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Not No1s, but first-rate drives

Nigel Roebuck — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:28:19 +0000

Dear Nigel,

There are ‘superstars’ in motor sport, but what has always captivated me are those instances where drivers not considered in the highest echelon have their ‘day of days’ – where they elevate themselves to produce an exceptional performance, not necessarily winning but demonstrating immense skill, determination and, in some cases, courage and integrity.

I’m thinking of Brundle in Canada and Britain in 1992, Warwick getting back in the Lotus after Donnelly’s 1990 crash, Patrese on several occasions in ’91, Tambay at Imola the year after Gilles’ death, Herbert finishing within 10 seconds of the winner at Rio ’89, Hill’s races at Japan and Australia in ’94 when he took the fight to Schumacher. What would you consider to be the standout performances from the ‘not quite number ones’ over the years?

Richard McConnell

Dear Richard,

There have been so many outstanding performances by ‘not quite numbers ones’ over the years, but let me keep it to three that stick in my mind – and three that ended in victories that were not inherited flukes, but well deserved.

First, I think of Jean-Pierre Beltoise at the 1972 Monaco Grand Prix. The weather was foul for that year’s race – not only torrentially wet but also, more surprisingly, distinctly cold. I can still remember the wind howling in from the sea. JPB, driving for BRM, qualified fourth but made a fantastic start – no rolling starts in the wet after laps behind the safety car in those days – and passed Ickx, Fittipaldi and Regazzoni before Ste Devote, thus taking a lead he was never to lose. Beltoise pulled away at a prodigious rate, and what says everything about his drive is that, after two-and-a-half hours, he took the chequered flag 40 seconds ahead of Ickx, himself acknowledged as a supreme wet weather driver.

Next comes Clay Regazzoni, and while I could have picked his perfect drive at the Nürburgring in 1974, instead I’ll go for Long Beach in ’76. From pole position – more than half a second quicker than Ferrari team-mate Lauda – Clay took the lead at the start and simply left everyone behind. There wasn’t the hint of a mistake, and on days like this you wondered why Regazzoni didn’t always drive this way.

Last, I’ll go with Riccardo Patrese at the 1991 Portuguese Grand Prix. It’s often forgotten that through the first half of that season Patrese out-qualified Williams-Renault team-mate Mansell every time out, and Riccardo was very much a factor that year. At Estoril his engine blew in final qualifying and he was allowed out in the T-car only at the very end of the session, once it had been established that Nigel didn’t need it. In a fury Riccardo took pole position, ahead of the McLarens of Berger and Senna – and Mansell. On race day no one could hold Patrese – who beat Senna by more than 20 seconds…

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The silent threat in pitlane

Nigel Roebuck — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 08:22:16 +0000

The silent threat in pitlane

It’s still a place where you need to have your wits about you, but time was when a Formula 1 pitlane was a very dangerous place to be. After the utterly disastrous San Marino Grand Prix weekend in 1994 a whole raft of changes, to both technical and sporting regulations, was introduced, and one of these had nothing to do with the fatal accidents to Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger.

Late in the race at Imola Michele Alboreto’s Minardi (below) shed a wheel as it accelerated out of pitlane, and several mechanics were injured. When Max Mosley announced the forthcoming changes, in Monaco two weeks later, one of them was that henceforth there should be a speed limit in the pitlane.

It may be argued that this detracted from the drama of pitstops, and certainly it was an almighty experience to be close at hand for a ‘full speed’ stop, but if I have sometimes railed against changes made in the interests of safety – like ‘safety car’ rolling starts whenever the day is wet, for example – I never had any problems in accepting a pitlane speed limit. Yes, it’s true that at first it seemed almost comical to watch a car crawl towards its pit, there to be set upon by a horde of mechanics working like dervishes, only for it then to crawl away again. The effect was similar to playing with fast-forward on a remote, but we soon got used to it, and eventually the practice was embraced by every major racing series on earth.

Watch a pre-94 pitstop now, and it’s hard to take in that it could ever have been like that: harder still to believe that it didn’t cost a lot of lives over time.

Back in 1981 I was in the pits during a morning practice session at the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, and witnessed something that I wish I had not. The old pitlane at Zolder was ludicrously narrow, and as I watched Carlos Reutemann (below) coming towards me, slowly – this was only practice remember – making his way out, so I also saw someone fall backwards from the pitwall, right into the path of the Williams.

There was not a thing Reutemann could do, and the sight of his car literally bouncing into the air has not surprisingly stayed with me. There was nothing to be done. The young Osella mechanic, who had stepped backwards into nowhere, died immediately.

Only a few days later I was at Indianapolis, walking down the pitlane at the end of Carburation Day, the traditional final practice session before the 500. Believing everyone to be back in the pits, I was strolling along – my back to the entry to pitlane – when something literally brushed my leg, nicking my trousers and leaving the minutest of nicks in my right calf. It was the blue Lightning-Cosworth of Gary Bettenhausen (below), the last man to come off the track, and as he turned into pitlane he cut the engine, and was thus still travelling in complete silence – and still at huge speed.

Gary Bettenhausen (McLaren-Offenhauser) in the 1974 USAC Indycar Series

It was entirely my own fault – I simply wasn’t paying enough attention – but even now, 30 years on, I can still recall the fear of that instant. Nothing else in my life has come close to it.

Now, in the interests of ‘being seen to be green’, the proposal from the FIA is that from 2014, when the new more environmentally-friendly V6 turbo engines arrive, cars should run on ‘electric power’ only when running the pits.

The idea apparently came originally from Max Mosley, who owned a Toyota Prius and was much into this sort of thing – indeed it was he who, looking to the F1 of the future, seriously asked me if I thought ‘the noise’ was important to race fans.

I said yes, I did – emphatically – think so, indeed suggested that to F1 aficionados the sound of a car was probably as important as the sight of it. Max seemed surprised by my response – for him, he said, the noise rather got in the way of the commentary. Clearly, there was to be no meeting of minds on this.

At the time, of course, we were talking about cars out on the track racing, and it may well be – some time, I hope, after I have ceased to care – that Grand Prix cars will be all-electric, still proceeding with great speed but in total silence.

In the shorter term comes this proposal that they be all-electric in the pitlane, and – short of speed bumps – I cannot conceive of anything more asinine. For a sport these days literally obsessed with safety, could there be a more potentially hazardous introduction?

As is so often the way with blinkered change, it stems in essence from political correctness, from fear of being judged, of being thought out of step. If cars negotiate their way through pitlane in total silence, the mandatory speed limit will make little difference – Reutemann was doing maybe 10mph when he hit the Italian lad.

Bernie Ecclestone, not surprisingly, is one who passionately believes that the sound of motor racing is vital to its survival, and nowhere more so than in the pits. Bernie has rightly condemned this FIA plan for 2014, and I hope they have the common sense to take note. It’s an absurdity, and a criminally dangerous one at that.

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Hard play on Prost

Nigel Roebuck — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 09:19:52 +0000

Hard play on Prost

Dear Nigel,

I’m greatly looking forward to seeing the Senna film, which seems to be enjoying wild reviews from anyone who has seen it.

One person who I had heard hasn’t seen it is Alain Prost – perhaps (although I am sure he could handle it) because I’ve heard that the film goes a bit ‘Hollywood’ on bending timelines and even a few facts in order to portray Alain as the villain of the piece.

I was a huge fan of Senna, but equally of Prost – as I know are you – whose character, talent and racecraft was absolutely top drawer, and who I believe was probably the only career team-mate never indisputably beaten by Senna during their two seasons at McLaren through the vagaries of the points system at the time.

While I appreciate the context of the film and the story it is endeavouring to tell, I wondered about your thoughts on this aspect of it?

With thanks for the 28 years that I’ve been reading your thoughts and reports on the sport we love (most of the time)!

Hamish Goddard

Dear Hamish,

I’ve now seen the Senna film several times and I think it a remarkable piece of work, one which evokes a time of intense drama in Formula 1, when horsepower went way beyond 1000, when aerodynamics played nothing like so dominant a role as now – and when drivers still changed gear with a (foot) clutch and a lever. It was also a time before ‘Tilke track’ entered the vocabulary of F1.

Nothing more really need be said about Senna’s genius at the wheel of a racing car – many people regard him as the best there has ever been, and nothing will ever change their opinion. The movie does ample justice to Ayrton’s other-worldly talent at the wheel, and also captures the character of the man as I remember him.

Only one aspect is unsatisfactory, in my opinion. Senna always regarded Alain Prost as his only true rival, as also did we in the press room. Much is necessarily made of this rivalry in the movie – but I feel it sells Alain short, and paints a one-sided picture of how things actually were. First, Ayrton’s dark side – which emphatically he had – is very much played down; second, Alain is portrayed, notably by one-time US commentator John Bissignano, both as a devious figure who ‘used politics’ to get his way, and as a driver who only ever thought in terms of ‘points’…

This – as one who was present at all the races through that period – I found grossly unfair, and many others have said the same. In Monaco I talked about it to John Hogan, formerly of Philip Morris – essentially ‘Marlboro’s man in Formula 1’ – and a highly influential figure. He, too, remembered those days: “When it came to politics,” he chuckled, “Senna wrote the bloody book!”

In Monaco, too, I spoke to Prost about the movie – to which he contributed a lot of time and help – and asked him how he felt about it. “I haven’t seen it,” he said, “and I’m not going to. They sent me a DVD, but I’m not going to watch it – friends who have seen it have advised me not to…”

Rather sad, I thought, but I could understand his point of view. There again, the title of the film is Senna, and, as I said to writer and executive producer Manish Pandey, I’m sure that if I were to make a movie entitled Prost, he would find it highly unfair to Ayrton!

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Greatest ever conundrum

Nigel Roebuck — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 09:19:29 +0000

Greatest ever conundrum

Dear Nigel,

Who would you consider to be the best Formula 1 driver ever? I know a lot of people think Ayrton Senna. Personally, I think it’s Jim Clark, but what do you think?

SnowyGreyWolf

Dear SGW,

This is a question which will be debated far into the night by F1 fans for as long as cars are raced, and everyone has their own opinion.

Invariably, I have found, one’s choice of the ‘greatest of all time’ tends to the greatest at the time one originally fell in love with motor racing. Although I am old enough (just) to have seen Fangio race when I was a kid, I formed an impression of Stirling Moss which has never changed. To me Stirling – in every way, on the track and off – was the perfect racing driver, with no discernible faults. Not only did he make it look easy (like Alain Prost), he was also the archetypal racer, brilliant on all types of circuit, in all types of weather, and readily able to adapt his style at a time when racing was changing very fundamentally – this was a man, after all, who won Grands Prix in cars as disparate as the Maserati 250F and the Lotus 18. The fact that he never won the World Championship matters not a jot to me – look at some of those who did, and they weren’t on the same planet as Moss.

