Audi group and on several occasions working together within the same team such as Team Bentley for the Speed 8 Le Mans programme in 2001-2003 and Audi Sport UK Team Veloqx with the 2004 LMES Championship win.
Whilst not always directly working together, Dave called upon H’s Engineering abilities whist running the Ford V8 Supercar Team (FPR) in Melbourne, Australia. In turn, H on occasion asked for the assistance of Dave with Joest Racing while H served as Technical Director there for the Audi Sport Le Mans programme leading the team to many victories over the years. H started Progressive Motorsport Ltd in October 2006 and appointed Dave as Managing Director in February 2010, where he fulfilled that role for 16 years.
Howden Haynes
Howden has been on the Technical and Engineering side of Motorsport all throughout his career. Starting as a mechanic and designer for his father’s race team, Howden soon moved up through Reynard Racing Cars as a gearbox technician through to R&D engineer before moving on to Le Mans contender Team Bentley.
From here he forged a very successful career in sports car racing, from Data/Race Engineer through to Technical director for Audi Sport Team Joest. He contended the Le Mans 24 hour race 14 times and was fortunate enough to be on the winning team for 9 of those occasions. Howden worked with Audi for 100 races on their DTM and Le Mans programmes.
Howden and Progressive supplied, trained and managed the engineering team which have dominated Le Mans for over the last 2 decades, with former Progressive Engineers still winning the race to this day.
