On this day in Motor Racing's past

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#1171

Post by erwin greven »

Bottom post of the previous page:

Everso Biggyballies wrote: 2 years ago
DoubleFart wrote: 2 years ago When did Honda achieve the aim then? That article says they hit 397.
Their original aim was to hit 400..... they revised that (after they failed to reach the magic 400) to one of setting the fastest ever speed for an F1 car from what I recall.

Of course long before that Peugeot had exceeded 400kph in a Group C car at Le Mans in race conditions with their WM P88 "Project 400", whose sole aim was to break the 400km/h barrier down the original 6 klm long Mulsanne Straight, which I think they managed in the 1988 LM24 with I think 407 klicks, after which, ambition achieved, the engine expired and it DNF'd the race.

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The Sauber Mercedes cars ran 399kmh at the Mulsanne Straight. One difference with the Peugeot: They finished the race.
Brian Redman: "Mr. Fangio, how do you come so fast?" "More throttle, less brakes...."
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#1172

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

On this day 15th September 1881

Ettore Arco Isidoro Bugatti was born.


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Ettore Bugatti made the Bugatti name world renowned for fine luxury automobiles and highly competitive racing cars. Ettore was born in Milan, Italy. In 1902, he moved to Germany to begin a career in the growing German auto industry.

In 1909, Bugatti created the automobile company bearing his name...... shortly thereafter produced a highly successful low-powered racer for Le Mans. His Type 22 and Type 35 models also were exceptional.

Following World War I, the French-German border changed, which resulted in Bugatti’s company operating in French-controlled territory. The Bugatti name soon became known throughout the world for automated and accurate manufacturing processes combined with exquisite artisanship. Bugatti cars competed with Rolls Royce and Auto Union’s Horch brand, building cars of the highest quality for the wealthy and powerful.

During the 1930s, the Bugatti Royale Type-41 became one of the most sought-after luxury cars of all time. Bugatti cars also developed a fine reputation in the field of auto racing. The Bugatti Type-35 dominated the racing scene for several years while facing tough competition produced by Fiat, Mercedes and Bentley. In 1947, Ettore Bugatti became a French citizen. He died that year at the age of 66. The Bugatti name today remains famous for fine styling and craftsmanship and outstanding engineering. Fantastic attention to detail, incredible intricacy, masterly workmanship.
Ettore Bugatti: A Royale Story

His family had always had deep artistic roots in the city of Milan, since his father (Carlo Bugatti) was an internationally acclaimed furniture and jewelry designer, while his grandfather (Giovanni Luigi Bugatti) had been a famous architect and sculptor.

Ettore's brother, Rembrandt, also inherited the sculpting talent of his grandfather, while Ettore himself eventually became an engineer and designer of magnificent automobiles, therefore transforming in the most famous member of the Bugatti family.
The early days

When he was only 17 he joined the bicycle and tricycle manufacturing firm of Prinetti & Stucchi as an apprentice. That is where he built his first vehicle, a motorized tricycle powered by two engines made by De Dion. This extraordinary achievement was soon followed by his very first automobile in 1900. The outstanding construction process had been financed by Count Gulinelli, who saw the talent that the young engineer and future car manufacturer was developing from such an early age. This project also won young Ettore an award at the Milan industry fair from that year.

His talent was recognized by other people as well so, on July 2, 1901, Bugatti received the job of technical director at the De Dietrich manufacturing plant. Since he was still a minor at the time, the first contract was signed by his father Carlo in his own name. For this job Ettore had to move to Niederbron in Alsace, which was in Germany then, where he stayed for a few years developing automobiles and entering car races. After spending a little over three years there, he left De Dietrich for a freelancing career in car development and manufacturing.

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Bugatti Type 57 C


In 1907 he met Barbara Giuseppina Mascherpa, who soon had to change her family name to Bugatti, becoming his first wife. In the same year, on the first day of September, Ettore signed a multi-year contract with gasoline-engine plat Gasmotoren-Fabrik Deutz in Cologne, Germany. For this job he had to move again, only this time in Cologne-Mulheim, together with his wife. Following on his dream of someday becoming a car manufacturer in his own right, Ettore began working on a project for an extremely lightweight vehicle in his basement.

After concluding the project in 1909, he untimely ended his contract with Deutz, following the birth of his first son, Jean. With the severance pay and a few economies he bought an ex-dyeworks plant in Molsheim, Alsace, where he started producing the Bugatti T13.
The start of automobile production

During the following years, the newly established Bugatti automobile manufacturing continued to expand, Ettore also developing a few other extra projects, including the Bebe model for Peugeot. Bugatti design licenses were also bought by Diatto in Turin, Rabag from Dusseldorf and Crossley from Manchester, Great Britain.


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Bugatti


When the first World War started, the Bugatti family moved back to Milan and then to Paris, where Ettore started designing airplane engines with 8 and 16 cylinders. After the war ended he moved back to Molsheim - which had now become French territory - and continued to build lightweight sports cars at the old location. His cars gave him victories in 1920 at Le Mans and in 1921 at Brescia, winning three more times after this. The winning streak continued, reaching over 400 victories by 1925.

In the beginning of the 1930s, Ettore extended his production to include motorized rail cars – also known as “Autorails” - which were powered by Bugatti Royale engines. His son, Jean, was already actively involved in the company and a very talented engineer. In 1934, Ettore started manufacturing the infamous and more-expensive-than-you-can-comprehend Type 57 model, which had a chassis entirely designed by his son.
The fall of Bugatti

1936 was the beginning of the end for Bugatti automobiles. The Molsheim production ground to a halt following a national strike that year. With great disappointment induced by his workers and following increased debts, Ettore moved back to Paris, leaving his son Jean in charge of the Molsheim plant. Soon World War II started,and the Bugatti manufacturing facilities were temporarily moved to the city of Bordeaux.

During the war, Ettore was struck by two family deaths. First was his son, Jean, who was killed on 11 August 1939 while test driving a Type 57 C. Nicknamed “the tank”, the Type 57 C had recently won the 24-hour of Le Mans and was evidently too powerful for 30-year old Jean. Soon after this, Ettore's wife Barbara also died, leaving him without any close family.


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Bugatti Type 41 Royale

The war ruined the production plant in Molsheim and Bugatti lost control of the property. During this time, Ettore married his second wife, Genevieve Marguerite Delcuze, with whom he had another son and a daughter. He had also planned to build a new factory in Paris, at Levallois, and designed a number of never-to-be-born cars while the war lasted, but the dream was killed from its infancy.

Even though Jean's brother, Roland, took over the Bugatti car business after the war, the cars he made never caught up with the latest automotive developments and it soon went bankrupt. Ettore died in Paris, on 21 of August 1947, and was buried in Dorlisheim, near Molsheim, in the Bugatti family plot.

He had just become a French citizen that year. The brand of exquisite automobiles he developed from the ground up ceased to exist until recent years, when it was revived first by an Italian lawyer and then by Volkswagen, who also rebuilt the old Molsheim facilities. Ettore's legacy lives on through the magnificent cars he built between the two World Wars and continues with the latest iteration of the brand under Volkswagen's umbrella.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/etto ... -2934.html



A bit of a pictorial chronology of Bugatti race achievments.

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THE 1911FRENCH GRAND PRIX
Ernest Friederich, Ettore's right-hand man and factory racing driver, came second at the French Grand Prix on his first attempt - the only circuit race that Bugatti entered prior to the First World War. He achieved this result with an eight-valve Type 13, which outperformed a large field of competitors with significantly higher displacements.



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TYPE 13 BRESCIA
The 16-valve engine of the Type 13 was developed before the First World War. Production began in Molsheim before the war and resumed in 1919, and proved extremely successful. Various versions with different chassis lengths were produced up until 1926 - the types 15, 17, 22 and 23. The car was nicknamed "Brescia" after spectacularly winning the top four spots there.


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LE MANS GRAND PRIX DE L'ACF
On 29 August 1920, the 16-valve Type 13 achieved a resounding success at the Grand Prix de la Sarthe in Le Mans: Ernest Friederich won Bugatti's first ever major race. This race - the only motor race that year in war-ravaged France - was intended as a repeat of the cancelled 1914 race, for which Bugatti had originally developed its new race cars.


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WINNING THE TOP FOUR SPOTS IN BRESCIA
An upgraded version of the small Type 13 with 16 valves was produced for the 1921 racing season. The technical enhancements helped Bugatti to win the top four spots: Friederich finished ahead of de Vizcaya, Baccoli and Marco at an average speed of 116 km/h. From that point on, the 16-valve Type 13 was nicknamed the "Brescia".


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The Type 29/30 was Bugatti's first eight-cylinder race car. With a two-litre displacement, three valves per cylinder and an overhead camshaft, the engine achieved a power output of around 80 hp. The car was fitted with hydraulic brakes and boasted a revolutionary shape strongly reminiscent of a cigar.


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SECOND PLACE AT THE STRASBOURG GRAND PRIX
In 1922, the French Grand Prix took place right on Bugatti's doorstep. This was the first time Bugatti entered the main Grand Prix rather than the voiturettes race. Bugatti had high hopes that his revolutionary "cigars" would perform strongly. De Vizcaya achieved a respectable second place. The race was won by Felice Nazzaro in a Fiat GP car.


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TYPE 32
Bugatti entered a revolutionary-looking race car in the French Grand Prix in 1923 too. That year's race was held in Tours. Bugatti used a bodyshell with a wing-shaped cross-section. However, the short wheelbase made it difficult to control, while the car's shape tended to generate lift rather than downforce, so it's no surprise that the Bugatti managed no more than a third-place finish.


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A year later at the French Grand Prix in Tours, Bugatti once again caused a stir with a revolutionary wing-shaped body with concealed wheels. This race car, known as "the Tank", had a very short wheelbase and used an upgraded version of the eight-cylinder engine from the previous year. It came third at the race with Friederich at the wheel.

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TYPE 35
Bugatti's "Golden Age": production began on the successful Type 35 race car. Ettore Bugatti introduced several innovations, such as the striking horseshoe shape of the radiator grille and the spoked aluminium wheels. Between 24 January and 19 September of the following year, by Ettore's count the car achieved a total of over 500 victories in various races. With a total of over 2,000 racing victories over a period of nearly ten years, the Type 35 became the most successful race car of all time. No other car was as fast, beautiful and safe as the eight-cylinder car developed by Bugatti.


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FIRST TARGA FLORIO VICTORY
The Targa Florio is one of the toughest and most famous road races in the world. Started by Vincenco Florio in 1906, the race's 108-kilometre circuit ran right round the island of Sicily. There were five laps, for a total distance of 540 kilometres. Bugatti won this race an incredible five times in a row. In 1925, Bartolomeo "Meo" Costantini won the race for the first time in just under seven hours and 35 minutes in a Bugatti Type 35.


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SECOND TARGA FLORIO VICTORY
Bartolomeo "Meo" Costantini also won the 1926 Targa Florio. In the Type 35T, with an increased 2.3-litre displacement, he gave Bugatti its second win in a row.


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THIRD TARGA FLORIO VICTORY
In 1927, Emilio Materassi won in a Bugatti Type 35C, which was fitted with a compressor for the first time. This upgrade helped Bugatti to maintain its winning streak.


