[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So on top of all that, I'm overseeing the car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Added to their technical capabilities, added technical staff, came up, I had a whole new factory plan that was, that was drawn up and so on, I mean it was,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, doing a bit of the carbon furniture stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that was the first worry that you had in those days, and then afterwards you had, you know, uhm, 20 or so competitors to deal with. We were, uhm, very much aware that the danger was so much greater in those days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The statistics, but uhm, you know, there were often two or three top drivers a year killed, uh, in many, many of the years throughout the, uh, the fifties. So it really was dangerous. And I think it engendered a, um, a sense of camaraderie. I think rather like I would have been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, yes, we raced, you know, very, very hard against each other, but it was a sense of, uh, looking after each other at the same time and you never have some of the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The sort of things that go on these days because they can do it and get away with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As I say, in those days, apart from the circuits, the cars were not designed to withstand accidents as they are now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, not at all. I did it because I thoroughly enjoyed it and, uh, and the thing is that, uhm, I never raced with, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not sure I can do this, but I'll make myself do it. I never force myself to drive beyond the limits of my capability. I drive up to the limits of my capability and no more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he could take it flat, he looked down at the instrument panel so that he could keep it flat and wouldn't be distracted by what was going on. Now this seems to me


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, I was told that uhm, oh there's a, there's a telephone call for you. And it was uhm, here we are with problems with names. Uhm, it was the uhm, the Connacht gentleman, the senior one of the two, uh, who was on the phone and I was given his name. And uh, uh, I couldn't believe this and uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, I said well look, I can't accept right now because I must have a word with my principal here at the hospital and I will speak to him and then I'll call you back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, he may have been surprised he didn't get an instantaneous yes, but uh, of course I wanted to give him an instantaneous yes, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any studies I should do when I got back, so I never abused his goodwill, but so I didn't want to abuse his goodwill by saying yes, I'd go off to 2000 miles to Sicily to race without his prior agreement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As I've said, that uhm, I never drove beyond the limits of my capability, and uhm, I never sort of psyched myself up to the point, well, woah, you know, it's a bit dangerous, but I'll have a go. I never went to that level.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so that, uhm, this, uh, this was the most important, uhm, attitude of mine. So, I wasn't, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I wasn't worried in that way. I had confidence in my driving ability.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also I was, I took all my books with me, my dental books, I said all my books, some dental books because I was studying for some exams, so that was a good thing and on the plane there and on the plane back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My mind was distracted by getting on with my dental studies, so that probably helped make the deal. But, uh, you know, I wasn't going to go there and do something I wasn't going to be comfortable with. So I wasn't, you know, frightened, uh, sort of perturbed in that respect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, no, I think, uh, dental surgeon first, uh, uh, at that time, and, um, and that, of course, I think then, but the profession was always, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, number one in the back of my head because I realised even at that stage that I wasn't able to, I wasn't able to make a life out of, or be able to rely on racing for one's life for a living, so uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I was very much aware that I should equip myself to be able to earn a living.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I think I always kept the dentistry as, you know, really forefront of my mind. But that was not demeaning my attitude. My respect for motor racing was tremendous. My pleasure in motor racing was tremendous. But I think, you know, the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The actual driving of the car on a limit, uh, that's, that's what really gave it. I didn't really like, I didn't really like the, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, if they wanted to talk to me, I'd always be, uh, courteously available to them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, the publicity did not appeal to me. That was not what it's all about. It was a fantastic satisfaction I got from driving her.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lining up alongside you. Yes, indeed. Fantastic. Of course, these are just until then have just been names. Uh, and of course, uh, you know, highly regarded names because I was still, you know, not much better than club motor racing. This is a 55 and, um, you know, I'd only been driving, um, well, I started racing with my mother's Healy Silverstone and then, uh, uh, Mr. Dennis, uh, Mr. Healy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, A-C-L-Y, I should say. Uhm, uh, used to race with his son at Goodwood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Great for a chat, you see, and I've been involved, like, here, sitting comfortable in a, in a city and, uh, two or three Italians sort of, uh, having a great conversation between themselves. And for about a quarter of an hour,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would be able to maintain a sort of benign expression.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, and, uh, and not look bored to tears. But after a quarter of an hour that became very difficult. So as I realised that, uh, you know, I really got, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, oh yes, I did, because, uh, oh yes, yes, I did. Not that I did a lot of chatting with him, because, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, uh, the reason I finished out with Ferrari was because, uhm, uh, Van Sterling and I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, by then of course all the leading British cars had, had, you know, got their drivers and uh, you know, no, no competitive British car available. And uhm, so uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I met, uh, uh, Enzo Ferrari in his, in his, uh, in his grand office and, uh, had a very constructive, uh, discussion with him, uh, for about half an hour, that was all, and, uh, sitting on one side of a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He discussed the terms and everything and he said, oh, by the way,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't appoint number one drivers until they are participating in the team. We'll see who's doing what in the season that time, in a performing in a particular season.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, so I wasn't asking for the number one driver anyway, but, uh, he just made it clear that's how he works, you know, you had to earn it. And I did finish up with number one driver, but on the basis of, uh, of results, uh, not, uh, uh, not being appointed from the start.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I was amazed actually when I said that to him because obviously Le Mans and Ferrari, selling Ferrari private cars, you know, is very, very important to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't put it in a sort of take it or leave it situation, but I said I didn't want to drive a Lamar because uhm, at that time it wasn't really a motor race. It was a high speed tour and it's a real test of the car rather than the driver and, uh, touring around at, uh, between, you know, on and off with a co-driver for, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, 24, uh, uh, hours, about 15 seconds, a lap slower than you're capable of. I mean, that, you know, is an absolute bore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, and he astonishingly, you know, accepted the, um, my, my, uh, I think I didn't want to do Le Mans. Now, funny enough, that may have cost, uh, Ferrari, the Ferrari, the, the sports car championship in 59 because they made an absolute mess.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Le Mans. Apparently, uh, Jean Berra tended to be, you know, sort of, uh, sort of try to lead the team and, uh, they were all blowing their cars up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course, uh, if there's any circuit where you could rely on the Ferrari to be superior to the Aston Martin, it was Le Mans because, uh, the Ferrari always had more power. Ferrari should have got, uh, you know, some, um, they should have, well, if not one Le Mans, they should have got some points at Le Mans.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, uh, and it was because, I think, because I had a sort of calming influence on the team, samathao, and I wasn't at Lemoore, uh, not even as a spectator.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As he'd always been, although of course I didn't know him as well, uh, as a, uh, as a Martin driver.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, not something I would have chosen to do. It sounds, all sounds crazy. But uhm, that is it. But uhm, I mean it sounds terrible. But it was the only decent seat left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, in 59, we were co-driving together and, uh, he started, he had the first turn and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, he managed to drive the car off the road and turn it over and, uh, I don't know how, uh, that he got it back on the road with the help of all the, uh, the local population. And he brought it back to the, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they set the, uhm, they set the pits and, uh, and it was my turn to, uh, well it wasn't my turn to take over, but I was going to have to take over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he spent, you know, at least 10 minutes, the longest conversation I've ever had with him, explaining, oh, there's nothing all right, you know, it looked absolutely true, completely right off, you know, well, a slight exaggeration.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, uh, even as this guy was trying to tell me, oh, it's alright, don't worry, you can get on with it, it'll be okay. And, uhm, uh, of course, uhm, uh, I had to retire after the first lap. But that was the longer conversation I had when he was trying to explain that the car was alright.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it gave me a lot of satisfaction to think that I'd overcome the physical problems of winning that race.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the, uh, the fact that I'd, uh, if you liked, uh, betrayed the British side, uh, in the benefit of, uh, of Ferrari. But, you know, as I said, it was the only...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Quarter of a glass of wine with the, uh, odd meal. So I looked after myself, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, bumping into me or something or something, but I never reckon to be scared as a result of one thing I do myself. So, you know, I just, uhm, would slowly build up my lap time and, uhm, you know, take, they start taking the banking, uh, at a higher and, uh, uh, steadily, uh, increase speed on each lap.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, well, I think it's more concerning as opposed to, uh, trying to discourage the people from using your slipstream, you know, to, uh, catch up behind you and, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing was to try and keep, you know, the 20 or 30 feet ahead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it reduced the capacity of the driver to show his superiority because it was doing so much for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that you didn't, you just have to do it yourself. And uhm, eh, it's uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, you know, today, the designers should really be on the podium, with the, you know, alright, maybe with the driver, but you know, they should be on the podium.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were carrying much less fuel, you see. And of course, it played into the hands of, uh, Cooper and Lotus when they, uh, reduced the, the length of the races from 400, uh, 500 kilometres, I think, to 300 kilometres.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That played into the hands of Cooper and Lotus because they could get away with much less fuel, a much smaller petrol tank. You could shrink the size of the car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they were so beautifully balanced and uhm, the road handling was so good and the braking was so good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, they were very controllable in a drift.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was so much easier to drive a rear engine car than a front engine car. And I shan't name names, but there were one or two drivers who never did anything in front engine cars who, you know, managed quite well in the rear engine cars. And so,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and of course this is progression that's gone on, you see, the car, the design of the cars and the skills of the designers has increased sort of year by year, year by year by year, and in my opinion,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, this has each, almost each year reduced the scope of the driver to demonstrate his superiority.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You see, the more difficult a thing is to do, the fewer people in the world can do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think that's never truer than about motor racing and a motor car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I think, yes, it could be that, but I mean, I don't know how you can say that better than that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, consistent qualifying and, and the performance in the race. But you see, it's very difficult to compare performances these days because of all this contraption of the, the different tires. You know, I mean, they're never, uh, they're so rarely almost exactly the same.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, basis, you know. Somebody's doing, oh yes, somebody's doing, ah, but he's just, he's only just been, just been in for new tyres. And no, no, he's gone on to medium speed tyres, so, oh yes, it's faster than in. So, it's very difficult to compare.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, you know, but I'm not diminishing it. He's done very well. And, uh, but, uh, just taking up the point, I'm, I'm, uh, uh, returning to my point that I think that the designers have reduced the area for, in which a driver can superior, can show his superiority over the competition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, no, you're, you've led me into explaining this. Look, uhm, it wasn't, that was just a small point of the situation. I'll give you the whole story. The thing is, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so, uh, you know, so I was already able to demonstrate that I was, you know, be very competitive in a Ferrari. And that was my first drive in a Ferrari. Uh, and, uh, and I hadn't had a chance to adjust it and the handling was not to my liking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but anyway, still, still good enough to be, uh, very competitive. And, uh, and what happens when the British Grand Prix, British Grand Prix is an entry, the Ferrari are on strike. So I didn't have a Ferrari.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I was given a Tony Vanderbilt being a kind guy that he had produced at VanWall. But it was, you know, it was, if not in a racing team, not a racing form, you don't produce a good car. And it, I forget what it had. Anyway, it was completely and utterly uncompetitive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Twice in sports cars in, in 57, uhm, one which was actually called the Belgian Grand Prix, although it was a sports car race.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we're first and second fastest and at the end of my last, last lap in practice,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course what it was, I mean I've been pulling everything out of the hat to try and make the fastest lap and you know, I'd be using the brakes more than usual.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in the, ehm, before the race, they replaced the clutch on my Ferrari. And what happens is within the first 100 metres, my clutch burns out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean it was, if they'd have a common sense, they must have realised it was probably, probably because I'd, uh, I'd been, you know, pulling everything out of the hat to try and beat Sterling for pole position. And instead of which, you know, they must have thought there was something wrong with the clutch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, at, uh, Ferrari, uh, did criticize seriously the, uh, mistake, uh, the, the decision they took there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, so anyway, so apart from that dramas, those dramas we've had already, we then come to the, uh, uh, the, um, US Grand Prix at, uh, uh, at Sebring and, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was, uhm, I made third fastest time, which wasn't bad, on an aerodrome circuit, because there were barrels and it was a Cooper circuit. No way was that a Cooper. It was a, yes, it was a Cooper circuit, no way was it a Ferrari circuit. And uhm, I was third fastest in practice, uh, Sterling and Jack and me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How can I forget his name? The American, uh, had, uh, allegedly done a faster lap than me in practice, uh, because he missed out one of the corners because they would have these stupid corners, these, uh, cones on the corner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he'd been claimed a faster practice lap than mine, which he hadn't done. And there was a big row on the, I was then pushed in the right position on the front row of the grid. And there was a row on the starting line.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now the thing is, so then I was pushed off the front row onto the second row. That's no, but not the end of the world. But the point is that put me in front of, uh, of, um, Von Tripps on the third row. So you should have been nowhere near him. Absolutely, on the third row. And, uh, of course, Von Tripps, um, uh, he was destined