For me, then, Stirling will always be the greatest of all time, and others feel the same about Fangio, Clark, Senna, Schumacher, you name it. Go back further, to a time before ‘Formula 1’ was thought of, when it was simply ‘Grand Prix racing’, and others come into the picture, notably the legendary Nuvolari.

In the end, I think it’s probably impossible to come up with a definitive answer to your question, because the nature of the job – other than getting to the line before anyone else – changes so enormously from era to era. For all that, though, I’ll stick with Moss…

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Motor Sport Senna evening podcast

Web Editor — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:00:49 +0000

Motor Sport Senna evening podcast

Motor Sport hosted a special evening in London on June 6 as a group of our enthusiastic readers joined us for a private viewing of the stunning new Ayrton Senna film.

We were honoured to be joined by the movie’s producer Manish Pandey and former McLaren team coordinator Jo Ramirez, the man who somehow managed to remain friends with both Senna and Alain Prost during their incendiary two years as team-mates in 1988-89.

This is the full, unedited, recording of the open discussion after the film which included Jo, Manish, our editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck and features editor Rob Widdows. We apologise for the sound – it was recorded live!

Do let us know your thoughts and keep checking the website for upcoming readers’ evenings. We’ll be doing plenty more.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

An evening of Senna

Damien Smith — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:41:20 +0000

An evening of Senna

Motor Sport hosted a special evening in London on Monday as a group of our enthusiastic readers joined us for a private viewing of the stunning new Ayrton Senna film, which was released in UK cinemas last week.

The private viewing took place at the excellent Everyman cinema in Belsize Park, London which features large, leather armchairs rather than the standard seats you’d find in your local multiplex. After drinks and canapés, our guests parked themselves in the comfy chairs, sat back and soaked up the experience of Senna – a movie that you really have to see on a big screen. It’s stunning, as we discussed in our July issue of the magazine.

As the credits rolled, the audience showed their appreciation with a spontaneous round of applause. Then a real treat: a chance for the readers to listen to Jo and Manish discuss the film and the man, then put them on the spot with some direct questions.

Manish Pandey, Jo Ramirez, Nigel Roebuck and Rob Widdows talk Senna

Motor Sport’s Rob Widdows played host on the stage, with editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck completing the quartet. Jo and Nigel have been good friends for years, and with their own personal experiences of Senna they offered a wider perspective on the man we’d just seen on the big screen, embellishing the themes that the film touches upon.

Manish gave us an insight into the making of the film and left the audience in no doubt that he is a true and deeply knowledgeable racing enthusiast. The movie has been a labour of love for him and he’s very close to it – but he’s not above a bit of criticism. On the much-discussed subject of how harsh the movie is to Prost, Manish was candid, admitting that he has some regrets about its portrayal of 1989. Such candour and honesty is refreshing.

It was a privilege to listen to Jo, Manish, Nigel and Rob, who kept the audience rapt before taking questions from the floor. Make sure to check out the website next week to listen to an audio recording of the Senna evening. For those of you who joined us, thank you for coming. For all of us, it was a very special occasion.

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Senna: the man and the movie

Damien Smith — Thu, 26 May 2011 08:38:18 +0000

Senna: the man and the movie

Do you remember where you were the day Ayrton Senna died? I bet you do. For motor racing fans, May 1 1994 is a ‘JFK moment’. Older readers vividly recall where they were on April 7 1968 and how they heard Jimmy Clark was gone. For younger generations, Senna’s death reverberated to the same shattering degree.

That May Day, I’d returned home from university for a family function. We had to leave the house during the race, but I knew there’d be time to watch the opening laps from Imola before I’d be dragged away.

In the wake of Roland Ratzenberger’s death the day before, not to mention Rubens Barrichello’s lucky escape on Friday, the tension of that weekend transported itself over the airwaves. You didn’t have to be in Imola to sense the unease felt by everyone in the Formula 1 world.

Images of the startline shunt, when Pedro Lamy’s Lotus slammed into the back of JJ Lehto’s stalled Benetton, remain vivid. It was immediately clear that spectators must have been hurt as debris landed in the grandstand. The weekend was turning into F1’s worst nightmare, but none of us could have guessed at the seismic shock that was to come.

The laps under the safety car, the aggressive attitude of Senna’s Williams as he tore away at the restart – and then the moment he hit the wall. I’d sat in the same living room five years earlier when Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari burst into flames at Tamburello, and apart from some burns to his hands, he’d been all right. Senna would be too – wouldn’t he?

The shots from the chopper hovering over the wreck live with all of us who love this sport. ‘Damn, a third win on the bounce for that bloody Schumacher’ – that was my first thought. Senna would really have his work cut out to claw back the championship now. And then the moment of realisation, as the camera panned in on the yellow helmet slumped in the cockpit.

Thankfully, the BBC cut away from the scene – and I had to cut away from the TV to join my family function. But I couldn’t really focus on anything on that sunny afternoon. From those helicopter images, I feared the worst. So this is what it was like to be a racing fan in the 1960s and ’70s…

I heard the news from Radio 5 Live later that evening. This was strange. Of course, apart from getting his autograph when I was 10 and watching him among the masses at various British GPs, I’d never had any personal contact with this man. So what right did I have to be experiencing symptoms of grief? On my return to uni the next day, I found my friends treated with me kid gloves for a while. I wasn’t even what you’d describe as a Senna fan – but the manner of his loss, and that of Ratzenberger too, shook those of us not old enough to remember the days of Clark, Rindt, Cevert, Williamson – and so on…

Today, Senna is far from forgotten. His legacy still looms large over Formula 1, which is why the release of the new Senna movie is such a major event. It helps that the film also happens to be breathtaking.

As Adam Cooper describes in his ‘making of’ story in the August issue of Motor Sport, the movie is so much more than the sort of TV documentary that pops up on BBC2 from time to time. Senna, which is released in the UK on June 3, is a stunning cinematic experience and I’d urge you to catch it on a big screen rather than wait for the DVD.

As Nigel Roebuck describes in our issue, those lucky enough to gain first-hand experience of the man discovered a character so much more complex than any film could hope to show. It does not – and cannot – tell the whole story, and Alain Prost fans might feel it is unfair. Yes, it is solely made up of fabulous archive footage, much of it never seen before – but this isn’t supposed to be a documentary, retelling history to the letter. It is a pure movie, and it’s a monumental achievement.

David Coulthard had the daunting task of taking Senna’s place at Williams. He meets Simon Taylor for lunch in the August issue and describes the experiences of 1994 from his unique perspective. In his early days in F1, Coulthard earned a reputation for being something of a PR robot in interviews. It was always an unfair tag. Coulthard took his job seriously and was the professional archetype, but he was – as he remains – frank, honest and very funny. And there were moments in his career of extreme bravery, too: surviving an air crash on a Tuesday and finishing second in the Spanish Grand Prix the following Sunday will always be my personal stand-out memory of his long career. His poise and stoicism that weekend was deeply remarkable.

Elsewhere in the issue, Eoin Young changes the pace with his entertaining diary tales of his first season in Europe, lived through 50 years ago this summer, and we’re particularly delighted to print some rare colour photographs of Le Mans in 1959 and ’60. They took our breath away when we first saw them. I hope they’ll have the same impact on you.

Enjoy the issue.

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Monaco challenge remains unique

Rob Widdows — Tue, 24 May 2011 09:06:17 +0000

Monaco challenge remains unique

Nelson Piquet described driving a Grand Prix car in Monte Carlo as like trying to ride your bicycle around your living room. A victory on the streets of the Principality, he declared, was worth two anywhere else.

Keke Rosberg once likened the flat-out dive down the hill from Casino Square to Mirabeau to being on a toboggan without any snow to cushion the bumps. And Keke was not afraid of anything.
Both these men were racing cars with a manual gearbox, slick tyres and an excess of mechanical grip over aerodynamic downforce. Hence they were very busy in the cockpit, constantly changing gear and correcting slides on the changes of camber. They’d wear out the glove on the right hand, and the sole of the boot on the right foot. Blisters were commonplace at the chequered flag.

Men like Graham Hill – they called him Mister Monaco – and Ayrton Senna made it their own, stamping their authority on the twists, turns and bumps of the streets. And that’s what a great driver does – he takes the little place by the scruff of its impossibly glamorous neck. It is not a place for the faint-hearted.

The Monte Carlo circuit is easier now, but still a huge challenge in a Formula 1 car. As we head towards the race this coming Sunday, I feel as excited and expectant as ever, this Grand Prix being one of my all-time favourite occasions. There is simply nothing like it, there being an element of total madness. Were such an idea to be put forward now it would probably be dismissed on grounds of ‘health and safety’ and lack of palatial facilities. But Monaco survives, and let us rejoice that it does.

The race is something of a lottery, of course, but no less thrilling for that. Despite protestations to the contrary, overtaking is possible, this being proved each year by those with absolute skill and bravery. The streets are the ultimate test of a driver and nowhere else can you get so close to the action on the track. No longer are you able to walk through the tunnel, or stand behind the barriers, but a seat at the swimming pool section, or in Casino Square, is as good a view of an F1 driver in action as you will find.

Every time I walk down to the circuit at the start of practice on Thursday I get goosebumps and feel that surge of excitement as the cars scream up the hill from Ste Devote. I quicken my pace, get out my stopwatch, and make a dash for the nearest vantage point. The media centre is not the place to be. No, you want to be out there, drinking it in, as the cars skim the barriers, blast into blind corners and wail away towards the harbour where they will dash past the yachts in a crazy blur of noise, colour and raw speed. One split second of distraction and the car will be off-line and into the scenery. It is a magical experience for both driver and spectator.

Who will be at the front on Sunday? I have no idea, but all things being equal the best drivers will prevail. So expect Vettel, Hamilton, Button, Alonso and Webber to shine. Red Bull’s aerodynamic advantage will be somewhat constrained in Monte Carlo, while the McLaren is nimble and Alonso will squeeze something out of his Ferrari. If it rains, well, then all predictions are set aside. For once this season a good grid position will be important, with drivers unlikely to be able to storm through the field, so Saturday should be as thrilling as ever. Traffic is the bogey in Monaco, new tyres or not, soft option or hard.