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FOURTH TARGA FLORIO VICTORY
On 6 May 1928, the French racing driver Albert Divo won the 540-kilometre course in a time of seven hours and 21 minutes in his Bugatti 35B, ahead of Giuseppe Campari in an Alfa Romeo. Bugattis also came in fourth and fifth place, with the famous drivers Louis Chiron and Elisabeth Junek from Czechoslovakia at the wheel.


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FIFTH TARGA FLORIO VICTORY
Albert Divo won the Targa Florio for the second year in a row. This time, he drove a Bugatti Type 35C and managed a time of just under seven hours and 15 minutes.


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FIRST MONACO GRAND PRIX VICTORY
The British driver William "Williams" Grover won in a Bugatti T35B, which was painted green, the British racing colour. This historic first win at Monaco was repeated three times in the years leading up to 1933.


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SECOND MONACO GRAND PRIX VICTORY
René Dreyfus won the Grand Prix in a Bugatti as a privateer, ahead of Bugatti factory drivers Louis Chiron and Guy Bouriat. Dreyfus won thanks to an additional fuel tank, which enabled him to complete the race without making the final pit stop.


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In 1931, the Type 55 - a touring car with a Grand Prix engine - superseded the Type 43. Bugatti used the lighter engine from the Type 51. It could be ordered ex works with two different bodyshell options. Jean Bugatti designed both the incredibly beautiful two-seat roadster body and the so-called faux cabriolet.


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THIRD MONACO GRAND PRIX VICTORY
Louis Chiron, born in Monaco and one of the most famous and successful Bugatti racing drivers, won in a newly developed Bugatti Type 51.


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FACTORY TEAM DEBUT AT LE MANS
In 1931, Chiron and Varzi (car no. 4), Divo and Bouriat (no. 5) and Conelli and Rost (no. 6) entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Type 50 cars had an engine displacement of 4,972 cm³ and a power output of 275 hp at 4,500 rpm. The regulations stipulated that any car with a displacement of over 1,500 cm3 had to have four seats. The bodies were lined with black artificial leather. The Bugattis raced in black, because Ettore Bugatti had fallen out with the top motorsport authorities again and consequently did not want to race in the French racing colour of blue.


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TYPE 53 FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE
The Type 53 was the one and only car with four-wheel drive designed by Ettore Bugatti. In 1932, Bugatti used the tried-and-tested engine of the Type 50 for the Type 53. It was also the only car made in Molsheim with independent front suspension.


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FOURTH MONACO GRAND PRIX VICTORY
The Italian Achille Varzi began in pole position at Monaco and took the lead, closely pursued by Tazio Nuvolari. This was the first race where the grid positions were not allocated randomly, but instead assigned based on the best practice time. The two cars were neck and neck from the first lap to the last. After suffering an engine malfunction during the final lap, Nuvolari pushed his Alfa Romeo over the finishing line to come second. However, he was disqualified for receiving outside assistance.


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FIRST VICTORY AT LE MANS
With its first victory at Le Mans in 1937, Bugatti revived the more successful years of the 1920s. The Bugattis achieved the fastest average speed ever recorded - 137 km/h. The winners, Jean Pierre Wimille and Robert Benoist, won in a streamlined Type 57G Tank with a modified Type 57S chassis. The car was distantly reminiscent of the Type 32 Tank from 1923.


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SECOND VICTORY AT LE MANS
Despite serious financial problems at Bugatti, Jean was able to persuade his father to enter Le Mans. Ettore only wanted to take part in the race again when the speed record set in 1937 was broken. With just one car, a Type 57 chassis with a compressor and a Tank body similar to the one used in 1937, Bugatti won the 24 Hours of Le Mans again. This time, Jean Pierre Wimille and Pierre Veyron were at the wheel. With an average speed of almost 140 km/h, they actually beat the record set by Bugatti in 1937.


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JEAN BUGATTI SUFFERS A FATAL ACCIDENT
On 11 August 1939, Jean - the patron's designated heir - died while test driving the very same car that had won Le Mans just a few weeks earlier. A few days later, the Second World War began.


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FIRST POST-WAR RACING VICTORY
The first race that Ettore Bugatti entered after the war was the Grand Prix du Bois de Boulogne in Paris. Ettore entered the successful racing driver Jean-Pierre Wimille in the race in a Type 59/50B. Wimille won on his first attempt.

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#1173

Post by Everso Biggyballies »



Did they highlight that in the Schumacher movie?

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#1174

Post by DoubleFart »

No, they skipped from 2000's championship win, and the sum total of 2001-Retirement day was "Michael drove with more freedom, as he had delivered the championship Ferrari had waited for, and the pressure was off"

I really wanted to see a bit more content about his broken leg, maybe how such a driven person dealt with it, how he coped seeing Irvine nearly reap the rewards of Schumi's hard work. 1999 goes from his helicopter flying off to "Midway 2000 the team were questioning everybody, including Michael"
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#1175

Post by MonteCristo »

Everso Biggyballies wrote: 2 years ago
So it's gone from "Shitting in the face of fans by having a laugh about the sport" to something to be celebrated.

:sarcasm:
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#1176

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

MonteCristo wrote: 2 years ago
Everso Biggyballies wrote: 2 years ago
So it's gone from "Shitting in the face of fans by having a laugh about the sport" to something to be celebrated.

:sarcasm:
My thoughts exactly when I read the bit about the closest ever finish. To me regardless of this Monza 1971 is still the closest.

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#1177

Post by DoubleFart »

The funniest thing was that Schumacher wouldn't have wanted to give up that win, so got egg on his face.
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#1178

Post by MonteCristo »

DoubleFart wrote: 2 years ago The funniest thing was that Schumacher wouldn't have wanted to give up that win, so got egg on his face.
The bugger would certainly have felt entitled.
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#1179

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

one for @Antonov who has always had a 'mancrush' on Mika. :wink:


On This day, 30th September 2001

Mika Häkkinen won his last GP 20 years ago today.....


....at the XXX United States Grand Prix, Indianapolis, on Sunday, 30 September 2001

It was the 20th and last win for Mika HAKKINEN and also his 51st and last podium.


That made Mika the most successful Finnish driver in terms of wins and podiums for many years until his successor at McLaren, Kimi Raikkonen, surpassed him
Schumacher was 2nd, and it was also the 50th podium for David COULTHARD in 3rd.)


But Mika's F1 career all started at Lotus a decade before.... .....when a young Mika created a stir for Lotus at Phoenix

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Häkkinen and Lotus 107: car and driver took points in five of 11 grands prix in 1992, then the Finn left to join McLaren

Lotus employed some great names during its remarkable history. Five of its drivers won world championships, while several others went on to lift the crown after completing at least part of their Formula One apprenticeship in Norfolk. The last to do so was Mika Häkkinen, the man largely responsible for a final flourish of hope before the team ground to a halt at the end of 1994, two years after he left.

From the Motorsport archives, by Adam Cooper
Mika Häkkinen: The last great Lotus driver

The decline of Team Lotus was briefly checked in 1992 thanks to a tidy chassis, a proven engine and a rising star from F3 by the name of Mika Häkkinen.


“I had a really good time there, no question about it,” Häkkinen recalls. “The start was obviously fascinating. I arrived in an F1 team not having seen other grand prix teams before, so it was difficult to make a comparison. I didn’t have a clue, but then again maybe it was good it was like that, because it kept me performing like I was driving in a top team.”

When Häkkinen joined in 1991, he was a key part of a wind of change that swept through the corridors of Ketteringham Hall. The latter days of the Camel era had been hugely disappointing, and Martin Donnelly’s accident at Jerez in September 1990 seemed the final straw.

With the title sponsor and engine partner Lamborghini both gone, the team’s very survival was in doubt. But former Chapman employees Peter Collins and Peter Wright created a new management structure and offered a way forward.

Mika Hakkinen with Peter Collins
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Collins (right) was a hard taskmaster with Häkkinen, but argues that he had to be


Always on the lookout for young drivers, Collins had been watching and admiring Häkkinen for three years, and was mightily impressed by his charge to the 1990 British Formula Three title. He felt that Mika could leapfrog Formula 3000.

“We concluded the deal with the Chapman family to take over the team,” Collins recalls. “It dragged on to November of 1990. When it looked as though we were getting somewhere, I rang Keke Rosberg and asked him what he was going to do with Mika. He wasn’t sure, and I said, ‘What about F1? I’m going to be running Lotus and I want to put him in the car.’ He said, ‘You’re joking…’

“Mika was very young mentally and he was lazy at that stage. I felt he was not really raising his game enough.”
“I’d looked at some of the old dross that was available and thought I’d rather go with somebody with potential. A lot of people thought I was crazy, but as I said to them at the time, if somebody’s good, and the timing’s right, they can make the step. If I’d got it wrong, the repercussions would be quite big; if I got it right, then he would help us move forward.”

Collins needed some sponsorship, and it didn’t take long for Keke to raise it in Finland. They agreed a two year deal with an option for a third, although a gobsmacked Mika knew nothing about it until the last minute.

Rosberg’s brother-in-law and business associate Didier Coton worked closely with Mika throughout his career. He remembers the launch well: “When Keke announced it in Finland just before Christmas, he had a few people from Lotus fly in with a wind tunnel model. When Mika arrived, Father Christmas opened the box and there was this Lotus. It was a very special moment for Mika — and for Keke, who had been working hard with Peter Collins. Mika was an F3 driver, full of hope, full of energy, just looking at the world of Formula One and saying, ‘I’m going to win in F1 just like I did in F3.’”

Lotus of Mika Hakkinen in Phoenix Grand Prix 1991
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Qualifying 13th at Phoenix in ’91 raised eyebrows in the paddock


Mika’s first test was in an old 101 at Silverstone. After watching him at Club for a handful of laps, Collins knew he had his man. There was little time and not much money, so the existing 102 was modified, with a Judd V8 replacing the Lamborghini. Julian Bailey, who had done a season for Tyrrell back in 1988, was recruited as nominal lead driver.

Mika appeared overconfident, but his first outing at Phoenix gave him every reason to be so. He qualified a stunning 13th, and the pitlane sat up and took note. He was unfazed when his knees twice knocked the steering wheel loose during the race.

The tight street circuit flattered the ‘bitza’ package and it got harder after that. He never again qualified in the top 20, admittedly at a time when there were 34 entries. In France, he actually missed the cut. Mika and Julian managed to finish fifth and sixth at Imola, but they were three laps down, and the team failed to score any more points that year. Bailey lost his drive, which was subsequently shared by Collins protégé Johnny Herbert and, when the Brit was committed to Japanese F3000, journeyman Michael Bartels.

Mika and Johnny got on well. They shared the same youthful sense of humour and occasionally hotel rooms. They motivated each other too, something that became very evident to Collins whenever Bartels was in the other car.

“Mika was very young mentally and he was lazy at that stage. He could drive very quickly, but every time Bartels drove, Mika’s performance against the people we’d normally be racing against dropped away. I felt he was not really raising his game enough – it depended on the amount of pressure from his team-mate: when Johnny was there, he pushed harder. Also, Mika was not working hard enough on his stamina and fitness.”