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm desperate trying to get a regular drive in the Formula One team for Ferrari. And of course, what's the best way to do it? It's to, it's to, it's to follow and, and stay on the tail of the, of the number one driver, which was Brooks. So what he does, he does exactly that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, experience in my whole motor racing career, really, because I had half of that to decide whether I was going to come into the circuit, into the, uhm, into the pits to have it checked out, which would throw away my chance of, uh, because we're all, only one of the three of us could have won it at that stage.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I knew that would be giving away my chance of winning the world championship. And I am very proud of the fact that I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, the pits, because of course, otherwise you have a situation where, if only, if only he'd done this. The reason I came here was because I, after my accident at the mall and my accident in the BRM at Silverstone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I resolved that I'd never, ever try and drive a car, you know, to the limits of his ability, uhm, where there's anything, you know, mechanically wrong with it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I took half, this half lap to decide and to, to have the strength of will to come in and give up the chance of the Winning the World Championship as a result of my experience in those two accidents. So I was very proud of the decision that I made and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of course, uhm, uh, uh, you know, uhm, it's, uh, Stirling retired and Jack ran out of petrol as he did through from time to time, trying to get the weight of the car down to the, to the, to the, to the minimum. So the two competitors were out of the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't know that because I mean, uh, uh, you know, you can't, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Incident can, can, uh, you know, can be, uh, can, can be serious, you see. I mean, you can't, you can have something, you know, out of line or a fraction and so on. There's no way. I mean, I had half a lap to make this decision, uh, you know, as to whether it's a team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm saying, look, you said after your two accidents, uh, you would never, ever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, not really. It's a lovely label to have. Uhm, but uhm, again, you've got to be careful about naming names, but the number of championships won by certain people now has demeaned the value of the world championship, in my view.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you win a round, you really, really meant it, really meant it, you know, but to know, as I say, I give you several examples where, you know, you can't really say that they earned the championship and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sorry, I think the world's championship is demeaned. So I'm not, so I'm not, of course I would like to have had the world's championship as a label.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but I guess, I suppose I get some satisfaction on the fact I don't think it has. It means what it was, but of course, you know, Fanjo's did, uh, and, uh, you know, what was earned at that time. It really, really had to earn it. And of course the castles, I've already said.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're so much more difficult, uh, so much more challenging to drive. You know, it really meant something. So the answer is no. Yes, I'd love to label, but I, it doesn't upset me. I, I won, um, you know, six, six world championship. So five world championship grand prix's and a six non world championship grand prix. And I think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, so my results, have you looked at the results thing? You know, I felt, yeaah, not bad, not bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was getting better, I think, each year, if only by, uh, because of experience. So I think, uh, probably with, uhm, uh, with Ferrari in 59, I said it because, uh, of course, because, uhm, because I could have stayed with Ferrari in, in, in 60.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they weren't working on the car. And Tony Vanderveld offered me, said he was, he offered me a van wall, a rear engine van wall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, bang in mind, I wanted to reduce my racing because I'd started a, bought a small petrol filling station to build a retail motor business.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it never developed, you see. I mean, I didn't drive it, it once. And, uh, you know, with development it could have been, uh, fine. But of course, without commitment and development, you, uh, you're not going to get anywhere. So, uh, excuse me, as a result of that, there was no other, what I should have done is retired from motor racing. I, I thought I should, uh, uh, race because I said I was going to race and the only team that was available


