Mario Andretti in the rain at Montreal’s 1978 season finale

There are some drivers whose careers can be measured easily in statistics, their achievements neatly catalogued in tables of wins and championships. There are others whose contribution to motor sport stretches so far beyond the cockpit that any attempt to define them solely by their race results feels hopelessly inadequate. Alex Wurz belongs emphatically in the latter category. He was and/or is: a BMX champion at 12; a Le Mans winner at 22; a Formula 1 podium finisher for Benetton, McLaren and Williams; one of the most respected test and development drivers of his generation; a businessman; a circuit designer; a road safety pioneer; a TV commentator; a chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association; a team management consultant; and a driver mentor. He is now 52, and over the past four decades he has immersed himself in every conceivable facet of the sport.

He has always possessed an unusually restless intelligence, coupled with an infectious enthusiasm for understanding not only what makes race cars work but also why teams succeed, how drivers can improve, how safety must evolve and why leadership matters. Even in his teens he was forever analysing, questioning and observing, storing away lessons that would later underpin an astonishingly diverse career.

His journey began a long way from the glamour of F1. “I grew up in rural north-east Austria, which is an undulating highland of dense forests and granite rock formations, and is the coldest region of the country. My family comes from milling – making flour – and I’m of the first generation that didn’t do that. It was a fantastic part of the world to grow up in – sparsely populated but wonderful countryside near the Czech border – and I remember that as a five-year-old I used to ride my bike to the border and watch the Czech soldiers patrolling the other side.

Renault Formula 1 driver walks through the paddock with a companion — From left: Former BMX champ at Monza 1997, when he was Benetton’s reserve driver; Alex Wurz, German Formula 3, 1993

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“Soon we moved to Vienna because, although our part of rural north-east Austria was a beautiful wilderness, it began to face economic difficulties and my father [Franz Wurz, European Rallycross champion in 1974, 1976 and 1982], who had retired from motor sport competition, had to find a way to earn more money. So he started a driver training and road safety business in Vienna, which he and my mother [Berta] ran together. Their company [Test & Training International] is a big business today, which my dad and I run together. As a kid I helped out, doing odd-jobs, but also watching, listening and learning. I also began to drive cars and ride motorcycles – on private property because I was too young for public roads – on dry asphalt, on wet gravel, on mud and on snow, and that taught me a lot early on, and what it taught me was different from what my future rivals were learning in karts at the same stage of their driving education.”

That final observation is typical Wurz. Where others might remember only the romance of childhood, he instinctively identifies the formative lesson concealed within it. Long before telemetry, simulators and engineering debriefs became integral to elite motor sport, he was compiling a remarkably broad understanding of vehicle dynamics, savouring grip levels on every imaginable surface and absorbing the practical realities of controlling machinery in constantly changing conditions. However, his competitive instincts surfaced on two wheels rather than four. “One of my cousins came to stay with us when I was 11, and he had a BMX bike which he offered me the chance to have a go on. I was used to riding my shitty old bike, so of course I said yes. I was immediately quick so straight away I entered a BMX Austrian championship race, without knowing anything about how to ride a BMX bike properly, and I finished second. So after that I started taking it seriously, training hard and working on my technique, and the following year, when I was 12, I entered my first international BMX race, in Riccione, Italy, which was the 1986 BMX World Championship, and I won it.

Young driver poses in a Fiat racing suit — Driving a Dallara-Opel for G+M Escom in the 1994 German F3 championship – he finished the season second behind Jörg Müller

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“And here’s a funny story. The day before, I asked my dad, ‘What will you do if I win the championship?’ He said, ‘If you win the championship, I’ll give you 15,000 Austrian schillings [£650 in 1986].’ When I won it, he went to the bank and withdrew 15,000 one-schilling coins in a big sack that weighed 63kg, which was too heavy for me to carry.” Franz Wurz had every reason to be proud of his precociously gifted son, but he also understood the value of ensuring that success never became detached from humour or perspective. Alex recounts the episode with delight, as though the enormous sack of coins somehow symbolised not merely victory but the family ethos that surrounded it: hard work rewarded generously but never solemnly.

“I managed to do well in karting whenever it was wet. Ever since then I’ve loved racing in the rain”

“As my father’s business developed, we became comfortably wealthy, but certainly not seriously rich. So my dad had to work very hard to raise extra money via sponsorship, which he was good at doing, and, in the end, he had to risk his own money, too. I quickly became too tall [Alex is now 6ft 2in] and too heavy for karting, so I didn’t do a lot of it, but I still learned from it and I managed to do quite well whenever it was wet. Ever since then I’ve always loved racing in the rain. But, after karting, the junior series went well for me. First I did Formula Ford, financed half by my father’s sponsorship-acquisition success and half by [Interserie and Group C racer, sports car team boss and driver mentor] Walter Lechner Sr, and I had a really good time there – 26 race wins, 28 pole positions and 40-odd podiums out of 50-odd races.

“Next up was F3, as a result of [sports car ace turned driver management svengali] Helmut Marko giving me a funded seat in his team. The next year [with another team] I was second in the German championship [scoring three wins, all of them at Hockenheim]. That was when I had my first big accident, at the Wunstorf airfield circuit, with Norberto Fontana, which ended my chances of beating [eventual champion] Jörg Müller to the title. My car went under the guardrail; the guardrail missed my head by 10cm, instead hitting the roll hoop and swiping it clean off; and my car and I ended up in a spectator area. It turned out that the guardrail had been incorrectly assembled, and from then on I decided that I was going to start taking safety seriously.”

Opel Hutchison Telecom racing car competing on a circuit. — In 1996 there was a shift to the International Touring Car Championship driving a Calibra V6 for Team Joest Opel – here at Hockenheim

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Most young drivers emerge from frightening accidents simply grateful to have survived unscathed. Wurz did that, certainly, but he also began asking deeper questions. Why had the barrier failed? How could circuits be made safer? What responsibility did competitors themselves bear for improving standards? Those questions have remained with him for the rest of his life, eventually becoming every bit as important to him as lap times and trophies.