Mika Hakkinen with Lotus teammate Johnny Herbert
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Johnny Herbert and Häkkinen got on well as team-mates in 1992. The Briton pushed Mika to perform, says Collins


At Estoril, Collins was incensed when he learned from a journalist that Mika had been taking the first corner with his right hand on the wheel while holding his helmet up with the left. “Maybe I wasn’t fit enough,” says Häkkinen. “But I thought I was bloody fit, I thought I was going flat out. But I suppose when you are driving a Lotus at Estoril it takes twice as long to go round those corners compared to other cars. So it’s much harder!”

It didn’t help matters when Mika crashed his company Esprit into a tree near the factory: “I did say that a tree jumped into the road, that it was nothing to do with me…” A furious team boss impounded the wreck.

Coton: “Peter was not an easy guy with drivers, but his comments were always accurate and very constructive. He was pushing because he knew exactly what Mika’s potential was. Mika needed to understand how the system worked in F1.”

For 1992, the team lined up Ford HB engines. Benetton and Jordan had demonstrated the unit’s potential, and with a new chassis there was cause for optimism. However, Mika and Johnny had to make do with a hack 102D at the start of the season.

Andy Tilley was Mika’s engineer that year: “He was really easy to work with, but not very forthcoming technically. But Mika was one of those drivers where if you made the car better, he’d go quicker. He got on with the job and didn’t complain.

“We were always very limited on things like tyres for qualifying and engine mileage. But one of the great things about Mika was that over one lap, he’d do the job.”

Mika dragged the overweight 102D into the points in Mexico, but by Monaco both drivers were equipped with the new 107. Derived from a Leyton House design, it represented a massive leap forward. Suddenly For 1992, the team lined up Ford HB engines. Benetton and Jordan had demonstrated the unit’s potential, and with a new chassis there was cause for optimism. However, Mika had Johnny had to make do with a hack 102D at the start of the season.

Andy Tilley was Mika’s engineer that year: “He was really easy to work with, but not very forthcoming technically. But Mika was one of those drivers where if you made the car better, he’d go quicker. He got on with the job and didn’t complain.

“We were always very limited on things like tyres for qualifying and engine mileage. But one of the great things about Mika was that over one lap, he’d do the job.”

Mika dragged the overweight 102D into the points in Mexico, but by Monaco both drivers were equipped with the new 107. Derived from a Leyton House design, it represented a massive leap forward. Suddenly Häkkinen was regularly on the fringes of the top 10 in qualifying, and threatening to score points. Fourth in France was followed by sixth at Silverstone, fourth in Hungary, sixth in Belgium and fifth in Portugal.

1992-Lotus-of-Mika-Hakkinen
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New Lotus 107 made its debut in Monaco, 1992


But Collins was still frustrated by his young ace. After Mika had lost places late in the British Grand Prix, Peter was angered when he saw photos showing the Finn’s head leaning over. He also faded at Spa.

The ongoing debate led to some fun, as Tilley recalls: “The mechanics lined his kit bag and trainers with lead wheel weights, because they didn’t think he was doing enough training!”

“People say that Lotus was a joke in its last few years, but I’m sorry, it wasn’t. In 1992 we were fifth in the championship.”
Collins: “Mika was very good at bringing the car home, but the results could have been a lot, lot better. At Suzuka, due I think to being tired, he suddenly started over-revving the engine on downchanges. We lost a sure third place in that race. If he had been on the podium it would have made a huge difference to what we could have got from Japanese sponsors the following year.”

Häkkinen was also frustrated at times, as Coton recalls: “It became a bit difficult in the second year because Mika was progressing rapidly with the talent he had. The team couldn’t progress the same way because of a lack of finance. Every driver wants more, but Mika is a clever guy. He understood the situation, and what he did was to do the maximum with what he had. You learn so much as a young driver to prepare yourself for a better team later on.”

Despite some frustrations, Collins took up his option on Häkkinen’s services for 1993 at Spa, and added another for ‘94. However, late in the year it emerged that Frank Williams was interested in Mika as a replacement for Nigel Mansell. That led to some friction between Collins and Rosberg, and after Frank eventually backed off, Ron Dennis threw his hat into the ring. A messy dispute developed, which was ultimately resolved in McLaren’s favour by the Contract Recognition Board in Geneva. The Häkkinen/Lotus story was over.

“I think it damaged us massively that Mika left,” rues Collins, “certainly in terms of credibility. For example, we took a big blow from Castrol. Mika wasn’t a rocket scientist, but he was a fantastic, naturally skilled driver. Maybe we would have had a different year in 1993 – the car was quite difficult, and I think he would just have driven through the problems.”

Herbert and Alex Zanardi had a few highs over the next two seasons, but by the end of 1994 the money was gone. Its 40th anniversary year was Team Lotus’ last in F1.

“People say that Lotus was a joke in its last few years, but I’m sorry, it wasn’t,” stresses Collins. “In 1992 we were fifth in the world championship. We had income of £8million and were eight points behind Ferrari, who probably had £80million.

“The people in the team embraced what Lotus was about – finding ways of doing more with what you had. We did that quite well for a while, but ultimately you need money to get to proper wind tunnels and do proper testing. I’m not saying we were perfect, or that we didn’t do a bad job in 1994, but not everything we did in the last years was bad either.”
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#1180

Post by PTRACER »

I totally supported Mika during those 1998-2001 seasons. The only alternative being Michael Schumacher :nah: Though in 2001, Montoya was my driver.
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#1181

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

On this day November 5th 1969....

Graham Hill suffered a horrific accident on this day in 1969 at Watkins Glen in 1969.....


......sustaining two broken legs after being thrown from his Lotus. However, he fought back to win top-level races again and run his own F1 team.

Image

From the Motorsport Magazine archives, Quentin Spurring remembers what it was like to be part of that team. The relationship began with a short expletive but blossomed into a solid professional bond. What was it like working for team boss Hill?
The first Formula 1 race I covered as a cub reporter was the Gold Cup at Oulton Park in August 1970, when I was still young enough to have heroes. I met several of them that weekend: John Surtees, Jochen Rindt, Jackie Stewart, Mike Hailwood.

Another was Graham Hill, who was debuting Rob Walker’s Lotus 72. I spotted him alone in the paddock, sitting in the brand-new car, getting his bearings in the cockpit, and saw an opportunity to introduce myself as the race reporter for Autosport. As I approached within earshot, he looked up and caught my eye. He spoke first.

“F**k off,” he said.


The revered double world champion was, indeed, an inexplicably grumpy fellow. This side of his personality seemed to be linked to an extraordinary tenacity, which had taken him from impecunious beginnings to the top of his profession, seeing off rivals blessed with greater resources, and some with more natural ability. Graham committed himself totally to the matter in hand, and expected the same from all others involved. There were no half-measures. He believed that his own self-discipline and his determination that everyone should ‘pull together’ came from rowing, his chosen sport as a younger man. Anyone in his team not putting in 100 per cent could expect a tongue-lashing. And got it.

He was as stubborn as a mule. He had flogged BRM into a championship-winning team in 1962. He had stepped up to the plate, standing beside Colin Chapman, to lead Team Lotus after Jimmy Clark and Mike Spence had been killed early in 1968, and had delivered the championship at season’s end. He had won the Monaco Grand Prix five times. He had grafted and grafted, showing no mercy to himself, to recover from a horrible accident at Watkins Glen in October 1969 that had shattered his legs so badly that almost anyone else would have retired to a wheelchair. Condemned to walk forever on painfully bowed legs, he had raced Walker’s Lotus 49 into sixth place at Kyalami in March 1970.

Hill 1974
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Hustling his Embassy Hill at Dijon ’74

Other aspects of his character were pride, stoicism, courage and charm – the last packaged with a love for his family, a zest for parties, a ready wit and a disarmingly honest penchant for the limelight. Graham was one of the first Grand Prix drivers to become a media star. He adored show business. He was one of Shirley Bassey’s biggest fans and Eric Morecambe was a personal friend, a frequent visitor to the fine 25-room house in Shenley, Hertfordshire, that he shared with Bette, Brigitte, Damon and Samantha.

It was there that I had my first lengthy encounter with him – an interview for a feature in Competition Car magazine to mark his 150th Grand Prix, at Monaco in May 1973. Graham had won the 1972 Le Mans 24 Hours with Matra, completing a ‘treble’ (Monaco, Indy, Le Mans) of which he was genuinely and justifiably proud. But he had endured two disappointing seasons with Brabham, the only highlight being his final Formula 1 victory in the 1971 International Trophy. Now he had set up his own team, using a chassis supplied (eventually) by Shadow. The idea of the feature was to get him to talk about that project, and also to tape his instant reactions on being shown photographs of all the Grand Prix cars that had shaped his career. Graham had invited me to the house but, as I parked in the drive, I still wasn’t sure what kind of reception I would get. I seem to remember walking from the car to the front door on tiptoe…

He could not have been more charming. He was hospitable and cooperative, and gave me all the time I needed. When we had finished taping, and he was leafing back through our photographs, I explored the hundreds of images on the walls of his study. It was a wonderful room, with evocative pictures from floor to ceiling.

I told him my favourite was an embroidered cotton facsimile, about four feet long, of the cheque he had received after winning the Indy 500 in 1966. He put me right: it wasn’t a facsimile, but the actual cheque. He showed me the little stamp showing that his bank had cashed it, grinned broadly, and told me he had used the money to buy his Piper Aztec.

The following year, the penny dropped that incompetent management had doomed Competition Car and I left to make my own way. Soon I won a PR contract with the Embassy cigarette brand of WD & HO Wills, which was engaged in both motor and powerboat racing. I signed the contract with a little remaining trepidation, because it effectively made me the press officer of the Embassy Racing with Graham Hill Formula 1 team, starting in January 1975.

Not to worry. Graham often expressed a sincere belief that sponsorship had improved motor racing beyond recognition, and he immediately showed that he was willing not merely to tolerate ‘PR men’, but actively to help them promote his sport. Again, he cooperated fully. When Competition Car folded (bang on schedule), Nigel Roebuck joined me to help with the journalistic workload, and neither of us can remember him complaining about any press release. We took this as a compliment – although, of course, we would never have dared to write anything that might have offended him.

Part of my brief from Embassy’s likeable sponsorship manager, Peter Dyke, was to design with colleagues and arrange the production of all the paraphernalia associated with the sponsorship: various publications, jackets, shirts, hats, luggage, badges, stickers. Graham approved of the stickers and he put one on his new leather-covered briefcase. Then he thought it looked naff, so he peeled it away – and the mock-leather underneath tore off with it. I ran…

I spent some time in the team’s raceshop in Hanworth, a couple of miles south of London Heathrow. The factory had a big vehicle door with in-built personnel access. Whenever Graham drove up outside with Bette, she would make a point of getting to the personnel door first, and she would open it while holding a clenched fist in front of her. If the thumb was pointing up, Graham was in a good mood. Down, and everyone inside had better watch out…

The extraordinary thing was that, despite his unpredictable behaviour, I knew no one in the team whose admiration for him was ever dimmed. The team spirit always seemed strong.

And I saw yet another side to this complex personality at Silverstone the day before the International Trophy in April 1975.