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I drove them, but that was a 59 Cooper driving in 1960 with a non-factory engine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was totally, luckily, uncompetitive. And in fact, I think I'm right in saying the team had no fewer than nine gearbox failures in the, in the year. So it was a complete, uh, complete disaster and I should have retired.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See when Tony Manuel said no, I should have retired, but you know, I, I got this, you know, commitment I made, I was going to race this year. And you know, that was a big mistake of mine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw Tony and Raymond Mays inviting me to speak to him about driving for them in, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It looks absolutely right. How can you say that about a car? I don't know, but I just had the feeling this was a car, you know, that really could make it. It was going to be ready for Monaco in 61.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, in actual fact, I never drove it that year at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the car that won the world championship in 62 by Graham Hill, driven by Graham Hill, was the car that I saw and said, this is it, this is it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uhm, you know, so two mistakes and I, I should have, I think my biggest regret about those were actually I didn't retire at the end of 59.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My, I caught them at the same rate as Fanshow did the previous year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course Fangio, you know, won the race. So uhm, but that's only because I, I did some analysis. I could see what happened, but, uh, you're absolutely right. No, I think that was my best, uh, my best race. I'm very, very pleased with that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, so uhm, I think it would have been a great factor, but uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had, I think, 58, you know, made myself a pretty, you know, a good, a good reputation. And, uh, uh, and, uh, as I say, it was less than a week after Tony Vanor announced the retirement of Anwar that I had this lovely,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He killed himself in one of his cars, so that did have a big influence on him, I think, in deciding to retire. And also, he was not stupid. He could see that, you know, there were needed to be,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, transformation to rear engine cars, but producing a one-off car for a Brooks, you know, is different to producing a team. So uhm, so I think he realised the transformation between front and rear engine cars was taking place, but I'm sure that uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stewart's death was a big negative for him, but the sad thing is, you know, I mean, obviously, I don't know, I wasn't there, you know, I didn't see what actually happened, but unfortunately he didn't roll in the grass after he got out, because overalls were burning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, unless you were there and saw it, but it does seem that Stuart should have, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Should have taken more efforts to, uh, to, to, soar to self and, uh, uh, and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, he's a smart cookie as we all know. And, uh, he first of all, uh, you know, tried motor racing as a driver. And then he sort of, uh, tries it as a manager. And then he tries it as a team owner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in between times, he used to, you know, he was soaking up all the information he could, and he used to be finished up in the van wall pits every, I think mostly every race, and he would be in the back corner of the, of the van wall pits, and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This chap, um, uh, Ecclestone, and, um, and he really, uh, so he was, uh, no, no fool, uh, uh, I got a lot of respect for him, uh, and, uh, you know, his suit soaked up all this information and, you know, where, where better to be than in the Van Walsh pits to see what had gone down. And, um, and then of course, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He then gets his own team and then eventually, and then he says, well, I've found it, I've done all these steps, all that thing, I'm going to run it. I'm going to run it. Blow me if he doesn't finish up running it. I mean, you've got to, you've got to admire his achievements. It really is quite a, quite a remarkable achievement.


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[Assistant] Never talked about business, no. It's only about, uhm,


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[Assistant] Oh, well, extremely good, extremely, extremely good. And, uh, no question about it. I mean, he was the, uh, second best to, um,


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[Assistant] Uhm, Sterling just had that, just that little extra amount of aggression, I think.


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[Assistant] I mean, talk about the world championship, I mean, he was second I think for four years, was it?


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[Assistant] I have erased the gauge to me. Oh yes, no question about that. Yeah, but the thing is that you did it in four different cars.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, five times, wasn't it? Yeaah. Yeaah. Yeaah, so he wanted it in four different cars.


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[Assistant] So, I mean, that says a lot. I mean, some of these people who sort of were in a Mercedes or a, uh, uh, these other teams, you know, it's the same car with a superior thing, you know, it doesn't fit, but to win it five times in three different cars, that's saying something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think Sterling had to try harder to produce the same sort of performance as a fan show at any particular level. I can't prove this, just my opinion. He just had that extra bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Argentina, I think after retired and had a very nice, uh, uh, few weeks there, uh, with him and, uh, it's, I spoke to him in Italian and, um,


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[Assistant] Uh, no, not really. As I say, I should have made the decision at the end of 59. So, I mean, I think my regret is that I hadn't made it earlier. Uhm, because uhm, and as I say, these railroaded cars,


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[Assistant] Uh, they weren't really thrilling me because I say they had taken, uh, certain skills, uhm,


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[Assistant] As a competitive, uh, as a, as a challenging vehicle to drive, I, I did not find as challenging as in fact the front engine cars. And uhm, so, the cars weren't, weren't thrilling me, but I, I think it's, uhm, as I say that uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would have, uh, should have retired at the end of, uh, finished with Ferrari. And, uh, that would have been it. But, uhm, uh, I didn't, uhm, the, there was no point in, uh, in, in working, uhm,


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[Assistant] Uh, continuing, unless you had the chance of a very good car, but, but also I had a family and I'd survived, uh, 10 years. So it was a very practical consideration that, uh, it was, you know, it was no less dangerous. Well, fractionally less dangerous maybe.


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[Assistant] Uh, than it had always been. And, uh, uh, I gotta, I gotta start a family. So, you know, I have a responsibility to be able to look after them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I, I mean, no, it just, it was only sudden. I mean, you either, you either, you know, you either, you know, you go or you don't go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, absolutely, yes. Oh, absolutely, yes. No, it wasn't really a competition, because we'd also had, uh, we'd started a family and, uh, you know, I had a perfectly good profession, uh, dentistry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Qualification to be able to apply yourself to all sorts of things. A good degree qualification is a good qualification for life, even if you don't use a specialized aspect of it. So uhm, I had the scamise of earning a good living and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, my, my business was, uh, is beginning to, uh, pick up. And, uh, of course.


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[Assistant] I had no business experience, so of course what I was doing was I was really, uhm,


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[Assistant] Uh, jumping in the deep end and not knowing how to swim. So I very quickly had to, uh, had to learn and, uh, and just as I got out my Italian book to learn Italian, I got out all sorts of books, you know, to try and, uh, uh, find a shortcut to learning how you should run a motor business and, uh,


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[Assistant] Interesting questions that you've addressed to me.


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[Assistant] And the rate of change particularly and the great cars that I've driven all had one defining factor and that they had this beautiful balance, this predictability, drivability.


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[Assistant] You could feel, you know, the really truly great cars want to work with the driver. Some of them pretty quirky.


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[Assistant] In terms of gearboxes and pedals and the way you sit in them, but generally speaking, you've always understood why it turned out to be a winning car.


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[Assistant] I think fundamentally the challenge is the same. You have mostly four wheels. I did drive a six wheeler Williams in there.


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[Assistant] You find the limit of the grip and you drive to it as long as you can, as, as hard and as fast as you can. And there's a device to turn the front wheels called the steering wheel, some kind of mechanism.


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[Assistant] And one thing I've noticed is even, well certainly through the phase where I was a racer through to today where I drive them for Sky F1.


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[Assistant] Is how much better the front end of the cars are. You know, we went through various stages of understeer.


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[Assistant] Most of our careers a few decades ago, now the cars really do stick to the road. You turn the wheel and you get a proportional response from the steering wheel.


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[Assistant] I've driven two versions of it. Mercedes used to bring along what they called their old timers to Grand Prix and they asked me to drive them from time to time. I remember driving the W196 at Spa. It was sort of sprinkling with rain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, Jochen Maas was driving the pace car at the time, and I didn't realise, but he was supposed to, he followed me out in the five litre SEC, you know, super duper safe pace car thing.


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[Assistant] I went around and I was enjoying it so much that when I eventually came back into the pit lane, which is at the bottom of Eau Rouge, where they were storing the cars, running the cars from.


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[Assistant] He'd been trying to keep up with me. I had no idea I was supposed to wait for him, but it just shows you the speed of those cars. So they're narrow, they're slippery. They didn't have a huge amount of power, sort of 250 horsepower or such like, but they were so good through the year. They gathered speed so quickly. You sit astride them and it's really,


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[Assistant] From the bottom of the gearbox across and up. Well that would be going second to fifth in a W196.


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[Assistant] And you really have to put a different chip in your brain to get used to the box. And as you're trundling around, I also then drove the 196 Streamliner or Type Monza with Lewis at Silverstone last year. Same car.


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[Assistant] With the, but with the bodywork on the, the only Grand Prix car ever, it won three races, the Streamliner, to win races with covered wheels, because we don't normally, you know, single seaters has open cockpit, open wheels, doesn't it?


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[Assistant] Uh, you know, it's quite an honor and a responsibility to drive a car like that. And off you go, and I remember slithering around Spa and around Silverstone in those two. And immediately you start, especially at Spa, as I was going through Blanchemont, sort of four-wheel drifting.


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[Assistant] You are sitting astride this transmission tunnel. You know if you hit something hard, you'd just submarine down into the cockpit.


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[Assistant] And quite quickly I realised that if you thought, if it was going to start to go wrong, jump out. I could see why they did that. I could see why they hoped to be thrown


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[Assistant] Clear of the car if it crashed, because that was your best chance to survive. So you immediately felt those kind of vulnerabilities and challenges. And on the gearbox, I tried to give Lewis a heads up.


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[Assistant] And feel an idiot. The scary thing is it's easy to go fifth to second and over rev the engine.


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[Assistant] I think it was ahead of its time, wasn't it? They were using direct fuel injection from the Messerschmitt, I think, warplanes. I mean, it was just a piece of engineering for the time. Yes, I can see why it won so many races. It was just so comprehensively


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[Assistant] Engineered, it was only two and a half litres of straight eight, but sadly because of the 1955 Le Mans crash.