If you have never been to the Grand Prix du Monaco, you have not completed your motor racing initiation. You don’t have to stay in a fancy hotel or visit the Casino, you just have to be there. Yes, it looks pretty on the TV, but on the side of the track, or leaning from a window above, this is a gut-bashingly great motor racing spectacle.

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Battle for Le Mans 2011

Damien Smith — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:07:53 +0000

Battle for Le Mans 2011

Le Mans 24 Hours

Andy Wallace and James Weaver were special guests at a media dinner hosted by Audi in the splendid surroundings of Goodwood House during April. Fine British sports car aces both, but I wondered to myself: what’s their link to Vorsprung durch Technik?

Then it dawned on me. Ah yes, they were on the driving strength when Audi first took the Le Mans plunge 12 long years ago.

Their chapter at the very beginning of the manufacturer’s remarkable endurance racing story was short and unsuccessful, but Audi is at pains to stress that they haven’t been forgotten. They are still ‘part of the family’ apparently, despite their one and only appearances as four-ringed factory drivers back in 1999.

The link to today, of course, is that Wallace and Weaver – great mates who enjoyed many years of sports car success together in the US – drove the only closed-cockpit Le Mans prototype built by Audi until this year’s all-new R18 which will take on La Sarthe on June 11/12.

How things have changed. In ’99 Audi was so raw at this enduro game that it built two different cars to hedge its bets. The R8R open car would ultimately set the agenda that led directly to the all-conquering R8. But the neat R8C coupé, financed by Audi UK and run by the British-based Richard Lloyd Racing, lacked “about six months of development” according to Wallace. It was produced so late, it’s potential was never close to being tapped at Le Mans, and as the R8R scored a surprise podium as more fancied rivals fell by the wayside, so the closed-concept racer became a development cul-de-sac in Ingolstadt.

Until now. After nine victories, three of which were achieved with groundbreaking turbodiesel power, dramatic rule revisions have forced Audi back down the coupé route. As we discuss in the June issue of Motor Sport, the exciting and striking R18 has been tasked with blasting the company into a new era, in the race Audi counts before all others.

In our preview we tell the inside story behind the stealth-like car, and also delve into the theory behind its two manufacturer rivals in the top prototype class.

Peugeot also has a brand new car, even if it carries the same name as its predecessor and to the untrained eye looks very similar. As for Aston Martin, well, it has chosen a very different path to achieve its aim of winning the race overall for the first time since 1959. Open cockpit, dramatic aerodynamics, a 2-litre straight-six petrol engine… Once again, Le Mans rules have thrown up technical variety and innovation like no other major race on earth – in the modern era.

Since we closed for press on our Le Mans preview issue, the cars have shown their hands at the Le Mans test day, and it’s with some relief that I can say our analysis of where they should stand has so far been borne out!

The R18 set the pace, but lap time has indeed been increased as intended by the new rules, closer to the ACO’s magic mark of 3m 30sec (Tom Kristensen’s benchmark during the test was 3m 27.867sec); the fastest 908 was only two tenths shy of the fastest time, indicating our hopes for a ‘classic’ come June are not in vain; and as we feared, Aston Martin has a mountain to climb. The British cars managed only 12 laps all day.

I guess we must remember that this is only the beginning of what is intended to be a multi-year campaign for the Prodrive-run squad. We have to be patient.

As ever, we’re pumped up about Le Mans, as you’ll gather when you read the issue. But also as ever, our new issue is far from one-dimensional.

Highlights include a lovely story by Nigel Roebuck, who turns the clock back 40 years to recount how he first became a Formula 1 journalist. No Castle Combe clubbies for our editor-in-chief. Oh no. His first race as a working reporter was the 1971 Spanish GP at Montjuich Park!

Nigel also gets his teeth into the current state of Grand Prix racing, explaining in Reflections why his enthusiasm for what was undoubtedly an exciting Chinese GP is well under control. As we’ve seen from the comments on our website, many of you – but not all – will carry some sympathy with his sentiments about the ‘gimmicky’ nature of the entertainment on offer in F1 2011.

Other highlights of the June issue include a wonderful profile of Elio de Angelis, the cultured Italian who died in a senseless testing accident 25 years ago. Mike Doodson, who knew Elio well, has done a fine job of revisiting his career – with the help of his loyal mechanic, one Nigel Stepney. Remember him?

I cannot sign off this month without looking ahead to the July issue and an exciting reader evening that I’m sure many of you won’t want to miss. Next month we’ll be reviewing a new cinematic documentary that is released in the UK on June 3. Senna is probably the most anticipated big-screen motor racing film since Steve McQueen’s Le Mans (no, I haven’t forgotten about Bobby Deerfield…). Having already seen Senna, I’d say for good reason.

To mark the release, we have organised an evening in London during which you can see the film, in company with the writer and producer Mannish Pandey, our own Nigel Roebuck and Rob Widdows – and Senna’s close friend from his McLaren days, the incomparable Jo Ramirez. After the film, Rob will host a forum in which you will have a chance to question Mannish and Jo about the making of the movie, and of course the great man himself.

For any Senna fan, it will be a night not to be missed. To find out more about the evening click here or contact us on readersevents@motorsportmagazine.co.uk. Alternatively you can call +44 (0)20 7349 8472.

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Systems overdrive

Nigel Roebuck — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:43:20 +0000

Systems overdrive

Adrian Newey isn’t a fan of KERS, but why he would be? Yes, it provides an 80-horsepower boost for a few seconds a lap, but a genius like Adrian has subtler ways of going faster than employing a ‘push to pass’ button, and that’s what it amounts to. At a time when FIA president Max Mosley was insisting that Formula 1 needed drastically to cut its costs, so the governing body introduced KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), the argument being that it was ‘green’ in concept and the beginning of a path down which F1 must proceed if it were to have any chance of long-term survival. And if it cost a massive amount of money to develop, well, too bad, start serving up cheaper Parmesan in the motorhomes…

For all its green credentials, KERS would never appeal to a man like Newey. For one thing, it is a component on an F1 car over which he has no control; for another, it necessarily screws up the purity of his designs. With or without KERS, the minimum weight limit of an F1 car is 640 kilos, so if you don’t run KERS – as with Red Bull at Melbourne – you run an equivalent weight of ballast, and that’s fine, because you can position ballast and use it to your car’s best advantage. Sebastian Vettel utterly dominated the Australian Grand Prix in a car of perfect balance – without KERS.

Melbourne, though, was a bit of a special case, for it lacks a straight of any consequence. Come Sepang, with two extremely long straights, and KERS simply had to come into the reckoning – even for Red Bull. Even though his team, concerned about a potential problem, requested that he not use it for a portion of the race, Vettel still won again. But Webber, whose system was inoperative from the start, was decidedly hampered. In the circumstances Mark’s fourth place was a great achievement, but on the long straights his lack of KERS invariably kept him from getting within the requisite one second of the car in front – which meant, of course, that he was unable to deploy his ‘moveable rear wing’, otherwise known as DRS (Drag Reduction System).

All initials and systems, contemporary F1, isn’t it? Fernando Alonso had the opposite problem: his KERS was working, but his DRS wasn’t…

Over time all manner of things have been considered to improve the quality of the racing – or, at least, to permit changes in the order. That’s why refuelling was originally brought back, for example, and why, at different times, there has been talk of weight penalties for successful cars (as in the Trophee Andros ice racing series), and more recently proposals of rallycross-style ‘short cuts’ on the circuits – and even sprinkler systems to create ‘rain’.

All these ideas have been a tacit acknowledgement of F1’s ‘lack of overtaking’ problem, and I confess that whenever anything like this comes up I find myself thinking, ‘What would Ayrton or Gilles have made of this?’ Or, come to that, Jenks? And it doesn’t take me long to arrive at an answer.

I really wasn’t surprised that Niki Lauda contemptuously dismissed the ‘moveable rear wing’: “Completely crazy – now the FIA decides where you can overtake…”

Some suggest that these systems are no different from adjustable boost in the turbo era, whereby you could temporarily award yourself some extra horsepower (at the same time knowing that it was eating into your restricted fuel allowance for the race). But that argument is hardly valid – if a following driver whopped up his boost to pass you, there was nothing to stop you doing the same to defend your position.

All cars were operating to the same rules at all times in the race, that’s my point, and surely that is fundamental to anything calling itself ‘Grand Prix racing’. DRS strikes me as akin to investing in the best running shoes for all competitors – and then putting stones in some of them.

By common consent, wet races are invariably far more exciting – hence the ‘sprinkler’ idea – but why is that the case? It’s not rocket science; it’s because there is less grip. No, we can’t un-invent downforce, but surely we can come up with a set of aerodynamic rules that permit cars closely to follow each other through fast corners, perhaps generating downforce from shaped underbody, rather than relying absolutely on external appendage.

“Ah, here’s the purist – the keeper of the flame…” Max would murmur when I arrived at one of his functions, and I couldn’t – and can’t – take issue. I’ve loved Grand Prix racing all my life, and I’ve never cared to see artifices introduced to turn the sport into ‘The Show’, particularly systems – like KERS and DRS – which involve no element of driving skill. Of course I want to see better racing as much as anyone – but it has to be real. Remember the Hanford Wing, which undoubtedly increased the amount of overtaking in CART events on superspeedways, but rendered the races farcical? ‘I pass you here each lap, and you pass me there…’

F1 has surely become way too convoluted and complicated. Some years ago I asked Patrick Head what he would do to improve F1. “Oh, ban wings,” he said immediately, somewhat to my surprise. Then he laughed. “But that would never happen – think of all that lost advertising space…”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Hall of Fame honours racing icons

Web Editor — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 11:25:50 +0000

Hall of Fame honours racing icons

Motor Sport Magazine paid tribute to four inspirational racing icons last night at the Roundhouse, London, by inducting them into the prestigious annual Motor Sport Hall of Fame, held in association with TAG Heuer.

Sir Jack Brabham OBE, Sir Frank Williams CBE, Jody Scheckter and Dario Franchitti were all honoured with awards on stage in front of a star-studded audience. Collecting the award on behalf of Sir Jack was his son David Brabham, with the legendary Sir Stirling Moss OBE making the presentation.

Having won three Formula 1 titles in 1959-60 and 1966, Jack Brabham is the oldest surviving World Champion. In 1966 became the only man to ever win the F1 drivers’ title in one of his own cars, having founded the highly successful Brabham racing team.

Frank Williams received his award from legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker, who spoke fondly about the endless passion and commitment to Grand Prix racing that the Wiliams team founder has shown since the late ’60s.