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Hill was able to divert his attention from driving and focus on running his team during ’75

At the age of 46, Graham had resolved to quit racing after Monaco, but had kept the decision to himself. After practice he confided in me and wanted to plot his retirement announcement. We needed secrecy, so we stayed away from the team’s Revcon motorhome and adjourned to his Ford Granada, which was parked behind the pits. I was ushered into the driver’s seat so that I could rest my notes on the steering wheel. As I got in, I saw Eric Morecambe reclining in the back.

It turned out that Graham wanted me merely to compose and mail out a press release: evidently limelight at the moment he retired from the cockpit did not have the old appeal.

I told him that a press release was not good enough for him, and far too impersonal. But he was adamant: he wanted to go out quietly. This was modesty…

But it was not appropriate. I argued with him and, happily, our bespectacled companion in the back seat felt as strongly as I did, and joined in. And, of course, Morecambe made the case for more elaborate arrangements while being very, very funny. After five minutes, we were all laughing, and Graham agreed that I would get Peter Dyke to cough up for a suite at Silverstone during the British Grand Prix meeting for a full-scale media announcement. And then Graham, driving a Lola revamped by his young chief engineer Andy Smallman (the ‘Hill GH1’), finished 11th in what turned out to be his final motor race.

It was obvious that Graham relished the prospect of his ongoing new career as a team owner. That held true even after his traumatic experience in Barcelona, a fortnight before Monaco.

On the Friday and Saturday of the Spanish Grand Prix meeting, all the team principals were faced with a situation in which their drivers, on the one hand, were effectively on strike because of the unsafe condition of inadequately installed track barriers, while the race promoters, on the other, were threatening to impound all their hardware if the owners failed to honour their contracts. The paddock was inside a lockable football stadium on the site and, at one stage, Guardia Civil soldiers (with machine guns) were actually deployed to show how easily this threat could be carried out. The FIA delegates were hopeless, totally unable to resolve the stand-off. The eventual solution was found by Graham and the other principals: they divided up the circuit between them, and put their mechanics to work with spanners to secure the barriers to the satisfaction of most of the drivers.

Come Sunday and, to everyone’s astonishment, events early in the race put Rolf Stommelen’s Hill GH1 into a narrow lead over Carlos Pace’s Brabham. But Graham’s delight turned to shocking distress in an instant. As the leading cars passed the pits to start their 26th lap, to the horror of everyone watching, the Hill’s novel carbon-fibre wing support shattered.

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Rolf Stommelen was leading in Spain ’75, until his tragic accident


The car went out of Rolf’s control at 150mph, hit the barrier on the left, then careened back across the track and into the very section of Armco that had been secured by Graham’s mechanics. One of them, Steve Roby, had actually written “Rolf, don’t crash here” very close to the point of impact. The barrier held, but the car went over it. By merciful chance, it landed in a small area from which spectators were prohibited, but five people (marshals, a fireman and a photographer) were killed.

The race was allowed to continue for four more laps before it was red-flagged – one of many disgraceful decisions by the organisers that deranged weekend. By the time Nigel and I arrived at the scene, Graham was supervising the removal of his injured driver from the cockpit. We watched as, calmness personified, he ignored the panic at the crowded, grisly scene, and stamped his authority on the situation. Then he climbed into the ambulance that took Rolf to hospital with both legs broken and a fractured wrist.

Meanwhile, in the paddock, team manager Ray Brimble was trying to cope with a crew that was in a state of shock. As I approached, one of the mechanics was vomiting on the football pitch. I asked if there was anything I could do to help. Ray was worried about a possible prosecution by the Spanish authorities. He asked me to put on Embassy Racing overalls and drive out to the scene of the accident in the team’s liveried Fiat 500 runabout, which was towed to all the European events behind the Revcon. Once there, I was to search the wreckage for any telltale shards of carbonfibre, and bring them back. I reluctantly agreed. This was a bad decision that led to one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life: I was subjected to violent hostility by shocked Spanish onlookers.

Two weeks later, an engine problem afflicted Graham’s new car on the Thursday morning in Monaco, and forced him into the older spare chassis for an entire session. He narrowly failed to qualify. It was an understandably big disappointment for him at the race for which his career had been most famous.

A fortnight later, his spirits were visibly uplifted by his new recruit, Tony Brise, who had been hired to replace Stommelen. Brise was one of those supremely gifted young drivers who come along once in a generation, and his potential had been shining in the junior formulae like a beacon. Having made his Formula 1 debut with Frank Williams in Barcelona, Brise put a GH1 seventh on the grid at Zolder – by far the team’s best qualifying result to date. His Belgian Grand Prix ended with a blown engine, but he finished sixth in the next race, at Anderstorp. Later Alan Jones (having been outpaced by Brise all weekend) delivered a fifth at the Nürburgring.

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The prodigious Tony Brise pointed to a bright new future for Hill’s squad


Points in the bag. And Graham was using his many willing contacts in the sport to consolidate his position as a team owner. He had finally confirmed his retirement from the cockpit and, free of the pressures of driving, he was becoming less irascible – more focused on his new role, and at ease with it. But he retained his famous tenacity, and there was no doubt this would bring him success as a constructor, probably sooner rather than later. The Embassy contract had been renewed for 1976, Smallman was well advanced with the first pukka ‘Hill’ and Brise was on board for his first full season.

The team had to see out 1975 with its modified Lolas but embarked on post-season testing of the all-new GH2 with optimism and in the knowledge that, in 23-year-old Brise, it had found an exceptional young man who would undoubtedly end up as a world champion. I seemed lucky enough to be in at the start of something big.

One foggy night in late November, as all the key team members were returning from Paul Ricard, Hill’s Aztec crashed on a Hertfordshire golf course, claiming not only his own life but those of Brise, Brimble, Smallman, and team mechanics Tony Allcock and Terry Richards.

Was it really over 45 years ago? I can never forget that terrible night and the considerate telephone call from John Blunsden, then the motor racing correspondent of The Times. I burst into tears immediately: the shock, I supposed. And yet, analysing this reaction the next day, it was clear that it had stemmed from the realisation that all that talent had instantly been snuffed out, and had gone forever. What a crying shame it was.
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#1182

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

On this day 6th October 1974

Denny Hulme took part in his last Formula 1 race on this day in 1974 at Watkins Glen.


Image


19 years later, on 4th October 1992 he died of a heart attack while racing at Bathurst.
Sadly, I was at Bathurst in the pits that weekend.

In streaming rain on Bathurst’s 190mph Conrod Straight, the yellow BMW M3 appeared to aquaplane gently onto the grass verge. It glanced the wall and crossed the track, still clearly under control, to be braked safely to a halt.


It was October 4, 1992, on the 33rd lap of the Bathurst 1000. At the wheel was the 1967 F1 World Champion, Denny Hulme. The 56-year-old had suffered a fatal heart attack. :rip:

Twelve months earlier, Hulme had driven a similar BMW M3 to fourth at the mountain classic. The following day, he and Journalist Michael Stahl, writing for Motorsport Magazine travelled to Tasmania to tour the route of the inaugural Targa Tasmania road rally.

It made memories of a reflective three-day tour with the man they called 'The Bear' all the more special. This is the article from the Motorsport arhives.
‘The Bear’ was in a mellow phase. Life had dealt him an unimaginable blow in 1988, with the loss of his 22-year-old son Martin in a diving accident. Denny and Greeta, his wife of 28 years, were latterly living apart.

But over three days of relaxed driving in a borrowed Porsche 911 the quiet, giant Kiwi reflected warmly and openly on his career.

Born Denis Clive Hulme in 1936 in rural New Zealand, Denny covertly taught himself to drive in his father’s sand-hauling trucks by the age of 15. At 18, apprenticed to a local garage and shovelling sand on weekends, he was able to buy a new MG TF. The beach, and the TF’s tight pedal box, both encouraged Hulme to drive in bare feet; a habit he would take to England five years later.

It wasn’t until 1957 that Hulme began dabbling in local hillclimbs. The first proper race was an all-MG handicap at the 1957 New Zealand GP. Hulme scrapped from last on the grid to win by two seconds.

In early 1959, Hulme bought the Cooper T45-Climax 2-litre driven in that year’s New Zealand GP by Bruce McLaren. Hulme spent the winter months rebuilding it and impressed by qualifying fifth for the 1960 race. In that southern summer, Hulme and Whangarei carpenter George Lawton, in another T45, emerged as series favourites. At stake was a scholarship to send one driver to Europe.

Hulme Brabham
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Hulme first worked and then drove for Jack Brabham


“They couldn’t choose between us, so they sent both of us,” Denny recalled. “Up ’til then I really hadn’t had any intention of leaving New Zealand, but it seemed like a good opportunity.”

Their Coopers ran in 1.5-litre Formula 2 spec. “The very first F2 race we went to was Easter [1960] at Goodwood [the Lavant Cup], and I remember being quite overawed. Dan Gurney was there in a Porsche, and Rob Walker had a Porsche for Stirling Moss. Jack [Brabham] was there, and Roy Salvadori, Innes Ireland [who won in a Lotus]…”

At Snetterton’s Norfolk Trophy, Lawton and Hulme finished first and second. Hulme shrugged his shoulders at it all. “I was just out there enjoying myself; it was always my attitude just to go and do your own thing. I just felt that we were having a reasonably good season.”

It changed tragically in September’s Danish GP at the Roskildering. “George, who was just in front of me in his Cooper, somehow spun, tagged a bank, flew up in the air… It threw him out, came down on top of him and killed him.

“That was a real blow. I was sort of wandering around England without a friend or a partner, other than the team manager, and I thought, ‘Well, hell, this is all a bit rugged’.”

Hulme would be distracted by a trip home for the 1960-61 summer season, taking a rented Yeoman Credit Cooper 2.5. He returned to England and took up John Cooper’s open invitation to build a chassis for 1961.

“In the Cooper book, there’s quite a few chassis numbers that aren’t there, and it’s because these cars didn’t have chassis numbers, as such — they were cash under the table.”


With Kiwi journalist Eoin Young, Hulme set off on the continental tour in a Ford Zephyr MkI. It was a great adventure, but lean times later in the year pushed Hulme into a mechanic’s job at Jack Brabham Motors — working on Triumphs and Sunbeams, not single-seaters.

In mid-1962, however, Hulme got his lucky break; if a less lucky one for Formula Junior driver Gavin Youl, who snapped a collarbone in a crash. “Jack came in one day and said, ‘Well, we can fix the car — how ’bout you taking your hat to Crystal Palace and driving it?”

Hulme was an immediate front-runner. On Boxing Day 1962 he took an updated BT2 to victory at Brands Hatch. “It was snowing! But that was the first Brabham ever to win a race, and I was home and hosed then.”

Ascending to the status of works driver, and third-car Grand Prix status from Monaco in 1965, did not endanger Hulme’s gritty practicality. “We were able to make bits and pieces to put on our own cars, and I’d certainly feel happier if I’d made and fitted it.”

The arrival of the 3-litre Repco Brabham engine in 1966 took even Hulme by surprise, and Dan Gurney’s departure delivered the big opportunity he needed. His first full F1 season began with the Climax, but even after getting the Repco, he recalled, “It just didn’t go well in ’66. I wasn’t really close to having a win. And then in 1967, everything changed.” He snapped his fingers. “As quick as that.”