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[Assistant] And it just was smaller, easier. I mean, a car that raced between 1954 and 1960, they didn't really evolve too quickly back in those days. Drum brakes, the Deon rear axle, the one I drove was very happy on three wheels, waving its inside front wheel up in the air and incredibly drivable.


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[Assistant] When you, as I found out, if it all started getting a little bit too slidey and you panicked, you would immediately default to pressing what you thought was the brake and hit the throttle and go even faster.


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[Assistant] As with so many of the cars of that phase, it was getting it in the right gear, you know, and getting it into a corner was a dominant part of the lap. But there's no doubt about it, the 250 was a really nimble,


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[Assistant] It felt slightly, sort of, more together. Uhm, it was a 1960 car, of course, in, uhm, well it was sort of late 50s into early 60s. Sweet little engine in it, that 246.


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[Assistant] And any time you drive a Ferrari is great. I remember there was a, that was the car that had the prop shaft coming sort of horror at a slight angle through the copter.


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[Assistant] Just underneath you, and you sort of think, I hope that lot doesn't all come apart, because uhm, that's, uh, that's gonna ruin the rest of my life, uhm, if it doesn't kill me. Because you do feel that, you know, you are sitting on top of a lot of turning parts. And again, just fuel everywhere.


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[Assistant] All around you, but a beautiful simplicity with the controls with the


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[Assistant] You know, it's a great responsibility. When people let you in these cars it's because they trust you. And they trust that you won't crash it. I did take the front wing off a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, do practice starts or something like that. They put a lot of trust in you that you will hand it back.


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[Assistant] At Goodwood, they said to me, please don't do donuts at the bottom or the top, whatever. We have one of everything for this car, and it's on it. So if you...


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[Assistant] Into the corners, skinny tyres, so you, you, even though you didn't really have a whole lot of horsepower, you, you had enough to break the rear loose in the car, uh, and steer it on the throttle. I mean, they're 250F, you, you used the throttle pedal as much as the steering wheel to turn the car.


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[Assistant] Blue Eagle with sort of the beak on it and the V12 motor, the Westlake V12 in the back, a car that Dan Gurdy himself won.


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[Assistant] The Belgian Grand Prix and my guys at Sky said to me, right, so, you know, we're getting near towards 50 cars at this point.


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[Assistant] And I, I called them and said, you know, is there any chance when I'm over in Austin or something, can I, is there any chance we could come round and I'll, I'd love to drive that car for television, Sky F1.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they were like, yeah, sure, would be great. I said, you've probably never heard of me, but I'm, you know, I, I blah, blah, blah. Yeah, we know your name. So.


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[Assistant] Wonderfully, it was coming our way over to the UK for Goodwood. So I got to drive that and Sterling's T53 as well for Goodmet Cooper.


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[Assistant] And that car was built for him, unsurprisingly. So I could barely reach the pedals and we packed me out with some foam. I remember you in this car. Yeah, so I could reach the pedals and the wheel, but as I accelerated off the line, I just sunk back into all of this foam because it had a fair turn of speed.


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[Assistant] And you always want to put a good show on for the crowd there at Goodwood up the hill. And I realised that I was going further, further backwards. I couldn't reach the pedals. I couldn't reach the steering wheel. Every time I accelerated hard.


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[Assistant] So we managed to sort that out a little bit but the sound of it, now a really key thing is when you're in any racing car it sounds a lot different to what it does outside because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Inside, a lot of the sound is dominated by the mechanical turning over of the engine, the camshafts, piston, the combustion really, through the airbox or whatever, and just a general


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[Assistant] It's dominated by the exhaust note that you can hear, rather than the mechanical, so.


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[Assistant] The chassis, you know, the front of it, just the exhaust, the exhaust themselves were a work of art. It was a beauty.


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[Assistant] It felt like a completely different style of racing, I would have thought.


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[Assistant] You know, there is monocoque and stressed engines and independent suspension and better brakes and, you know, whilst they still feel quite antiquated compared to anything in the last 20 years, uh, it was a step change.


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[Assistant] I've driven three or four Lotuses. That was a nice story, the 49B. We took it back to Zandvoort, again for Sky F1, with its current owner, Adrian Newey. Now this car won its inaugural Grand Prix at Zandvoort in the hands of the great Jim Clark.


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[Assistant] And it's also a car that when he was a youngster, that Adrian knew he had a Tamiya kit of.


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[Assistant] Have a Grand Prix around now. So it was a really lovely story and a really lovely car. So now you've got the Cosworth behind you, that very distinctive mechanical sound and intake sound of that great engine.


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[Assistant] The car looked, I have to say, flimsy is probably a bit unkind.


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[Assistant] It was definitely built down to a weight, designed by Colin Chapman and Maurice Philippe, who was my first engineer in Formula One when I joined Tyrrell.


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[Assistant] A great little car, very nimble, plenty of grip, big fat tyres. Of course, that era started sprouting wings, didn't they? And there's really high wings as well that thankfully didn't last too long.


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[Assistant] And sponsorship. The car was in its gold leaf colours and, you know, it was a big change for Formula One that.


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[Assistant] It still had the same distinctive qualities, same mechanical sound with all of its cam chains and what have you on the front of it, the intake, the...


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[Assistant] 20 odd horsepower, whereas the one in Adrian's Cardena was near a sort of late 300s, I'd have thought 400.


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[Assistant] Fangio and Moss controlling the Mercedes or such like, and the way they used to drift the cars and control the cars, I think the driver was


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[Assistant] Downforce the, the sidewall of the tire, the contact patch. So it's different and you certainly had to, especially in the ground effect days.


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[Assistant] Believe the car was going to stick. To answer your question right off the top of my head.


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[Assistant] I would have thought dancing the car was more of a...


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[Assistant] A skill, a deftness if you like, a light touch than particularly like the very latest cars that are absolutely...


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[Assistant] That was a reasonable start to that corner. Now, if you brake two metres too early or you don't rotate the car on the apex, you've blown it. So they've transferred their skills from bravery through to fundamental control through to


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[Assistant] You know, minute adjustments, uh, and detail that perhaps we never used to have to worry about.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I wanted to do that. We're making a feature at Monza and a friend of mine, Richard Mill, owns that car. And so we managed to.


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[Assistant] I mean, there was a nervous man because can you imagine trying to repair that V12 engine should it blow itself to bits? And we're starting now, power's starting to grow.


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[Assistant] Those, those are the cars, but Jackie Stewart was pushing hard, and now you're starting to get seatbelts and that, but you're still...


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[Assistant] The 58 Dino 246, I remember saying in the piece.


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[Assistant] For a Hawthorne's car, the only place to rest your elbows is on a fuel tank, basically either side of you. But now as the power grows, they're just surrounding you by fuel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, the V12 was lovely, but inevitably would be quite heavy, so.


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[Assistant] Replace that shrill sound of a V12 at high revs. But the car, once again, the car had decent grip with its tyres and aero and decent power.


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[Assistant] But, uh, you know, it was just, I remember that car when it was, you know, when we used to go to Brands Hatch at the Yardley BRM.


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[Assistant] Yeah, uh, huge, basically. You know, by the time we've got into carbon chassis and a much, although the cars had very much straight lines on them in the 80s.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Aero, you know, they did start to understand Venturi's a bit more and, uh, wings and cooling and, you know, the, the engine and gearbox became more sophisticated, the systems, uh, you're sitting much more inside the car now, so.


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[Assistant] Now we're starting, in the 80s, you're starting to get to cars that race for one or two seasons, absolute maximum, because the rate of change is massive.


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[Assistant] Yeah, now this feature came up. Zach Brown owned both these cars at the time. The Rush movie was coming out.


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[Assistant] So we were at Snetterton, and we got the McLaren M23. It would be, wouldn't it? And...


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[Assistant] Hunt v. Louder in the Rush movie. Yeah, flat 12. I spoke to Nicky about this car after I'd driven it. I said, I drove your car last year, your old car. And he remembered it quite clearly. It was quite quirky inside. And I said, it surely didn't have that, what looked like a circuit breaker from home.


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[Assistant] You had a fuel tank above your knees running all the way down each side of you and behind you. You were literally in a bath of fuel. No wonder.


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[Assistant] It was a good car, there's no doubt about it. That falls into the category of cars that give you a bit of confidence and have got an innate balance to them.


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[Assistant] That was a wonderful opportunity because the first formula I ever drove was the MP4-1.


