[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I ended up going to the K&M series when won some races. I ended up going to IndyCar and the rest is history on that front. But I, I truly did. And of course I did some sports car racing in Europe. You know, Le Mans in 1980, 81, 82.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I loved going to Le Mans again, ticking that box as we would say.


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[Assistant] Some are no longer with us, but some are still there. And it's, uh, I think there's a, um, a lot of very positive feelings I have towards, uh, my time in Europe racing.


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[Assistant] And Leo is the one who really directed for him and Ferrari told Leo Mel that they were interested in coming to IndyCar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, a deal was put together and we, so we shipped off one of our 85 March Indy cars, plus a couple of, uh, mechanics to Pirano.


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[Assistant] You know, an Indy car is different than a Formula One car, so it was important that they had that experience, that Ferrari had the experience with that Indy car and with our people.


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[Assistant] Uh, the passion that you see for motor sports that exists in Italy is tremendous. So, um, it was wonderful to go there to meet, uh, Mr. Ferrari was something very special.


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[Assistant] Brenda, his secretary was English and thank God for her because I think she, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, Mr. Ferrari, he, you know, all you have to do is look at the history of Formula One.


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[Assistant] You know, he was, he was the dominant figure. So yeah, that was a real pleasure, real honor privilege to have spent some time in his office with him and chatting.


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[Assistant] He's the one who asked me if I would be interested in going there. Ford had obviously they bought it. You know, it's interesting. And I think.


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[Assistant] So I felt like, you know, I could go back and forth and of course Ford agreed I could do that.


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[Assistant] And as part of it, they ended up buying Cosworth Engineering, ended up buying Pi Electronics and Jaguar Formula One from Stewart. And so uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He decided he needed somebody to run, you know, all the, all the racing properties, Cosworth, Pi, um, Jaguar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, two Ferraris and a Jaguar. I remember, I don't know, somebody, might have been Bernie. Say, now that's what the way it should look, where you had this, these two great manufacturers, you know, on the, on the victory stand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bernie was an amazing guy. I really like him. Uhm, first off, I would tell you that everything he said he would do, he did. It's interesting. So I took over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As interim chairman or interim CEO of CART of, uh, in June of that year, and I was in England, so I went to see Bernie.


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[Assistant] Uh, reacquain ourselves a little bit and, and, uh, and of course, then it was announced at the U.S. Grand Prix in Indianapolis. That's when they announced, uh, my coming on as, as a, as a team principal.


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[Assistant] But you cannot deny what he created. And, um, there's a lot of, a lot of very wealthy racing people out there because of Bernie Ecclestone.


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[Assistant] Uh, that was the weekend that everything has really come together. Um, probably just prior to that weekend and by all intents, we were gonna, we were gonna go forward.


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[Assistant] Having to explain to the head treasurer of the premier auto group, why I felt it was worth X amount of dollars to get Adrian new.


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[Assistant] You know, how much money we'd save because he already had the information, you know, I mean the notoriety that it would bring the other people that he would bring with him.


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[Assistant] Take so long. And uh, that soured me a bit out of it, frankly.


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[Assistant] Uh, an Indy car and let's go racing. And I think he gave it some thought, but in the end, Formula One.


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[Assistant] Really where he wanted to be. And of course, uh, I think he went to Williams right about the area that Williams at that time. So, you know, obviously formula one presented the intellectual challenge.


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[Assistant] I would say, I mean, you never say no to anything, you know, without really looking at it, but uhm.


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[Assistant] Because as long as there's the manufacturers involved, uhm, the ability to compete against that kind of


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[Assistant] Is that it's still, each team is still relatively privately owned. You know, uh, Roger Penske owns his team, Chip Ganassi his. I mean, we're not talking major corporations, are we?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, he's now 33, so it would have been great to see him in a car some years ago, but it just never, uh, never really the opportunity to come.


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[Assistant] Uh, and doing well in all circuits. Now he's with a great team. That, that helps tremendously, but still I thought he did a very good job.


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[Assistant] I resorted to things like selling stickers. Said I'm backing a future British Formula One star, Jonathan Palmer. And I sold, for a pound each, three and a half thousand of those through Autosport. So that got me through another race.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I never really saw Ayrton completely relax letting his hair down. I'd only see him around race meetings. We'd often talk helicopters, but he was always pretty intense. And I think even when he was away from the car, he was still, because he was at the track, was pretty serious. I mean, on flights going to Grand Prix, he'd be reading the Bible.


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[Assistant] Well it's nice to, nice to have you here Tom, and it's always, it's always nice to reminisce with people that understand motorsport.


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[Assistant] That's a very big question. I think first of all, it was a really, really important.


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[Assistant] Probably the most defining time in a way in my life in that, uh, I think with any of us who've been motor racing, particularly at Formula One level, one knows exactly what you're doing at any given year. If you mention, you know, 89, 83, 84.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Years come into shop, focus, I suppose because you're changing teams quite often or there's a different, well there's always a new car and things like that. Whereas if you ask me what I was doing in 2006 or 2014, I'd really


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Find it hard to sort of define what actually I was doing that particular year. So that's one thing that it's, it is very much still in the spotlight mentally.


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[Assistant] Financial stability, Formula One wasn't a great time, it wasn't a bad time.


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[Assistant] So it wasn't, it wasn't particularly important from that point of view, but of course it, it was important in that it was one hell of an ambition that any driver, me included, had, you know, you're coming up through Formula Ford, Formula 3, Formula 2 in those days, Formula 1 and, and you know, it's where you wanted to be and, and the effort that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Martin Brundle, I think we know it was just so much the most important thing in our lives, as it is I'm sure exactly the same way to the George Russells and Orlando Norris' coming up now. But to actually get there, uh, was amazing. And of course it was pretty precarious trying to stay there.


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[Assistant] And it was always this balance. You wanted to try and do the best job you could, but hope that that was good enough for you to end up staying there. And I did for six years.


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[Assistant] I'm proud that I got a Formula One. I'm proud that I did six years of it with reasonable level of success, I would say. I was not an Ayrton Senna or an Alan Prost, but nevertheless, I think the most important thing for me and indeed for anybody in their lives is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I gave it my best shot, I'm satisfied with that. I could not have tried harder to be successful with the level of talent I had in Formula One. And the results that I got overall were probably pretty much...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The sort of results my talent justified, really. Yes, if I got into a Williams or McLaren, I'm sure I could have won the old Grand Prix. But would I have won the World Championship against the likes of Senna?


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[Assistant] It didn't frustrate me as much as one might have thought, I think, really.


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[Assistant] I don't quite know why not, but I think, I suppose that always coming up through, I was sort of desperate to get to Formula One, and desperate to win at every level.


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[Assistant] But at the same time, I was always pretty realistic, you know, I always knew that, uh,


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[Assistant] A lot of other good guys out there, and of course winning in Formula 3, I won in Britain, but admittedly probably half the field were overseas drivers, and British Formula 3 when I was doing it was very much the place to be. In Formula 2, I definitely had a car advantage with Route Honda, certainly in the second year.


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[Assistant] But on the other hand, I also had a good teammate with Mike Thackwell, who I beat pretty well too.


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[Assistant] So, you know, I'd certainly deserve to go into Formula One, but I think perhaps the other thing is that because I inevitably got into Formula One, the gap between the back end teams and the front teams in my day was so big that it was almost impossible to make any kind of impression. I remember looking back through the grids for Grand Prix when I started my first full year in 1984 and the gap


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And me and my ram with Philippe Allier was about 10 seconds a lap.


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[Assistant] You know, this is like being with a, with a kind of Formula 2 car in a Formula 1 race. And people discounted what you did. I think that's another thing with those days, it's quite hard to make an impression at a back-end team because you were so far off the pace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I had a few times actually when I got very close, but just fate didn't go my way. The first actually was back in 1982. My first full year of Formula 2. I'd won the British Formula 3 Championship in 1981.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had test drives with McLaren, Williams and Lotus that autumn. Joined Route Honda for Formula 2, but also was test driver for Williams and got on really well with Patrick Head and Frank Williams. And that was great because I was getting mileage in the car and that was really before test drivers


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Carlos Reutemann was driving for Williams and he suddenly wanted to stop. This was a second or third race of the year and Frank Williams came down to Thruxton and sat in the car with Ron Torrenach.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The degradation was pretty high, so you could qualify well, but the performance dropped off very quickly in the race.


