Excercising a veto

Sir,

In Lunch With Robin Herd (March issue), Robin tells of Ronnie Peterson wanting to leave Lotus and return to March. There was a rather amusing side to that story.

In December 1975 Alan Henry and I went to Hethel to interview Colin Chapman for what had become our Christmas feature in Motoring News. Chapman complained that brilliant as he was, Ronnie never took any exercise and his lap times flagged towards the end of the race. “The nearest he gets to exercise,” said Colin, “is sitting on his sofa watching his tropical fish tank.”

Alan did not use that exact quote in the story, but nevertheless adequately conveyed Chapman’s view. The next we heard, Ronnie was so upset that he got in touch with Robin and said he didn’t want to drive for Chapman ever again.

Mike Cotton, Shiplake Bottom, Henley, Oxon