The third inductee of the evening was Ferrari’s 1979 World Champion Jody Scheckter. TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Christophe Babin and five-time Grand Prix winner John Watson bestowed the honour on the South African racer. Scheckter had a sensational career, driving for McLaren, Tyrrell, Wolf and Ferrari. He was the last driver to win a world title for Ferrari until Michael Schumacher did so 21 years later.

Completing the line-up of 2011 Motor Sport Hall of Fame inductees was three-time IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti. Highly respected for his achievements in America, the Scot is also a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and undoubtedly Britain’s most successful motor racing export to the US.

The great and good of F1 gathered for the awards, with personalities including Christian Horner, Eddie Jordan, John Watson and Karun Chandhok in attendance on the night. Celebrity faces were also seen gracing the red carpet outside the iconic Roundhouse and mixing with the motor sport fraternity. James Martin, Chris Rea, Nick Mason and Johnnie Walker all joined the exclusive event.

Commenting on his accolade, Sir Frank Williams said: “Number one I must remind myself not to let my ego get the better of me, because this is an amazing magic. It is an honour, something I will try not to brag about.”

In 2010 Mario Andretti, Tony Brooks, Jacky Ickx and Ron Dennis were inducted at the inaugural Motor Sport Hall of Fame event, along with founding members Enzo Ferrari, Tazio Nuvolari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Sir Jackie Stewart, Sir Stirling Moss, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The reader survey results are in…

Ed Foster — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 15:54:30 +0000

The reader survey results are in…

Ahead of our Hall of Fame event next Tuesday (February 15), the Motor Sport team sent out a survey to everyone registered on our website.

Usually these things are well beyond my pay grade, but this time I managed to get a quick glimpse of the results. Some were quite predictable – Jim Clark was voted the greatest Formula 1 driver of all time ahead of Ayrton Senna and Juan Manuel Fangio – but others weren’t.

Here are some of the results…

Which is the most memorable F1 car of all time?

1)    Lotus 72
2)    Maserati 250F
3)    1988 McLaren MP4-4

What was the best ever rivalry between F1 drivers?

1)    Alain Prost vs Ayrton Senna (with a staggering 68.5 per cent of the vote)
2)    James Hunt vs Niki Lauda
3)    Juan Manuel Fangio vs Sir Stirling Moss

Which circuit in 2011 do you expect to produce the most exciting F1 race?

1)    Spa-Francorchamps
2)    Silverstone
3)    Montréal

Which will be the most improved team on the F1 grid in 2011?

1)    Mercedes
2)    Williams
3)    Lotus (quite a good call, although even if its cars are comparatively three seconds a lap faster than they were at the end of last season they’ll still be a second off the pace)

Out of the rookie drivers new to F1 for 2011, who do you think will excel?
1)    Paul di Resta (should be right on the pace)
2)    Pastor Maldonado
3)    Sergio Pérez

Which team do you think will be the main contender for the constructors’ title in 2011?

1)    Red Bull
2)    McLaren
3)    Ferrari

Which driver would you tip to win the 2011 drivers’ championship?

1)    Fernando Alonso (with the above answer in mind, it doesn’t say much for everyone’s view on Massa!)
2)    Lewis Hamilton
3)    Sebastian Vettel

So there you have it. What are your thoughts? Do these answers really represent what you think?

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Double loss for motor sport

Rob Widdows — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:17:51 +0000

Double loss for motor sport

Moments like this are always difficult. The motor racing world has lost two good people in recent days – two very different people but both passionate about the sport.

Tom Walkinshaw, racing driver, Grand Prix team owner, entrepreneur and rugby fan has died after a long and brave battle with cancer. Walkinshaw, a successful racer in his own right, made his mark as a team manager, a man who made things happen and who was intensely competitive. In 1984 he won the European Touring Car championship in a Jaguar XJS. His own TWR team later gave Jaguar its first win at Le Mans in 30 years and a World Sportscar Championship for Martin Brundle, who recently said he’d still be selling Toyotas in Norfolk if it hadn’t been for Walkinshaw.

Tom went on to be engineering director at Benetton, with Ross Brawn as technical director, and this partnership – along with Flavio Briatore – gave Michael Schumacher the first of his seven Formula 1 world titles. He famously took a young Schumacher away from the Jordan team, causing a great deal of publicity and not a little controversy. As well as being a passionate racing fan, Walkinshaw was a tough negotiator who built up his TWR Engineering empire on the back of his success as a driver and team owner.

After Benetton he bought a 50 per cent stake in Ligier before moving on again to take over the Arrows F1 team, employing Derek Warwick and Eddie Cheever, both of whom had driven sports cars for him. Arrows was the end of his F1 career but he went on to run an Australian touring car team, putting Holden back in the winners’ circle. A devoted rugby fan, he was chairman of Gloucester Rugby Club.

A memorial service will be held at Gloucester Cathedral on February 4, 2011 at midday.

Christopher Hilton, author of a huge number of motor racing books and biographies, died suddenly at the end of last month. He was a prolific writer who did much to popularise the sport and his Grand Prix Century will remain a useful and very readable reference book, which contains not only facts and figures, but also some good tales of seasons gone by. He is also known for his biographies of Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, James Hunt and Ken Tyrrell among many others, as well as a long and interesting look at the business of being a racer entitled Inside the Mind of the Grand Prix Driver.

A memorial service will be held at Harlow Crematorium at midday on December 22 followed by a celebration of his life at the Manor of Groves in Harlow.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

In appreciation of Alesi

Nigel Roebuck — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:37:23 +0000

In appreciation of Alesi

Dear Nigel,

Since Gilles Villeneuve’s tragic departure, there has been only one driver that really got to me, and whom I could appreciate (even when he wasn’t driving a Ferrari!) – and that was Jean Alesi. I was so impressed by his start in Formula 1 with Tyrrell, and then, when he moved to the team of my heart, it was like a dream… Unfortunately everything went wrong, and Alesi never had a car worthy of his talent. I rate him very highly – I believe he was every bit as good as Mika Häkkinen, and in the rain he was as good as Schumacher or Senna. What do you think of him, and how do you rate him compared to other drivers of his time?

Pedro Soares

Dear Pedro,

“You know me – I want so much to do this. I still have incredible determination; I want to drive as much as when I started…”

This was Jean Alesi in the summer of 2001, when he was driving for the Prost team, and struggling with an uncompetitive car. Yes, he might have wished to be at the other end of the grid, where one of his ability properly belonged, but – like Gilles Villeneuve – he still loved driving for its own sake, and I’m sure he always will.

Alesi’s arrival in F1, at the 1989 French Grand Prix, was startling, for he finished fourth after running as high as second. The F1 world took due note, for rookies almost never perform at that level; as well as that, Alesi was driving not for one of the big teams, but for Tyrrell, whose great days were long in the past. The following spring Jean led much of the US Grand Prix in Phoenix, fought a brief but memorable battle with Ayrton Senna, and finished second. At Monte Carlo, it was again Senna-Alesi.

Through that year, everyone was trying to sign him for 1991, and had Jean been a normal, pragmatic sort of F1 driver he would have weighed up his options and signed for Williams-Renault. Had he done so, who knows how many Grands Prix he might have won? If Frank had been able to sign him for ’91, after all, there would have been no need to sweet-talk Nigel Mansell out of his plan to retire. Williams was on the cusp of a period of domination, and Jean could have been in the pound seats.

As it was, heart ruled head – as it was always to do with Jean – and he committed himself to Ferrari, where it may fairly be said he wasted five years in usually uncompetitive cars. Jean himself doesn’t see it that way, of course, for he adored the team, and still says he has no regrets. You mention the lost Williams opportunity, and you get a rueful shrug: yes, for sure it would have been better for his career, but… there’s no point in thinking about it.

Just before Christmas one year, I was in Williams’s office, when someone came in with a case of champagne. “It’s from Jean!” Frank exclaimed, delightedly. “Isn’t that something? The first present I’ve ever been given by a racing driver – and he doesn’t even drive for me. Lovely bloke – and a remarkable driver. He’ll be here eventually…”

It never happened, though. After Ferrari, Alesi went to Benetton for two years, after which the management decided it should in future go for ‘yoof’, in the form of Giancarlo Fisichella, Jenson Button and Alex Wurz.

To my mind, Alesi was always among the very fastest drivers, but often overlooked was that, given a half-reliable car, he was also among the best finishers in the business. In two years with Benetton he made the podium 13 times.

There followed a couple of seasons with Sauber, a team he enjoyed, but not one capable of doing him justice. Twice though – at the A1-Ring in 1998, and Magny-Cours in ’99 – Jean started from the front row, on each occasion a treacherous track surface allowing his other-worldly car control to compensate for middling equipment.

Little needs to be said about his time with Prost. Alesi went there in a positive frame of mind, for Alain was not only a man he revered, but also his close friend. The two of them talked of forging a really strong French team, even envisaging a role for Jean after his retirement as a driver. As it was, though, everything went wrong, not least because Prost’s sponsors deserted him. Perhaps it’s true that one should never work with friends.

I must confess I found it extraordinary that the top teams continued to pass Jean by. Yes, he could be temperamental, and he tended to say what he thought – but, in the end, even in the 21st century do you hire a driver for his PR blandness or his speed?

Gerhard Berger, Alesi’s long-time team-mate at Ferrari and Benetton, remained a fan to the end of Jean’s F1 career. “For me, Jean was very underestimated. I thought he was really a very good racing driver. He didn’t make many mistakes in a race, he had unbelievable car control, he had speed, he had experience, he was quick in the rain – and he was a very good finisher.

“Jean’s problem was always that he had an image of being uncontrollable, but I didn’t think that was fair – particularly in his later years. I always thought the way he behaved depended entirely on how he was treated.”

So there you are, Pedro. Not only do I agree with you about Jean Alesi, but – more to the point – so do such as Frank Williams and Gerhard Berger. A lovely bloke, and a hugely talented driver.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

In praise of Prost

Nigel Roebuck — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:37:22 +0000

In praise of Prost

Dear Nigel,

Whenever people talk about the greats of Grand Prix racing, it seems that Alain Prost is hardly ever mentioned. Why do you think this is? After all, he won four world titles, 51 Grands Prix and was a match for Ayrton Senna when they were team-mates at McLaren.

Scott Harris

Dear Scott,

Beats me. For my money, Alain Prost is one of the very greatest drivers of all time, and there’s absolutely no logical reason why I should leave him out of a list of them. Jackie Stewart, for one, has always said that he puts Alain ahead of Ayrton Senna in the F1 pantheon.