The middle years of his career are remembered principally through the prism of F1, but that perspective does him a disservice. Even before he reached grand prix racing, he had already established himself as one of Europe’s most versatile young drivers, equally capable of adapting to touring cars, sports prototypes and single-seaters. It was an adaptability born not merely of talent but of an unusual willingness to embrace opportunity wherever it appeared. Where some young drivers regarded anything other than formula cars as a distraction, Wurz saw every new discipline as another chance to learn. “I’d convinced [sports car ace and team owner] Reinhold Joest that I was crazy about Le Mans, so he gave me a test in his Porsche WSC-95 Le Mans car at Paul Ricard.”

“When I look back on those Benetton years, I’d say I lacked backing from within the team”

Despite Wurz’s late arrival and his having never driven either the car or the circuit before, he jumped in at midnight and went faster than the team’s regular drivers after just three laps. “That’s right – the team even examined the data to check whether I’d cut the corners! I still have no idea how I managed it, but I knew straight away that I just loved being at the wheel of a sports car. Reinhold gave me another test and that went well too, so he said, ‘OK, I want you to race for me at Le Mans.’

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“Just before that I’d had a meeting with Flavio Briatore [the Benetton F1 team principal] and he’d said, ‘If you win Le Mans I’ll give you an F1 test.’ Well, I won Le Mans, so I received a fax from Briatore’s office saying that at the end of the year I’d be invited to test the Benetton F1 car in a shootout against Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli.” It is worth pausing to appreciate the magnitude of that Le Mans victory. To win the world’s greatest endurance race outright at the age of just 22 – still a record 30 years later – remains a truly remarkable accomplishment. Just as important, it reminded an F1 grandee that an exceptional talent was waiting to be trialled.

Racing driver speaks with a Formula car driver during testing — From left: Joest’s Davy Jones, Manuel Reuter and Wurz, winners of the ’96 Le Mans 24 Hours

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“The test was at Estoril, in November [1996], and I knew that I had to find a way to prepare myself because I’d never driven a seriously fast single-seater before [whereas one of his shootout rivals, Fisichella, had already raced half a season in an F1 Minardi]. So I spoke to [Formula 3000 team owner] David Sears and he offered me the chance to test his Reynard F3000 car at Estoril the day before my Benetton test, at low cost. That was very valuable because in those days the best F3000 cars were just about as quick as the worst F1 cars, and the next day I was immediately only a quarter of a second off the best times set by Benetton’s race drivers, Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi. When I got out of the car Pat Symonds [Benetton’s most senior race engineer] asked me, ‘Is this really your first time in an F1 car?’ I was able to reply, honestly, ‘Yes, it is.’ And he said, ‘OK, you’ve got the test and reserve driver job for 1997.’”

Then, in 1997, Berger fell ill, and Wurz was given the chance to make his F1 debut, in Montreal. He did well there, although he DNF’d in the race with transmission failure. He outqualified Jean Alesi in his second race, at Magny-Cours, but he spun off after 60 laps. Then, at Silverstone, his third grand prix, he outqualified Alesi again, he finished an excellent third, and, I suggest with a wink, he just might have won. “Maybe. I qualified eighth, we’d opted for a one-stop strategy, I’d never driven the car with so much fuel [90kg], and Pat Symonds and Nick Wirth [technical director] told me before the race, ‘It’ll feel like a big school bus at first, but by the end of the race it’ll feel good.’ They were right – but, before that, when we came to the pitstops, I should have got the undercut, because I was the faster driver that weekend, but instead they gave it to Alesi because he was the regular race driver. As a result, after the pitstops I came out just behind Jean. Jacques Villeneuve [Williams] won, Jean was second and I was third – but, yes, if I’d got the undercut, Pat told me that I might well have won.”

“I guess I wanted a change – and it happened thanks to a surprise phone call from Frank Williams”

Berger and Alesi both departed Benetton at the end of 1997, to be replaced by Wurz and Fisichella. “I started 1998 very well – beating Giancarlo, who was seen as the next F1 superstar at that time – then in the middle of the season I started to experiment a little bit too much with set-ups, but I recovered, and by the end of the season I’d scored more points than him [17 versus 16]. We were pushing each other, but getting on well, and everyone in the team was happy.

“Then our 1999 car was very heavy – and, because I was taller [by 14cm] and heavier [by 12kg] than Giancarlo, I was disadvantaged by about half a second a lap. If you factor that into my lap times, I was just as quick as he was, but the team didn’t want us to tell anyone that the car was so overweight, so no one knew, and I looked slow. As the season went on, the team managed to make the car lighter, but it took time and it damaged my reputation.

Benetton Formula 1 car racing in front of a large crowd. — Wurz deputised for Gerhard Berger in the 1997 British Grand Prix and earned a podium place in just his third F1 race

AFP via Getty Images

“In 2000 I injured my knee in a motocross accident. I had two operations on it in the middle of the season but I didn’t tell anyone because I knew that the team would disapprove of me doing motocross. Then I had a jet-ski accident and broke a rib, which I also kept quiet about for the same reason, and I did five races with that broken rib, with [FIA medical delegate] Sid Watkins secretly injecting me for those five races so as to numb the pain. The 2000 car was OK, but the season was difficult for me as you can imagine, and I broke up with my girlfriend [Karin Michal], so I had a lot going on.