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[Assistant] But because it was new at that time, I don't think Ron Toranak and other people around really appreciated how much degradation there really was with the Bridgestone tyres at that time in a race situation, and therefore how much it compromised the performance of the drivers in the cars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I think that's why I think sort of Ron said, look, yeah, he's quick, he's talented, he's bright, you know, he needs more experience, racecraft and things because the few races I had done were just totally blighted by high degradation. So that was the first one. So as a result, then Frank took Derek Daly instead of me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I won the British former three championship, I had a prize of, because it was Marlborough sponsored, of a test in the MP4 with McLaren. And the test was at Silverstone. I had a full day on the first day. I did a very good job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The car suited me very well. Ron Dennis was engineering me. I set a time that would have put me on the second row of the grid for the British Grand Prix. And after that test, Ron said, right, I want you to come down and meet John Barnard. He said, look, jump in the car with me. We'll drive back down to Woking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that evening I was talking to Ron and John in quite some depth and subsequently I understood that they were looking very seriously whether to put me in the car for next year. But as it happened, Nicky Lauda came out of retirement and uhm, that was the end of that one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, the 87. Well, I, you know, that's the time when, um, I'd won the normally aspirated championship in Formula One and, um, I was pushing everywhere and I don't know how seriously, um, I was being looked at by McLaren, you know, I think they're wrong to look at really. But, um, yeah, there were, there were a few times when.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Part of the reason for joining McLaren as their SS driver in a pretty intensive capacity was that, uh, I just, you know, I hope that this could be my chance if Senna or Berger, who were the Dura-Ace drivers, had a problem in a broken arm or something and I could jump in the car and suddenly get a result in a, in a top running car. That was the kind of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Albeit remote chance, but that was the chance of really launching myself into a way of, uh, getting into a top car. But, um, I thought just remember there's a chance I was going to get in the car at Monaco, which I think would have been great. So I always used to love Monaco. Let's talk about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I suppose the first thing is that the circumstances were quite curious really because at the end of 1983, I'd won the British former two championship. I was testing with Williams, Frank and Patrick gave me as a, as a reward. I mean, can you imagine this now, but a third car at the Grand Prix of Europe?


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[Assistant] So I was alongside, um, Kecky Rosberg and Jacques Lafitte having my first ever Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in September, 1983.


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[Assistant] And God, I mean, it was, it was huge. Formula two at those days didn't race at Formula one circuits. To launch into the crowd at Brands was massive. And of course there's a lot of focus on me as this, you know, the young driver.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now as it happened, I out-qualified Jack Lafitte actually, but it, because we, this was in the days when Williams had the Cosworth normally aspirated engine, when the front runners all had turbos in the second half of the grid. Keke, I think, qualified 13th, I was 25th, Jack didn't make the cut, Alberetto was 26th.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Jack probably wasn't very pleased with me. It was pretty tough with those cars because the tyres were all based around the heavier, more powerful turbo cars. The compound was very hard.


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[Assistant] To get any kind of grip out of them, you had to really chuck the cars around to abuse the tyres to get some heat into them.


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[Assistant] And of course, Kecky's aggressive driving style was perfect for that, and that's what got him up the grid. But for Jacques, who was neater and more precise, and frankly me too, you know, it was particularly hard. Of course it was, it was a pretty hard first Grand Prix. And actually interesting, those tyres were so hard that in the race we pit stopped. But we pit stopped for fuel, not tyres. Kecky had the same set of tyres on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You never get the heat into them. How much preparation time did you get? I've been testing, of course, with the cars throughout the year. So I, you know, I had a, I had a bit of a running. I didn't run at brands before, but no, it was an amazing thing. I was absolutely thrilled to do it. The next year of 84, I was desperate to get into Formula One. And one of the drives, the drive I really wanted was the Tyrrell drive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I knew that Ken threw his links to Jackie Stewart and Jackie's link to Martin. Martin was very much the guy that was being pushed forward for that Tyrrell seed. And I was banging onto Ken saying, look, you know, I've won not only former three.


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[Assistant] I mean, Martin's been second in Formula 3. I know, I've won the championship and I've won Formula 2. Come on, you know, you've got to give me the drive, not Martin.


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[Assistant] I remember saying to Ken, you know, one time that, no, can you tell me, have you actually given the drive to Martin? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no


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[Assistant] Second year, then I got picked up by, uh, there's a new German team starting and looking for a driver and Andrew Marriott actually put me into that drive. He suggested my name to Eric Sikowski. Of Zakspeed. Of Zakspeed. So uhm, I got the Zakspeed driver. That was a big game changer because then I actually, I got paid. I got paid £50,000 a year to drive for Zakspeed.


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[Assistant] Which was a lot better than taking money to Rams. That was another whole story.


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[Assistant] Well, I don't know whether that makes them more of a Formula One team or not really. They were desperately enthusiastic, but that first year we just did the European Grand Prix, we didn't do the flyaways.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course there's no team mate as well. You were very much sort of working in a vacuum really. There was no reference point. And they were. I mean, she said they were trying to do a Ferrari or building the engine, the gearbox, the chassis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The whole thing. And anyway, they kept me on, but it was such a technical challenge too. I remember testing at Imola. A couple of things sort of stand out from that year at Zakspeed, but I mean, Eric Sikorski was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was obviously desperate for the thing to work and for results and desperate to make it look good too. He got this German cigarette sponsor West. So I made the first sort of test we were doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, these were obviously turbo cars, 1500 cc turbo. I remember at Imola and I was keeping up with Lafitte and Eligier with a Renault V6 for a few laps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, I don't know what the boost was, but, and then as the engine wore its valves out, literally I was losing sort of three or four tenths a second a lap until by lap ten the engine had virtually expired. But these things were just so fragile, uhm, and the technical challenge that Zakspeed had embarked on was, was so big.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think one of my greatest achievements was actually, it was, um, it was qualifying 19th and getting, getting on the grid at Monaco, which was one hell of an achievement really. I think you were a Monaco specialist as well. I was actually, yeah, I used to love Monaco, but also I was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, a lot of my success, um, or an important part of my success, I should say in any, whether it's Formula 3, 2 and 1 and Group C.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was not just trying to drive fast, but make the car quick. Driving the engineers and the designers to make the car quick and get it in the right configuration, which was frankly going to make a far bigger difference than how quick I or anybody else drove.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was clearly the most important thing. Eric would always want, he was a very good friend of Paul Rocha's from BMW and his engine was pretty much modeled on a Paul Rocha BMW and you know, an awful lot of beer was drunk in the evenings. Eric would come in like a mad professor with some latest great idea that we had to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To make the car quick, I mean we had two turbos on the thing at one time on a four cylinder and, and he always wanted to put a bigger turbo on because that would mean it would get a thousand horsepower, whereas the, it was a thing called a K36 big turbo that had about a thousand horsepower, whereas the K33 smaller one would only have 930 or 40.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, you know, the big one had no response, so I'd be battling with Eric Zakoski saying like at Monaco, we can't run the K36, we're going to be nowhere, it's about response. You know, we're only on full throttle Eric for 27% of a lap or something, or whatever it was. So we worked pretty well together, and that was a bit of a theme to a lot of my drives really. But, you know, with other things, I remember in Austria.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the car, to start with, this is not refueling, but they were like, it's like driving a 40 ton truck with it, or a car, put it at least in the car with a roof rack on lumbering around. But Eric said, no, no, no, we're starting with 120 kilos. I said, Eric, we've got no chance. And they said, okay, we have to, we have to go fast, Jonathan, we have to go, we have to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We need speed, we have speed. Okay, so you know, I sit in this car knowing that it was going to expire when we had the inevitable electrical problem by lap 27.


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[Assistant] But you know, this was, this was, you know, he had to try and keep the money coming in. I mean, this was, this sort of story is throughout Formula One, particularly in, you know, it's probably