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[Assistant] In 1983, when Senna and Senna, Stefan Beloff and myself were invited along to have a go, which was pretty special. And...


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[Assistant] Williams, FW14B I think it is, that was the bane of my life when I was a Benetton works driver, otherwise it was so dominant that year, it sort of took the shine off. Ah yeaah, Benetton. But the MP44, Honda, I mean, V6,


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[Assistant] Car, and you, and you felt that, you like, you're lying down in it. Again, it's quite high up out of the cockpit though.


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[Assistant] I mean I'm, I'm one metre seventy-three, five feet eight and


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[Assistant] If I'd have been any bigger, I couldn't have got in the car. The Senna was about the same size as me. I couldn't have got in the thing. It was built...


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[Assistant] And the shenanigans we had to go through, were we on the track, were we not, the rain was coming, it had one set of wheels.


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[Assistant] To get the tyres changed to wetster drives was about a 3-4 hour job.


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[Assistant] So we had to commit to slicks with rain. It was raining at the time, but we looked at the weather forecast like...


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[Assistant] Right, put the slicks on. Three hours later, you know, the slicks are on. Because, you know, you just don't have loads of wheels sitting around for cars like that. And thank god it was dry. I was terrified, literally, in this precious car in Irton Senna's back garden.


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[Assistant] In a car that won 15 out of 16 races, there were 6 times it was over a second faster than the rest of the field in qualifying.


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[Assistant] You know, 100 piece barge boards, hanging off the side of it. The purity of the car and the way it worked and the way it drove and it gave you quite a push in the back when that Honda came to life. Uhm, it was just,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All at one, the car, and the driving position was a compromise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Next time I'm going to come through there and gear up. Next time I'm not going to brake so hard. Next time I'm not going to brake at all. You just immediately start the racing driver stuff, uh, even though you're making a piece of television, uhm, and you're protecting a really precious car, it just makes you feel like you're, you know, getting ready to go racing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was trying to compare it with the car I ran at the same time for Tyrrell, the Tyrrell 012. And I think it would have, it was heavy with all the extra transmission and length and what have you, but, and they were going to have to do something about that. But I think it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It certainly would have absolutely smashed a bit any other normally aspirated cars around in terms of pace and drivability. And it didn't need any front wings. It had so, the centre of pressure underneath.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you imagine how good the racing would be if you didn't have a, you know, we keep changing the front wings on the current cars to try to improve racing. This thing didn't even need a front wing at all. So you'd be able to follow so closely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the Spanish Grand Prix onwards, I remember, I was the first one to test that. I can remember at Silverstone going around, we'd had the B191 we'd been using, and got out of the car, and there stood, uh, Ross Braun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The 191 was fine and you can't say there was a whole load of new bits on the 192. It was just a better car all round really with the HB engine in it, Ford HB.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Throttle cable, uhm, you know, no electronic throttle or anything like that. It was just a very together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Straightforward racing car that where you could go a bit like a Formula Ford. You could go to an event and you might tweak the spring rate or you might tweak the roll bar stiffness a little bit and just fine tune it. It was a great F1 car for all day, every day. The problem is it was up against a Williams.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With, uh, paddle shift gearboxes and, uh, they would have had back then, they must have had, of course, active suspension.


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[Assistant] But we scored 11 podiums in the car, 6 for Michael, 5 for me, and it was just a great car. And I've driven it again since for TV, and it's still a great car. It's just...


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[Assistant] I just feel that because you're strapped in so tight by six belts into a really stiff carbon chassis, the engine gearbox is mounted equally stiffly, no bushes or anything in the suspension, no rubber mounts, everything is mounted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a very rigid way. And then you've got a gear rod and a throttle cable you directly link. You can feel the dog rings going in on the gear shifts. Senna's car was the same, the MP4-4 actually, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You feel very much part of that car. You are just part of the operating system of that, mechanical operating system of that car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it hadn't been quite troublesome on the 89 car, hadn't it?


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[Assistant] With an HB Cosworth instead of a DFE and a Hewlin box hanging on the back of it.


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[Assistant] V10 in the back of the Jordan fully, you know, with the, with the paddle shift gearboxes and Aero moved on quite a long way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yeaah, development was rapid, wasn't it? And continued to be so in many respects, through these phases. So by now, teams, you know, you didn't sort of have, let's go back to the 250F from 1954 to 1960, with some tweaks each winter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By now you've got heavyweight teams, lot of people involved, lot of resource, lot of budget.


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[Assistant] Bringing out updates every three or four races, or even today, every race, they'll bring an aero update to the track.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unsurprisingly and with technology and materials and sensors on the cars.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it was his third title, wasn't it, after his two Benetton ones, but the first one for Ferrari, and Ferrari's first Constructors Championship for 21 years, as you say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That car had 10 wins, 21 podiums. Rubens Barrichello also driving it.


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[Assistant] And I was desperate. I know it's only carbon fibre in a different colour but I was desperate to drive a Ferrari. So that was why I was pushing so hard for this but it was quite interesting to get out of my analogue Benetton.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And into this car that was eight years younger, the Ferrari.


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[Assistant] Often we've got limited track time, because of the track, because people don't want their precious cars worn out or...


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[Assistant] No good me trundling around for three or four laps and then have one lap of talking.


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[Assistant] Not have to do those two different types of runs, but nonetheless, I am chatting away as I leave the pit lane, because I have to, and because I need to.


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[Assistant] But involuntarily, I went, yes, I'm on the track in a Ferrari. That's how much it meant to me. I've driven several sins, but that meant a great deal to me that day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pull the skin off a rice pudding if you weren't pulling sort of north of 16,000 revs or something. So they're not really the most impressive


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that car, the aero on that car, it was just one great big channel of air, wasn't it, and downforce. And we were doing a feature driving different Mercedes, uh, McLarens, well Mercedes engine, this particular one, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, at Silverstone, and I, I bagged this car, the 2008. I wanted to drive that car. It was on a set of ancient, grooved, Bridgestones. And I took off, and this thing stuck to the road. Like you can't imagine. It...


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[Assistant] Literally became an extension of my mind. And now they start coming on the road, Indy Lal, who was running cars that day from McLaren, is like, slow down, slow down, come in now, come in now.


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[Assistant] Felt a car stick like that until I drove one of the hybrid cars, uhm, more recently.


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[Assistant] Brilliant thing. It just, just felt like it was on rails and would never fly off the track. And I'm sure, I'm sure you could.


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[Assistant] Well, I think Hakey sort of, Hakey was better than he was the look that, yeah, I think he lost confidence and sort of lost his way a little bit up against the might of Lewis. I think what it tells you is that,


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[Assistant] What it gave you was wonderful grip. Uhm, now we put together, we're doing an overtaking feature on Sky F1, so somehow we put together access to Silverstone.


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[Assistant] Drones, all the crew, everything. So I could do, with Mark, show the typical ways to overtake in Formula One, all the techniques, all the quirky stuff.


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[Assistant] I'm like, sorry about this mate, if you could just give us, can you give us another hour, do you mind? And he was like, yea mate, yea. And he was just sort of half asleep. Suddenly it cleared a bit and out we went.


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[Assistant] When was the last time you were in an F1 car, mate? I said, wow, I don't know, a year, 18 months ago. Hmm.


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[Assistant] And it just gave me so much confidence to floor the throttle. And again, not a huge amount of torque from those 2.4s, but...


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[Assistant] I can see exactly why that car won a world championship and again, very nimble, very together with the added bonus of this sort of


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[Assistant] Turbo days, you know, you could actually get a car to fly off the road if you lifted off the throttle when you were all loaded up with grip. This only seemed to really work in one direction, it was brilliant.


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[Assistant] I'd like to try those systems. CURS and FDUX and DRS, Drag Reduction System, Rare Wings now. They're not quite the switch you'd imagine. It's not like this instant hit. It's like a...


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[Assistant] Big hand of God just pushing you along nicely. You transition into the extra speed. It doesn't necessarily just turn up as a instant hit.


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[Assistant] I'd been told that morning this car is needed tomorrow morning in the factory for


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[Assistant] Instruction. I've had documents sent through to me in advance. I've had instruction.


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[Assistant] And all of that, there's so much going on. Once again, I'm all GoPro'd up and mic'd up and I've got to start talking as I leave the pit lane. But actually, you could drive out of the pits like you were going to Tesco's to get some shopping. Uh, it was so together.


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[Assistant] Like crazy and I'm sure they gave me kind of idiot power level, not the sort of stuff that Lewis would be expecting in qualifying.