“As a result of all that, even though I wasn’t much slower than Giancarlo even with all my injuries and so on, he became very much the number one and I became very much the number two. We had a qualifying car in those days, which was lighter than the race cars, which meant that you could place ballast in it so as to lower its centre of gravity, and he always got it. Then, as my injuries healed, I began to qualify on a par with him or maybe even a little faster, he got a bit angry about it, and he told the team that the qualifying car must be shit. So, in the last race of the season, in Malaysia, the team let me have a go in the qualifying car for the first time – and I qualified fifth and Giancarlo qualified 13th [0.743sec slower than Wurz]. By that time I’d lost my Benetton drive for 2001, but at least I’d proved to myself that I was still proper quick.

“I just wanted to go back to racing a cool-looking car in which I could compete for wins”

“When I look back on those Benetton years, I suppose I’d say that I lacked enough of that all-important backing from within the team. All sports players need that – footballers, ski-jumpers, tennis players, everyone – and nowadays F1 teams are much better at providing it than they used to be when I was racing, at which time things were much more cut-throat.”

There speaks a man who has long since exchanged bitterness for perspective. Lesser competitors might dwell on perceived injustices, but Wurz neither rewrites history nor indulges in grievance. Instead, he analyses events with the detachment of someone who has spent decades studying how elite organisations function. His observations about confidence, support and culture would later prove invaluable in his own leadership roles away from the cockpit. The same balance is evident when discussing one of the more extraordinary anecdotes from his F1 career. “Nick Wirth created a spreadsheet on which he costed an operation to shorten both my femurs, to make me shorter and lighter. When he put it to me, I replied with two words: one began with an ‘f’ and the other began with an ‘o’. I mean: I was committed to my racing career, but there are limits, and I wasn’t prepared to allow my team to break my legs to make me shorter.” Wurz’s height and weight were indeed engineering inconveniences in a sport in which every kilogramme mattered, but his earthy response to Wirth’s macabre proposal ensured that one particular optimisation exercise progressed no farther than a spreadsheet.

Wurz’s Benetton chapter had come to an end. Ahead lay another, at one of F1’s most celebrated teams, where opportunity, frustration and loyalty would become inextricably intertwined. The move to McLaren might at first glance have appeared to represent a backward step. After all, he was exchanging a race seat for the role of test driver. However, F1 at the beginning of the 21st century was a very different beast from today’s tightly regulated championship, and unlimited testing meant that test drivers were very important people. They accumulated thousands upon thousands of testing miles, they worked hand in glove with engineers, they refined new components, they developed simulators and they often became indispensable to an F1 team’s competitive fortunes. Few fulfilled the role with greater diligence or technical insight than Wurz. “I had no good options for 2001 so I decided to try to do what Olivier Panis had just done, which was to test for McLaren for a year, impress people and thereby get an F1 race drive [which Panis succeeded in doing with BAR in 2001 after having tested for McLaren in 2000]. At the end of 2001, when Mika Häkkinen retired, I was expecting to race for McLaren alongside David Coulthard in 2002 because I’d been told that that was the case by Martin Whitmarsh [managing director] and Adrian Newey [technical director]. But what they didn’t know was that Ron Dennis [team principal] had set on the idea of poaching Kimi Räikkönen from Sauber. Don’t get me wrong: I like Kimi, and he was a great driver, but obviously it was unfortunate for me that he came onto the driver market at exactly the time when I thought – because I’d been told – that I was going to get my big chance with McLaren. Then I got a race drive offer for 2004 from Jaguar, when Tony Purnell was in charge there, and that was going to go through, but at the last minute Ron blocked it because he said I was too important an asset to McLaren.”

Toyota racing team members celebrate together inside the garage — Wurz made his final appearance for Benetton, after three full seasons, at the Malaysian Grand Prix in 2000; he ended the year with just two points

LAT Images

The irony was unmistakeable: Wurz’s work behind the scenes strengthened McLaren enormously, yet the very excellence with which he fulfilled that role reduced his chances of escaping it. But perhaps nothing encapsulates those contradictions better than the remarkable sequence of events that unfolded in 2005. “Because it had been assumed at one point that I was going to leave McLaren to race for Jaguar the following year, 2005 [which did not happen because Jaguar’s F1 team was sold to Red Bull for 2005], Ron told the McLaren designers that they didn’t have to design the cockpit of the 2005 McLaren so that it could accommodate someone whose legs and arms were as long as mine. And when my 2005 Jaguar deal fell through, Ron didn’t tell them that they needed to alter the design, so I didn’t fit the 2005 car. For that reason [fellow McLaren test driver] Pedro de la Rosa, who is a dear friend of mine now, got the first chance to deputise for Juan Pablo Montoya when he was injured. I did the Friday running for that race [Bahrain 2005] but I had so little room in the cockpit that I had to steer one-handed, so Pedro qualified and raced the car. After that, for the next race, which was at Imola, McLaren spent a hell of a lot of money to adapt the car so that I could drive it properly, and I qualified seventh and ended up third in the race. That was cool but after that I was back to testing. I guess I wanted a change by then – and it happened thanks to a surprise phone call from Frank Williams, asking me if I could come to see him, because he said he wanted a top-class test driver, so I flew to England and we did a deal.

“Then, when Mark Webber left Williams at the end of 2006 to go to Red Bull, Frank Williams and Patrick Head [Williams’ technical director] decided that, because my testing lap times had been strong and I’d made very few mistakes in 2006, they’d give me a race drive for 2007 alongside Nico Rosberg. But the 2007 Bridgestones were quite spongy, I couldn’t get a good feel for how to lean on them, and it took me a really long time to get back to any sort of good lap times in qualifying. In the races I was fine but I struggled in qualifying – usually two-and-a-half tenths off Rosberg, who was admittedly a great qualifier as he later showed at Mercedes against Lewis Hamilton. But in the few races in 2007 in which there was changeable weather – like Montreal [where Wurz finished third] and Nürburgring [where he finished fourth] – I was able to race cleverly and fast to recover from comparatively poor grid positions.