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On three year contracts. So at the end of the third year, Martin was going to leave. Martin wanted to go to Zaxby. I wasn't quite sure why. And I want, you know, I was thrilled to go to Tyrol. I mean, the idea for me after three years of, of delicate turbo cars that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Weren't that rewarding to drive. They had a lot of power, but you know, they were unreliable and laggy. The idea of, you know, when I jumped in the Tyrrell and a normally aspirated engine was something I jumped at. So we'd literally swap and I jumped in the Tyrrell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was definitely, it was a much better deal for me. And of course that was the time when we're in the transition that Formula One was moving away from turbos to normally aspirated engines. So there was this subclass.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What were your goals? The goal was to be the best of the normally aspirated classes. Normally it was, I think there might have been seven cars on one event, but it was generally six cars. And to beat my teammate, like anything else. You know, that's the key thing. If you beat your teammate and I won the class, then that for me was as good as a win I could get. But having said that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was always nice and very rewarding to get up as far as you feel you could. And one of the, one of the good things if you like about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The turbos in those days, they were still pretty unreliable. So if you kept going round and round, even if you might've been going two or three seconds slower a lap than the turbos,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Half a dozen of them, eight of them were going to expire in the race. So it's a question of how far you, you know, you found yourself moving up the order. So fifth at Monaco, fifth at Hockenheim, fourth at Adelaide. Yeah, I think the Monaco results were very much on merit. The frantic nature of Monaco.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meant that I couldn't overthink it. A negative for me was that because I was a very sort of analytical sort of driver, the long circuits like Monza was just not my sort of place because I'd sit there down these endless straights.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just trying to think how I was going to break at 87.3 meters when I needed to to get into the, you know, the Ascari Chicane or whatever it was, and I'd sort of overthink it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whereas at Monaco, there's no time to do that. It's just one frantic blur of activity. Up the box, down the box, this right there, curve sliding, nudging the barriers. It was just a, literally a frantic blur of activity. And I didn't get time to overthink it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think that's why I just completely get into another mindset and, and, and did very well. And certainly fifth in 87 was a great result in many ways and actually getting the car set up well for the race was really important. Then we, we did it with Brian Liles, my engineer, who I got on really well with. We worked very well together. We actually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Came up with a set up to make that thing very, very drivable and predictable and also retaining good braking under the undulations of curves and road cambers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We tried a radical set up of disconnecting the front anti-roll bar, so we had no front anti-roll bar at all on the tour all that year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But had very stiff, well, relatively stiff springs. So the, the roll stiffness came from the springs, but at least we didn't lift wheels up and things and they kept the pitch change under control. That definitely helped me on the way to fifth. And then the following year was quite funny actually, because in 1988, the 0117 Tyrrell, which I sh...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, it was a bit of a dog really. It was much narrower than the bulky and it looked better. It looked trimmer than the bulky 016, DG016.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it didn't really perform well, it was obviously not very good aerodynamically. Anyway, we used to go to Quart-en-Tenoir, the little French circuit, to test the setup, and we had a short wheelbase version, a long wheelbase version.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Julian Bailey were pounding around and were running kind of, I think I was about P14, 15, 16. Julian was struggling to get out of the, you know, 26 or something. And then my car had a gearbox problem and I had to take the spare car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For qualifying. And the spare car was in the long wheelbase configuration as well. But actually, it was a revelation. I qualified ninth. It had much better front end, the weight around moniker, the weight distribution worked better for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, I qualified 9th and finished Grand Prix in 5th, so it was one hell of a result. What a great story too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you know, those, those sort of things when sort of pulling something out of the hat. And, uh, I don't think it's really important is not to get psychologically bashed by things going wrong. It would have been easy to get in a complete spin of thinking, right, that's it. Now I've got to be in the long wheelbase car and that's no chance I'm out of it. And, you know, and, and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of Harvey Postlethwaite and Jean-Claude Miseot. Basically Harvey and Jean-Claude Miseot came from Ferrari. And the 89 car was much nicer car. It was quite radical. It was a low nose in 89. It went to 90, it went to high nose.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] God, anyone who jumped out of a current Formula One car would be horrified at how compact the cockpits were, no head protection, let alone a halo with about 8mm thick composite around you and you're belting down the road at


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I guess it was really. Is it just your story on that? Because the car was late and the first Grand Prix at Rio.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Michele Alboretto is my teammate and I, we had the old 017, which cause we were back at the grid, back of the field, it would have been back at the field in 88, let alone when everyone else has moved on a bit in 89.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So then we came to the second Grand Prix, Imola, and Michele now got the new, he got inevitably as the ex-Ferrari star driver, he got the 0-1-8.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] New car. The, I would say the 018, it was aerodynamically far better, much, really nice looking car, but it had gone quite radically to a monoshock sort of, uh, front suspension assembly when basically the both front wheels moved up and down together, they would sort of tie it together, which, uh, Jean-Claude Méjean and Harvey thought was the way to go. And it did indeed, that was a fad for a while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, we're doing the prac, going through the practice sessions and qualifying at, uh, Imola and it was the first time out for the car and Michele, he was complaining bitterly about it being farty, you know, oversteer everywhere and, you know, and it was,


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[Assistant] Possible to drive and, anyway, I qualified 25th. I mean, Mike Haley didn't qualify. He was 27th or 8th or something.


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[Assistant] You didn't make the cut for the race. So God, I mean, it was the mood in the Tyrol garage was, was grim. Ken had spent big bucks. He didn't have getting in Harvey, Jean-Claude Michel and Alberto. And there's little old me in the old car that's qualified and in the new swanky car, he just hadn't made it after two days of practice and qualifying. Ken said, look.


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[Assistant] We've got to make this thing work. Will you jump in the new car for the race?


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[Assistant] You know, I hadn't driven it before, so this was end of qualifying on Saturday. And I said, yeah, sure.


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[Assistant] If they all wanted me to do it, fine, I'd jump in it. But also the reality was I wasn't going to get anywhere in the old car. I was going to be plotting around at the back of the field trying to make the best of it.


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[Assistant] In those days there was a warm-up, a 30 minute warm-up that we had, so the first time I jumped in the car was for the warm-up, when it was on, you know, two-thirds tanks or something, it wasn't refuelling in those days. So I went out.


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[Assistant] And they said, look, we put the setup on where Mercati's left it, but he said it's very pointy. So I went, I went, I went around in three or four laps and I came in and I said, no, look, this car's not, this is not oversteering, it's understeering.


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[Assistant] I said it feels darty on the steering. It's got initial nervousness, but fundamentally it's understeering. We need to sift in the rear roll bar and get some more front wing on it. So I was just in and out of the pits for the session really, just getting a balance on the car, getting rid of the understeer that it really had, the basic understeer that the car had.


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[Assistant] And I said, look, get this thing sorted. I think it's going to be good. Because for the first time I was in a car, I was sort of keeping up with our cars down the straight rather than having a draggy old previous Tyrrell that, you know, you wouldn't even stay in the tow. So I thought, God, this is, this could actually be quite good.


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[Assistant] Everyone was a bit more enthusiastic after the warmup and then the race warmup, the rear anti-roll bar broke or something. So they had to fix that on the grid and they fixed that.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but I started from the back of the field. We had got between us the car to a state where actually it handled really well.


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[Assistant] We got rid of, because I was just in out of the pits or the warm up, I got rid of the understeer. I worked through the field and finished sixth. The transformation from despair from the whole team on the Saturday afternoon to almost euphoria on the Sunday. I mean, I don't think it did. Michaelis was much, much good.


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[Assistant] Because he was, maybe it was, he was on home ground, it was Italy and, you know, he was expected to go well and he wasn't. He just got in a bit of a flat spin and panic and didn't think clearly enough about what the car was really doing and was just too instinctive and didn't think it through carefully enough.


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[Assistant] It did, absolutely. There were plenty of other things in my career. I mean, for example, like racing group C sports cars with a picture of the Porsche 956. And an example, again, how I used to enjoy developing the car was that we would come in 1984.


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[Assistant] Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit for the 1000k race up against the factory Porsches and everything else. Keith Green was the team manager. Jan Lammers, my teammate. I knew that with the Porsche, those 956s, you could get loads of rear downforce. The rear wing was massive and wide and far back.


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[Assistant] There was always a problem getting enough front balancing it and around Brands, Brands has got no real long straights, it's all about cornering speed. I said to the team before we went there, what's going to be the factor here is getting enough front grip out of this.


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[Assistant] If we can find more front grip, we can run more rear grip, which we can get easily, which is usually the problem, and it will be quicker.


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[Assistant] I said, so what can we do? And I said, why don't we just put another front wing on top of the nose? And good thing is that Richard Lloyd and Keith Green and Peter Stevens, the team were all very progressive. And if any, it was definitely, if you had a wacky idea, well, think about that. And what's the harm in trying it?


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[Assistant] So in the first practice at Brands with the, uh, in the, for the thousand K race, I said, right, we had another nose with the front wing on it. And, um, I said, right, put the other nose on. So I did, I did five laps to start with, with the standard nose, did a time, completely put the other one on. And I said, yes, he's definitely better.


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[Assistant] I said, right, came in after two laps, crank more front wing on. Yeah, another two laps. Yep, better, but put some more front wing on. Put another angle on. Right, now I've got oversteer, now put some more rear wing on.


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[Assistant] And I think we got pole basically by nearly a second just because we got so much, we got us a load more grip out of the car because we could run a load more rear wing because we could now balance it with the front wing. So that was the kind of thing and actually went on to win the race at a canter. Of course you did. You and Jan Lammers.


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[Assistant] My father was a GP. I badgered him to take me to some motor races. I was always passionate about cars and reading motor magazine at the time.


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[Assistant] But I had no family background in it at all. I took myself off and did the initial trial at Brands Hatch as a 17 year old when a chap called Sid Fox took me around. I couldn't afford the single seat a bit, so it was just in one of those Shellsport form escorts. And I remember I've still got the little chit somewhere in the archives that says 91% too fast for first time, but lots of potential.


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[Assistant] And shared a house with uhm, a load of people, other students and people just qualified. One of the eight people in this house in South East London, because I was at Guy's in London. There was a chap called David Mercer who just qualified as a dentist and outside of the house there was a, there was a, he had got a Jensen Healy.