Hulme 67
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’67 season with Brabham brought drivers’ crown


The first race was at Kyalami. “I just bolted. I couldn’t believe, not how easy it was — although, I thought Jesus, this isn’t bad — but I just cleared out from the rest. I was leading by almost a lap, and the brakes quit on me.”

He won just two races that year, Monaco and Germany, but sealed the championship over his team leader at the season closer in Mexico.

“Keke Rosberg, all those years later, only won one,” he pointed out. “But if you look at the second and third places I also picked up, through reliability, it all added up. I didn’t devise it, it wasn’t my idea, I just came out with more points than anybody else.



“Ford had come along with the DFV Cosworth, and that was gonna be a very hard thing to knock over. But I do believe that Jack’s car handled better than the Lotus.”

Hulme admitted he perhaps wasn’t the most approachable of champions. The British press nicknamed him ‘The Bear’, and not only for his wrestler-like physique.

“I, ahh, used to get pretty bloody grumpy with the way they behaved, and I still do,” Hulme chuckled. “I just wanted to be around the car, working on it, getting it onto the circuit.

“When I set out, I only wanted to race cars quicker than anybody else. The World Championship didn’t mean anything. It was just a day at the races. But it’s true that, once you get halfway through the season and you find that it’s within your grasp, you don’t let too much slip by you.”

1968 Stardust Can-Am Race. Race winner Denny Hulme of McLaren Racing drives his Chevrolet powered Gulf-Mclaren M8A.
ImageHulme loved driving for McLaren in Can-Am, and was devastated by his death

The Enthusiast Network via Getty Images/Getty Images
Hulme’s reign as champion would be rocked by a loss many had thought impossible. Jim Clark and Denny had more in common than their quiet, rural backgrounds. The two would very often dine together and fly to races in Clark’s plane.

“He’d come to New Zealand and you’d go deer stalking or water skiing with the guy. There was no great thing for him to rush off and tell the press how bloody good he was, or find the nearest TV camera. Jimmy just wanted to relax, lie on the beach of Monte Carlo.

“He was so easy going, you really wondered how he drove so fast. Jimmy would whistle into a corner and you’d think, ‘He’s never gonna get round’. And it would, like it was on rails. There were never big slides, he was just so fast.”

When Clark went to Hockenheim, “where I think they were paying him a substantial amount of money to go”, Hulme picked up his drive in the Ford P68 for the BOAC six-hour race at Brands Hatch. “So I was standing in Jimmy’s shoes. It was pretty devastating alright. Jimmy didn’t make mistakes. At all. You never knew Jimmy ever flicking it off the road.”

By this time, Hulme had left Brabham for his friend Bruce McLaren’s team. They enjoyed a lucrative partnership via the ‘Bruce and Denny Show’ in Can-Am.


“I got more fun out of driving the Can-Am cars than I did out of F1. I used to feel quite pumped up when I got back to England on a Monday because I could go and win $25,000 in an afternoon driving Can-Am, and only $5000 or something if I won a GP. So I used to think, y’know, stuff this Grand Prix business.”

Remember, this was well before F1’s currency changed to ‘Bernie Dollars’. “I can remember that Chris Amon got, I think, £68,000 to drive for Matra [1971]. He was the highest-paid Fl driver at the time. I couldn’t believe that. Most people got, if they were lucky, £10,000. Chris promptly went out and bought an aeroplane.”

McLaren, though 10 months younger than Hulme, had taken his countryman under his wing. Hulme recalled being skint at a Formula Junior race in Reims, 1960. “Bruce just put his hand in his pocket, found 100 quid to get me home to England. Me and my MkI Zephyr, Bruce in his E-type Jaguar. That’s how it was.”

Hulme 74
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After 10 years in F1, Hulme decided to call it a day at the end of 1974


Hulme got a lesson in McLaren practicality at his first GP for the team, Kyalami 1968. “Bruce said, ‘I’m not going to South Africa, haven’t got enough cars. We’ll get a V12 BRM, drop it in the back of this chassis, and you can go and contest the South African GP.”Umm, righto, how’s the car gonna get there, Bruce?”

The story covered more than trains, planes and rented automobiles, and a McLaren-BRM on the end of a tow-rope back and forth along the Pretoria Main Road.

“Everything was terribly simplistic to him. You had to use your initiative. It wasn’t any good if you just turned up at a circuit, ’cause you wouldn’t find your bloody race car there.”

Hulme had made annual visits to Indianapolis from 1968. He netted fourth on his maiden outing, driving one of Gurney’s Eagles after his and Bruce’s troubled turbine cars were withdrawn before the race. In 1969 he ran as high as second in an Eagle, before retiring.

For the 1970 Indy, while the boys at Colnbrook were finishing construction of the second M8D Can-Am car, Bruce and Denny headed off to Indy with the purpose-built, Offenhauser-powered McLaren M15.

Hulme recalled the front suspension which allowed the driver, via what he described as motorcycle brake levers, to tilt the chassis into each corner. Hulme found it effective, but hard work. The car also had Monza-style fuel caps, which the officials forced them to modify before practice with a different spring.


The first sign of the failed fuel cap springs was ‘rain’ on Hulme’s windscreen. “And the next thing — boof! She’s on fire… at 220mph. [The methanol] had gone back to the turbo, and the fire just came forward, against the wind pressure of 220mph. I just find that amazing, that the flame went ‘whoof!’ up to the front of the car.”

Hulme’s hands and feet were badly burned. “They bandaged me all up and I went home with Bruce in the plane. When we got back to London they had arranged for me to go straight up to Harley Street. Bruce said, ‘Oh, I’m off to Goodwood to test your car’.”

Hulme had just disembarked at Surbiton station when he heard the news on the radio.

“Jesus, it was bloody devastating. I was on my own, in total bloody bewilderment. Hands both all bandaged up from the surgery I’d had. I’m standing there looking like a mummy, and I hear that Bruce had been killed. It was bloody heartbreaking from there on.

“See, I’d had no reaction from my own accident at the time. It was just an accident, I was conscious all the way through it. Then suddenly, the team manager had gone; the boss, friend, everything.

“I turned to rubbish then, I just…I couldn’t contain myself at all after that. I would have given Bruce an arm if he would come back to life. But it wasn’t to be. Here’s this dedication to his Can-Am cars, and the bloody thing should bite him. He was the most generous person in the world with those things.”

Just five days later, Piers Courage would die in the Dutch GP at Zandvoort. Hulme’s anger and frustration reached critical mass.

“Piers had the big off and the car’s upside down and it’s all on fire. I stopped at the pits and tried to get the clerk of the course to stop the race. And they just said ‘humph!’ and threw their hands in the air.

“I thought, ‘Christ, what else can I do? I’d better keep racing, ’cause that’s what I’m there for.’ Maybe I should have thumped the guy, but it seemed that this was the standard.”

Hulme joined with Jackie Stewart and BRM boss Louis Stanley as one of the more vocal advocates for better circuit safety. They were far from universally admired for it, but the reserved, intimidating figure of Hulme was an asset to the movement.

Hulme Bathhurst
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Hulme continued competing at events such as Bathurst after his grand prix retirement

“It was very difficult. I just couldn’t understand the mentality of [the organisers and promoters]. The younger drivers were pleased to be in F1 and didn’t want to rock the boat. But we were never very far wrong.”

Then there was a small but intense light on the horizon. “Bernie Ecclestone said, ‘Listen, we’ll disband the drivers’ union and I’ll run the show. I’ve probably got a bit more clout than you.’ Initially, it didn’t seem like it was going to work. We were still a bit sceptical of Bernie, but it wasn’t long before everything was 101 per cent.

“I’d been seeing the problems, and I always made a point of going to the funerals. Although I hated it. But unless you go and do these things, you can’t get up on the soapbox and thump your fist and change it.”

Hulme witnessed it all. He had been deeply affected by the appalling death of Francois Cevert at the 1973 season-closer at Watkins Glen; 1974 was book-ended by the losses of Peter Revson at Kyalami and 25-year-old Helmut Konig at the Glen.

Denny Hulme, by then 38 years old and with 112 Grand Prix starts, eight wins, one world championship and a blown engine, went home.



As we spoke, 17 years almost to the day since that final GP, Hulme was still actively racing in everything from touring cars to trucks. Countless images have remained with me when I think of those three days with Denny: the patches of wax paper skin on the backs of his hands; the voice with the resonance of furniture wheeled across a wooden floor.

For Hulme, I know there was at least one image from that tour that truly tickled him — which said much about the modest, gentle giant.

We were fuelling the 911 in a tiny town beyond Launceston. With its lush hills and grazing sheep, it must have looked very much like home. Denny climbed from the Porsche, stretched and wandered into the small shop.

The young petrol attendant walked over to me. “Who’s that guy?” he asked, a faint look of admiration as he nodded towards Hulme. “That’s Denny Hulme,” I beamed. “But I don’t suppose you get many Formula 1 World Champions through here, do you?”

He looked at me blankly. “I don’t know. But we don’t get many Porsches.”
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... bear-truth

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Post by Everso Biggyballies »

On this day, 13th October 1996


Today marks 25 years since Damon Hill took one of the most emotional title wins in Formula 1 history
,
It was the first Father and Son World Drivers Championship in F1.


Image
Hill drinks in his championship-winning moment

......prompting perhaps Murray Walker's most iconic lines as Hill crossed the line.



When Williams made Damon Hill a Formula One driver, despite his undistinguished racing record, Frank Williams said it was because he was "a tough bastard" and Patrick Head said he admired his "fierce inner determination." Like his World Champion father Graham Hill, he needed these qualities to achieve ultimate success in the sport to which - also like his father - he came late after a long struggle. His heritage helped, as did luck, but in the end it was his own ability that enabled Damon Hill to add lustre to the family name.

Ten years after his WDC, Simon Taylor of Motorsport had lunch with Damon to discuss his life. It is not a normal interview of the success, but one that encompasses the difficulties Damon faced throughout his career, from a having a Father he feared who basically did not want Damon to race through to the difficulties of losing his Father at the age of 15, from living in a Mansion to having to move into a small semi-detached house and take a job as a motorcycle courier to help the family get by, and the ongoing dramas in his career.

From Motorsport Magazine Christmas 2006.
Lunch with... Damon Hill
It’s a decade since a Briton took the Formula 1 world championship.


Ten years on from that cold, grey afternoon in Japan when he became Britain’s most recent World Champion, Damon Hill looks fit and relaxed. He smiles a lot, laughs at some of his more ironic racing memories, and can look back on the peaks of his career with quiet satisfaction. He’s a family man now, absorbed by his life with wife Georgie and their four children, as well as various business interests and fund-raising work for the Down’s Syndrome Association.

The dark, brooding eyes that I remember from the days when he was fighting his often lonely way up the motor racing ladder are calmer now. They’re the eyes of someone who has come on a long journey – a journey that began when his father’s light aircraft plunged into a golf course near Elstree on a foggy night in November 1975.

“He’d just retired and was running the Embassy Hill team. I’d started to go to races with him, and it was a lot of fun. It was a small team – in those days you could build an F1 car with four people, a few sheets of aluminium and some rivets. The team shuttle was a tiny Fiat 126. I remember in Barcelona going from the hotel to the track at Montjuich Park with about 10 people squeezed in.

