MARK BLUNDELL:
‘I achieved the impossible Formula 1 dream’ British motorsport hero tackles the readers’ questions
Famously, the motto The Will to Win is emblazed on Mark Blundell’s crash helmet. But there are many, many other things it would have said. His courage is unquestioned, his determination well known and his pace remarkable.
He has been on the F1 podium, claimed triumph at Le Mans in 1992 and conquered the Indycar scene.
The checklist of teams that he has driven for in Formula 1 – including the likes of Brabham, Mclaren and Tyrrell –is allied to other manufacturer programmes like Nissan, Peugeot, Bentley and MG in sportscars.
That is enough of a CV for any driver, but Blundell is still going strong. He has a highly successful sports management company which is now guiding the futures of a lot of up-and-coming talents and, for 2020, he will be stepping onto the pitwall as the boss of British Touring Car Championship team Mark Blundell Motorsport.
In between spinning the many plates that he has on the go, Blundell took time out of his schedule to tackle the MN readers’ questions.
Question: “At the time, people said that Kimi Raikkonen going straight from Formula Renault to Formula 1 in 2001 was a step too far. You went from Formula Ford 2000 (via a few F3 races) to Formula 3000 – why did you make that leap?”
Dave Partington Via email Mark Blundell: “I think I had my first test in Formula 3000 at the end of 1986.
[The jump] was very much unheard of in those days. I guess it is just part of the pathway we took all along my early career. We did change the dynamics of how a young driver progressed a little bit. Back then, people only did one race a day at a Formula Ford 1600 meeting even though there were three being held on the day. We decided to do all three of them. We just wanted mileage. Then, going from FF2000 to F3000: we looked at it and we didn’t really see what the issue was. If you can drive, you can drive – and I think that is no different to Kimi Raikkonen as well. Yes, it takes time to understand the level of machinery and yes, it takes time to understand the dynamics of that car and the formula , but it doesn’t take any time to understand what a steering wheel and some pedals do or understand what is underneath your backside. Those are still the same parameters you work with whether it is a go-kart or a Formula 1 car.
“Also, there was the situation that we had some money, but not a great deal. The budget that we had wasn’t going to get us a good Formula 3 seat. But what we could do was run our own little Formula 3000 team on a shoestring and go and get some international experience. We had been talking about F3, but it was only British F3. Although that was a hugely competitive series back then, it was still only doing domestic circuits. For us, if we were going to get education, then we thought it would be better to go and get it in the big wide world.
“[F3000 squad Fleetray Racing] was my team, and that is something else that I think a lot of people don’t understand. I was 21 years old, racing and running a team at the same time. I had some support but it was very much hands on on a day-to-day basis.”
Question: “In your early career, it really seemed hand-to-mouth for you. Was there ever a time where you thought you would have to give up before you made it to Formula 1?”
Paul Jones
Via email
MB: “There was a very tough time for me because my father [Danny] and I had a massive falling out. The fall out was because we were two peas in a pod, very alike and both as stubborn as each other. We didn’t set eyes on each other for six months. At that point, I was getting support from my family, as is the case with most young racing drivers. Dad cut that out of the system, and I had to go and fend for myself: that was in FF1600 days. I had to pull down on relationships and pull some heartstrings to try and muddle my way though, and I did.
“What came out of that was a change in the relationship between my father and I at the end of it. It was all for the better, really, but there was an understanding on my part that if I was going to do this sport, it was pretty much going to have to be done the hard way and I was going to have to grind it out. It was thin ice at that point.