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[Assistant] So here's me arriving in my little old Hillman Imp, which I think I had at the time, to see this guy who just qualified as a dentist with his Jensen Healey. So I thought, right, he's just the person I need. So I persuaded him he ought to actually go motor racing.


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[Assistant] And we looked in the back of car, or I looked in the back of cars and car conversions and found a Frog Eye Sprite. The cheapest car that was anything that was going to be remotely affordable was this Frog Eye Sprite, advertised down in Fannet, in Kent, for a £325 little Mosports car.


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[Assistant] So I've sold my entire possessions of, uh, to raise 162 pounds. We went down there and Dave put in his 162.


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[Assistant] And we came away with this frog eye sprite, which of course was dreadful thing. It blew up straight away and I had to, you know, I was running it off a student grant and rebuilding it and learning everything. After a few months, David said, look, I'm going to go and buy myself a proper little reliable MG midget, but you know, you, you carry on with my money in that for a bit.


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[Assistant] So I ran that and that, but that's how I started and that was an 18 year old in Modsports. And then it was Formula Ford, but I, you know, I never had.


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[Assistant] Any money, my father had no money to put into what I did and it was just a question of


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[Assistant] You know, student grants, doing stuff, begging, getting a little token of sponsorship here and there.


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[Assistant] All the way through my career. So clearly you were quick. At what point did it get serious for you? A serious bit was definitely Formula 3. Oh, as late as that? Well, I say yea, really, because I'd been racing as a medical student all the way. I'd done, so I'd done my year as with Sprite.


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[Assistant] Then two years ended with the Marcus and then three years with Formula Ford. And now I'm getting to the point when I've qualified in medicine.


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[Assistant] And I was going to go and do a GP training scheme because I thought that would give me the time and flexibility knowing my father's lifestyle to go and do some racing as a hobby. But then I thought actually.


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[Assistant] I've really got to do that. I made the decision to stop medicine for a year, take a year off and try and go full time motor racing. What did your parents make of that decision? No problem at all. My father had died the year before anyway, so he wasn't around to influence it. And my mother was fine with it. I think she knew I was so strong willed. There was no point in her.


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[Assistant] Trying to... Follow your passions. Trying to, yeaah, follow your passions, yeaah. And I think the fact that I'd actually qualified.


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[Assistant] So I took a year off and I had the sponsor Mike called West Surrey engineering, a little engineering company in Ashford, Surrey. So I persuaded him, look, what we ought to do is go and buy, we ought to do Formula 3, Mike. You know, we, we, I finished one of a few races in Formula Ford.


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[Assistant] Finished third in the P&O Championship, but we need to go Formula 3. So I persuaded him to go and buy the project for championship winning Formula 3 car that Dick Bennett's had run and won the championship with Stephanie Hanson with, the Route RT3.


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[Assistant] He said, okay, we'll buy the car. And I said, well, we need a test. So we went down to Goodwood with a handover. Dick was running it. Stefan did a few laps. I jumped in. First ever time in a Formula 3 car and it suited my technical style because they didn't have a lot of power, but it took down ground effects and skirts and all that stuff.


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[Assistant] Within 20 laps, I was within within a 10th of a second of Stephanie Hansen. I thought, right, okay, we're all pumped up now. We've got to go and do this. We are going to go for a three. So now we bought the car, sort of car sitting in a workshop. And I said, well, the guy we need to run it is Dick Bennett. Dick had gone back to New Zealand to run one of his Kiwi mates, a tech called Dave Oxton.


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[Assistant] In Formula Atlantic down there and he, he was done with, you know, he'd run project four for Ron Dennis, but he was done with that. And he was, we wanted to have a quieter life down in New Zealand.


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[Assistant] But I was on the phone to him every few days, every week. Said, look, Dick, come on, you've got to come and do this. We're going to have a great team. I said, well, have you got any money? You haven't got any money though, have you? I said, yeah, we've got enough. We've got enough. He's going to sponsor it.


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[Assistant] And eventually after about a month of me harassing Dick, he said, okay, we'll come back and do it.


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[Assistant] Of course, when he came back, it was nothing like the picture I painted there. We had an old, what was called a Ford A series, which was like a grownup transit, sort of a transporter, one mechanic, and it was, well, we're here, this is the team doing it. He said, you're joking, you know, where's the mechanics, where's the stores, where the work, you know, we're virtually running it out of a lock up garage.


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[Assistant] But, you know, by that time he was here, so he was on the hook. Harvey Spencer came from one of his mates, um, and we got the team going. It was hand to mouth. The fortunate thing is, as ever, we did the first race, testing went well.


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[Assistant] We did the first race, won the first race, won the next one, won the next one, basically won the first four races. And we're leading the championship and there's no way we could stop now. But we still only had one engine, we didn't have a spare nose cone.


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[Assistant] I was limping from race to race and I resorted to things like, uh, like selling stickers. I had to think, or you may, you know, you're too young to remember, but, uhm, a helmet sticker said, I'm backing a future British Formula One star, Jonathan Palmer.


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[Assistant] And I sold for a pound each, like three and a half thousand of those through Autosport. So that got me through another race, but the odd person in BP came in with a bit, just bits and bobs, but that whole season cost 57,000 pounds.


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[Assistant] Yeah, then I went back to my guy who I, my GP trainer, who I said, look, I'm just going to take a sabbatical year off. I'll be back at the end of the year, but I just want to get this out of my system. I didn't want to kind of him to sort of deny me the opportunity of coming back. But then in a year I did say, well, actually thanks so much for keeping it open. But you know, I'm.


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[Assistant] I'm not going to come back to motor racing, but it put me on the map, but it also put Dick Bennett's on the map because that was the start of West Surrey racing.


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[Assistant] And the following year he had Kiki Mancilla driving and then the following year it was Ayrton and West Side Racing all spawned.


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[Assistant] Not really. It's unfathomable. I have no idea what would have happened.


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[Assistant] It's been a hell of a journey and an exciting one. And, um, it set me up for other things really too. And I was always determined that it should do. I was, I was a big, I was a driver who never thought that my Formula One driving career was the.


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[Assistant] With the be all and end all of my professional career. It was always something that was, I was going to do to the best of my ability until I couldn't anymore. When I lost my drive after a Lacey came on the scene in 89 and basically blew me away. But then I've always looked to the next step. You know, I looked to the next step then joining McLaren.


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[Assistant] As the very successful relationship with Ron Dennis, um, not just the Formula One test program. When I was, I was going to Japan once every month for 18 months, for three days of going to test with Tyler Alexander on the Suzuka test, Honda test program, for example, and they were vivid days as well.


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[Assistant] But also of course the F1 road car program I was testing with that, but at the same time, then I thought I could, I was conscious of keeping my name in the public eye, so I approached BBC about doing, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, commentary for them, which is another long story, but, um, that was six years of that. And of course those two things and then building my business, the Palmer sport business, starting at Bruntingthorpe.


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[Assistant] Trying to do the thing that I'm doing now the best I can, but with an eye on where it's gonna go in the future. Do you see yourself as a bit of a wheeler-dealer?


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[Assistant] I'm a wheeler dealer, because I'm a wheeler dealer since I sell things too. If you deal, you... I think you have the stickers that you sold in F3. I know what you mean. Yes, I mean, basically I am. I've always managed to find a way to get to the next step. And when I built my Bedford circuit, I got the planning permission. I started the contractors working, but I hadn't got the money. I just knew somehow I'd get the money.


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[Assistant] It was really just going to depend on how much I had to give away of the business to get the money. So I guess I've always been quite brave with commercial decisions. You know, one doesn't go Formula One racing if you're not a risk taker, particularly in the kind of cars that we were running in those days.


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[Assistant] So whether it's physical or commercial, I don't mind taking a risk, but it's very much a calculated risk when you're doing it and an even more calculated.


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[Assistant] Risk in terms of management thereafter. I guess I've always had a tendency to sort of dream high, think high, commit myself high and then work out how to put my effort into working out how the hell I'm going to get there and not fall on my face.


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[Assistant] Yes, it was, and it was pretty devastating really. I was in my sixth year of Formula One. I outperformed.


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[Assistant] Each of my teammates, all the way through, I'd outperformed, uh, Philip Alio, Hubert Rottengatter at Zakspeed and Philip Streff was reasonable competition, Julian Bailey and Michele actually, you know, I was outperforming Michele, which has probably contributed to why, part of the reason why he left.


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[Assistant] So we're in this young, when Ken said, look, I mean, Kayleigh's gone, I'm afraid, but we've got this young French former 3000 guy, Jean Alesi, coming in.