Young Formula 1 driver rides a bicycle through the paddock — After his stint at Benetton, Wurz became McLaren’s test/reserve driver in 2001 – with David Coulthard and Mika Häkkinen in the hot seats

Grand Prix Photo

“All in all, I guess my F1 career can be seen as a bit frustrating in some ways, but I’m not upset about it because, when I step back and look at it now, I’m able to say that I was fighting against the absolute best drivers in the world, in three legendary F1 teams, Benetton, McLaren and Williams.”

If F1 had provided Wurz with some of the greatest challenges of his career, endurance racing would ultimately restore something equally precious: uncomplicated joy. “I’d been at an FIA Institute road safety conference at Paul Ricard, and I’d seen the Peugeot WEC car testing there. It looked so cool, so I said to my manager at the time, Didier Coton, ‘Get me a test in that car.’ So he did. We did a deal, the pay was low, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to go back to racing a cool-looking car in which I could compete for wins, at Le Mans and other great circuits, on tyres I could get on with [Michelins]. It worked. I loved it because I’d had a reset: it was a non-political environment where the only requirement was to drive a great car fast, which I did, and I loved having team-mates and racing the same car together.”

Young racing driver poses for a portrait in a Fiat racing suit — There was a single outing in 2005 with McLaren at the San Marino Grand Prix – a creditable third

Grand Prix Photo

The result was another Le Mans triumph, this time with Peugeot in 2009, together with a succession of WEC victories, first with Peugeot then with Toyota, that reaffirmed what shrewd insiders had never doubted: Wurz remained one of the world’s best drivers. Nonetheless, as he moved into his forties, management roles began to tempt him. “I was always very analytical, and I was always busy observing my environment, so, after I’d decided to hang up my helmet, Toyota offered me a chance to stay on, to help develop the team, and to ensure that the culture we’d built would continue. That culture was that, although the drivers are all alpha animals, they should always be treated the same, pull together as a team, respect one another and work collaboratively. And I’m still doing it. We won Le Mans outright this year, and that culture was part of what won it. I did a similar but different role for Williams, during which years we were quite successful, including Pastor Maldonado’s win in Barcelona in 2012, and I’m proud of the work I did with him at that time, and with the Williams engineers, particularly around Pirelli tyre management, which he responded to really well.”

From the archive

Benetton: when F1 was in fashion

Take a step back for a moment. An Austrian company that sells a sickly sweet, fizzy energy drink is the dominant force in the world’s most technically sophisticated and complex…

November 2023 Issue

By Damien Smith

Culture: it is a theme that recurs throughout our discussion, and the business empire that Wurz has quietly built rests on very much the same foundations. “My father started Test & Training International, and at 79 he’s still involved in the company, as managing director, and I run it with him. We work on road safety programmes and driver training programmes, and on a global basis we design facilities that carry out those programmes. But when I got involved I added another element: designing racetracks.

“In addition to all that, we do various consultancies in and around motor sport, we work for governments, we work for motor clubs and organisations, so we do quite a lot of other stuff. For example we devised and supplied the curriculum, education, training programme, training methods and training tools for Saudi Arabia when the ban on women driving there was lifted in 2018, and we devised and supplied the certification programme that every bus driver and every taxi driver has to do in Azerbaijan and Egypt. Test & Training International is the original company but as we expanded I started a second company, Wurz Design. Together, they cover the full spectrum of road safety, driver training, facility design and circuit design, including the architecture as well as the circuit layouts, and soon we’ll rebrand the whole operation under one brand name, which will be Wurz Design.” He has personally overseen the design of the Qiddiya Speed Park in Qiddiya City, Saudi Arabia, a magnificently ambitious motor sport complex that will host the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix from 2028, replacing the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

Formula 1 drivers celebrate together on the Canadian Grand Prix podium — From left: By 2007, Wurz, right, was back in a full-time seat with Williams; with Pastor Maldonado, ’12

Sutton Images, Jean Michel Le Meur/DPPI

“I also commentate on F1 races for ORF [Österreichischer Rundfunk, Austria’s national public TV broadcaster] and I’ve been the chairman of the GPDA [Grand Prix Drivers’ Association] since 2014, which is an unpaid position, and I’ve enjoyed it enormously, but it was never my intention to do it for ever. It was Sebastian Vettel who suggested I become chairman, even though I wasn’t an active F1 driver, because he made the very good point that it would be beneficial to have a GPDA chairman who had the right experience yet could be impartial because he wasn’t racing for an F1 team. Before me, the chairman had always been an active F1 driver.

McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 car races around the circuit — Wurz liked the look of Peugeot’s WEC challenger; he’d drive the 908 to victory in the 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours

Grand Prix Photo

“I wasn’t sure, because I wanted to focus on my business, but he asked me at least to do a presentation to the drivers, at Suzuka in 2014, to tell them what I thought the role, remit and responsibility of the GPDA should be. After all, I’d been a director of the GPDA before, when David Coulthard and Michael Schumacher had been my fellow directors, with Michael as chairman. So, on the Saturday of the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix I did my presentation during the drivers’ meeting, and afterwards one of the drivers, Jules Bianchi, repeated Sebastian’s suggestion: ‘You should be our chairman, Alex.’ But still I wasn’t sure.

“Being an F1 team principal is obviously an attractive option if the right opportunity were to arrive”

“Then, the next day, Jules had his terrible accident, from which he never recovered, and I realised, as I was doing the live ORF TV commentary, that there was no one in the paddock who was impartial and who could do the crucial work of going around all the teams and all the media, helping and guiding them towards a consistent and considerate set of statements and positions in respect of what was clearly a tragic developing situation. So I excused myself from the ORF commentary box, I ran down to the F1 paddock and I did it myself. I took the job of GPDA chairman after that, and, although there will always be some disagreements, I think we’ve achieved a lot in terms of fostering driver unity.”