“I was at the start of my motorsport journey, but back then I didn’t know that there was a career there. When you are 17 years old doing Formula Ford 1600, you don’t really have your sights set on getting to Formula 1. In those very early stages, you don’t think about it. Yes, you have a desire that you would love to be there, but the reality of it is quite different. The reality of doing a Champion of Brands FF1600 race or a Champion of Snetterton race on a Sunday afternoon and then, within four years’time, getting into a Formula 1 car for the first time and doing your first test, you simply couldn’t map it out. It was impossible. Yes, there is a desire to get to the top and a dream, but if you actually realistically tried to map out that pathway, you could see how difficult it could be. Bear in mind, even for me, I started racing in 1984 and by 1989, I was testing a Formula 1 car. That was incredibly fast. Back then, everything was a two-year programme. You would have a learning year in a formula, and then get the job done the next, and on you went. If you were looking at the stepping stones and the traditional path, that would be eight years at least before you got anywhere, but we halved it.”
Question: “How did the connection with the works-supported TOM’S Toyota come about? You raced for them in a handful of Formula 3 races in 1987…” Adam Binnie
Via email
MB: “That was through [team manager] John Wickham. He was running it, and he had looked at what we had done with our own organisation and he had seen what I had done in the lower formulae up to F3000. The TOM’S programme was purely about development. I had already started to make a little bit of a name for myself in terms of feedback and developing a car. John came to me and asked if I would like to run in this little programme. It was only limited, because it was for engine development and he said he would pay me. I put that towards my F3000 budget, and that is purely the reason why I did it. There were a couple of races where we didn’t even get to start because the bloody thing wouldn’t fire up.”
Question: “Did the Le Mans Nissan R90CK sportscar really have 1000bhp in 1990? Pole position at Le Mans must have been a real special feeling… Simon Crowther
Via email
MB: “Oh boy, yes! It had more, actually. There is an onboard video of that lap, and you only need to watch that to realise. Still probably to this day, it is one of the best laps I have ever done in my life because it was the most reactive lap ever. Up until that stage, that car hadn’t turned a full lap at any pace. Every time it had gone out, it kept overboosting and we would have to abort the lap. The car was on hard tyres when I set that time, and there was zero reference for me. Nothing on car balance, grip, tyre life, power delivery: there was nothing at all.
What you see when you watch that lap is exactly what I saw for the first time when I took to the track for the very first time.
“I didn’t really understand what I had done until I came back to the pits. I knew it was a good lap and I knew it was bloody quick but I didn’t realise how quick it was in comparison to the others. I had unplugged my radio at the beginning of the lap because I had been told to bring the car in and I didn’t want to!
I went against team orders. It was the last opportunity to do a lap, and there was a story behind that too.
“Myself and Julian Bailey, who I was sharing the car with, we had tossed a coin to determine who would do qualifying – it was taken as a qualifying car – and who would start the race. I won the toss and decided I would go for the pole position glory. But, of course, I was thinking all the way through the week that I had made a mistake because the car wouldn’t run. I thought ‘shit, I am not going to get to do this’. So when it was working, I just went for it.”
Question: “How come you clicked with Spa-francorchamps in Belgium so well in Formula 1? You did four GPS there and you scored in three of them…” James Hilton
Via email
MB: “Actually, I should have won my first F3000 race there too in 1987. If they hadn’t taken the results from the lap before [due to a crash], I would have won it.
“I have always loved the circuit. It is one of those tracks that is full of commitment and challenge, and it has always been rewarding to me. Not only that, it is one of those tracks, if you look back career-wise, I have always been very competitive in the wet, even in bad cars. In changeable conditions, I have always been at the cutting edge of the pace. I just had this little knack of getting the most out of it and understanding what the car can do when the conditions are uncertain even when the tyres were right on the edge.
“That comes at Spa quite a lot. It was the same when I won the Indycar race at Portland [in 1997 in the rain]. I made the decision to take the tyres I did despite the weather and I was able to hang on to it.
“I still put that feel down to my time in motocross. If you do a lap on a motocross bike, every lap is different because the course changes so much. It is all about reading the terrain. When I used to do Formula Ford and I was doing it in the wet, my lines would be very different to most because most people were still taking a race line. They were taking it a bit wider or a little bit off-apex, whereas I would arrive and turn it into a 90-degree corner or make a different angle out of it. People would wonder what the hell I was doing. Then they would see a lap time and they would go ‘ah, OK!’ I had found a little bit of camber that was less wet than the rest or
there was no laying water and I was able to get a bit more traction. It was things like that.”