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[Assistant] I quantified sort of 14th or something or 12th or maybe I quantified 12th. I mean the card wasn't bad around Paul Ricard at the time and Jean is first just jumping into it quantified 15th and about two, three tenths behind.


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[Assistant] And I thought, blimey, that's, uhm, impressive. But what was even more impressive?


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[Assistant] He came up, you know, obviously he was in the motor home and garage, we were together, and he was so full of praise for what I'd done, you know, and I remember thinking, God, why is this guy so...


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[Assistant] Astonished that I've been quicker. I've been racing, you know, I'm.


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[Assistant] You know, I've been racing Formula One for six years, I'm highly experienced, I'm bloody good, and this bloke thought as if I just had a newcomer coming in. And the next race, either one was one place ahead or he was one place ahead of me on the grid at Silverstone. And then thereafter, he was two or three tenths ahead everywhere. But then I realised that Jean was somebody who just couldn't believe anyone could ever be quicker than him.


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[Assistant] The way he drove a racing car was drive the wheels off it, which he did. And that was the wake up straight away. You know, this, this guy was somebody who just couldn't understand how anyone was quicker than him racing.


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[Assistant] In fact, to be fair, Jean and I got on well that year. It would have been easy not to, but he was straightforward guy. He was just bloody quick.


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[Assistant] I respected him hugely for that. He wasn't as analytical as me, but he got, you know, he got the job done and his racing was inspired people. And like the one in the following year at Tyrol in the Phoenix sort of thing. And we still get on well now, actually. We have a lot of mutual respect, I think.


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[Assistant] Yes, at the start of 1989, I was looking in great shape. I got a pretty competitive car and I got a very highly rated teammate and I ended up matching him and often beating Michele to the point that the last race he did, I'd set the fastest lap at the Grand Prix in Canada.


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[Assistant] I out-qualified him and I was running third until I basically crashed out at the last corner and hit the infamous wall, uhm, after the deluge of rain came down that today would have had the safety car out and frankly the race stopped but in those days everyone just kept going and


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[Assistant] Until there was a last man standing, he was still pottering around, but he couldn't even use full throttle down the straights. But anyway, I was in good shape, and actually, although I knew my Tyrol tenure was coming to an end because my three-year stint was up,


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[Assistant] I was talking very seriously to Jackie Oliver about joining Arrows for the following year and also McLaren as well. And, you know, I was, I was definitely one of those drivers who are on people's shopping list.


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[Assistant] But, huge but, the advent of John O'Lacy blowing me away for the second half of the season completely kicked the legs out from me and, you know, I wouldn't say I went from hero to zero, but I certainly


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[Assistant] Went to one of those people that was no longer having intimate conversations in motorhomes as I was in the first half of the season. And it was pretty clear that my Formula One racing days were probably going to be over, bar of fluke.


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[Assistant] I took it on the chin. You know, Olesi was quicker. He had the same kit as me. There's no doubt about it. I've never felt that he was being favored anyway. And that's when, again, I started looking ahead to seeing where was I going to steer my career now.


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[Assistant] And the idea of joining McLaren, Ron and I always got on very well and he rated my test driving skills, rated my development skills, PR skills, all those sorts of things.


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[Assistant] Yeah. Okay. Ron probably thought, yeah, he's not got the last couple of tenths of an LAC, but you're still quick enough to help develop the cars and help with the programs. And so that was the route I then took.


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[Assistant] I had immense respect for Ayrton. He and I started Formula One the same year, 1994. He and I both come through Dick Bennett's, albeit he'd missed out Formula Two and gone straight from Formula Three to Formula One.


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[Assistant] And he was clearly a really intelligent guy. We used to chat quite a lot. Overall, he was just in another.


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[Assistant] You know, he was another league. I remember actually in the, in one of the times that was definitely ego deflating was when towards the end of 83 in my second year of being the Williams test driver, Frank wanted to put Ayrton and test him in the car. So we, there was a test at Donington in the flat bottom car when I was testing and then Ayrton jumped in and the bloody bloke was half a second quicker. And it was a real blow.


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[Assistant] And that, but also that just contributed to the fact that you just had to have massive respect for the guy, his speed, his aggression, his ruthlessness and his sort of surreal.


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[Assistant] Persona outside of the car. He was just in a different sort of elevated world. I had a huge amount of respect for him. You had to have.


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[Assistant] Flicking it on six years when I was a McLaren test driver, you know, I'd be pounding around hungry or something for a day and a half doing a time and, you know, in the MP4-5 Ayrton would come in, first run he'd do, he'd match my time, second run he'd do after another 10 laps, he'd be three or four tenths quicker. And he was just that, you know, he was just quicker.


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[Assistant] Like most people, the guys that are quicker tend to be quicker by being later on the brakes and carrying more speed into the corners. He was braver, his judgement was better, and he's all terribly fine-lined judgement at these sort of things. He had a very distinctive technique on the throttle.


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[Assistant] It was classic Ayrton. He'd be thinking very carefully and everything he said was very deliberate and thought through. He was very careful what he said and analytical in his way too and intense about what he said.


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[Assistant] And I think even when he was away, certainly to the extent I knew him, when he was away from the car, he was still, because he was at the track, was pretty serious, and he on flights going to Grand Prix, and he'd be reading the Bible.


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[Assistant] I joined BBC in 91, I think it was. I'd finished racing, although I hadn't sort of retired, I wasn't as emphatic as that, but I knew that, and I hadn't got a drive for the following year, and I knew that was pretty much beginning to be the end of my F1 racing career.


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[Assistant] But uhm, you know, I continued with testing, with McLaren, with the racing, with Porsche, with Group C, with the touring cars. I thought I could contribute to the BBC's TV program and so I wrote to


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[Assistant] The producer Jim resigned. I said, look, you've got Murray Walker and James Hunt in your commentary team. I said, but you know, I think I could contribute to the team, to the program doing some reporting from the pit lane about what was going on. Also doing a little cameo spot talking about a specific.


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[Assistant] Aspect of the cars or the racing, you know, it might be the tires and what qualifying tires are all about. It might be the setup, how that worked, a pit stop, what happens then, you know, these sort of things. So he sent me a nice email back saying, well it's probably a fax in those days to be honest.


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[Assistant] Saying, look, thank you very much. You let her, um, we haven't really got any time in the program to run anything more. We haven't got any budget, but look, if you would like to come up and have lunch with us, very happy for you to do that. So I went up and I think it was.


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[Assistant] A list of 16 topics that I thought I could talk about across each of the Grand Prix with an expansion with the text basically of the first topic that I was suggested I was going to do. We went and had lunch and, um, again, they said, look, nice you to come. And like we said, look, sorry, we haven't really got any time in the program and it wouldn't really work very well and I haven't got any budget to pay you. And I said, well, for what it's worth, this is the sort of thing I was looking at doing.


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[Assistant] By the end of the lunchtime, they said, okay, well look, actually we've, yeah, perhaps we will do this. So that's how it all started. Cause I started in the pit lane and then I had a phone call in, was it 92, 93, after I can't remember which year it was now, from Mark Wilkin, who was the producer at the end of the program. I was up at Brampton Thorpe actually, doing one of my corporate events.


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[Assistant] He said, have you heard about James? And I said, no, what? He said, James has just died. What?


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[Assistant] Anyway, so uhm, obviously I've lobbed in to try and be the commentator alongside Murray, and I then duly did take over, did the first Grand Prix, French Grand Prix, uh, which was terrifying. But anyway, I settled into it. But then, yes, I was commentating with Murray, went out and had his accident. It was one of those times, for all of us, but particularly me,


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[Assistant] When it was so profound, for one thing I knew from the accident, the body language just didn't look good at all. This didn't look like he was about to be climbing out of that car.


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[Assistant] And I will never forget that little jerk of his head that he did sitting in that Williams after the accident. I was pretty aware that he was probably fatal, but at the same time, this was unfathomable. You know, Ayrton was like a God, you know, it can't happen to Ayrton. Yes. We'd had Roland Ratzenberger on the Friday.


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[Assistant] That was a sort of SimTech car and a back end, you know, driver, all sorts of reasons why, you know, people make mistakes, the car might have broken, it was another end of the whole of Formula One and its drivers and its technology. But Ayrton Senna, you know Williams, no, this can't be happening.


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[Assistant] It was dis- almost disbelief. You knew it was happening, but it was very hard to believe that it wasn't some sort of bad dream. That was the sort of time too, from a commentary point of view, from a professional point of view, that one just realised what a-


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[Assistant] It was a long old hour of us commentating. And actually at the end of that, uh, the Grand Prix too, I had to hang on to the end of the early evening for, I think, to do a link with Steve Ryder talking about


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[Assistant] And that was at Bologna airport. And I said to Ron, look, if you need me to get a schedule back, I will. And he said, no, no, we'll, we'll, we'll wait for you. And I will. So then he arranged a helicopter to take me from Imola to Bologna. And I remember it's just me in the helicopter and the pilot taking off with a beautiful sort of sunsetting evening.


