As a schoolboy in Hertfordshire, Carlin began working as a gofer with the PRS Formula Ford 1600 company of his uncles Vic and Steve Hollman.

After Bowman Racing pulled out of British F3, Carlin attempted to set up a team for 1993 using the Dallara car – then the pacesetting machine in Europe – with Robertson driving.

[1] Meanwhile, veteran driver coach and ex-Ralt F3 race winner Rob Wilson introduced a young protégé Henry Stanton to Carlin.

In 1998, the team began running Narain Karthikeyan[1] after testing a young karter called Jenson Button, who was managed by Steve Robertson and his father David, to assess his potential for car racing.

Karthikeyan, meanwhile, gave Carlin Motorsport its first race win in the Madras Grand Prix in January 1999 and its first British F3 victory at Brands Hatch in April of that year.

This established Carlin Motorsport as the pre-eminent force in British F3, and the team won another title with Alan van der Merwe in 2003.

Carlin also established a US arm to compete first in Indy Lights and then in IndyCar with Max Chilton, initially in the former premises of Dyson Racing in New York State and then in Florida.

No fewer than 28 of its graduates have gone on to race in F1: Sebastian Vettel, Lando Norris, George Russell, Carlos Sainz Jr., Daniel Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda, Kevin Magnussen, Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica, Takuma Sato, Bruno Senna, Anthony Davidson, Narain Karthikeyan, Tiago Monteiro, Marcus Ericsson, Antonio Giovinazzi, Daniil Kvyat, Jean-Éric Vergne, Jaime Alguersuari, Sébastien Buemi, Jolyon Palmer, Felipe Nasr, Brendon Hartley, Max Chilton, Logan Sargeant, Nicholas Latifi, Will Stevens and Rio Haryanto.

Those to drive under Carlin at his team have also claimed IndyCar championship titles (Will Power and Josef Newgarden), Indy 500 victories (Sato, Power, Ericsson and Newgarden), Le Mans 24 Hours wins (Buemi, Hartley, Giovinazzi and James Calado), and top-class World Endurance Championship crowns (Buemi, Davidson and Hartley).