Racing driver poses for a close-up portrait — With Charlie Wurz in 2024 – Alex’s son was racing for Jenzer in the Formula 3 Championship

Getty Images

Now, in 2026, Wurz has accumulated an enviable portfolio of accomplishments. His businesses are thriving, he continues to advise Toyota’s WEC programme, his TV work has made him one of F1’s most respected broadcasters, and his stewardship of the GPDA has earned widespread admiration throughout the F1 paddock. Unsurprisingly, his name has periodically surfaced when significant leadership positions have become available.

“Let’s start with the F1 team principal rumours. I’ve been privileged that occasionally I’ve been asked to consider such positions – like at Lotus, when that team was controlled by Gérard López and Eric Lux [the two Luxembourgish businessmen who co-own Genii Capital, which owned Lotus], and later at Williams, when Claire Williams suggested that I move into a senior management role to allow her to step up into more of an ownership-focused role. In the end, for various reasons, neither position was quite right – but being an F1 team principal is obviously an attractive option if the right opportunity were to arise.

Racing driver poses for a professional portrait — Still at the heart of motor sport in 2026 as an adviser and ambassador for Toyota in the WEC

Getty Images

“As for the FIA presidency, if you look at the skill set required, my CV is obviously pretty well-suited because I’ve been a driver in F1 and WEC, I’ve managed the GPDA for many years and I run a business that focuses on motor sport and mobility, which are the two areas over which the FIA presides. But what people have to understand is that running for the FIA presidency isn’t a popularity contest in the F1 paddock, the F1 media or the F1 fan community. No, the electorate is solely the 245 member clubs of the FIA. A number of people suggested that I should put my name forward, and that was flattering, but it was clear that the people in charge of the 245 FIA member clubs were largely happy with Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the incumbent FIA president, so it made no sense to consider that suggestion or to pursue it.”

Ben Sulayem has faced sharp criticism for his running of the FIA and accusations that under his leadership the organisation lacks transparency. Wurz won’t be drawn, however: “Rather than oppose the FIA members’ direction I would rather offer my help to Mohammed and the FIA.”

Winning drivers celebrate on the Le Mans podium after victory — Track design is also a Wurz wheeze; from 2028 Qiddiya Speed Park circuit will host the Saudi GP

NurPhoto

And what of Wurz the man? “I met my wife Julia [née Horden] when I was racing for Benetton, where she was the team’s PR manager, and she and my three sons are the most important and most loved people in my life. She’s a wonderful wife and Felix, Charlie and Oscar are all good boys with proper values and manners. All three of them have done some racing, but now only Charlie [20] and Oscar [18] are doing it. I don’t want to make any predictions about what series they’ll end up racing in but they both have the chance to become professionals as long as they get the breaks and the luck that everyone needs.”

A final question. Bearing in mind Alex’s workload across multiple projects, do his earnings equal the financial rewards that he used to enjoy when he was an F1 driver? His answer is delivered with a sheepish grin: “I’m not ashamed to say that they exceed them.” Yet, in conversation, the success, the fame and the accolades all feel curiously incidental. What remains is an intelligent, engaging and quietly humorous man whose enthusiasm for motor sport has never diminished, whose appetite for learning remains undimmed, and whose instinct, whenever confronted with a challenge, is to ask not merely how it can be overcome, but how everyone might benefit from the solution.

Junior formula racing car takes a corner on the circuit — Getty Images

CV

BORN: 15/02/1974, LOWER AUSTRIA, AUSTRIA

● 1993-1995 German Formula 3; finishes 13th in 1993, 2nd in ’94 and 6th in ’95.

● 1996 Joest driver in the International Touring Car Championship (Opel Calibra); wins the Le Mans 24 Hours (Joest).

● 1997-2000 Three F1 drives for Benetton in ’97 (3rd in British GP). Full-time driver 98-00; best season 8th in standings (’98).

● 2001-05 McLaren test driver; appears in 2005 San Marino Grand Prix (3rd).

● 2006-07 Williams F1 test driver before full F1 season; 3rd in 2007 Canadian GP. Involved with Test & Training International.

● 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours win (Peugeot).

● 2012-15 WEC driver with Toyota; wins at Interlagos, Fuji and Shanghai (2012), Fuji (2013) and Bahrain (2014).

● 2014 Becomes chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association.

● 2015 Final Le Mans 24 Hours – his ninth

Mario Andretti in the rain at Montreal’s 1978 season finale

“We are delighted to confirm that the filming, on the Circuit Automobile de Montagne d’Auvergne, for the film Grand Prix, will take place from July 28 to August 6, from 8am to 6pm.”

So reads the letter from Jean Auchatraire, president of the local motor sport federation, to the Clermont-Ferrand circuit management – and dated just nine days before ‘Hollywood’ descended upon this rustic corner of eastern France. Auchatraire had struck up a dialogue with the creators of what would become the greatest ever Formula 1-based movie, because Reims, venue for the 1966 French Grand Prix, had declined to become involved.

Historic single-seaters climb through Charade’s wooded section above Clermont-Ferrand — In July, France’s Circuit de Charade hosted Motor Racing Legends’ Trophées d’Auvergne

Sixty years later, at Motor Racing Legends’ Trophées d’Auvergne meeting in July, the anniversary of this momentous occasion was celebrated. MRL took grids that included 1960s Formula 1 racers to a circuit latterly more commonly known as Charade, and a special screening of Grand Prix was held one evening in the paddock.

Some of the older folk in attendance would have been among the 3000 film extras in 1966, paid 50 francs per day for their efforts, which included transportation to the circuit from the Place de Salins in Clermont-Ferrand at the hands of these glamorous Californians who had set up camp in their town. “In 1966 I was 11 years old and lived in Royat, the municipality where part of the Charade circuit was located,” recalls Jean-Paul Taillandier, president of Agissons pour Charade, which aims to awaken young people to the circuit’s heritage.