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[Assistant] We lifted off at about 6.30, the track deserted, everybody gone, just a bit of litter blowing around. And it was one of the most surreal times of my life to be flying along in a helicopter.


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[Assistant] With this massive impact to what had happened in the last three hours and how sort of almost world changing it was. So we flew along with my mind sort of meandering elsewhere, flying over the track and got to the airport flew around and the helicopter dropped me off.


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[Assistant] His jet. And that was another super profound moment, you know, thinking they're the spoils of success and he's paid the price of the sport that he committed to, to have that success.


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[Assistant] Well, it's been fun. And yeah, I mean, I think we've only touched on about 2% of the stuff. I must get to write my book one day.


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[Assistant] And Heinzel Frensen. Everyone's heard of Lewis, not as many people have heard of Frensen, but if you're talking about pure, natural driving talent.


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[Assistant] Lewis and Heinz for sure. Just the things that you saw them do in tricky circumstances, extract value and lap time out of cars that they had no business doing and compared to their teammates and just everything stacked up. Let's talk about Heinz then.


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[Assistant] There's a lot of things that make up a driver and their, their package. It's not only their natural driving ability, it's their ability to communicate with people and working inside a team. The ability to manage your emotions and understand when it's a good time to be emotional and when it's not.


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[Assistant] There's also, as I said, the teamwork, you know, working with mechanics and engineers around you and extracting the most from them.


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[Assistant] And all those things stack up to make a total driver. And although I never worked with them, you'd have to look at someone like Michael because he was on the opposite side of the fence. He was pretty much ticking all the boxes in that regard. In the early years, it was Michael and Heinz and Wendlinger who were the sort of three main superstars out of the Mercedes sports car program.


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[Assistant] Uh, but obviously one of them went on to become a seven time world champion. And the fact that Heinz didn't achieve that, there's probably, there's lots of other factors that add up to that result, if you like.


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[Assistant] I mean, it is better in almost every aspect, really. You know, we had an opportunity last year to sort of look over the entire car. I actually don't think AMR 22 was a bad car in any respects, particularly once we developed it during the year, but there were several things that were


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[Assistant] Not in the way that the team would have liked, you know, because for various reasons there were two aerodynamic concepts, which meant that.


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[Assistant] A lot of the kind of internal packaging, a lot of the engineering design that would have gone into a car normally had to be sort of curtailed to some extent. And that meant the car just wasn't what it had the potential to be. I think as a, as a brand new concept for a new set of regulations. So this is probably really the car that AMR 22 should have been.


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[Assistant] Or certainly a development on that. And the result is the car we have now. And it's, from my point of view, night and day better compared to an MR22.


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[Assistant] I knew it would be smaller, but actually now because of the, you know, there's a fairly sort of aggressive growth strategy for this team, a lot of which had happened before I got here. So there are a lot of people in place compared to what I'm used to as well.


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[Assistant] That wasn't necessarily true, but I did expect it to be smaller I think. But also I think inevitably maybe it's a slight arrogance about coming from a team that is at the, you know, the front of the grid that you sort of imagine that people do things not in a correct way or they're slightly behind or some of the technology is slightly behind. And there are definitely things that we can still do better, but


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[Assistant] What I was really surprised about is the talent, the overall level and just the level that people are operating at. You know, it is no different from a top team, so...


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[Assistant] The ingredients of what makes a team, well that's a mystery, who knows what makes a team win races and championships, but, but I think, you know, if one of those ingredients is a lot of passionate, talented people who are working hard, well, this team absolutely has it.


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[Assistant] That's something I should have expected because I think their past performances has shown that they can compete at quite an extraordinary level really given their budgetary situation.


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[Assistant] I think that was a shock to be honest. You know, a really, really pleasant surprise, as you can imagine.


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[Assistant] Williams have finished last in the World Championship in four out of the last five Formula One seasons.


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[Assistant] Team Principal James Vowles is a winner, plain and simple. At Mercedes, he won a record-breaking eight consecutive Constructors titles. Now, he's tasked with restoring Williams back to their glory days.


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[Assistant] Williams has been in Formula One since the 1960s. It's the third oldest team on the grid and in the 80s and 90s it battled Ferrari and McLaren for championship honours, winning 16 Constructors and Drivers titles with legends like Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill.


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[Assistant] But in more recent times, Williams have dropped away.


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[Assistant] James Vowles is aiming to take them back to the top, and his CV suggests that he's up to the task.


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[Assistant] He started his Formula One career with British American Racing in 2001.


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[Assistant] And he stayed with the team through its transitions to Honda, Braun and then Mercedes. He was chief strategist at Braun, the miracle team that rose from the ashes of Honda in 2009 and went on to become world champions with Jenson Button. When Mercedes took over in 2010,


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[Assistant] James helped build the team into serial winners.


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[Assistant] Then Williams came calling with a chance to lead the team in 2023 and beyond, and James couldn't refuse.


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[Assistant] So what does the future look like for Williams? James outlines his vision for success, he explains why Alex Albons' drive in Canada was so impressive, what he learned from Toto Wolf and the late Nicky Louder, how Lewis Hamilton improves himself every year and much, much more. I hope you enjoy our conversation.


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[Assistant] James, it's great to have you back on Beyond the Grid. We're talking after Canada, where the team had its best weekend in a while. Alex Albon starting 9th, finishing 7th. Just, how much of a boost was the weekend?


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[Assistant] I also think there's a fearlessness to both Alex Alborne and Williams at the moment. Where's that come from? Is it your influence?


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[Assistant] Are you still involved in the strategic side of the team?


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[Assistant] Can we talk a little bit more about Alex? You've worked with many of the modern day greats. I'm thinking Hamilton, Schumacher, Rosberg, Button. How good is Alex's album?


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[Assistant] Would you consider building the future of this team around Alex?


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[Assistant] And how difficult a benchmark is he for someone like Logan Sargent who's a rookie trying to get to grips with Formula One?


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[Assistant] Let's bring it onto you now. You've just completed your first 100 days in office here at Williams and I might say it still feels odd to be talking to you in Grove and not Brackley just up the road, but how's it gone and what sort of an impact do you think you've made on Williams?


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[Assistant] Do you feel a weight of responsibility? We're sat in Frank Williams' old office. Williams is the third oldest, most historic team in Formula One. You're about to celebrate your 800th race. How do you feel about that?


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[Assistant] Getting inspiration from Frank's old cars. Is there one car that stands out?


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[Assistant] Well, it's 30 years since Alain Prost won that world championship in 93 in the 15, so. Indeed. Time flies. Absolutely. Now, James, you also race yourself. Are we going to see you driving one of these cars at somewhere like Goodwood?


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[Assistant] What about Frank and Patrick? Did you have any dealings with them in your previous life at Mercedes?


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[Assistant] Let's now talk about the future. You've been very vocal in recent weeks about the deficiencies here in Grove. Some parts of it you say are 20 years out of date. In this cost cap era, what can you do about that?


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[Assistant] Vested interests in Formula One. I'm assuming the guys at the front are quite happy with where Williams are because you're not a threat. So, do you need the support of the Mercedes, the Red Bull, the Ferrari type teams in order to get what you want with the Capex?


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[Assistant] Could this be linked to Constructor's Championship positions, so the people who finish 10th get more capex expenditure than the people that finish first?


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[Assistant] Are there any similarities between what you're doing here at Williams and what you've done at other times in your career? Go back to when you joined British American Racing in 2001 and you were trying to create a front running team in Brackley back then.


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[Assistant] You know, when Brawn appeared, rose from the ashes of the defunct Honda team. Have you got experience of building from the ground up that is useful and you're able to apply now?


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[Assistant] So you need to invest in the infrastructure here at Williams, but one of the things you said when you first came in is, I'm going to start looking for a technical director. Are we going to see a migration of Mercedes engineers over to Williams or are you not allowed to do that?


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[Assistant] And there were definitely whispers in the Montreal paddock, if I could say this, that there is an announcement soon. Is there anything you can tell us?


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[Assistant] And what about the job of team principal? Just how different is it to what you were doing at Mercedes where you were motorsports strategy director?


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[Assistant] There's a separate CEO here, because it seems there are two different...


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[Assistant] Ways of doing it in Formula One, Toto, Christian Horner at Red Bull are team principal and CEO, whereas other team structures you have a team principal and a separate CEO. What do you think works best? What are you going to do here?


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[Assistant] Does your previous experience as an engineer help you? Because when you look at the grid as a whole, there are a lot of former engineers now in the role of team principal. You know, Andrea Stella at McLaren, Mike Crack at Aston Martin and now you here at Williams.