“When he died, it was like having your head chopped off. I was just 15. I’m 46 now, the same age dad was, and Joshua is 15, like I was. I realise now how important that time is between a father and a son. You need that bit, from 15 to 20, to get yourself into the adult world. I sort of went into cold storage, I was left hunting around.

“Dad didn’t want me to go into motor racing. He said I was too intelligent to be a racing driver; I proved him wrong there! When I was seven, I remember watching TV at home one afternoon and there was a newsflash saying Jim Clark had been killed. I had to tell my mum. He’d been dad’s championship rival all those years, and by then they were team-mates, racing together. I’d grown up with all this, drivers who were mum and dad’s friends coming to the house, and accidents happening in the background, and my little head going round thinking, ‘what’s going on here’? When Ayrton was killed 25 years later, a lot of F1 drivers were completely stunned that someone could die. I felt like saying, ‘Didn’t you know racing drivers can get killed’? I grew up knowing that.


“Dad’s story was an inspiration – he’d come up from nothing: he was just a mechanic. But he wasn’t an easy man. I was terrified of him. My becoming a driver was a way of standing up to him. Maybe if he’d lived and I’d got to 18 I would have been able to say, ‘Dad, you’re wrong’. But I had to establish myself beside him, and the only marker he left was as a racing driver. Now I feel I can say to him, ‘Hey dad, I’ve been round Spa in the wet, I know what you’re talking about’. It’s a bonding.”

We’ve met at an appropriate place for a British champion, the RAC’s Country Club at Woodcote Park. Damon eats healthily – asparagus and artichoke soup, mushroom risotto, a glass of New Zealand red. I cast his mind back to his start in racing, on two wheels. There was no silver spoon to help him: after Graham’s death the Hills’ 25-room mansion at Shenley had to give way to a semi in St Albans, and Damon famously became a motorcycle messenger.

“I didn’t have to become a despatch rider. I could have got a proper job. But I don’t like people telling me what to do, that’s my problem. And I went racing, bought my own ’bike, prepared it, did it all on my own. John Webb helped me, though – he knew my father’s name was good for the gate. In 1984 I won just about everything I did, 40 races. One day my ’bike broke, the big end seized. I went up to John Webb in the Brands Hatch bar and said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t race this weekend’. He got the barmaid to open the till, fished out £100 and gave it to me. He said, ‘Go and find someone in the paddock who’ll rent you a ’bike’. So I went to the paddock, rented some fellow’s ’bike, and won on that too. I remember thinking, ‘Bloody hell, it’s not the ’bike, it must be me!’”

Damon Hill pulls a wheelie as a dispatch rider
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Hill was a despatch rider (here in 1983) before realising he was quite handy on the race track

Today, most F1 drivers have been karting since the age of eight, but Damon had none of that. So did racing on two wheels develop his technique? “Of course. You try racing in the wet on a ’bike, aquaplaning through Paddock Bend. It gives you a very sensitive backside.”

With John Webb’s help Damon moved into Formula Ford, where he had a lot of success in 1985 before grinding through three seasons of F3 and three more in F3000. Always there were money problems, and repeatedly his career seemed to have hit the buffers. But he never gave up knocking on doors. In 1991 he netted a testing role for Williams, starting a relationship that was to endure for six years. In 1992 he got a race deal with the almost bankrupt Brabham team. After five failures to qualify, he finally started his first grand prix at Silverstone. It was two months before his 32nd birthday, dreadfully late to embark on an F1 career. Watching his uncompetitive and woefully underfunded BT60B-Judd finish in last place, four laps behind, we could hardly have guessed that a year later he would be a grand prix winner, and four years later he would be World Champion. So did he always believe in himself?

“No, I’m a massive doubter. A humongous doubter. But it’s okay for me to doubt myself. If someone else doubts me, that’s not allowed! I think life’s a test. I’m not religious but I do believe that we have one life, just one chance to define ourselves. And I’m stubborn. I am quite obsessive when I get stuck into something. I’ve always found that, just when you think the way forward is impossible and the route is barred, something crops up, and you’re ready for it because you’re still looking for that little chink, that opening.”

And something did crop up. Williams replaced Riccardo Patrese with Alain Prost for 1993. That put the nose of No1 driver Nigel Mansell seriously out of joint, and he left F1 for Indycars. Mika Häkkinen and Martin Brundle were both considered for the Williams No2 seat, but Patrick Head and Adrian Newey had been highly impressed by Damon’s progress in the testing role, and Damon found himself with a one-year race contract. At once he rose to the challenge. He finished third in the Championship behind Prost and Senna, won three races on the trot and got on the podium 10 times.

“I have utter respect for Alain Prost. His style was effortless: he could be blindingly fast without ever seeming to do anything. He was charming, but I never learned a thing from him. And that’s the right way to be. Why should he give me any help? Team-mates is a misnomer – you’re not mates, you’re racing each other. Of course, if you’ve agreed to team orders in your contract, then you have to live with that. I talked to Jean Todt about driving for Ferrari after I left Williams, and he said I’d have to drive to orders behind Schumacher. I said, ‘Forget it. Unless I get equal position with Michael I’m not doing it’. Why would I sign my own death warrant?”

For 1994 Alain Prost retired, and Damon found himself alongside Ayrton Senna. “Ayrton was a powerful figure. He always walked into a place like he owned it. He was on a quest for what was right and what was wrong – although what was right was right for Ayrton, and what was wrong was wrong for Ayrton – but beyond that there was something else. He wasn’t always totally admirable – I mean, knocking Prost off in the first corner in Suzuka in 1990 was a bit questionable! But he had an enormous amount of charisma and presence. There was an utter seriousness about him, an intensity.

“I never got close to Ayrton like, say, Gerhard [Berger] did. But I learned a lot just watching him in testing. He was very insistent on getting his message through: he would explain something over and over to the engineers until they’d got it. Because they couldn’t be in the car with him, he had to be positive they really understood.

“I never went into this seeing myself as a number one driver. I thought, this is great, I’m team-mates with Alain Prost, and then, great, I’m team-mates with Ayrton Senna. And then Senna died, and suddenly I was thrown into the deep end. I had to raise my game. And I don’t think I was prepared for that. It was horrible: his clothes still hanging up in the changing room, everyone in shock.

“I’m very confident I know what happened with Ayrton. A lot has been written about it, but there’s no doubt in my mind. A number of factors made the car difficult to drive, the low tyre pressures after the slow safety car laps and so on, and he got into a tank-slapper over the bumps and the car got away from him. People don’t want to accept that the great Ayrton Senna made a mistake, but even he made mistakes – he’d fallen off in Brazil two races before. This is not to detract from Ayrton in any way. He was a great driver and a great human being. But I’ve gone through it over and over; I’ve analysed it. It was just a tragic accident.

“At Imola we had to line up again, and we had to do the race. There was some question that Ayrton’s power steering might have played a part in the accident, so they disconnected it on my car and I did the restart without it.

On the grid we didn’t know Ayrton was dead. Everyone said it was serious, but that’s all they told us, so we just got on with the job.” For the record, Damon had to pit for a new nosecone, restarted last, and stormed back up to sixth, setting the race’s fastest lap on the way.

“After that everybody was reeling under the shock of losing Ayrton. I wanted to say, ‘Hey, I’ll do my best’. But remember I was a test driver two seasons ago – I’m not Ayrton Senna, OK? But I got stuck in, and we won in Barcelona four weeks later. It felt good to get a win in. I won at Silverstone, then Schumacher had his two-race ban and was disqualified at Spa, and I won three more. Then we had the wet race at Suzuka.”

Damon Hill leads Michael Schumacher at Magny Cours in 1994

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Magny Cours 1994: Damon took pole but, after holding off Schumacher’s Benetton for a while, had to be content with second place, 12sec in arrears

In the view of most who saw it, including me, the 1994 Japanese Grand Prix was Damon’s greatest drive. Because of a red flag it was run in two parts, with the winner declared on aggregate. In treacherously wet and difficult conditions, over nearly two full hours, Damon beat Schumacher in a straight fight by 3.3secs.

“It was the most intense race I ever did, no question,” asserts Damon. “I had to win to stay in the frame for the title, and I just kind of ratcheted myself up. The whole race was mad: in the first few laps you couldn’t see a damn thing, all I could see was Michael’s rear light, and I thought if I lose sight of that I’m finished. After the restart I was racing an invisible man – I’d finished the first part seven seconds down on Michael, so it wasn’t enough just to win: I had to beat him by at least that amount. I knew I had to push, but not allow him to push me into making a mistake. I was driving on a different level from how I’d ever driven before. It was an experience which lived with me for a very long time.

“I think what we’re capable of mentally is way beyond what we think it is. If you’re a racing driver you choose to put yourself in an unnatural situation. Most people don’t want to put themselves under that stress: it makes sense to avoid it rather than pursue it. But if you do put yourself there, it can start to become sublime. In the cockpit there’s a solitude: you’re in a private world where you feel at home. You’re focusing so hard on one thing that it’s like a form of meditation, a peace which seems at odds with the apparent chaos of racing. All this leaping in the air on the podium which Michael introduced – before that, drivers used to clamber out of the car at the end of the race with a glazed look in their eyes. You go into a post-race conference and you’re not really there yet. You can’t just switch out of that incredibly intense mental state straight away. It used to take me two days to come down after a grand prix.

“But as a driver you can’t really enjoy your achievements. You’re completely forward-looking: those points are in the bag and straight away you’re looking to the next race, the next points, onwards and upwards the whole time.

“So we came to the final round in Adelaide with me one point behind, and Michael took me out. Typically, my first impulse was to blame myself. I thought, ‘That was a crap overtaking manoeuvre, Damon’. There was an open door, and I went through it, and across he came, Boom! I didn’t know his car had gone off the road, I didn’t know it was damaged. But if you watch the replays there’s no question it was deliberate. Lots of drivers would have done the same. You never know – I might have done it myself…”

Damon Hill surrounded by media in Japan 1996
Image
Damon was always plagued by the British press, and when things weren’t going well they were often very hard on him

Although Damon was second in the championship again in 1995, with four more victories and nine podiums, it was not a happy year. “It was one of those awful years when everything went wrong. I took a lot on myself, started to get into a downward spiral. I got negative press, and it all seemed to pile in on me. You’re up and you’re down with Fleet Street, and the misery of my year made a good story. It did get to me. At Suzuka the championship was lost, everything was crap, I was making mistakes and I ended up in the gravel at Spoon Curve. I remember getting changed in one of those little cabins behind the Suzuka pits, everybody falling over everybody else’s flight bags, and Frank and Patrick were there. I literally didn’t know whether I should be laughing or crying – until then I’d never realised the real meaning of that expression. And then two weeks later, in Adelaide, I took pole, won the race, lapped the field. Everyone else either broke or fell off and I just sailed serenely on. It was daft.”

“Jordan was a nightmare. It was very, very difficult: a delusional team. Eddie’s focus was on the deals”
In 1996, of course, Damon became World Champion with eight wins, culminating in another emotional victory in Japan. “I realised this was my last chance – I was 35, and everybody else was 10 years younger than me. Michael had gone to Ferrari, and fortunately his car was a pile of junk at the time. The real challenge that year was sorting out [team-mate] Jacques Villeneuve.