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[Assistant] And I actually lifted off in the end, I got scared. I thought if I don't, I'm just going to take off. If I keep accelerating like this in the pouring rain, I will either fly off the road or I will take off. Just this relentless torque between the 1.6 motor


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[Assistant] And all of the electrical assistance you've got to go with it.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so the controls, the car, again, you press the brakes, it slows down in a straight line, you turn the steering wheel, and the car turned at the same angle as the steering wheel angle you put in. Just so direct, and I never raced a car like that, that responded to my input, even in those conditions.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but the cars are, you know, that car was already over 700 kilos, including the driver. The Red Bull was 640 kilos. The Wide Track one's now well over 725 kilos.


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[Assistant] So you've got a very big cut. You feel like you're in a big cut. You can't really see out of it too well. You're buried right inside it. And so what impresses me about today's drivers is their racecraft.


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[Assistant] I would say in the 80s and early 90s, when I think because there were no sensors on the cars, no simulation tools, very little data acquisition, the drivers experience, and that's why I think people like Nikki and Nigel could still win world championships, you know,


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[Assistant] A gut feeling and all that sort of thing where I think that the driver had to drive the car more.


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[Assistant] On his experience and his nous and his instinct and then work with his engineer with really quite limited tools until we started getting a lot of data acquisition in the 90s.


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[Assistant] And again, I don't say that in any kind of, uh, you know, in my day or whatever because when I drive these latest cars and I see


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[Assistant] Great cars and a privilege to drive them. It's actually one we haven't talked about, which is Senna's


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[Assistant] And we had his tollman there, and all sorts of things. I had eyes only for black beauty. And I think I did two thirds of a Grand Prix distance that day in the car.


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[Assistant] Even when I turned up, it was being warmed up in that Renault Turbo of that day.


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[Assistant] Because we were put right to the front of the car to counterbalance the weight of the engine. And in an accident, your feet were, you know.


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[Assistant] Right out there, but that's how it felt as you turn the steering wheel in that Lotus 98T, you, you felt you sort of.


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[Assistant] That was a beautiful car but the car I'd most want to race would be the current Mercedes hybrid car as much as there's aspects I don't like about them. You spend your racing career trying to


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[Assistant] Jump into a car that's like a spaceship and is morphed so far forward.


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[Assistant] Mario Andretti, the American ex-World Champion, has come into the Ferrari team for this race. Remember, he was born in Italy and he has put the Ferrari on pole position.


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[Assistant] Hi all, Tom Clarkson here with the latest edition of your favourite podcast, It's Beyond the Grid, presented by Bose QuietComfort 35.2 wireless headphones. My guest this week for a special summer break edition of the show is someone whose name may not be instantly recognisable to everyone


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[Assistant] He worked in the sport for more than 40 years and witnessed many significant moments in F1 history from the inside.


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[Assistant] He was also good friends with many of the sport's biggest figures. I'm talking about Joe Ramirez, a man whose first F1 job was back in the 1960s when he supported fellow Mexican Ricardo Rodriguez.


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[Assistant] That journey took him to Europe and on a path that saw him work with the likes of Jackie Stewart at Tyrrell, Emerson Fidipaldi at Koposuka, and Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, and Mika Häkkinen at McLaren.


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[Assistant] Did he lose his love for the sport or the people that work in it? Joe's strongest association is with McLaren, where he worked for 18 years. But when he attended the recent Hungarian Grand Prix, we caught up in, yes, you guessed it, the McLaren Motorhome for a chat about his life and his most colourful memories.


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[Assistant] His passion for the sport continues to reverberate through every sentence. I hope you enjoy our conversation.


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[Assistant] Let's talk more then about that period with McLaren. We'll come back to your time at the earlier years. So you spent 18 years with McLaren. How did it first come about? How did the opportunity with the team come about in 1983?


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[Assistant] Uhm, didn't you, when you were at McLaren, I mean, I'm thinking of Lauda and Prost and Senna and Rosberg and Hakkinen.


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[Assistant] When was Prost at his peak at McLaren? I mean, he made his debut with the team in 1980, then rejoined in 1984, didn't he? When do you think he was at his best? Was he, was he still at his peak when Senna joined in 88? Or do you think he'd plateaued or?


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[Assistant] I heard Niki Lauda say once he'd love to have seen the 84 spec Prost go up against Ayrton Senna, but.


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[Assistant] What about your relationship with them? Because you were team coordinator, so what kind of things did you do for them? And was it difficult for you to not take sides?


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[Assistant] You mentioned Monaco. I do want to ask you about Monaco 88. Senna did that amazing qualifying lap.


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[Assistant] And then he crashes in the race when he's got, he's what, is he 40 seconds up the road or whatever he is?


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[Assistant] Now, if you ask me for advice on how to create or manage a website from scratch,


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[Assistant] I'd have to be honest, hold my hands up and say, I don't know, it's not my bag. Luckily, we have a great team at F1 to take care of that side of things for us. But if you're looking for a business solution to help you grow your online presence, no matter what size your enterprise, then Wix could be exactly what you need.


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[Assistant] With Wix, you'll get all the tools necessary to create the website and the business you want.


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[Assistant] You can access advanced business features to help you automate your work and boost productivity, or you can utilize the built-in task management and reminder tools to help you manage your workflow and hit deadlines.


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[Assistant] And if what you need is to build customer relationships and streamline user experience of your website, then Wix can help you add a chat function so you can send messages to customers in real time. All this and so much more.


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[Assistant] Get started by going to wix.com. That's wix.com forward slash grid to get 10% off. wix.com forward slash grid to get 10% off. Now let's get back to Joe.


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[Assistant] Well, he had, um, dinner with Luca de Montezemolo on the Wednesday before Imola.


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[Assistant] Death, you worked through an era of Formula One where death was, wasn't commonplace, but it happened a lot. I mean, if I mention some names, you know, both Rodriguez brothers, Ricardo, I know you were,


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[Assistant] Very close with in particular, but then you were working on Francois Sever's car in 73 and of course.


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[Assistant] Did you ever struggle to keep going? Did you ever fall out of love with the sport because of what was happening to these people?


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[Assistant] Vibe, obviously. I mean, there was, what was it? The woodshed? I think that's what they brought with it. Just describe Tyrell to me. How different was it to what you'd experienced before?


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[Assistant] Has the camaraderie among the drivers, the friendship among the drivers changed?


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[Assistant] I think the GPDA is probably stronger actually at the minute than it's been for a while, but I always think it's the advent of private jets that has ruined the camaraderie because now, two hours after the end of the race, the drivers have all disappeared, whereas I guess back in the day everyone was on the same plane and


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[Assistant] What a racing life. Can you imagine trying to keep the peace between Senna and Prost when they couldn't even look at each other? Or having to pick yourself up after the loss of Francois Sauvier at Watkins Glen in 1973.


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[Assistant] The stories were endless and the insight was immeasurable. Thank you, Joe, for sharing so many extraordinary moments. I loved our chat and I look forward to seeing you again at this year's Mexican Grand Prix.


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[Assistant] Well that's it for another episode, but we'll be back next week with another guest brimming with can't-miss anecdotes. Until then, why not subscribe to Beyond The Grid if you haven't already?


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[Assistant] And thanks for your feedback about last week's episode with Jackie Ickx. Not only was he brilliantly quick, he was one of the sport's great survivors and he was also seriously cool. Something that wasn't lost on listener Peter Haynes.


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[Assistant] How can Jacky Ickx fail to realize that he was and probably still is the coolest man on the planet, says Peter.


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[Assistant] Absolutely fascinating Beyond The Grid interview. Well thanks Peter, and I couldn't agree with you more about Jackie. He was, and he still is, unbelievably cool.


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[Assistant] And please keep the feedback coming, we love it. Remember to use the hashtag F1 Beyond The Grid and you can tweet me at Tom Clarkson F1. Beyond The Grid is produced by F1 in association with Audio Boom. Until next time, keep it flat out.


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[Assistant] Hi guys, Tom Clarkson here, welcoming you to another edition of Beyond the Grid, presented by Bose QuietComfort 35.2 Wireless Headphones. Now, after the delights of the legendary Murray Walker last week, we're going contemporary for this episode because my guest is the most successful Mexican driver in the history of Formula One.


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[Assistant] He has eight podium finishes to his name, and after the ways driven in the early races of 2019, did you see his electric start in China? Then more are sure to follow.


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[Assistant] I'm talking of course about Sergio Perez. Checo, as he's better known, has made many sacrifices to get to this point in his career.


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[Assistant] Flying on his own to Germany, aged just 15, to start a single seater career, then persuading teams to give him a drive when he had no money, and then being courted by Scuderia Ferrari and now battling with the big boys in Formula One.