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[Assistant] It sort of makes me wonder, you've obviously been keen on motorsport for a long time. If you were studying engineering, motorsport engineering at university, just tell us where, where the interest first came.


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[Assistant] Was Williams one of the rejection letters?


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[Assistant] What a great story. People listening to this who want to get into Formula One, there is the blueprint right there. Just be tenacious and, uhm, engineering


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[Assistant] We had Dan Fallows, the technical director of Aston Martin on the podcast, not too long ago. Is he free? One of the points he made, James, was that the quality of the applicants


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[Assistant] Applying to Formula One teams now is so good that he said he probably wouldn't have even had a look in if he was applying today in that perhaps academic excellence isn't the only thing we should be looking at.


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[Assistant] Talking about entrance exams, there used to be an engineering multiple choice exam for potential Williams drivers. Does that still happen on your watch?


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[Assistant] Can we talk about your biggest influences on your career? And there's two individuals specifically I'd like to ask you about. One of them


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[Assistant] Is Ross Braun, not only do I think you sound very similar to Ross, but both of you come at the sport as great strategists. Ross back in the day at Ferrari came up with some, some of the most innovative strategies that we saw. Do you agree that you and Ross approached the sport?


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[Assistant] What about Nicky Lauda? What was Nicky's greatest quality? What did you learn from him?


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[Assistant] And what about Toto Wolf? Well first with Toto, what did he say to you when you approached him last winter and said, I've got this opportunity at Williams, please can I leave Mercedes?


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[Assistant] Just talking about that glass ceiling, have you been looking for an opportunity like Team Principal for a while?


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[Assistant] You have won nine constructors titles, eight drivers titles. That was with Mercedes. What does success look like?


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[Assistant] And James, if you succeed in taking Williams back to the front of Formula One, will that be your greatest achievement?


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[Assistant] What an interesting and enjoyable chat with James. There are so many highlights, be it what he said about Alex Albon, about his own journey to Formula One and those rejection letters, or explaining why it's vital for Williams to upgrade its facilities at Grove.


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[Assistant] James is bright, he's articulate, and I've no doubt that Williams's future is in good hands. Thanks for your time, James, and see you soon.


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[Assistant] Now please send in your thoughts and stories about James. What do you make of the job he's done at Williams so far? What do you think of the tenacity he showed when trying to get into Formula One?


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[Assistant] What should he do next as he rebuilds the Williams team? Let me know through all the usual means. I'm at Tom Clarkson F1 on Twitter, or you can use the hashtag F1 beyond the grid.


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[Assistant] Which segues beautifully into what you sent in after last week's show with Giancarlo Fisichella. Many of you had been wanting to hear from Fizzi for a while, and I think you weren't disappointed. Let's start with this, from Inga F1.


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[Assistant] I was a 17 year old girl in 2005 and I had Fizzy's picture in my school diary. Whereas classmates had actors and musicians. I must admit, it wasn't just for his driving. I was a huge Renault F1 fan and Fizzy and Fernando were a dream team. Great memories, great championships.


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[Assistant] Well somehow, Inger, I don't think you were alone in having a picture of Fizzy in your school diary or even on your wall. Thanks very much for your message. Those Fizzy Fernando years at Renault were indeed epic.


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[Assistant] Next, let's hear from Raph. I was there at Interlagos in 2003 with my dad trying to figure out what had happened at the end of the race while soaked to the skin by the rain. This pod was great. I'm a huge fan of Fizzy and so happy to see him achieve his Ferrari dream in 2009 and beyond.


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[Assistant] Well, Brazil 2003, what an amazing race to attend, Raf. And we were all wondering what had happened at the end. Trust me. Thanks very much for getting in touch.


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[Assistant] And thank you to everyone who wrote in. We love reading your messages and please send in your thoughts and stories about James Vowles in time for next week's show. Well, that's pretty much it for this week. Thank you very much for listening and remember that F1 Nation's preview to the Austrian Grand Prix this weekend with Damon Hill and myself is out now.


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[Assistant] We're joined by McLaren team principal Andrea Stella to discuss their upgrades for the next couple of races. And this week's Formula Y podcast is all about race engineers out Friday.


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[Assistant] Beyond the Grid is produced by Formula One and Audiaboom Studios. Until next time, keep it flat out.


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[Assistant] This episode of F1 Beyond the Grid is brought to you by Salesforce, the global partner of Formula One. Visit salesforce.com slash F1 to learn more about how Formula One wows fans and grows its global fan base with Salesforce.


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[Assistant] Reaching F1 is every driver's dream. They arrive full of optimism, determined to write their names in the record books. In 2001, a new batch of hopefuls made their debuts. Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Enrique Benoldi.


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[Assistant] Four drivers, four very different careers. Bernoldi's F1 journey may not have followed the glittering path of the drivers he made his debut with.


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[Assistant] But there was rarely a dull moment. At the very start, he and Raikkonen were involved in a shootout for the second Sauberseat, a battle that ultimately changed the course of F1 history.


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[Assistant] While Raikkonen went on to become world champion, Benoldi's Formula One career stalled before he'd really got going.


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[Assistant] Hello and welcome to F1 Beyond the Grid with me, Tom Clarkson.


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[Assistant] Enrique Bernoldi entered Formula One in 2001 with Arrows. By August 2002,


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[Assistant] He driven his last race, scoring no world championship points from 28 starts. But that far from tells the whole story of a tumultuous and dramatic two years for the Brazilian. He was a Red Bull Junior driver.


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[Assistant] And after holding up title contender David Coulthard for more than 30 laps at the 2001 Monaco Grand Prix with a defensive masterclass, then McLaren boss Ron Dennis threatened to end Enrique's career. But just 40 months later, it was over anyway.


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[Assistant] As arrows were forced to withdraw during the 2002 season due to serious financial problems. Now a driver steward with the FIA.


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[Assistant] Enrique is very honest when reflecting on why he didn't succeed in Formula One. He talks openly about the pivotal moments in his career, why he and teammate Joost Verstappen fell out, how a very young Max Verstappen needed his urgent help in the motorhome one day,


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[Assistant] The difficulties of being a Brazilian trying to follow in the footsteps of Ayrton Senna and much, much more. I hope you enjoy our conversation.


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[Assistant] It's great to have you on the podcast Enrique. Thank you for your time. How are you? I'm good Tom, I'm...


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[Assistant] And of course motor racing is the Bernoldi family business, because not only


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[Assistant] About your own Formula One career now. I have so many memories of you and the first one is a photograph that's taken on the grid in Melbourne in 2001 before your first race and it's


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[Assistant] You, alongside the other debutantes, I don't know, I'm sure you've seen this picture of Juan Pablo Montoya, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, the four of you, I just think,


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[Assistant] I look at it every now and again and I just think, there, right there, is talent. Can you remember that picture being taken?


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[Assistant] It was a great rookie class. That's the rookie team, the rookie class of 2001. Montoya was the senior guy, I guess, coming in that year, having won the IndyCar title and then he comes to Williams. How supportive was he of you?


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[Assistant] It's really interesting, I think, that you say perhaps friendships between drivers back then wasn't that common because I think the atmosphere in the paddock has changed. You know, you now see drivers playing paddle together and hanging out together. I don't think it happened back then. I don't remember it happening.


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[Assistant] I think, well, probably still applies, right? But let's talk, you mentioned Kimi Raikkonen and Saubert, because I wanted to ask how ready


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[Assistant] For Formula One, did you feel when you made that debut with Arrows in Melbourne 2001, you'd had a good junior career. I wanted to ask you about that a little bit later, but you tested for Sauber for the year 2000 and it seems like it was a straight fight between you and Kimi for the seat.


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[Assistant] And the deal was done in Kitspool between Helmut Marko and Tom Wilkinson.


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[Assistant] What an extraordinary story. You'd expect young drivers to be all over Red Bull.


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[Assistant] How frustrating for you, you know, we've already discussed the Sauber chance, we've discussed the Prost chance, I mean, had AlphaTauri existed back then, that's your ticket straight in. You were paving the way for all of the other young drivers, I suppose.


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[Assistant] This episode is brought to you by Salesforce, the global partner of Formula One.


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[Assistant] Formula One is full of exciting moments and they keep all 500 million of their fans closer to the action than ever before with the help of Salesforce. Remember when Lando Norris took the lead of the British Grand Prix this year? Or Oscar Piastri's brilliant F1 sprint victory for McLaren in Qatar? Electrifying.


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[Assistant] Salesforce gives Formula One a single, shared view of every fan, so they can deliver one-in-a-kind data-driven experiences and race day updates that keep fans on the edge of their seats, whether they're at home, at the track, or on the go.


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[Assistant] With real-time data and actionable insights, Formula One puts every fan in the cockpit.


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[Assistant] Visit salesforce.com slash F1 to learn more about how Formula One wows fans and grows its global fan base with Salesforce.


