ALTERNATIVE VIEW
The annual game of who-drives-where used to provide much intrigue in the run-up to the new season. Shame it’s taking a break this year
HOW BORING IS THIS? For the first time since I don’t know when, each F1 driver will go straight to the correct motor home when the season starts. There will be none of this wandering, through habit, into their place of work for the previous year and having to immediately reverse out with a nervous nod to the former team principal they’d spent the winter savaging on social media. Where’s the spirit of adventure these days? Everyone’s become far too formal and polite. We seem to have moved on from the time when Alain Prost publicly compared his Ferrari to a truck and found himself a spectator at the next grand prix – and for the following 12 months.
Or how about Wilson Fittipaldi Senior using his daily radio show to announce that his son, Emerson, might be driving for the Brazilian Copersucar team in 1976? Dismissed as wishful thinking, no one took the old boy seriously. Teddy Mayer had no choice in late November when the Mclaren boss subsequently received a phone call from Emerson on a Saturday night to say he was leaving – with immediate effect. Fittipaldi had been at the Jochen Rindt Show in Vienna the previous weekend but had said nothing before flying back to Brazil instead of staying on, as expected, for a test at Paul Ricard. No one thought anything of it, such was the assumption that an extension of the contract between the 1974 champion and Mclaren was a mere formality.
Mclaren wasn’t alone as Brabham, Lotus and Surtees had yet to confirm their driver line-ups. If you think that’s running things a bit close, the sense of urgency takes on a new dimension when you recall that the first race of 1976 in Brazil was scheduled for 25 January, a matter of weeks away.
When it came to eleventh-hour contractual vacillation, Ayrton Senna was your man. The first bout of uncertainty kicked off in late 1989 when Senna held a press conference in Brazil and declared that FISA (then, the governing body of motor sport) and its president, Jean-marie Balestre, had manipulated the outcome of the 1989 world championship in favour of Prost. Naturally, this did not go down well in Paris.
If you think modesty is a missing virtue with the present incumbent of the presidential post, then be assured that Mohammed Ben Sulayem is a mere out-of-tune choir boy compared with his trumpeting predecessor. In one of many thundering statements, Balestre threatened to remove Senna’s superlicence if these scurrilous allegations were not withdrawn.
This one ran until the eleventh hour. Despite a flurry of statements and what seemed a rapprochement, no one – least of all Mclaren – could be 100% certain Ayrton would turn up for the first GP the following March. He did arrive, proceeded to win the race, and then the title.
This brinkmanship would be good practice for 1993 when Senna’s failure to agree terms with Mclaren led to late-night shuttle diplomacy between the team’s lawyer in Woking and Ayrton’s office in São Paulo. This went on for several races, Senna not arriving for one until shortly after practice had begun. No media work; no debriefing; just turn up, pull on overalls and crash helmet and get down to business.
Today’s team principals probably fret if there is no advance strategy in place for their drivers’ e-scooters at Monaco next May.
Frank Williams was never a great one for hanging on to his drivers, particularly after they had won a championship. More so if they had only scored a handful of points. While Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill could at least provide decent justification for financial demands that Frank found unreasonable, the same did not apply to Derek Daly in 1982 when drafted in by Williams after four races following the sudden retirement of Carlos Reutemann.
I happened to be ghosting Daly’s column for a Sunday newspaper in his native Dublin. When we reached the final race in Las Vegas, Derek was naturally keen to inform readers about his future – one way or the other. Knowing that Frank was fully engaged that weekend with winning the championship for Keke Rosberg, I carefully chose a quiet moment to ask for a steer on what Daly might say in his column without actually revealing the facts and, more importantly, avoiding the appearance of being stupid. I took Frank’s assurance that “everything will be alright” as a reasonably positive sign, and wrote as much.
It so happened the sports editor of the Dublin Sunday paper had a stutter. The poor man was literally speechless with indignation when he got through to me late on the Sunday night. Not only had his star F1 columnist with the supposed inside line assured readers that the chances of a contract renewal were high, but a rival paper had carried a story, industriously lifted from a French news agency, that Jacques Laffite would be joining Rosberg and Ireland’s pride and joy was out on his backside. During a brief break in the flow of Irish invective coming my way, I ventured in mitigation this seemed unlikely. The following day, Williams confirmed Laffite for 1983.
The next time I met Frank, I confronted him about our conversation. “Ah yes, sorry,” he said, without a flicker or so much as looking down at his shoes. “I had to say that.” Then he flashed his winning smile before adding: “You know how it is, Maurice…” “Absolutely, Frank…” I mean, what else can you say? More fool me.
The conversation then moved on. Most likely to the prospects for René Arnoux at Ferrari, or Eddie Cheever at Renault. Or any of the 13 driver changes among the 16 teams. Were Frank still with us today, he would probably have been bored stiff during the past few months.
FRANK WILLIAMS WAS NEVER A GREAT ONE FOR HANGING ON TO HIS DRIVERS, PARTICULARLY AFTER THEY HAD WON A CHAMPIONSHIP