Probably no one ever made the driving of a Grand Prix car look as easy as Alain did. He was quite uncannily smooth. I remember watching qualifying at Monaco one year with Denis Jenkinson, and we talked about who was going to be on pole. There were various possibilities – and then suddenly they announced that Prost had just shattered the previous best time. “Now where the hell did that come from?” said Jenks. “Didn’t even notice he was out…”

Typical Alain. Engineers would shake their heads in disbelief: he would win a race consummately, and they’d find his brake pad wear was negligible compared with his (slower) team-mate. As intelligent a man as ever sat in a racing car, he was astonishingly easy on equipment, and I doubt that any other great driver ever made so few mistakes.

At a Donington test years ago I remember chatting with Eddie Cheever, who was looking out over the track. “I don’t believe it!” Eddie said. “Prost just spun!” He was silent for a few seconds. “Oh, what the hell, he’ll probably do it again in another three or four years…”

I like Alain very much, and always have. Superstar he may have been, but he was always friendly and ‘normal’, with a great sense of humour. As well as that, he was a dream to interview because he was never afraid to say what he thought, however controversial the topic, and in all the years I’ve known him, he has never once told me something that subsequently proved to be untrue. Believe me, there are not many like that.

True, his record of 51 Grand Prix wins was swept aside by Schumacher, but it’s worth remembering that, in Prost’s time, the cars were very much less reliable than now, and also that they took a good deal more driving. Alain was at his greatest in the turbo era, when they raced with way more power than now, and when the drivers had more to do, such as get off a grid, change gear, watch a rev counter, and all that stuff…

I also, for what it’s worth, think there were more real topline drivers in Prost’s era than in Schumacher’s golden era. All the way through, apart from anything else, Alain had a certain A Senna to contend with. In the late ’80s, I once asked Jenks, if he had to pick someone to drive for his life, who would he choose? “Over a lap, Senna,” he said, “and over a race, Prost.” I’d go along with that.

There’s another thing, too. For Alain, motor racing was always a sport, not a war. On the track, he was as clean and fair a driver as I have ever seen, and in my book that counts for a very great deal. No matter how many Grands Prix Schumacher had won, in my mind he could never be the equal of Prost. Why? First, Prost achieved his successes at a time when there were many great drivers; second, because throughout his career he was the epitome of sportsmanship; people seem inclined to laugh at that these days, but to me it was, and will remain, a fundamental requirement.

Which was Prost’s greatest drive? There are so many from which to choose. How about the Mexican Grand Prix of 1990, when he qualified his Ferrari 13th after endless problems in practice, then came through to win by 26 seconds from team-mate Nigel Mansell and poleman Gerhard Berger? What’s more, he did it by passing the people in front of him – no planned pitstops and ‘strategy’ back then…

On balance, though, I think I’ll go for Suzuka in 1987, a race in which Alain did not so much as score a point. At the start of the second lap, running on the tail of Berger’s leading Ferrari, he picked up a puncture – which meant running a whole lap very slowly before he could get back to the pits.

Although his position was obviously hopeless – it took him 22 laps to catch the next car in front of him – he drove as if the World Championship depended on it. Although Berger led all the way, in the course of the race Prost made up almost a whole lap on him, and twice lapped in 1min 43.8sec. The quickest lap by any other driver was 1min 45.5sec, set by Senna.

In the end Alain finished seventh, but that day he seemed to be running at the limit for the sake of it, simply to show how the race might have gone, had he not punctured. Undoubtedly, Senna was his superior in qualifying, but in terms of fastest racelaps, Prost is ahead, 41 to 19. When he really needed to race, Alain was as good as anyone I have ever seen.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Ferrari did right by Alonso

Nigel Roebuck — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:36:58 +0000

Ferrari did right by Alonso

Dear Nigel,

I have long picked Fernando Alonso for this year’s Formula 1 World Championship and still think it can happen, but I am growing more displeased with the thought that I might be right.

Would you agree that it will leave a bad taste – and confirm a poor precedent – if Alonso were to win given how he is demanding (and being granted) undisputed first-driver status so far in advance of it being necessary?

Pat Kenny

Dear Pat,

Personally, I am growing rather weary of the anti-Alonso sentiment which seems rife in this country. It stems, I guess, in part from his season as Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate at McLaren, and in part from the ‘team orders’ imposed by Ferrari at Hockenheim this year, which obliged Felipe Massa to allow Alonso through into the lead.

What I find staggering, I must say, is that for countless years Michael Schumacher demanded – and got – absolute number one status at Ferrari, and I don’t recall anything like the criticism of him that Alonso has lately received. In those years if you signed for Ferrari as Schumacher’s team-mate, you accepted that you were there to work for him, like a domestique in the Tour de France, and it was implicit from the first race on.

Such has not been the situation at Ferrari this season – and neither was it during the three years in which Kimi Räikkönen partnered Massa.

At Hockenheim, if you recall, Alonso comfortably out-qualified Massa, but at the start poleman Sebastian Vettel chopped him so abruptly that both lost time, and Massa had the opportunity to nick past both and lead into the first corner. Thereafter it was Massa-Alonso-Vettel, and if the aerodynamic rules were different and did not render overtaking an equal car nigh impossible, I don’t doubt that Fernando would got past Felipe, for he is a quicker driver, and that’s the end of it. As it was, he was stuck there in Massa’s ‘dirty air’, and unable to find a way by.

Yes, I was hard on Felipe, I grant you, for he made no mistakes and deserved to win the race. As I have written before, though, at the time Ferrari had recently been through a bad period, and was being left behind by Red Bull and McLaren. Like any other team they wished to see one of their drivers win the World Championship, and here they were finally, running 1-2 in a Grand Prix.

Going into that race, the points situation was this: Hamilton 145, Button 133, Webber 128, Vettel 121, Alonso 98, Rosberg 90, Kubica 83, Massa 67. If Ferrari was to catch McLaren and Red Bull, Alonso, with 31 more points than Massa, was obviously far better placed to do it – and a quicker driver, to boot.

Like everyone else, I didn’t like to see the two red cars change positions in the ‘ordered’ way they did – there was nothing subtle about it, and they would have brought far less opprobrium down on themselves if they’d done it in the time-honoured tradition of telling Massa to ‘save fuel’, or taking a little longer on his tyre stop. As it was, they cack-handedly got the message across – ‘Felipe, Fernando is quicker than you – have you understood?’ – in a manner which fooled no one. As David Coulthard said, though, “Every team in pitlane imposes team orders, and anyone who says they don’t is a liar…”

As I pointed out in my last column, it is only for the last eight years that ‘team orders’ have been against the rules. Prior to that, they had been a standard feature of Grand Prix racing since Job was a lad: remember McLaren’s ordering Ayrton Senna to let Gerhard Berger through on the last lap at Suzuka in 1991?

In the last few weeks Ferrari has really come on strong, and Alonso – with victories at Monza and Singapore – now lies second in the championship, 11 points behind Webber. He may win it, he may not, but if he should win it by fewer than seven points – the difference between first and second at Hockenheim – Ferrari’s decision will be fully vindicated. Put it another way, if it had not told Massa to let Alonso through, and Fernando then went on to lose the championship by seven points or fewer, I doubt that Luca di Montezemolo would see the funny side.

The fact is that Red Bull and McLaren each have two World Championship contenders in their cars, and Ferrari does not, as was the case in 1958 when Phil Hill was ordered to let Mike Hawthorn through in Casablanca, and in 1964 when Lorenzo Bandini was ordered to do the same for John Surtees in Mexico City. Without team orders, neither Hawthorn nor Surtees would have won the World Championship…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Shades of Imola ’82?

Nigel Roebuck — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:02:00 +0000

Shades of Imola ’82?

Dear Nigel,

I would love to hear your thoughts/opinions on Lewis Hamilton. For me, his raw talent, driving style and never-say-die attitude are strongly reminiscent of Gilles Villeneuve – I hope this is not being sacrilegious to you as I know you and Gilles were close. Anyway, at Istanbul, watching the pass on Lewis by Jenson Button when the former was clearly assuming a ‘hold station’ situation was in play, Lewis’ subsequent downbeat/subdued attitude on the podium was very reminiscent of Imola ’82… Thanks for the great articles and podcasts!

Rich Gray

Dear Rich,

Although Lewis Hamilton is a very different type from Gilles Villeneuve, I would agree with you that his driving style and never-say-die attitude are indeed reminiscent of Gilles. When I interviewed Lewis a couple of years ago, he spoke at length about his childhood worship of Ayrton Senna, and said that he based much of his attitude to the job of Grand Prix driver on Ayrton. But I have long thought there was more of Villeneuve than Senna in the way Hamilton goes racing – not least because I never saw Gilles do anything underhand on a race track, and neither have I ever seen Lewis do anything like that, either. I could not say that of Ayrton.

Keke Rosberg said this of Villeneuve: “Gilles was the hardest bastard I ever raced against, but always scrupulously fair – he was a giant of a driver.” In the same way, Hamilton takes no prisoners, but neither have I ever seen him do anything underhand.

Can’t agree with you, though, about Istanbul 2010 and Imola ’82. There is nothing whatever duplicitous about Jenson Button, and when he closed on Hamilton he didn’t know that Lewis had been told to turn his engine down, and thought it was game on. At Imola, though, the Ferraris, also running one-two in the late laps, were extremely marginal on fuel and Villeneuve, the team’s front-runner all day, was cruising to what he thought was victory, the team having given the ‘Hold’ sign to both drivers. At the very last overtaking point on the last lap, Didier Pironi suddenly sprinted by, and stole the win. Gilles vowed never to speak to him again, and only 13 days later died in qualifying at Zolder.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The anatomy of an F1 driver

Rob Widdows — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:29:31 +0000

The anatomy of an F1 driver

So Fernando Alonso has insured his thumbs for the sum of 10 million euros. Now, it’s not unusual for athletes or film stars or models to insure a body part, or even two in some memorable cases…

This got me musing on the anatomy of a Grand Prix driver. The demise of the gearlever and the advent of power steering through what looks like a PlayStation device have placed far more importance – and thereby value – on fingers and thumbs. When I asked a young BMW engineer to show me around the steering wheel at a test day in Barcelona, he looked at me blankly. “Ah, the interface,” he said seriously, “ yes, a very technical and expensive piece.”

Paddle-shift and an array of colour-coded buttons require extreme dexterity in the heat of battle, not to mention operating the F-duct, the brake balance and the front wing. They are busy men, Formula 1 drivers, relying not only on lightning reflexes, sharp eyes and a strong neck, arms and legs, but also nimble fingers and thumbs. When Alonso clouted the barrier in Monte Carlo he will have kept those newly insured thumbs away from the impact.