“I wasn’t among the extras who were paid and transported to the circuit, but I remember very well Royat in a state of great excitement. The SEGTRA garage [Peugeot and Esso] had become the ‘Ferrari’ garage. And some scenes were filmed in the streets of Royat, near the SNCF train station, which resembled certain streets in Monaco.

“I don’t think there’s one of us who doesn’t ask himself at least once in the middle of a race, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ Of course, when it’s over, we conveniently forget that we asked ourselves that question… Maybe to do something that brings you so close to the possibility of death and to survive it is to feel life and living so much more intensely.”
– Pete Aron, 1966

“You have to remember that in 1966 globalisation did not exist, so seeing all those Americans arrive with all that film equipment and all those racing cars, and being able to see James Garner, Yves Montand and Françoise Hardy in the flesh was incredible, even for the older generation. We were all filled with wonder.”

Several of the grand prix regulars of the day were involved in filming, part of a quickfire ‘triple header’ following the British GP at Brands Hatch and Dutch GP at Zandvoort, both of which yielded coverage for the movie. Nürburgring wasn’t part of the film, but those involved were shepherded onto a charter flight in order to get to the German GP immediately afterwards.

Historic single-seaters race through the Charade circuit’s sweeping bends — The track, aka Clermont-Ferrand, was used in the Grand Prix film in 1966 for the ‘French GP’

It is an era fondly remembered, as Taillandier explains. “Maybe the only thing missing was the crowd dressed in 1960s style, like at Goodwood!” he says of the Trophées d’Auvergne event. “Jan Magnussen and his 1973 Lola T292 dazzled – it’s been a long time since such a fast car was seen on the track [that’s appropriate, because Guy Edwards won the Trophée d’Auvergne, a round of the European 2-Litre Sportscar series, in an identical T292 in ’73]. Spectators loved it. We should sort another edition.”

Now read on to find out how the Grand Prix script unfolded…

This celluloid classic emerged 60 years ago amid a blizzard of hype. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released it in the US as a ‘reserved seat feature’ whereby customers were obliged to pay an elevated admission fee to see it. They did so in droves. Grand Prix was a commercial success, if not necessarily a critical one. Despite its flaws, and there are many, it remains the greatest motor racing film of them all. You could argue that this isn’t saying much given the competition. Racing flicks are often awful. Just ask anyone who has sat through more than the opening credits of Driven, but bear with us.

Much of the latter-day fascination with Grand Prix centres on the effort invested in making it. This was a saga in itself. Helmsman John Frankenheimer had been a jobbing TV director prior to making the leap to the big screen, earning plaudits for films such as Birdman of Alcatraz and The Manchurian Candidate. However, Grand Prix was not only his maiden blockbuster, but also his first movie shot in colour. MGM bankrolled the film, but a rival studio had similar ideas so it soon became a race to see which film would be released first.

A historic single-seater races around Charade circuit during the anniversary event — F1 cars from the ’50s and ’60s were on the grid. Left: and there was a showing of Grand Prix

The precise backstory behind how the film came to be made depends on whose version of history you believe. Even then, those doing the recounting didn’t necessarily tell the same story the same way twice. Frankenheimer, for his part, insisted in interviews spanning several decades that he had always loved motor racing, and had competed at amateur level while in college in Massachusetts. This was taken as gospel and repeated in several scholarly texts on the auteur. Frankenheimer wasn’t known to suffer fools or stomach dissent, but even he changed his mind about his racing career in later years (he briefly campaigned a Triumph Spitfire in SCCA events, by which time he was an established Hollywood film director).

In 1969, he told author Gerald Pratley: “I had thought of the idea of Grand Prix while I was in France filming The Train. I have always been interested in automobile racing. I used to do it as an amateur. I love it, and still do.” According to the Facts for Editorial Reference booklet that accompanied the release of Grand Prix, Frankenheimer was inspired to make the film after visiting a race. It reported, not altogether coherently: “Spring 1964. Perhaps the greatest theatrical ‘occasion’ in Britain was Sir Laurence Olivier as Othello. To visiting American actress Evans Evans, it was a must. But her husband [Frankenheimer] had other ideas.”

Historic single-seaters race through a street circuit during filming of Grand Prix — Spa town Royat doubled as Monaco

Joris ClercC

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Frankenheimer decided he would spectate at the endurance classic instead, which in turn led to him attending various Formula 1 races. According to Charles Champlin’s John Frankenheimer – A Conversation, which was published in 1995, the kernel of an idea was formed. Frankenheimer said: ‘‘I called Eddie Lewis, my partner at the time, and said: ‘Eddie, I’ve got a great idea for a movie about grand prix racing,’ and I took him to the grand prix at Watkins Glen, New York. Eddie said: “It’s not exactly my cup of tea, but I can see what attracted you to it.” He asked me what we should call it and I didn’t know. Eddie said: ‘Let’s give it the working title of Grand Prix.’

“We hired Robert Alan Aurthur, whom I had worked with in my live television days, to do the script and we had Steve McQueen. That was a done deal. Then fate got in the way.” By which he meant ‘The Cooler King’ had taken an instant dislike to Lewis, the film’s producer, during their initial meeting. He blew hot and cold on the idea before flying to Taiwan to make The Sand Pebbles. He then announced that he would do a motor racing movie of his own alongside The Great Escape director John Sturges.

1966 Grand Prix production call sheet lists actors, drivers and filming arrangements at Clermont-Ferrand — The original set running order kept by the circuit archivist

Agissons Pour Charade

Frankenheimer toyed with making a film about the relationship between a driver and his mechanic, before deciding to adapt Robert Daley’s book The Cruel Sport instead, and went so far as to hire the sometime New York Times journalist to prepare a script. His screenplay was subsequently reworked by Aurthur, whose dialogue was in turn given a polish by an uncredited Bill Hanley – an Emmy-winning scriptwriter. Nevertheless, some quotes in the film were lifted near verbatim from Daley’s original potboiler.