“I really enjoyed my time with him. Whatever happened he was just Jacques. He never made excuses, never apologised for anything. He has a powerful sense of justice: he despises a lack of conviction or integrity in anyone. Testing at Estoril he said, ‘Do you think you can overtake around the outside of the last corner?’ The engineers said, ‘Grow up, that’s not possible’. And he did it in the race – he passed Michael round the outside of the last corner.”

Predictably, Schuey didn’t see the funny side. “After the race Michael went up to him and said, ‘I don’t think you should be doing that, it’s not really safe’. Jacques was delighted, he laughed and laughed. It was priceless.”

Damon Hill in an Arrows overtakes Michael SAchumacher's Ferrari during the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix
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Extraordinary weekend in Hungary 1997, when Damon’s Arrows qualified third and came through to take the lead from Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari


Midway through that championship season Damon arrived at Hockenheim to find the paddock full of rumours that Williams would fire him at the end of the season, rumours that he refused to believe but which turned out to be true. Did he feel shafted by Williams?

“Shafted is an emotive term. You learn that motor racing’s no different from the real world. You think you’re fantastic because you can drive an F1 car, but they’re not overly impressed by just another racing driver. They’ve been around too long. You start to recognise that there’s more to this than just driving. I really loved racing for Williams. I loved Patrick, I loved Frank, I loved all the guys I worked with. I had some tough times, but they gave me the most fantastic opportunity. I got to drive some of the most amazing racing cars ever made.

“So I went to Arrows. It wasn’t a front-running team, but there were a nice bunch of people, there. And it was the only team that would give me a one-year deal. I nearly went to McLaren alongside Mika Häkkinen, but Ron Dennis would only pay me on a results basis, and that was completely unacceptable. I was World Champion, they were going to make marketing capital out of having me in the team, with number one on the car. Ron would never admit that, because he’s had more world champions than hot dinners, but their whole attitude pissed me off. I don’t think I would have been happy there.”


High spot of the Arrows year was the extraordinary Hungarian Grand Prix, when Damon qualified third, passed Schumacher’s Ferrari on lap 11 to lead, and stayed ahead until the 77th and final lap, when the car was crippled by a hydraulic problem. Heartbreak, perchance?

“Not at all. It was just one of those fantastic twists of fate. Goodyear got it wrong: it turned up with some tyres that turned out to be like chewing gum, and my Bridgestones were terrific: the car felt fantastic. People hate the Hungaroring, but I love it. It’s like a giant go-kart track. With the Arrows it was work, work, work the whole way round – a hard race – and I was enjoying myself. When I passed Michael I thought, ‘If it all stops now I don’t mind, I’ve had a fantastic run’. But it carried on until the last lap! Then it went onto tickover. My first thought was, ‘How can I stop Jacques getting past’? I was going down the back straight saying to myself, ‘Wider, be wider…’ and he went past me on the grass flat out. The car should have died, but it didn’t and we were second. That was entertaining.”

Were his last two seasons at Jordan entertaining? “No. It was a nightmare. It was very, very difficult: a delusional team. Eddie’s focus was on the deals, on the business side, and he was distracted. Things needed to change and they did change – Mike Gascoyne came in to replace Gary Anderson on the technical side – and we managed to win a grand prix. But after that I’d had enough. I’d say something to galvanise reaction from Honda and I was in breach of contract because I was saying something negative. It worked, they pulled their fingers out, but all I got was, ‘You’ve upset the workforce; you’ve demoralised them’. Well, what about me? I had to drive the thing. That’s how F1 has become; the drivers are under contract and they’re not allowed to say ‘Boo’. It was all getting litigious and ghastly and I wanted to finish at the British Grand Prix in 1999, but contractually it was impossible. I saw Eddie the other day, and I said, ‘I can see it from your point of view now; you had to get on with the business. But I did win your first GP.’ ”

Damon Hill celebrates on the podium in Spa 1998
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The Spa win in 1998 was a high point of two difficult seasons with Jordan

Today Damon is President of the BRDC, which he sees as an ambassadorial role. “Silverstone is a high-profile £30 million business, and the commercial side of it should be run by professionals. I want it to be run profitably and in the best way, and the club needs to become what it is: an institution for people who are part of motorsport in this country to congregate and enjoy that part of their lives.

“Formula 1 has detached itself from its roots. It appeals to corporate clients, people with only a passing interest in the sport who like to come into the Paddock Club and be seen at the event. The BRDC has a responsibility to the core of the sport, the people who genuinely love it. But you have to move with the times, and recognise that Formula 1 is the pinnacle, and far and away the most visible and fiercely competitive end of the sport. If retaining the British Grand Prix puts the assets of the club in jeopardy then it’s not a viable proposition, and there’s nothing we can do about it. But clearly the best answer is if we can retain the grand prix and, under that umbrella, other levels of the sport can flourish as well.”

We’ve talked for more than two hours, and Damon glances at his watch.

He has to go: time for his daughter’s netball practice. After 19 hard years of racing on two wheels and four, 116 grands prix, 20 pole positions, 22 wins, 360 points and a world championship, he has proved a point to himself, to the world, and to his father’s memory. Now, with other priorities, he’s moved on.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... damon-hill

A few more photos of Damon.....


Where it all began ...

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Donington Park, 1980: Damon Hill began his motor sport career on two wheels, competing on a Kawasaki production motorbike.

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Silverstone, March 1991: Damon Hill tests a Formula One car for the first time, driving a Williams FW13B

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Silverstone, July 1992: Damon Hill finished 16th and last in the Brabham BT60B on his Formula One race debut at the British Grand Prix.


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Hungaroring, August 1993: Damon Hill, in the Williams FW15C, takes the chequered flag for his first Formula One victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix.



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Monaco 1994 was two weeks after Senna's death: in the lone Williams Damon qualified a brave fourth but a Lap 1 collision put him out

* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)

* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
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Everso Biggyballies
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#1184

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

On this day 17th October 1981

Nelson Piquet won his first World Title by just a single point.


Piquet's two points at the previous race in Canada meant that he and Reutemann headed to Las Vegas separated by a point while Laffite had an outside chance of winning the title. Reutemann failed to score, and another two points to Nelson won the title by just one point

To celebrate that event I have found an old interview with Nelson and article about his career from the Motorsport archives to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that first win. Here is that interview / article. (One for @White six who is a big fan of Nelson.

Nelson Piquet: 'I just wanted to race'

Nelson Piquet came to Europe desperate to reach Formula 1. Gritty determination took him to three world titles and brought him wealth and fame – but he would have done it for the sheer love of it, because…


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ever the joker, ever the racer


There’s a glimmer of recognition in his eyes as he walks towards me. We first met in 1978 when he came to England with his Formula 3 team, fresh from an encouraging campaign in Europe where he’d finished third in the championship. It was a grey day at Thruxton, the interview was in most uncertain English, and his little band of Brazilians looked somewhat underwhelmed by Hampshire in winter. Most observers agreed, however, that here was a champion of the future.

Twenty-five years have passed since the first of three world titles but the wiry figure in baggy jeans and slightly tatty sneakers is unmistakably Piquet, the mischief still close to the surface, the craftiness in the grin and those very steady brown eyes. As he limps on injured feet through the Interlagos paddock, the fans fall in behind, even now wanting autographs. Only Fittipaldi attracts a bigger crowd but then, as Nelson readily acknowledges, it was Emerson who blazed the trail from the vastness of Brazil to Europe’s promised land.

“Yeah, of course, he was the first and we saw it could be done,” says Nelson. “I didn’t come from a racing family but I was quick on a kart and as a youngster I knew what Emerson was doing. It was big news, you know.”

Nelson Sauto Maior was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of Brazil’s health minister. The family moved to the capital, Brasilia, where Nelson grew up in a comfortably middle-class environment. Later in life he took his mother’s maiden name of Piquet in a failed attempt to hide his motor racing from a disapproving family.

Zandvoort, 27.08.1978 Nelson Piquet, BS Fabrications McLaren-Ford M23
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Piquet in his debut F1 year with McLaren in ’78

Most Brazilian boys are drawn to football, in the street or on a floodlit beach, but Nelson was steered towards the tennis courts by his father, himself a talented player. He was good at it and there was talk of becoming a professional. His parents packed him off to high school in San Francisco where he was supposed to get himself an education and hone his skills on the court. But it didn’t happen like that.

“I got involved in classes for working on cars and spent time in the workshops. I got the idea of racing then, so when I got home I did some ’bike races, bought a kart and went racing, trying to keep all this from my parents,” he laughs. But that failed too and 17-year-old Nelson was sent back to America to study at university. That lasted a year. Back in Brazil again, the racing bug still swirling in his blood, he got back on the kart, winning the national championships in ’71 and ’72, and entering the national Formula Super Vee series for the following year.

He grips my arm, animated. “I was very quick in karting, you know, from the first day. I just found it so easy, it was so natural, so easy to feel everything. I never thought about why, or how, or anything,” he says matter-of-fact. “It wasn’t hard work, or luck, it just came so easy to me.”

He won the Brazilian Super Vee championship in ’76 and began to think about Europe. He knew it would not be easy, hadn’t even considered Formula 1, though by now Fittipaldi’s success in England was big news in Brazil. So, at the beginning of 1977, Piquet made the big decision, bought a March F3 car, signed up a couple of Brazilian mechanics and headed off for the other side of the world.

“I spoke a little bit of English but I’d forgotten most of what I learnt in America. When I arrived in Europe most people thought I was an Australian. Anyway, we did the European championship and finished third, which was not so bad,” he smiles. “Then we went to England for 1978 to do the BP and the Vandervell F3 championships.”

These early days in Europe taught Nelson a few tough lessons from which he was able to benefit when, many years later, he brought his son Nelsinho to England. Most people went out to find a sponsor and then paid a team to run them. But the Piquet way was to have his own team, his own people around him. The little band of Brazilians had proved they could take on, and beat, the best of the professional outfits.

“It helped me that I could work on the car myself,” he says. “I mean, I was a mechanic and I was always messing, fiddling with the car, making it how I wanted it. I invented tyre-warmers in Formula 3, you know that? It was a revolution,” he grins. “I made up all the bits for them and we had tyre warmers before anyone had ever thought about it. You could just fly round in the early laps, make up a lot of time. Later on, at Brabham, I told Gordon Murray about my new invention. Then they banned me from the workshop after I kept visiting every day to see what they were doing. I used to mess around with bits and pieces, do my own thing, it drove them mad. Niki Lauda got really pissed off with me being at the factory and looking at all the new bits.”

Race car driver Nelson Piquet speaks from inside his Brabham-Alfa Romeo racecar.
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Piquet found an immediate affinity with the Brabham team

Back to 1978: Nelson reckoned he needed a team manager, who spoke English and who knew where all the circuits were. “Peewee knew nothing about motor racing but he knew where everything was and he drove us everywhere. I offered him £30 a week and he told me that real team managers earned more than that. But we worked it out and he looked after us all through that year,” Nelson remembers.

And what a year it turned out to be: champion in the BP series and runner-up to Derek Warwick in the Vandervell. It was clear that the Brazilian was going to be something special. His name was already being noted, scribbled on the pads of those who constantly scouted for new talent. What caught the eye was his sheer natural speed, his lack of mistakes and some revolutionary tweaks he and his team had brought to the art of optimising the performance of Formula 3 cars.