A modern Grand Prix car is a brutal and fearsome missile. Not in the same way as an Auto Union or V16 BRM, I grant you, but the sheer force of the grunt, the grip and the brakes demand a certain standard of fitness. In the old days, of course, it would have been a driver’s palms that he might have insured, or his largely unprotected upper body. At Monaco they would finish with blistered hands, gloves worn through by the constant gear-changing. Now they must contend with huge g-forces in the corners and under braking. It’s no wonder they spend so much time in the gym, or cycling up mountains.

How much stamina is required depends, in turn, on driving style and the efficiency of the machine. There tend, even now, to be two main types of F1 driver. Broadly speaking, into one category might go Fangio, Moss, Clark, Stewart, Prost, D Hill and Button. In the other we might put Brabham, G Hill, Rindt, K Rosberg, Jones, Senna and Hamilton. I repeat, these are broad categories tagged with ‘laid-back, smooth and shrewd’ and ‘ ballsy, mercurial and out there’. Something like that. The two styles place different demands both on the driver and car. Neither Prost nor Button get on with oversteer, while Senna and Hamilton liked/like a car they could/can throw around a bit. I have been privileged to sit alongside Denny Hulme in a Can-Am car, Derek Bell in a Porsche 917 and Petter Solberg in a Subaru. Believe me, they are busy.

There will be many who disagree. But that is the beauty of debate, the post-race banter at the bar. What is not in doubt is that, inside the car, there is a lot more ‘shock and awe’ than you can properly appreciate from the grandstand, and it has always been this way. In times past you could see the driver at work. Now they are encased up to their necks in carbon fibre, appearing almost at rest in the cockpit. This is deceptive. You cannot feel the brakes, see the power or hear the snatching of breath. But watch the onboard camera at Monaco, Suzuka or Interlagos, and you’ll begin to get some idea of what’s involved in keeping the car on the asphalt.

This weekend we move to Montréal, a low-downforce circuit, but one which demands extreme concentration allied with stamina and dexterity. The walls are close and there is much heavy braking. Should Ferrari fail to find some extra speed in Canada, Signor Alonso may wish he’d asked Santander to insure his future as well as his thumbs.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

A milestone in F1 history

Damien Smith — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:04:19 +0000

A milestone in F1 history

Sixty years ago, the world was still recovering from the ravages of a world war. But it’s always remarkable how quickly people return to normal life after such devastation. By 1950, Grand Prix racing was already very well re-established, even if the cars (and most of the drivers) dated back to the immediate pre-war era. As a new decade began, the time was right to launch the first World Championship.

At the Bahrain Grand Prix last month Formula 1 acknowledged its heritage by celebrating the diamond anniversary of the World Championship in fitting style. All the living World Champions bar two (Kimi Räikkönen and Nelson Piquet) congregated at the desert circuit, along with a collection of fabulous cars from the past 60 years. Such a gathering is unlikely to ever happen again.

As F1 marks the anniversary, we at Motor Sport have decided to do the same. We’ve chosen this, the May issue, because it was on May 13 1950 that Silverstone hosted that landmark Grand Prix, the first to carry the weight of World Championship status.

To celebrate, we pooled some of the best motor racing writers to tell the story of 60 glorious years of GP action.

Doug Nye kicks things off with an overview of the 1950s. Now, as he says in his article, Doug was only a young child when the World Championship was born, but he was always a “good listener”. There is no better authority alive to look back at the decade of Fangio, Hawthorn, Moss, Mercedes and so on.

Into the 1960s, and Eoin Young takes up the story. The Kiwi was smack in the middle of it all back then, working with his mate Bruce McLaren and as a respected journalist, among other things.

We chose Alan Henry to tell the story of the 1970s. AH built his formidable reputation in the decade of flares and fuel shortages, enjoying friendships with the likes of Ronnie Peterson and Niki Lauda.

Our own editor-in-chief Nigel Roebuck covers the 1980s, an era as volatile as any he has known in the sport. It was the decade of the ‘superpowers’ – Villeneuve, Prost, Senna, Mansell and those magnificent turbos. For Nigel, the memories are recalled with a clarity as if they were yesterday.

Seasoned newspaper journalist Maurice Hamilton steps up for the 1990s and regular Motor Sport man Adam Cooper brings the story right up to date with the most recent decade. The ‘magnificent six’ put 60 years of F1 history into context just perfectly.

To complement the story of the decades, Simon Taylor lunched with the man who has started more Grands Prix than any other (except Rubens Barrichello, who took the lead in the longevity stakes two years ago). Yes, it’s Riccardo Patrese. He’s a true Italian gent, who tells us of his racing life, from enfant terrible to respected veteran. Former editor Simon Arron also makes his first appearance in our pages since 1996 to bring us the story of those Bahrain 60th anniversary celebrations.

It’s been a pleasure and a treat putting this issue together. There was a palpable sense of excitement in the office as each of the decade features landed and we began to build the pages. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

A Festival atmosphere

Rob Widdows — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:16:04 +0000

A Festival atmosphere

Thursday March 18 was a good day, with the launch of the 2010 Goodwood season in a perfect English setting.

Racing cars look so good outside Goodwood House. It just feels right. And nobody entertains with more style than the Earl of March. To get the day under way the Royal Navy brought a Lynx helicopter, proceeding to fly it backwards, sideways, every which way in a wake-up display that defied the laws of gravity. Down below they blew the dust off Ayrton Senna’s Toleman and Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren.

“Thank you all for helping us to make our events what they are today,” said Lord March, addressing the media gathered outside his home. Every year we think how will the Festival of Speed stay fresh and alive? Will the Revival continue to surprise and stimulate us? After 17 years of the Festival and 11 of the Revival it would appear there is little wrong with the formula. If it doesn’t need fixing, don’t fix it. In the background, of course, there have been changes, the Festival becoming a celebration of the motor car in all its guises rather than a hillclimb for historic racing cars, while the Revival has become a theatrical garden party with pure, full-blooded racing at its heart.

Sitting around a table on the grass outside Goodwood House at lunchtime, I spied BBC Formula 1 commentator Jonathan Legard, veteran author and journalist Maurice Hamilton, Deborah Tee (whose family once owned Motor Sport and Motoring News) and our very own Nigel Roebuck. And this is partly what makes Goodwood special. This is a place where enthusiasts gather, people who have a passion for motor racing.

Just back from Bahrain, having robustly tried to make a dull Grand Prix watchable television, Jonathan was bravely defending F1 in the aftermath of a disappointing start to the season. Maurice, celebrating his birthday with a glass of Lord March’s Veuve Clicquot, regaled us with hysterical stories from days gone by. And Nigel, muttering about the dreaded double diffusers, went off in search of Jacky Ickx to cheer himself up. Paul Ormond from Honda, which has supported the Festival since its inception, came by to tell us about the marque’s plans for Le Mans. Multiple World Champion Dougie Lampkin rode by on his trials bike, weaving his way between the tables to jump over something else. The new McLaren MP4/12C rolled in on its first public appearance, all matt black and still a work in progress.

No other event draws such a diverse and colourful collection of characters, cars, bikes and racers. If you have the passion, you will be there.

There were 80 cars at the Goodwood launch this year. Remarkably, that is more than the entry for the first ever Festival back in the summer of 1993. Down at the startline, under the budding lime trees, there were more people soaking up the sights and sounds than stood there on that June Saturday when it all began.

This year the Festival of Speed will support a charitable foundation set up by John Surtees in memory of his son Henry. The Goodwood crowd will give generously because not only do they love their sport, they care passionately about its past, present and future.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Theories on Button and Byrne

Nigel Roebuck — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:08:00 +0000

Theories on Button and Byrne

Dear Nigel,
I’m going to be cheeky as I have two burning questions, hopefully you will answer them both?

1. I’m still a little mystified by Jenson Button’s transfer given his genuine affection for ‘his’ old team. My only theory is that he had a strong inkling that Michael Schumacher was on the way, Nico Rosberg would be demoted to test driver, and it would have been him against Schumacher – in a team run by Schumacher’s old buddy! Knowing how all Schumacher’s team-mates got treated, what would you do… any thoughts on the truth of that?

2. I’ve just read Crashed & Byrned, the book about Tommy Byrne – what a talent we missed out on! How do you think he measured up to Ayrton Senna? And why did no other Formula 1 teams pick up this guy after his McLaren test?
Tim Davison

Dear Tim,
I’m intrigued by your theory as to why Button left Brawn (Mercedes) for McLaren, but I really don’t think that’s the way it happened. It’s true that Ross and Michael Schumacher always had an unusually intuitive working relationship, and that each was only too aware of the other’s contribution to their success, but I don’t believe that Michael came seriously into Ross’s thoughts until Jenson decided on his move.

The jury is still out on why he – very quickly – opted to sign for McLaren. It’s clear that his first visit to the McLaren Technology Centre had a big effect on him, and it’s not difficult to see why: for one thing, you walk into the lobby area, and the first thing you see is a long, long line of cars that have taken Hunt, Lauda, Prost, Senna, Häkkinen, Hamilton et al to the World Championship.

McLaren people tell me that they positively know their financial offer to Button was less than that from Brawn, so I don’t think it’s a matter of money. That said, in the normal course of negotiation, what happens is that it starts with the driver’s manager pitching for an unrealistically high retainer, while the team, for its part, starts off with an offer rather less than it is prepared to pay. At that stage the serious talking begins, until a mutually agreeable figure is arrived at – or not. I’m told that Button’s management was offended by the initial offer made for Jenson’s services, and that by the time the true offer came in, it was too late to keep him from the clutches of McLaren.

Another thing: I’m not sure Mercedes was as enthusiastic about keeping Button as was the existing team. I also think – curious as it may seem – that Button quite fancied the idea of going up against Lewis Hamilton in equal cars.

As for Rosberg, there would have bee no question whatever of his being relegated to test driver at Mercedes – Nico signed his contract long before Button decided to leave, long before Schumacher came on the scene.

Now, Tommy Byrne. It’s a great book, and Byrne undoubtedly had enormous natural talent, which, as you say, we missed out on. Why? Well, as you’ve read the book, I think you’ve probably got some insight into that already. A very great deal of modern F1 is bound up in PR, image and all that stuff, and somehow it’s difficult to imagine Byrne talking the talk and walking the walk, isn’t it? Mention his name to F1 folk who were around at that time, and it’s cleared that Tommy got a lot of people’s backs up: sometimes talent alone is not enough.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Hall of Fame opens with a bang

Damien Smith — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:08:53 +0000

Hall of Fame opens with a bang

Motor Sport broke new ground last night – for both the magazine and for British racing – when we launched our Hall of Fame event at the Roundhouse in Camden.

