Ron Flockhart started out racing motorbikes in Italy and Egypt, while in the army immediately after the war. He switched to motor racing with a pre-war ERA in 1952 and graduated to Formula 3, before making the first of his 14 Formula One Championship appearances in 1956. His best grand prix result came that year when, in his second outing, he finished third at Monza in a Connaught. In 1956 he also won the Le Mans 24 Hour race driving an ex-works Jaguar D-type, a success he repeated in 1957. He was denied the chance of a hat-trick when he crashed at Rouen shortly before the 1958 event, and suffered a spinal injury.

In 1961 he failed in an attempt to break the record for flying from Sydney to London - flying was always his main hobby - and it was while testing for his second crack at the record in April 1962 that he was killed when his Mustang fighter crashed. At the time of his death he was a company director of an engineering firm in Ascot.