“Listen, inviting an actor to drive in Formula 1 is like asking Phil Hill to play Hamlet”

The plot centres on Pete Aron, a talented driver who nevertheless has been without a win for three years. The American loses his seat with the Jordan-BRM team following a clash with team-mate Scott Stoddard during the Monaco Grand Prix, the Briton being seriously injured and facing the possibility of never racing again. Aron finds comfort in the arms of Stoddard’s wife, a former model who is bored of being married to a man who lives in the shadow of his dead brother, 1958 world champion Roger Stoddard.

Grand Prix film crew and racing cars gather on the grid during production — Filming at Clermont-Ferrand in 1966

Bernard Cahier/Getty Images

Corsican Jean-Pierre Sarti, meanwhile, is eager to bow out of the sport with a third drivers’ title. But he is locked in a loveless marriage and is distracted by magazine editor Louise Frederickson, who is on assignment following the grand prix circus. Aron misses the following race and is obliged to act as a TV pundit, but finds a career lifeline with a Japanese team funded by industrialist (and former World War II fighter pilot) Izo Yamura. He proceeds to win the next two rounds. By this time, Stoddard is back on track and in the hunt for the championship. Following the British Grand Prix, four drivers – Aron, Stoddard, Sarti and cocky Sicilian hot-shoe Nino Barlini – are in with a shot at the title at the season finale at Monza.

As the flag falls, Sarti is left behind at the start after stalling, but then sets about scything his way through the pack. He appears set to realise his ambition and leave the sport as the champion, only to depart the banked circuit and perish in a dramatic – and fiery – crash. His Manetta-Ferrari team-mate Barlini is then withdrawn from the race out of respect, leaving Aron to pip Stoddard to the title. Stoddard, however, is sanguine in defeat. He takes a prize of his own after he wins back his estranged wife. The end.

James Garner drives a racing car during filming of Grand Prix on a banked circuit — James Garner’s driving skills impressed racer/trainer Bob Bondurant, whereas Brian Bedford didn’t even have a licence

Bernard Cahier/Getty Images

The role of Aron went to James Garner, despite Frankenheimer objecting to his casting. After McQueen bailed, he homed in on Robert Redford, who was still a few years away from stardom. But MGM demanded Garner be given the role. He was joined by Yves Montand as Sarti, Eva Marie Saint as Frederickson, Antonio Sabàto as Barlini (in only his second-ever film role), and ‘yé-yé girl’ Françoise Hardy as his love interest. Frankenheimer had spotted the pouty chanteuse while visiting London’s Scotch Club and offered the 22-year-old the part on the spot.

British theatre actor Brian Bedford, whom Frankenheimer reckoned was the best performer of the lot, was cast as Stoddard, with Jessica Walter playing his wife. The brilliant Toshiro Mifune played Izo Yamura in his first English-speaking role (he learned his dialogue phonetically, only to be dubbed in post-production by ‘The Man of a Thousand Voices’, Paul Frees). But it was Frankenheimer’s visual dexterity that set Grand Prix on a pedestal among racing flicks. There was to be no back projection trickery or stock footage here. He demanded realism.

James Garner and crew members gather around a Formula 1 car during filming — Film director John Frankenheimer at Brands Hatch with French actor Yves Montand – who played driver Jean-Pierre Sarti

Bernard Cahier/Getty Images

At least one title claimed in period that he had initially planned on fielding his own Formula 1 squad. He would shoot exterior and in-car footage during each round of the 1966 F1 World Championship. But even MGM baulked at the cost, despite granting Frankenheimer an eight-figure budget. The production team then tapped each constructor for technical drawings, so that the special effects department could build replicas of each car. None were forthcoming. So Plan C was put into action, with the Jim Russell racing school adapting its fleet of Lotus Formula Juniors to resemble grand prix cars. A pair of genuine F1 cars – a 1.5-litre-era BRM and a Lotus Type 25/33 – were also acquired, the latter appearing on-screen as a Yamura, while a Shelby Cobra and Ford GT40 were employed as camera cars.

Former Formula 1 world champion Phil Hill was on hand as a technical adviser and camera car driver, with Jo Bonnier, Mike Spence, Richie Ginther and Graham Hill similarly making fleeting appearances in the finished film. Intriguingly, Graham Hill had been passionately against cameras being used in the races proper, so much so that there had been a blanket ban on their adoption. However, the Londoner and several other members of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association developed selective amnesia about this on learning of the film’s substantial backing (John Surtees resigned from the group in disgust).

A racing driver sits in a single-seater during filming of Grand Prix — F1’s 1961 world champion Phil Hill drove a modified camera car – here at Monaco, and also Spa

Getty Images, Sutton Images

More than 20 active or retired star drivers participated in the shoot, with Bob Bondurant tasked with whipping Garner into shape. He told Motor Sport in 2016: “James was a great natural driver. He listened and took direction very well. We started in a [Ford Shelby Mustang] GT350, moved on to a 289 Cobra and then a Formula Junior. Later on, we borrowed a BRM F1 car and he took a few laps in that as well.” The other ‘drivers’ were trained by Jim Russell, but none cut the mustard.

The 45-year-old Montand liked fast road cars but struggled to adapt to racing fare, while Sabàto was big on bravado but had no talent. Bedford, meanwhile, had yet to pass his driving test. From most accounts, and accounts aren’t difficult to come by, he would bristle whenever his lack of driving prowess was discussed. He came out with the deathless remark: “Listen, inviting an actor to drive in Formula 1 is like asking Phil Hill to play Hamlet.” The line eventually made it into the film’s promotional material.