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[Assistant] His is a tale of emotional extremes. There have been tremendous highs as well as freakish lows. And he's still just 29 years old.


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[Assistant] We sat down in the Racing Point hospitality area at last weekend's Chinese Grand Prix to talk it all through. He was very candid. I hope you enjoy our conversation.


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[Assistant] Orcheko, welcome to Beyond the Grid. Great to have you on the show. And it's an honor to be speaking to the Mexican with the most podiums in Formula One history.


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[Assistant] Now, I feel there's a lot to get through. Uhm, and I want to ask you first of all, why Formula One? Because prior to your arrival,


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[Assistant] It had been a long time since there had been a Mexican.


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[Assistant] In F1. So first of all, why F1 and not something like IndyCar, which was a more tried and tested route.


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[Assistant] So what? Formula one was like an exotic dream for you and that is what made you so determined to get there.


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[Assistant] And I guess you never got to the Mexican Grand Prix because you were born in 1990 and I think the last one that time around was 92? Yea, 92. Did you go age 2? No.


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[Assistant] So what was the first F1 race that you actually attended personally?


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[Assistant] I'm just trying to think. So what year was, cause in 2003, he could still win the world championship. Was it 2003? He could still win the world championship at Indianapolis. Right.


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[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, super quick. Did he give you any advice? Did he say at the age of 15, you must go and live in Germany on your own?


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[Assistant] The Skip Barber in 2004, cause that is still a very American approach to going racing, isn't it? So prior to the story you've just told me, I was going to say to you, all right, so you wanted to do IndyCar, that's why you went to Skip Barber. But obviously the dream, as you've already said, was Formula One.


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[Assistant] So without that phone call from Carlos Slim, Checo Perez wasn't going racing anymore. Can we say Carlos Slim saved your career?


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[Assistant] Jack, I'm really sorry to interrupt you, but how exciting is it when one of the richest men in the world rings you up and says, actually, I really want to sponsor you. I mean, huge moment.


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[Assistant] And that is why you went to Germany as opposed to the UK?


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[Assistant] But you never thought of jacking it in?


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[Assistant] So when did you first come into contact with Formula 1 teams? Was it when you were racing in the UK in British Formula 3?


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[Assistant] So how did the opportunity with Sauber come about in 2011?


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[Assistant] Was Sauber the only team on your radar at that time?


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[Assistant] And was there a shootout between you and another driver? Forgive me, I can't remember or was it? No, no.


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[Assistant] Of course he was. Now, you had a big crash that year. Monaco. Yeah.


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[Assistant] How did, and of course you missed the next race in Canada as well, how did that crash change your attitude towards danger, the danger in our sport?


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[Assistant] Now, you'd fought so hard to get to Formula One. The first time you drove that Sauber, can you even now, all these years on, remember the emotions and was it very vivid for you how worth it the fight had been?


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[Assistant] I'm talking emotionally though in terms of, you know, all those nights alone in that restaurant.


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[Assistant] Well, Cheko, you then get the ride at McLaren in 2013 and I think yourself and a lot of people thought, right, this is the big opportunity for, for you. Why do you think it didn't work out?


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[Assistant] Apart from the length of the contract with McLaren, if you had that opportunity now, what would you do differently? Just in the sort of day to day, how you went about the business with McLaren.


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[Assistant] Given that you out-qualified Jensen more often than not, and of course Jensen stacked up so well against Lewis Hamilton, do you think people should reassess your year at McLaren? Do you feel you were given a bad hand by the media in the way you were treated that year?


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[Assistant] So how difficult was it to pick yourself up at the end of 2013? Cause I mean...


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[Assistant] It'd been a bad year. I imagine, I mean, obviously the ride with Force India came around. Was there ever a moment after 2013 where you thought I've had enough or were you still, the fight was still very much.


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[Assistant] Even if McLaren didn't want to stay with you beyond 2013, was there ever a doubt in Carlos's mind that he wanted to support another driver or was he always 100% behind you?


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[Assistant] And so describe the job you've done for Force India. You've been, you know,


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[Assistant] Regularly on the podium, when a guy like Hulkenberg


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[Assistant] Hasn't been on the podium. I mean just describe the job you think you've done for them.


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[Assistant] Is that something you've always had or is it something that you've sort of developed during the- I always had that.


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[Assistant] And do you think that's why it was you getting the podiums and not someone like Nick Hulkenberg, who everyone agrees is a very quick racing driver, but it's never happened to him so far.


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[Assistant] Now, let's sort of fast forward to middle of last year and the administration, uhm, of Force India. Who advised you to do that?


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[Assistant] It's a really good point you make there that somehow you kept hold of all of the talent. And I'm not just talking about you, I'm talking about Andy Green and all the brains producing the car didn't leave throughout all that uncertainty. They pretty much all stayed, didn't they?


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[Assistant] But I guess throughout that process, you knew that if the team survived, you were going to be probably be working for a stroll alongside a stroll in the team as well, have a teammate.


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[Assistant] Uhm, how, how, how is that? Having a boss as a stroll and a teammate as a stroll.


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[Assistant] I seem to remember that Felipe Massa got a bit frustrated with Lawrence slash Lance towards the end of his career at Williams. Have you seen anything about the two of them that makes you worry that you're going to get, he's going to get an unfair advantage over you in the team or?


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[Assistant] Of your six years at the team, is this the most exciting period for you?


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[Assistant] Okay, so, so just to sum up the here and now with you, Cecho, do you feel more motivated than you've ever felt? Do you feel that...


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[Assistant] Sounds like you're in a really good place. And of course you got, you're a dad now, you're married not so long ago, it's, you seem, as you say, pretty, pretty relaxed and pretty...


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[Assistant] And do you think the 2019 car will, will come good? Do you, you know, is P4 in the Constructors Championship a possibility?


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[Assistant] Of course not, but it, it's, uh, as I said, I've read a few books on him and, um, yeah.


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[Assistant] Scary character. What about watches as well? Haven't you got an impressive watch collection?


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[Assistant] Well hey, you're a Formula One driver. Time is everything, I suppose. So, mind you, are you a punctual person? You've got all these watches. Are you on time for things, or?


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[Assistant] Why do you put yourself through the stress? I used to be like that. I thought, I'm going to go as late as possible to this flight. Then I just thought, why not just go half an hour earlier and then everything's easy?


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[Assistant] Because it doesn't give me any stress to be the last person. But what happens if you miss the flight?


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[Assistant] What an emotional roller coaster. Chekhov's had more highs and lows in his eight and a bit years in Formula One than most drivers experience in their entire careers. Arriving with such a bang in 2011, scoring three podiums in only his second season with Sauber, and then switching to McLaren, and bam.


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[Assistant] The momentum was sucked from his career. But Cecho is a fighter, and he's continued to improve, and he's now one of the most consistent drivers on the grid. Who knows where his career will take him next, but we wish him the best of luck. Thanks for your time, Cecho. I really enjoyed that chat, and thanks too to Racing Point for the hospitality.


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[Assistant] Well, that's it for another episode, but we'll be back next week with another star from the world of Formula One. And as I say every episode, please subscribe to Beyond The Grid if you haven't already to ensure that you don't miss out. We're on all of your favourite podcast apps.


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[Assistant] And I've got another ask for you this week because I'm delighted to say that Beyond the Grid has been shortlisted at the upcoming British Podcast Awards. And there's more.


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[Assistant] We're also up for a listener's choice award. So if you like the podcast and I hope you do, why not go to britishpodcastsawards.com forward slash vote and give us a vote. We'd really appreciate it.


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[Assistant] Thanks too for your messages about last week's show with Murray Walker. It seems many of you enjoyed it, including Philip Amato who said, thank you for a fabulous interview with my favorite Murray Walker. He's as sharp as ever and he's now gone higher in my opinion with Adelaide being his favorite race. Thanks Philip. I'm guessing you're from down under.


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[Assistant] And remember that if you want to get in touch, use the hashtag f1beyondthegrid and you can tweet me at Tom Clarkson f1.


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[Assistant] My introduction to Lewis was unusual to say the least. And, uh, but it was revealing about him in a way that has had an important bearing on our, his and my relationship since. So my, my first encounter with him.


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[Assistant] As an employee of Mercedes was in first winter test of 2017 and we'd been introduced in the morning, shaking hands and, uh, made the sort of looking forward to working with you type noises. And then he'd gone off to do his thing. I've gone off to do mine.


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[Assistant] And we didn't, we didn't bump into each other until mid morning of that day where he had


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[Assistant] Going around the track and he'd had quite a big moment in turn four where back had come loose and he'd kept his foot down and caught it and carried on.