It was a star-studded night as some of the biggest names in motor sport joined 400 guests for a celebration that looks set to become an annual highlight of the racing season.

The Hall of Fame format is a popular one in the US, particularly in sport and music. But it’s a new idea for motor racing here in the UK.

Last night our host – and BBC Formula 1 presenter – Jake Humphrey announced the eight ‘founding members’ of the Hall of Fame, a group best described as the most important and successful men from racing history. The eight founders are:

Tazio Nuvolari
Enzo Ferrari
Juan Manuel Fangio
Sir Stirling Moss
Jim Clark
Sir Jackie Stewart
Ayrton Senna
Michael Schumacher.

Moss and Stewart were on hand to mark their inclusion in motor racing’s newest and most exclusive club. Once this ‘virtual’ Hall of Fame had been officially opened, the first four inductees were invited to join them.

The motor racing knights welcomed Moss’s old friend, team-mate and rival Tony Brooks into the Hall of Fame. Brooks has never received the recognition he deserves for his performances with Connaught, Vanwall, Ferrari and Aston Martin during the 1950s, and he was delighted to be presented with a beautiful watch, courtesy of TAG Heuer.

Le Mans legend Jacky Ickx, McLaren boss Ron Dennis and American all-round hero Mario Andretti joined Brooks to complete the line-up of inaugural inductees. They were all there at the Roundhouse to accept the honour.

Once the formalities were over, the guests were entertained by the fabulous Kyle Eastwood Band. Kyle, son of movie icon Clint Eastwood, is one of the most highly rated young jazz musicians around – and we found out why last night.

To read more about Motor Sport’s special night, don’t miss the April issue of the magazine, which goes on sale on March 5.

Our thanks to: TAG Heuer, Virgin Cargo, Bahrain International Circuit, Mercedes-Benz, NSPCC, the Roundhouse, Hackett, David Weguelin, McLaren, Richard Frankel, DT Performance, Hugo Boss, Sky Sports, Jake Humphrey, LAT Photographic, The Macallan, Lord March, Janet Bradley at Goodwood, Rob Widdows, Sir Paul Vestey, Doug Nye, Stephen Vokins at the National Motor Museum, Richard Gadeselli of Fiat Group Automobiles SpA, Martin Stockham of Gemini Pictures, Renault

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Top 10 drivers revised

Nigel Roebuck — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:25:46 +0000

Top 10 drivers revised

Dear Nigel,
Based on what you have seen in last 30 years, how would you review your Top 10 list that was published in the book (itals) The Grand Prix Drivers (Racing heroes from Fangio to Prost) issued in 1987? Many thanks in advance for your attention.
Piero Dessimone

Dear Piero,
How nice to be reminded of that book we – Denis Jenkinson, Alan Henry, Maurice Hamilton and I – did all those years ago. The decade about which I was asked to write was the ’60s – a touch illogical since I didn’t start writing about F1 until 1971, but nevertheless a task I much enjoyed.

We compiled out Top 10s in 1987, and at the time I rated the drivers thus: Stirling Moss, Jimmy Clark, Alain Prost, Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jackie Stewart, Gilles Villeneuve, Ronnie Peterson, Niki Lauda, Jochen Rindt.

Were I compiling the list now, it would read as follows: Stirling Moss, Jimmy Clark, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jackie Stewart, Gilles Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher, Jochen Rindt.

Well, perspectives change a little as you get older…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Will Schuey be another Lauda?

Rob Widdows — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:07:05 +0000

Will Schuey be another Lauda?

Everywhere I go these days the hot topic is Michael Schumacher. Will he or won’t he? Everyone wants to know. And this got me thinking back to 1984.

I can hardly believe that more than a quarter of a century has passed since I stood at Paddock Bend watching Niki Lauda win the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. It was late July, a hot day, with a huge crowd and the start of an extraordinary domination by the McLaren MP4/2 TAG Porsche. Between that weekend and late October, every GP was won by either Lauda or Alain Prost.

Lauda was two years into his Formula 1 comeback. In 1982 he’d won his third race, so we all knew he’d lost none of his skill. Now only Prost stood between him and another world title. The other thing about that ’84 season was fuel stops had been banned and tank capacity reduced. This posed no problems for the crafty Austrian. But he was 35 years old, not 41 as Schumacher will be this year. And, by mid-season, he had the best car.

Lauda’s victory at Brands was typically measured, the former champion looking after his fuel and tyres while Prost and Nelson Piquet stormed away from the front row of the grid. Lauda was happy to watch and wait. But on lap 12 Jonathan Palmer crashed at Clearways and the race was stopped. After Palmer’s stricken RAM had been removed to safety the race resumed over 60 laps. Prost went into the lead but retired with a broken gearbox, leaving Lauda to fend off Piquet. But the Brazilian fell away with a broken turbocharger on the Brabham-BMW and Lauda cruised home ahead of Derek Warwick in the Renault RE50. Job done. And no points for Prost.

A young Brazilian named Ayrton Senna was on the podium that day, having finished a determined third in the Toleman-Hart. But that’s another story.

What we learnt at Brands was that a ‘senior citizen’ can come back, win races and claim another championship, even if it was by only half a point. But he had a strong team-mate in Prost, a man six years his junior – and a man on a mission after quitting Renault to join McLaren.

I’m not suggesting that all this has any bearing on the return of Schumacher. But it is fascinating to look at seasons past, especially a year in which it appeared that at least three drivers were in with a strong chance of winning. Schuey will need the best car, and he’ll need some luck. We know about his racecraft and his – and Brawn’s – ability to make the best of the rules…

Tomorrow Schumacher starts testing at Valencia in the new 2010 GP2 car, by special permission of the FIA and rival teams. It is a sign of his intent.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The two sides of Mansell

Nigel Roebuck — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:31:43 +0000

The two sides of Mansell

Dear Nigel,
I wanted to ask you for your recollections of Nigel Mansell. Having witnessed much of the ‘Nigel-mania’ in the ’80s, I wondered why he has been mentioned so rarely in the past few years.

Do you think he was only interesting in those few years of spectacle and not worthy of being remembered as an important personality in Formula 1? Silly behaviour and all, but he was a very strong and spectacular racer for several years, and his fight with Piquet was quite spicy on and off the track.
Bojan Prosnec

Dear Bojan,
Through most of his career, I thought Nigel Mansell an odd individual, with an extremely high opinion of himself, but most of the time he was affable enough, and none could deny that – when he was in the mood – he was a hell of a racer. When he took his Ferrari past Ayrton Senna’s McLaren at the Hungaroring in 1989, for example, it was a move of brilliant opportunism, and I cheered loudly.

The relationship with Ferrari went sour in Mansell’s second season with the team, when Alain Prost, previously the one man in motor racing for whom he had not a critical word, arrived – and invariably beat him.

Paranoia about his team-mates, notably Prost and Nelson Piquet, both of whom, he darkly suggested, devoted every waking moment to undermining him, became wearisome. But it was only in the last couple of years of his full-time F1 career, when he returned to Williams, that I, and many others, came to find him somewhat insufferable.

By then he seemed to be living in some sort of parallel universe, seeing demons everywhere, and taking offence at the drop of a hat. In 1992, with the ‘active ride’ Williams-Renault FW14B, he had a car consummately superior to its opposition, but he drove it superbly, and had the World Championship locked away by August. As ever, though, anything good that happened was down to him, anything bad to someone else.

Late in ’92, after learning that Prost would be coming to Williams in 1993, he failed to agree terms with Frank for the coming year, and took himself off to America, signing to drive for Newman/Haas in the CART series.
In ’93 Nigel did a superb job, winning many races, and ending the year as CART Champion. I saw him race that year at Indianapolis, and also at Milwaukee, where he won, and was mighty impressed by the way he tackled the ovals.

That year, though, a Newman/Haas Lola was very much the thing to have, whereas the following season was all Penske. And in that situation Nigel appeared many times simply to give up, as sundry team members attested. This time there not the hint of a single victory. “In the best car he’s fantastic,” said Carl Haas, “but he’s not a guy to have with you when you’re up against it…” Patrick Head would echo those words.

By now Mansell’s thoughts were on a full-time return to F1, with Williams-Renault, for Ayrton Senna’s death had left the team without an experienced star, and Renault’s chequebook was wide open. As and when the CART schedule permitted, he took part in four Grands Prix, and hoped that he would be retained for 1995. As it was, Frank went for David Coulthard, and Nigel went to McLaren. After two races in an uncompetitive car, he parked it at Barcelona, and left the team forthwith.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Bellof could have been champion

Nigel Roebuck — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:01:41 +0000

Bellof could have been champion

Dear Nigel,
For years I have been reading about the lost talent that was Stefan Bellof and always after finishing each article I find myself wanting to know more. I was wondering if Motor Sport has ever compiled a definitive article relating to his life, career and the impact he would have made on F1 had he survived? In Bellof I believe we were robbed of a driver who, had he lived, may now be regarded among the greats such as Gilles Villeneuve and Ayrton Senna.
Al Crawford

Dear Al,
Years ago I was asked to write a story for some magazine about the great lost talents of motor racing, in terms of drivers who had died before achieving what they should have done, and I put Stefan Bellof at the top of the list.

Wolfgang von Trips, who was killed at Monza in 1961 when on the verge of becoming World Champion, was long before my time as a journalist, of course, but from speaking to people who knew him well, von Trips sounds to have been remarkably similar to Bellof, both as driver and man. Fiercely quick, dedicated to racing, yet fun-loving away from the track, and wonderful company.

Stefan really was a delightful fellow, with a character very different from the ‘next’ great German driver. Nothing fazed him. In the appalling traffic on the way into the Dijon circuit, for the 1984 French Grand Prix, he – like everyone else – got badly delayed, but where the rest of us just sat there and swore, the insouciant Bellof simply drove his Porsche 911 through a farm gate, and proceeded to the circuit across ploughed fields!
Very pleased with that, he was, and it taught him a lesson, too. Forever after, it became his practice to arrive at a track very early in the morning, then sit down to breakfast with the Tyrrell mechanics. Gilles Villeneuve was very similar in that respect; no wonder that both men were so loved by their teams.

Martin Brundle, Bellof’s Tyrrell team-mate, once described him as ‘the fastest driver since Villeneuve’, which was a hell of a compliment, honestly paid. In a racing car, Stefan was very much of that school, incredibly fast, with freakish reactions. Like Gilles, too, he was also apparently without a sense of fear.