James Garner sits in a Formula 1 car during filming of Grand Prix — Pete Aron squeezes into the Yamura car, with team owner Izo Yamura to the right – a character inspired by real-life industrialist Soichiro Honda

Getty Images, Sutton Images

Incredibly, the shoot began in May 1966 and finished in early October. The film was released in the US on December 21; in the UK in March 1967. That said, the Grand Prix crew didn’t endear themselves to the locals while shooting in Monaco for 15 days. The director recalled in John Frankenheimer – A Conversation: “When we did the picture, half of Monte Carlo was owned by [Aristotle] Onassis and half by the Grimaldis, Prince Rainier’s family. So when the Grimaldis opened up the road for us, Onassis would close his, and vice versa. Therefore, we could only operate on a mile or so of road, then we’d have to stop until the next day.

“We had merchants staging strikes. Unbelievable stuff. We were allowed on the track for two hours prior to the Formula 1 practice, so we closed down all the roads. What nobody anticipated was the massive traffic around Monte Carlo. Guess who was caught in the middle of it and missed the first practice? Colin Chapman, who built the Lotus racers, and his team. Imagine how that went over. ‘Yer bloody film!’ He’d been against it from the beginning anyway. We didn’t get much co-operation from Lotus.”

It also didn’t help that the set-up shot in which Stoddard’s car was fired out of a hydrogen cannon dubbed ‘Big Blue’ took an age to perfect. Footage also exists of an uncharacteristically uptight Garner being fished out of the Mediterranean time and again after his ‘car’ had been sent into the drink. Then there was the small matter of placing bulky 65mm Cinerama cameras onto cars that required a degree of fabrication mastery. Much of this was perfected by former Cunningham racer, Bill Frick.

Formula 1 cars line the streets of Monaco during filming of Grand Prix — Phil Hill’s involvement in the production opened doors for the film crew in Europe – here at Monaco with mocked-up cars

LAT Images

Most of the other circuits used during the shoot were on the 1966 grand prix schedule aside from Clermont-Ferrand, which had made its first appearance on the world championship calendar in 1965 and substituted for Reims. Conspicuously absent from the shoot was the Nürburgring, the McQueen/Sturges rival production Day of the Champion having the exclusive rights to the venue. Matters spilled over at Spa when they shot footage in beautiful sunshine, only for it to rain next time out. Cue a thousand extras being doused with fire hoses for continuity purposes, only for the sun to reappear. Frankenheimer had a brainwave while editing the footage. He added a thunderclap to illustrate the transition from dry to wet.

At Brands Hatch, the Ferrari squad didn’t arrive due to a metal workers’ strike at the factory in Modena. To maintain continuity, privateer Chris Lawrence was persuaded to liberally apply red house paint to his Pearce-Ferrari (a 1962 Cooper with a 3-litre Ferrari engine) with a brush so that it could double for Sarti’s car in the race and during the following day’s shoot. Then a representative of the film’s underwriters, Lloyd’s of London, made an unscheduled appearance.

He was reputedly aghast on spotting actors aboard glorified sledges being towed behind the GT40 camera car. He was even less happy on seeing Garner blatting around at unabated speed on his own. So much so, the insurance policy was withdrawn on the spot. It took a lot of persuasion on MGM’s part to get it reinstated. On the plus side, Enzo Ferrari changed his stance on the film after seeing early rushes. So much so, he allowed Frankenheimer to film inside the factory.

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The show must go on, and it did. Frankenheimer employed ally Lionel Lindon as his principal cinematographer for the film. Lindon deserved a degree of veneration for being among the bravest members of the team, and often found himself hanging out of a helicopter during action sequences. He also devised and edited the in-car footage.

“‘We went to your movie. Pretty good picture.’ Coming from Steve McQueen, it was high praise”

One of the standout features of the film was the use of multiple images shown on a split screen. This was the work of graphic designer Saul Bass, although the director claimed in The Cinema of John Frankenheimer: “I got the idea from Francis Thompson’s film To be Alive! at the New York World’s Fair… Grand Prix was suited to the split screens… What we were trying to do was to show other events taking place, but, if you wanted to, you could keep on looking at the race.”

Throw in a rousing score by in-demand composer Maurice Jarre (father of future synth-music pioneer Jean-Michel) and Grand Prix had it made. It racked up three Academy Awards and recouped MGM’s investment and more. It wasn’t universally liked by reviewers, though. Bosley Crowther mused in The New York Times: “As it stands, or as it runs, this three-hour picture about the professional and romantic rivalries of four drivers making the grand-prix circuit in the season of 1966 is a smashing and thundering compilation of racing footage, shot superbly.” Stephen Faber, writing for Film Quarterly, described the non-racing scenes as “…awfully boring”.

A Formula 1 car passes a film camera during wet-weather Grand Prix filming — Grand Prix was a hit in ’66, while Garner’s interest in racing would grow – he’d become a team owner

LAT Images

The same title also ran effusive quotes from Stirling Moss and Jim Clark, which was strange given both were allied to Race of the Champion, which was never completed. It’s worth pointing out that far greater emphasis was placed on Sarti’s role in the final edit, the director admitting in John Frankenheimer – A Conversation: “What happened when I cut the movie was that I gave it to Montand, so the movie became kind of a downer. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. It was supposed to be Garner’s movie, but Montand was the one you had sympathy for.”

As for ‘Pete Aron’, he loved the finished article. He stated in The Garner Files by Jon Winokur: “Grand Prix was a high point in my film career, and I owe the whole experience to Steve McQueen for dropping out of the picture. Steve’s son Chad finally dragged him to see it. I ran into them on our street as they were coming home. Steve stopped and said his first words to me in two years: ‘Well, we went to your movie.’ ‘Yeah, what’d you think?’ ‘Pretty good picture. Pretty good.’ Coming from Steve, it was high praise.”

Garner added by way of a parting shot: “The movie captured the beauty of Formula 1 racing in its golden age, before it became commercialised and high-tech. It looked real, sounded real and felt real. At the end you felt as though you’d been in the race. I think it’s the greatest auto racing picture ever made.” Who are we to argue to the contrary?

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