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[Assistant] And he came up to me and said, hey, did you see, did you see that moment in turn four? And I was thinking,


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[Assistant] In an indirect way that they are unusual people, that they do a dangerous thing.


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[Assistant] And a little bit later in the day, well, towards that evening, Toto came up to me and said, ah, yeah, uh, James Lewis said you were pretty rude to him earlier. And I knew what he was talking about. Um, but I also knew I hadn't been rude. I might have been ill judged, but I wasn't rude. I make ill judgments and.


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[Assistant] And I said, okay, I know what that was. I wasn't trying to be rude. I'll put it right. Don't worry. I'll go and have a chat with him. We didn't have an opportunity to talk to each other for the...


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[Assistant] Ever said to you, and I thought yeah, probably was, but, uh, but what, what then surprised me, and this is, this is really the part of the story that is, is much, you know, is properly revealing of Lewis is that he, he said to me, look, I haven't had a chance to say


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[Assistant] Until now, but I just want to say how sorry I was about your wife who had sadly died.


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[Assistant] of anyone you love is a massive thing. And it, it runs around your head. It still runs around my head today. There will not be 10 minutes of my life where I haven't thought of Becca since then. And it runs around your head continually.


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[Assistant] And very few other people even remember that it happened.


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[Assistant] It's lovely when someone does have the courage to do that because it's an acknowledgement of a loss that matters to you more than anything in the world.


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[Assistant] Wanna talk about or not, but I'm, I just needed to say it and I told him what I just told you about the fact that it's lovely when people do. And, and he, he took the conversation on a little bit and said, I hope that you find some way of learning to live with it. And I hope that in, in good time you'll.


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[Assistant] Bring it to a close in a grateful sort of way. And I said, well, I would dearly hope so too.


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[Assistant] You know, that happy future that you set out, uhm, that would require me to actually start talking to a girl and I'm pretty rubbish at that. And uh, and he looked at me and he smiled and he went, well, maybe just don't call them fuckers.


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[Assistant] I met Michael in sports car racing in the mid eighties, late eighties.


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[Assistant] He, maybe even 90 actually, but he was driving for the Mercedes sports car team. They had three drivers. I think it was Michael, Frentzen and Weninger.


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[Assistant] Uhm, which all obviously went on to have full-on careers. But in the sports cars, Michael stood out massively and, uhm,


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[Assistant] Sports cars are about going quick, but also driving to fuel, driving


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[Assistant] And the other's beating them by a mile. And the year we had the championship winning Jaguar, the only opposition we truly had quite frankly was, was Michael in the Mercedes, uh, because the other drivers weren't, uh, were anywhere near as good. And, uh, you know, we were saved a little bit by the fact that.


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[Assistant] The Mercedes management gave each of their drivers an equal stint in the car. So Michael would go out and give us all sorts of grief. And then the other two would give us some comfort. So that's where I first met him.


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[Assistant] And clearly, incredibly quick. And what impressed me was his ability to do the fuel mileage with lap time.


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[Assistant] And very competitive in those days. He had a fairly major altercation with Derek Warwick, where I had to help stand between the two before Derek whacked him. And Michael...


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[Assistant] Uhm, you don't know when you make that transition, but clearly he was, he was exceptional in sportscasts. Uhm, so it was obvious to Tom Walsh or myself how good he was. And when the, when the talk came of him going into Formula One,


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[Assistant] Um, prior to that, I think, uh, as soon as we became aware, I mean, the problem was we had, we had two drivers in the car and it wasn't, uh, Jordan had a spare seat. So, and we were trying to persuade Flavio that we, we should be fairly


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[Assistant] I think, uh, you know, the, the Flavio discovering Michael Schumacher story is a little bit exaggerated. Uh, Tom and I were desperate to get him in the car.


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[Assistant] And Flavio was convinced once he saw him at Spa, so then ensued a sort of fairly, uhm, testy battle to pull him out of the Jordan and stick him in the Benison.


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[Assistant] I don't think you'd ever describe Michael as a pawn. Uh, I certainly wouldn't. Uhm, yeaah, he, he's... But even back then actually.


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[Assistant] He would have known everything was going on, but Willy Weber was the key guy on Michael's side. But in fact Mercedes were helping fund this Formula One introduction. So uhm, I remember some of the Mercedes guys were involved in the discussions, but quite frankly that was something Tom and Flavio did. I watched as a


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[Assistant] Uhm, he was pretty well balanced, I must say. You know, he had enough confidence to make you feel he could do the job, but not, not overconfident. Very, uhm, very inquisitive, very, uh, keen to learn. And...


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[Assistant] I remember even then, you know, he devoted himself to it and committed to time and just


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[Assistant] Came across immediately as a very professional, uhm, driver.


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[Assistant] Not an awful lot of experience, because his experience had been quite narrow in what he'd done. So uhm, yeaah, there was a lot of learning to do, but he had a great attitude.


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[Assistant] I think one of the things I'd say about Michael throughout his career is that people who work with him never had a bad word to say about him. You know, within the teams he worked in, he always created a great impression and great loyalty. And it was immediately obvious back then.


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[Assistant] The following year we had a delicate situation because Martin Brundle was his partner and


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[Assistant] Martin was someone who was very close to Tom, and there was a little bit of, uhm, minor needle in the team, but nothing, uh, nothing too serious. Uhm, so that had to be sort of managed. But, and, and Michael handled himself pretty well, so.


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[Assistant] Yeah, he was, I'm trying to remember how old he would have been at that stage. That would have been 91. So, uh, we ought to be able to work this out, but I'm getting too old. Uh, he would have been in what is... He would have been 23. Yeah.


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[Assistant] I didn't really. I mean, Nelson made a big fuss about, uhm, dropping of, uhm, I can't remember who the Benetton rival was.


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[Assistant] Moreno, yes, Moreno got, uh, got dropped and...


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[Assistant] Nelson made a big fuss about that and sort of was creating a big sideshow about, uh, uhm, Moreno being unceremoniously dropped. Uhm, like all drivers of Nelson's sort of experience, he had Moreno in the place he wanted him and then suddenly he had this young kid who wasn't interested in


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[Assistant] Nelson wanted. So, uh, so I think it, yeaah, and Nelson left. I think the writing was on the wall. And, uhm, Nelson knew which way the team was going to be going. So, you know, you don't...


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[Assistant] It's a cruel world in that, in that environment. You don't choose your direction. Your direction is chosen by the people that are in the team in the sense that.


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[Assistant] If Michael was faster and was young and was the prospect, you show all the respect you can to drivers you have, but you follow the, you follow the main lead. You can't help it. Uhm, so I think Nelson knew that even though he'd had


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[Assistant] Good relationship with the team that his, his time was over. So, and uhm, I think Nelson had vast experience. I think probably, I can't remember the details, but I imagine that, that last part, that season, Nelson probably pulled a few, a few,


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[Assistant] Pulled one over my Michael a few times from his experience, but I think he could see on sheer performance he was going to be in trouble.


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[Assistant] Uhm, you could make that comparison. I think probably I would say that uhm,


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[Assistant] It was explained to Michael, and I know I explained to Michael, was that Lewis was coming to the end of his contract and there was a window that he was going to be available in.


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[Assistant] And if he became available, then Mercedes would, would try and go for it because, um, he was a future and Michael was coming to the end of his career.


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[Assistant] From memory, Flavio tried to keep Nelson, but it was clear Nelson was not going to hang around when Michael turned up.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think those, those Ferrari years, uh, in the early 2000s, um, you know, we were, we were fairly dominant.


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[Assistant] He was winning races sometimes he shouldn't have won, and he just had a majesty about him.


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[Assistant] In that period that, uhm, you know, was impressive to watch and, uh, you know, his speed, his consistency, his work ethic with the team, uhm,


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[Assistant] You know that, that was a pretty special period. Uhm, but you know when you talk about a peak, you're talking about a guy who was at the pinnacle for, for most of that time. Uhm, you know, you're, you're, you're comparing


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[Assistant] Uh, extremely high level of performance in all the years. Um, you know, 94, he was, when he won the first championship, he was incredible. You know, we had a, we had a very good car. Um, but he was just exceptional in, in 94.


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[Assistant] I think, you know, it's difficult to define a peak because he was, uh, he flatlined in a sense, but flatlined at a level that was so high that, uh, it's difficult to pick out the, um,


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[Assistant] I think that one of the things that, uhm, impressed me with probably Michael's career was, was 2000 and, uh, let me get this right, I'm bad on years, 2005, 2006, which were the, the, uhm, where did he finish in five?