“I had to learn how to race in the wet,” says Nelson. “We didn’t get wet races back home but again I just found it so easy, and we won a lot of races, seven in a row at one stage. Midway through the season I got a call from Mo Nunn, and by the end of July there I was, sitting on the grid at Hockenheim in an Ensign.” Just like that, the ball was coming to him, and fast.

Next it was into a McLaren M23 for Bob Sparshott at the Austrian, Dutch and Italian grands prix. He came home ninth at Monza. “I didn’t know what to do. They wanted to sign me up. I was winning in F3, working at Ralt building cars to make some money, and then Bernie Ecclestone got in touch about joining Brabham.” Nelson is talking fast, moving around a lot, as if he was back there, on the verge of his dream. “Bernie wanted me for the last race in Canada and he offered a three-year deal starting the following year in ’79.

“He said: ‘look, if you’re that good and you sign for Sparshott, you’re in the shit because you’ll be stuck there.’ That made sense, and I said OK. And, yeah, it was a cheap deal for him. I just wanted to race; it wasn’t anything to do with the money. He offered me $50,000 a season for three years but I would have driven anyway. I was going to F1.”

So Nelson did what he reckoned all F1 drivers did. He went to Harrods and spent £400 on a set of new clothes so he would look smart when he got to Heathrow to board the plane to Montreal for his first race with the Brabham team.

“When I got to the airport, there was Gordon Murray, looking like some hippy with his long hair, his flowery shirt, frayed jeans and sneakers. And then in the paddock at Montreal there was my team-mate Niki Lauda in baggy old blue jeans, a t-shirt and an old red baseball cap…” He slaps the table, laughing. “So much for the new clothes.”

Piquet and Murray sparked straightaway, the bright young South African forming a relationship with the Brazilian kid that would mature into one of the most successful engineer/driver partnerships of the era. Within three years they were World Champions.

“I was a good mechanic, remember, and did a lot of my own work on the F3 cars, so I could communicate with Gordon, tell him what I wanted.”

He also learned a lot from Lauda before he retired at the end of ’79. It was a difficult time for a new boy, as Brabham struggled with Alfa Romeo engines and then switched to the Ford-powered BT49 for 1980. So that first season was tough, alongside Lauda and grappling with an inconsistent car.

But Nelson got the measure of Lauda, his natural talent showing through rapidly, and some have said that Lauda saw the writing on the garage wall. The Austrian admits that he much preferred a team-mate like John Watson, a man he could out-psyche, rather than a Piquet or a Prost, both of whom threatened his dominance in the team. “Yeah, could be right,” grins Nelson. “He said he just got fed up with racing.”

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Negotiating Monaco in 1982

All this prepared Piquet well for 1980 when he would be out on his own with only Hector Rebaque and Ricardo Zunino as team-mates, neither anywhere near pushing him. He and Murray worked together, battling with Alan Jones for the championship in only Piquet’s second full season. Jones won out in the end but the Brazilian had made his mark.

Brabham stayed with Ford into 1981, and the BT49C proved to be an effective weapon. But it was a close-run thing. Jones and Reutemann, for Williams, constantly threatened to keep him from his first title. By the end of a chaotic race at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in October, Nelson took the title, by one single point from a downbeat Carlos Reutemann.

“Fantastic, is fantastic,” he grins, lapsing into the present tense. “My first championship – I can’t believe it’s 25 years ago. It was a tough season but I work with Gordon and we make very quick car. I learn how to win the title and I knew I could do that again. The driving was coming easy to me.

“The next year was not so easy,” he recalls. “We were developing the BMW engine and for 1982 we used the Ford and the BMW. There were a lot of blow-ups, it had lots of power, but it kept blowing up and then we started re-fuelling in the races, remember? We found an advantage there.” He finished a lowly 11th in the championship, a point behind team-mate Riccardo Patrese.

But Piquet and Murray came back with a vengeance in 1983, the beautiful BT52 BMW proving too much for Alain Prost in his final year with Renault. “That thing had so much power,” he grins. “You had to have it in a straight line before you got the power down, otherwise it just went round, big spin, no warning. You know, coming out of a corner, you had to point it straight ahead before you could really get your foot back on it. Then it took off like a rocket, all the way up the gears, blat blat blat blat.” He goes through the gears in the chair next to me. Another big grin. “But you had to change the gears slowly, not too rushed, or the gearbox broke.”

“Yeah, was good, was good. Gordon made a nice car. We did lots of development with BMW and we knew we could win.” Nelson thinks back: “Was good times with Bernie and Gordon and the guys – Charlie Whiting, Herbie Blash. We worked hard and we had some fun. People say we ran close to the rules, very close, and yeah, we did. Renault accused us of running special illegal fuels, running underweight and all that, but hey,” he shrugs, “they couldn’t catch us anyway.”

The fairy story about the boy from Brazil who made it so good, so fast, begins to fall apart at this juncture, Brabham slipping down the grid during the next two years, and taking precious few victories. The subsequent move to Williams, he says, was not his best idea, and when I mention Nigel Mansell he looks like I’ve offered him a bowl of spiders.

He looks me in the eye, roguish smile. “I’ve said this before, you know that, but hey I don’t care. It was terrible with Mansell there, he was – ” and here he expresses opinions we can’t publish. “I was rude to him, yeh, but I thought he was an idiot and the team was not a family. I kept telling Frank, after the races, what we should do about it but I had not so much courage then.”


The feeling was entirely mutual, Mansell describing Piquet as vile, stupid, and childish while the Brazilian’s penchant for practical jokes left Our Nige distinctly unimpressed. Mischief was never far below the surface. His mechanics recall the day Nelson planted plastic turds in the cockpit of his team-mate’s Williams, not a prank that was appreciated by anyone except himself. “Yeh, well, I hated him and he probably hated me.” End of story. I get the feeling he would rather drink ink than expand any further on this subject.

All this feuding did little to help the team rack up the points in 1986. Alain Prost sneaked up behind the pair of them and stole the world championship from Williams, Honda, Piquet and Mansell. But it was clear that Honda had a very potent engine. So how did the move to Williams come about, after the great days at Brabham?

“Bernie wouldn’t give me any more money, said I had to stay because of the Parmalat contract, but I told him he could tell Parmalat whatever he liked. He wouldn’t pay more and Frank Williams just about trebled my money. So I went.

“But it was a bad move at the beginning. They didn’t deliver what they said they would, I had no engineer, Patrick Head was on Mansell’s car and it was, you know, an English team with an English driver. I was supposed to be number one, to have the T-car and I knew how to be a world champion. But I was never treated like the number one and it was never good with Mansell there. They made many promises that were not delivered and it was almost a year before I got Frank Dernie engineering my car, in ’87, and I won the championship. So.”

Piquet’s third world title was achieved after a huge battle with Mansell, the two Honda-powered cars invariably ahead of the field. The Englishman took more victories but Nelson scored more points, his consistency winning the day.

Piquet 87
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Williams stint brought third title in ’87

“I was not happy there, especially with Mansell, so I left, went to Lotus for big money, really big money this time, 17 million dollars,” he smiles. “But the car, and the team, was shit. Really, it was shit, the car was slow and the team didn’t know what to do.”

So Nelson’s career in F1 petered out amid accusations that he’d given up, lost his touch and was sitting out the last years just for the money. And he certainly enjoyed his riches, with a private jet and a yacht in Monte Carlo. Yet, while he agrees that he went to Lotus for the big salary, he firmly denies that he was slowing down. His three victories at Benetton, where he spent the final two years of his career, underline this claim.

“I could still drive, no problem, I always loved the driving. I didn’t give a shit about the fame, I just wanted to race, and it was better at Benetton. I won three races, including my last one in Canada. But in the end I just decided to stop and go back to Brazil, build up the business I had started. I was 40 years old, time to stop.”


Back in Brazil his telecommunications companies were beginning to make serious money and Piquet now presides over a multi-billion dollar corporation, supplying satellite navigation technology, from his headquarters in Brasilia. But there was one last ambition to be sated and the call came, early in 1992, from Menard in the United States.

“I’d always dreamt of doing Indianapolis and Le Mans,” he explains, “Menard came on the phone, offered me a million dollars to come out of my retirement to do Indy. I said yes, OK, I do it.”

It was the wrong answer. A huge and terrifying shunt in qualifying ended his career for good. He knew, there and then, as he lay in the wreckage at the Brickyard, that it was all over.

“Yeh, I knew soon as I looked at my feet, they were all splayed out, my ankles were smashed to bits and it hurt like hell. I sat there praying. I’ve always believed in God and that day I just prayed that I would live. The pain was terrible. But you know, it was the best thing that happened, because now I had to stop, I knew it was over and this was a wall in my life, the wall went up and the racing was finished, in the past.”

Piquet at Benetton
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In his final year – 1991 – at Benetton

But he hasn’t shuffled away into obscurity. His son Nelsinho is now test driver for the Renault F1 team, Nelson having supported him through F3 and GP2, while his eight-year-old son Pedro has just won Brazil’s junior kart championships.

“I have seven children,” his credentials as a ladies man, or womaniser, always were impeccable, his success rate legendary. “I help them when I can. I learnt that hard work and sacrifice equals results and to get on in F1 now you need to make sacrifices. Or you can work less, have more fun, and not get the results. I have said this to Nelsinho.”

Nelson Piquet had fun. And results. But they were different days. He hobbles away on those injured feet, arm around his Formula 1 son. They are wanted for a Renault sponsor’s photograph. Another motor racing dynasty, very much the fashion these days, is being established. It’s in the blood. Somewhere down the road we may see more Piquet-Rosberg jousting. And Nelson will no doubt be aware that the Sons of Mansell are embarking upon the next stage of their motor racing journey. Hold the back page.


OK Just realised I am a day early.... its only the 16th. Sh1t happens :smiley:

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White six
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#1185

Post by White six »

He didn't make his debut with mclaren like lol.

They missed an 'a' out. Nice shot I've not seen before though. There's a dent in the front wing, I trust a previous owner did that.

I'm sure I don't need tell you but a race for ensign then three for Bob Sparshott. You can see him somehow picking his way through the Ronnie Petersen carnage for his first finish
The board equivalent of the Jody scheckter chicane. Fast but pointless
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#1186

Post by Everso Biggyballies »

White six wrote: 2 years ago He didn't make his debut with mclaren like lol.

They missed an 'a' out. Nice shot I've not seen before though. There's a dent in the front wing, I trust a previous owner did that.

I'm sure I don't need tell you but a race for ensign then three for Bob Sparshott. You can see him somehow picking his way through the Ronnie Petersen carnage for his first finish
Yeah he ran with Ensign in Germany where he DNF'd (having qualified ahead of Mass Stuck and Ertl) and then next race popped up in the BS Fabrications McLaren (Sparshott)in Austria where he crashed out on lap 2, Holland a mechanical DNF and then Italy a top 10 before moving on to a 3rd Brabham for Canada where he was the only Brabham to finish.
(I know BS Fabs started the season with Lunger in the M23, before they put Lunger in the M26 they had bought and tested pre-season. After Lunger got on well with the M26 they put Nelson into the M23.)

* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left


“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)

* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
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