Had the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix not been stopped, would he have won it? Yes, possibly – so long, that is, as he managed to keep it on the road for the duration, and the same went for Ayrton Senna. As it was, the race, in truly dreadful conditions, was stopped after 31 of the scheduled 78 laps.

At that point, Senna’s Toleman was on the point of passing Alain Prost’s McLaren for the lead, and Bellof was running third, 13 seconds behind. Significantly, though, when the rain became really atrocious (ultimately leading to the stopping of the race), Bellof was catching Senna at a greater rate than Senna was catching Prost…

There were 27 drivers at Monaco that year, attempting to qualify for 20 positions on the grid, and Bellof was the last man to get in. At that time, Tyrrell continued to run the venerable Cosworth V8 engine, whereas every other team had turbo motors. While it may be said that, at Monaco, the throttle response of a normally-aspirated was preferable to that of a turbo, still the fact remains that the Cosworth was massively out-powered – and at Monte Carlo, with its multitude of short squirts between corners, that was a significant disadvantage, even in the wet.

Of course we’ll never know whether Stefan would have beaten Ayrton that day, had the race run its full distance. With 47 laps to go, it’s quite possible that he would have caught him, but getting by might have been a rather different matter – particularly when Senna was heading for what would have been his first Grand Prix victory.

Some, of course, have always reckoned that ultimately Senna or Bellof – or both – would have overdone it, as Nigel Mansell did earlier in the race, and that Prost would have gone on to win. Had that happened, of course – indeed, had Alain even been second – he would have been World Champion in 1984. As the race was stopped before half-distance, only half-points were awarded – and in those days you got only nine for a win. Thus, Prost got 4.5, and in the end he lost the title to Niki Lauda by only half a point. Even finishing second in a ‘full’ race would have given him six.

Would Bellof have been Germany’s first World Champion? Without any doubt he had the ability, and, although this has never been officially confirmed by Ferrari, there is little doubt that he would have partnered Michele Alboreto in the team in 1986. His death, in the 1985 Spa 1000Kms, was a truly dreadful loss to the sport, and even more of one to those who knew him.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Nannini’s sacrifices for F1

Nigel Roebuck — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:00:18 +0000

Nannini’s sacrifices for F1

Dear Nigel,
What are your memories of Alessandro Nannini and how did you rate him as a driver?
Sas Nader

Dear Sas,
Sandro Nannini was, I think, the last of the ‘classic’ Italian racing drivers, very much in the mould of Clay Regazzoni (technically Swiss, I know, but only by a few kilometres), rather than someone like Giancarlo Fisichella.

At Suzuka, in 1989, when Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna had the first of their tangles, there was considerable acrimony afterwards, and for me, and many others, the only saving grace of the day was that Nannini won the race.

Although the family business was – and is – one of the largest bakeries in Siena, Sandro appeared to live on cigarettes and coffee, and having myself, I’m afraid to say, followed a similar diet since I can remember, it was particularly pleasing to find a driver – the first since Rosberg – who found there was more to life than health food. If Nannini ever had a stamina problem, I never saw it, and the same was emphatically true of Keke.

Ultimately, Sandro elected to give up not just one of his bad habits, but both – and, what’s more, at the same time! This I thought positively heroic, for his devotion to tobacco and fearsomely strong espresso was profound. “Are you any quicker for it?” I asked him one day. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I’m certainly not so ’appy…”

Later, after his enforced retirement from F1, he raced for the Alfa Romeo ITC team, and, even with very restricted use of his right hand, was very quick indeed. I went to Magny-Cours for one of the races, and found him in the Alfa pit, ciggie in one hand, tiny coffee cup in the other. “What happened?” I said, and he laughed. “Pffff! For Formula 1, it was one thing, but this – this is just saloon cars…”

Sandro may have been very much a throwback, in terms of his attitude to life, but it certainly didn’t compromise his performances on the track. He became a very considerable racing driver, with tremendous flair, and it was an awful thing that his F1 career should have ended the way it did.

The helicopter accident occurred in October 1990, shortly after Nannini’s Benetton finished third, behind Prost and Mansell, at Estoril. Three weeks earlier, at Monza, it had been announced that he would be driving for Ferrari in ’91, and we were all much surprised – there had not been so much of a whisper of it before that weekend.

In fact, Ferrari had been hoping to sign Alesi, but Jean had got himself into a contractual wrangle with Tyrrell (for whom he was then driving) and Williams (for whom he had also signed!), and when a move to Ferrari began to look impossible, the team negotiated with Benetton to have Nannini.

The deal was made public on race morning at Monza, but when Sandro went to Maranello to sign the contract a few days later, he found the terms not quite what had been originally proposed. That being the case, he said that he would prefer to stay with Benetton.

In point of fact, it later became clear that Ferrari had negotiated Alesi out of his Tyrrell contract – and that Williams had decided not to stand in Jean’s way. By way of thanks for Frank’s helpful attitude, a Ferrari 641 was promised, and duly delivered a year later. For many years it resided in the Williams museum.

As for Nannini, his last racing contract was with Mercedes in 1997. He was one of those who really loved to drive racing cars, and I’m sure he misses it to this day. I haven’t seen him for a few years now, but Italian friends tell me he is never short of things to do, one of which – apparently – is consuming the products of the family business. As for the coffee and cigarettes, we can probably take them as read…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Last lap before Christmas

Rob Widdows — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:00:31 +0000

Last lap before Christmas

Not long till Christmas, so may I draw your attention to a couple of books for those of you wondering what to give a motor racing nut.

The first is a most unusual story. I mention this one because I haven’t read it myself yet and I’m hoping somebody will give it to me next week. Dear Santa… if you know the person, you know the perfect present…
“Crashed and Byrned – The Greatest racing Driver You Never Saw” is the story of an extremely talented racing driver called Tommy Byrne, and is told by a talented journalist called Mark Hughes. This is a book that many of us would have liked to have written but few of us could have done as well as Hughes, who has an eye for detail and a nice turn of phrase.

Tommy Byrne first came to my notice at the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch in the winter of 1981. I’d been aware of him, seen him at Thruxton, and there was clearly some talent, a natural speed. Then, having replaced Senna da Silva at Van Diemen, (the Brazilian had suddenly and mysteriously returned home, blaming lack of finance), Byrne blew them all away at Brands Hatch. I’m skimping over lots of stuff here – you’ll just have to read the book.

Tommy was immediately signed up for Formula 3 the following year, beating the much-fancied Martin Brundle in the opening round at Thruxton, and going on to win the BP F3 Championship despite missing some races. He missed these because he was already racing Teddy Yip’s Theodore-Ford TY02 in Formula One, making his debut at the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim that August, just months after stepping up from Formula Ford. Byrne failed to qualify that weekend but he’d already made a huge impression and was given a test by McLaren at Silverstone in the autumn of 1982. He didn’t get the drive but many who were there that day claimed that his times were the fastest of all.

It’s often been said that Tommy Byrne was as fast as his nemesis Senna da Silva. Certainly there was no love lost between these two very different characters. I am not qualified to say if he was as fast, or he wasn’t, but Byrne was one hell of a racing driver. In those days we had a radio programme called ‘Track Torque’ and Tommy could always be relied upon for some pithy and outspoken conversation. He was confident, possibly too confident, believing that raw talent would take him to the top.

But motor racing isn’t like that. To get to the top, especially in Formula One, your face has to fit. The powerbrokers will be studying the cut of your jib. So, to cut a long story short, it all went wrong for Tommy Byrne. And this is where the book, I’m sure, will be gripping. The Irishman fell foul of wine, women and song. Byrne fled to America where he continued to win races. But his chance of Grand Prix glory was gone.

1983 British Formula 3 Championship, Thruxton, Great Britain. Ayrton Senna leads Davy Jones, Martin Brundle (all Ralt RT3-Toyota) and the field at the start.

The other book I want to recommend is vaguely connected. “The Life of Senna” by Tom Rubython is, in my view, the best of the many books about the great man from Sao Paulo. And, yes, Tommy Byrne is part of the early story which traces Senna’s first steps up the ladder through British Formula Ford and Formula Three. These are revealing chapters, relating the early signs of his fiercely combative, and competitive, spirit. This is a fascinating story and no true motor racing fan should be without a copy.

If books are not your thing, then how about the World Rally Championship DVD? After a huge lunch, or supper, next Thursday you can sit back and ride alongside some of the most daring drivers on the planet. On second thoughts, this might be more comfortable before, rather than after, your Christmas feast.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Struggling to stay in love with F1

Nigel Roebuck — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:51:30 +0000

Struggling to stay in love with F1

Dear Nigel,

Not so much a question, but more a thank you.

I found myself at the British Grand Prix in 1984. I watched the cars go off on their warm-up lap and was blown away by the noise and power. They all stopped and went away for real, 20-odd turbo cars, popping and banging, sliding away.

From that moment I was hooked, and found every outlet that could provide me with information about F1. I discovered Autosport and read every article that you wrote. I discovered Gilles through you, bought every book and tape about him, even named a cat after him. I also noticed somewhat that F1 for you died the day he died. In my young mind I never really got to grips with this, just carried on my merry way, though still absorbing all you wrote…

Then for me, on May 1 1994, my F1 world fell apart. Although I was to attend many a race after this, my F1 world had finished. The flame had gone out and I understood what you went through at Zolder. Now I try to watch the races, but they leave me cold. Something that had touched me so deeply no longer has any meaning – it’s just cars trundling round…

Martin Poole

Dear Martin,

First of all, let me thank you for your compliments. I’m glad you became such an F1 fan – and sad that you no longer are.

I once wrote that Eoin Young, a well-established journalist when I started, and someone who became a close friend, one day said to me that I would make a make a friend of a racing driver, that he would then be killed, and that I would never thereafter look upon racing in quite the same way. It happened to everyone, Young said, and in his case the driver had been Bruce McLaren.

In mine, it was indeed Gilles Villeneuve, and probably it’s true that my attitude changed after that day at Zolder in 1982, in the sense that thereafter I took care not to become so close to another racing driver. It didn’t, of course, keep me from getting on well with drivers, and enjoying their company, but fundamentally I thought that close friendship was probably a bad idea. I was mighty glad, I must say, when such as Mario Andretti and Keke Rosberg, already long-time friends, retired intact. Racing, let’s remember, used to be a great deal more dangerous than it is today.

You ask, though, when did ‘the magic stop’ for me, and I have to tell you that it never did, and it never has. Yes, I was shattered when Gilles was killed, and, yes, although we were never close friends, I was greatly distressed when Ayrton died at Imola a dozen years later. But although I can’t say I like some of the changes which have come to F1 in recent times, I still fundamentally adore it, and I’m sure I always will.

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