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[Assistant] Arrows, you've tested the car at Barcelona and it's all happened very, very quickly. Another big figure in your career is Tom Walkinshaw, the boss of Arrows at the time.


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[Assistant] I mean, Daniele, Formula One legend from Ferrari team manager back in the, in the seventies.


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[Assistant] I mean he had so much experience to offer you.


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[Assistant] It must have been hard for you to get your feet under the table because you retired from I think eight of the opening ten races in 2001. For a rookie, for a young guy coming in, really hard to get your head around the car and a Formula One and the races and...


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[Assistant] It's a very demanding environment, Formula 1. Did that element surprise you?


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[Assistant] Well, your teammate in 2001 was Jos Verstappen, father of Max. I'm sure most people listening are aware of that, but how quick was Jos?


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[Assistant] Look, while we're talking about Verstappen, I do want to ask, did you meet Max back then? Because he would have been about four years old.


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[Assistant] What a great story. And then look where we are now, Max Verstappen dominating Formula One.


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[Assistant] How impressed have you been by Max just while we're talking about him?


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[Assistant] I mean, can we compare him to Michael Schumacher who was dominating the sport in your era?


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[Assistant] You mentioned Monaco 2001 and I did want to ask you about that race because for listeners who can't remember or don't know about it, David Coulthard was on pole position. He stalls on the grid.


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[Assistant] With DC and Yoss and Mark Webber in Istanbul a couple of years ago. Did you talk about it then to David?


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[Assistant] You being Brazilian is an interesting point because that year there were five Brazilians, not at every race, but there were five Brazilians on the grid that year.


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[Assistant] Barrichello is the senior guy, obviously, and then there was you and Tarzan Marquez and Ricardo Zonta and Luciano Berti.


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[Assistant] Let's bring it on to 2002 now. So, your second year with Arrows in Formula One. The Asia Tech engine is gone, replaced by a Cosworth. Jos Verstappen gone, replaced by Heinz-Harald Frentzen. How good was that package?


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[Assistant] Ah, it's Harold Frentzen. How much more of a challenging teammate was he?


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[Assistant] Sam Michael, uhm, came on the pod a few months back and he said the two fastest drivers he ever worked with.


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[Assistant] With Salesforce, Formula One has the real-time data and actionable insights it needs to turbocharge fan engagement. From race day updates to perfectly personalized offers, Formula One delivers experiences that turn new fans into loyal ones. Visit salesforce.com slash F1.


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[Assistant] To learn more about how Formula One wows fans and grows its global fan base with Salesforce.


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[Assistant] It all goes wrong mid-season, doesn't it? The team runs out of money and it's forced to stop. At what point in the year were you aware that there were serious problems?


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[Assistant] And the troubles become public at Manicor at the French Grand Prix when both you and Heinz Harald go out. You go out to qualify but with the intention of not qualifying. I mean, such a confusing message for a racing driver, right?


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[Assistant] And then did you think that was the last time you were going to be driving that car? Was it a surprise to then actually get to the German Grand Prix?


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[Assistant] So when arrows shut down, how confident were you of getting back on the grid?


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[Assistant] Well, there is one more chapter though, isn't there, which is BAR, where you became a test driver. Yes. How did that opportunity come about? Did you know David Richards, who was running the team at the time?


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[Assistant] Now you're out. I don't know if you can get in. That's so interesting. So it's much easier to keep you on the grid if you're there rather than if you're not there trying to force your way back in.


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[Assistant] Talking of your fitness, wasn't there one test at Paul Ricard where you did 176 laps in a single day? 181. 181, was there? Okay.


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[Assistant] How do you reflect on Formula One? Does it frustrate you with the missed opportunities and that you didn't get the chance to show what you were made of?


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[Assistant] And these are all lessons that you can pass on tobacco, your son.


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[Assistant] So wise. So wise, Enrique. But of course you also stay in touch with Formula One now through being a driver's steward. Do you enjoy that?


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[Assistant] His battle with Kimi Raikkonen for the Sauber seat. The insights into Verstappen and Frentzen. It took me back to the early 2000s like they were yesterday.


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[Assistant] And who can forget Monaco 2001, when he kept DC at bay for half the race? It was a defensive masterclass. And what about Enrique's post-race encounter with Ron Dennis? Sounds like it got pretty spicy, didn't it?


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[Assistant] How I'd love to get Ron's memories of that day 20 years on.


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[Assistant] Enrique, many thanks for your time. It was great to catch up and yours was a racing career that deserved so much more. I'll see you at a race again soon.


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[Assistant] How different would his career have been had he got the Sauber seat instead of Raikkonen? Let me know through all the usual means. I'm at Tom Clarkson F1 on X and you can use the hashtag F1 beyond the Greek.


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[Assistant] Which brings me on to what you sent in after last week's episode with Liam Lawson. Pretty much all of your messages agreed on one thing. Liam deserves a race seat in Formula One. Let's start with this from John Lewis in Australia.


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[Assistant] Thank you for the interview with Liam. He was as mature and impressive as his driving. Although I'm an Aussie, I can't wait for Liam to have a permanent Formula One drive. Well, I'm agreed with you there, John, and thank you for the message. Next up, Joseph Clarke.


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[Assistant] Hi Tom, I was there watching Liam's first race in the Toyota racing series at Highlands and it was incredible to see him win on debut. For all the race categories Liam's raced in at 21, it reminds me of Bruce McLaren saying, life is measured in achievement, not in years alone. A future Kiwi Formula One star in the making.


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[Assistant] Well, I love that Bruce McLaren quote, Joseph, and there's no doubt that Liam has achieved a lot in his racing career to date and how much more is there to come. Let's hear from Tommy Hughes next, a lovely beyond the grid. I hope this episode serves as a bookmark for the future of Liam's career as something we can look back on in years to come in his Formula One career.


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[Assistant] It's also nice to hear someone with a level head about his development and inspiring the younger generation to not give up on their dreams. Well, it's good to hear from you, Tommy, and yes, Liam is an inspiration, be in no doubt about that.


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[Assistant] And finally, let's go to John Van Keken. Hey Tom, fantastic interview with Liam. Thank you. He will definitely get a ride after 2024, preferably with Red Bull, but he will get a ride.


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[Assistant] John, thank you very much for the note and oh to know what future promises are in Liam's Red Bull contract.


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[Assistant] Look, we'll leave it there for messages this week, but thank you to everyone who wrote in, and don't forget to send in your thoughts about Enrique Bernoldi in time for next week's show. I will of course be back next week myself with another great guest.


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[Assistant] In the meantime, why not have a listen to the latest episode of F1 Nation in which Natalie Pinkham, Esteban Gutierrez and myself review a thrilling Mexico City Grand Prix.


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[Assistant] Thanks for listening. F1 Beyond the Grid is produced by Formula One and Audioboom Studios. Until next time, keep it flat out.


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[Assistant] That result took a huge amount of pressure off everybody within that team and they felt like, you know, we can do this. It's people's livelihoods at stake.


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[Assistant] You need moments like that to shape your career, your personality, your future. And I think that probably definitely helped shape mine.


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[Assistant] And signing that contract didn't guarantee anything.


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[Assistant] I don't think it changed my approach at all, to be honest. As a racing driver, when you jump in the car and the helmet's on, you've got one goal, and that is to drive as fast as possible, and it, it doesn't matter if you're in a silver car or a blue car or a black car, that mentality is exactly the same.


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[Assistant] It's one of those, as it currently stands, we're not in the championship fight and I want victories and I want pole positions and podiums to my name and I thought that was, it was a stretch.


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[Assistant] We did it before in Russia in 2021 with Williams and qualified third. I was one of three drivers to do it and we qualified one, two, three.


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[Assistant] So it was, it was borderline. It didn't pay off this time, but I think had I qualified third or fourth in that race, I probably would have regretted not trying the slicks with a chance at pole. So same again at Silverstone, you'd roll the dice.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think every situation is different. I thought, you know, the


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[Assistant] Probability was low, but because it was Q3, it wasn't like a Q1 session where if I got it totally wrong, I was last, or it wasn't a race where if you get it totally wrong, you're in the wall and you score no points. Now this was Q3. Worst case, I qualify 10th.


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[Assistant] Best case, I'm on Paul. And even if I do qualify 10th, I thought I had the pace to come back through. So, you know, maybe I lost the position to Lewis, but that's something I was willing to take.


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[Assistant] I think it's going to feel electric to be honest. I remember last year Silverstone was the first race Formula One had a full crowd back and we'd spent a year and a half with no fans because of Covid and we came back and it was like


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[Assistant] A slap in the face of how much support it was and how awesome it was just to have fans back and I think every driver loves going to great circuits. Every driver loves going to country that the fans are so


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[Assistant] I still feel like a normal person. Somebody asked me, are you famous? I'd say, not really, no.