MN: Is Eau Rouge the biggest challenge on that track? Some people say it isn’t… MB: “I don’t think it is, actually. There is Pouhon and Blanchimont, they are challenging too. Not only that, there was lots of time to be gained at the Bus Stop Chicane at the end of the lap. You come in from a couple of hundred miles an hour and get down to very very low speed, and the amount of time you can knock off there if you get sideways or get it wrong is quite considerable. People never used to factor that in as much as they would the faster stuff just because the circuit led you to believe that speed was all it was about.”
Question: “[Legendary team boss] Ken Tyrrell was notable for being hard on his drivers. How did you get on with him?” Alex Francis
Via email
MB: “Ken was as straightforward as they came, but always surrounded in fairness. That is the best way I could describe him.
He was never one to discuss anything unless it was warranted.
“I was just at the end of Ken’s leadership days and through my season [in 1994], he started to stand back a little bit. He was an incredibly passionate guy, and along with his wife Nora, beautiful people. Along with someone like [Williams guru] Patrick Head, they are the last of the true racers.”
Question: “Did you think the [1995] Mclaren MP4/10 was ugly too? What was it like to be a Mclaren driver? What was [team principal] Ron Dennis like towards you? There are some horror stories…”
Ed Bailey
Via email
MB: “It certainly was not a particularly pretty car – and I have been on record to say that before. For me, it was probably one of the worst cars that Mclaren ever put on the circuit. In saying that, we actually had a few better results lined up for us but we had a few engine troubles because it was the first year of Mclarenmercedes.
Even in Australia, the last grand prix of the year where I finished fourth, there should have been a better result for me there but the floor stay had come away and I was having a battle with some really unstable aerodynamics. We could have had a podium there.
“The Mclaren environment I loved, I loved the way that they operated. I already knew the guys there because I had been a test driver with Mclaren in 1992 when I was there as test and reserve driver alongside Gerhard Berger and Ayrton Senna.
“My relationship with Ron was not that easy. I say that and I mean I wish my name had have been Blundelli or Blundello because I think being a foreigner in the team would have been a lot easier – there would have been a bit more mystery surrounding me. There was also a disconnect between me and Ron in terms of what he felt was right for me and what I knew was right for me. They were completely opposite.” MN: Why would he be demanding in that way if it wasn’t getting the most out of you at that stage?
MB: “In his mind, he thought he was right and in my mind I thought I was right. I think it was a case of him not understanding the requirements that I needed as a driver. That probably, if you analyse it, that has been an area where there has always been a little bit of confrontation with Ron. It would be fair to say he could only really have one golden boy within the team: there was always a choice in his mind. When I was there in 1995, [my deal] was on a race-byrace basis. It was always hanging over my head. I was always turning around to the team and telling them that if they wanted to get the best out of me, they needed to give me security. I needed something to work for and understand that I was there until the end of the year. He thought I worked better under pressure, but that was not true. I had a young family and I was a grand prix driver that needed security – no different to any other human being. And also, I wanted it to be shown that Mclaren had made the commitment towards me from its side.
That would have been the best for everyone, but he never agreed to it.”
Question: “What is the race that got away in Formula 1? Was there one where you felt you didn’t get the result you wanted? “
Penny Clarke
Via email
MB: “There are a number of them. I would say one race that niggles me was at the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka in 1995 in the Mclaren. I came from last on the grid [24th] to seventh. Just outside the points. I would have been in the points, and the reason I wasn’t was because
I was asked to back out of it to help the cause of [team-mate] Mika Hakkinen [who eventually finished second]. That altered the whole dynamic of the energy that had gone into that weekend. I wasn’t allowed to get the rewards I think I deserved there. It was always tough for a driver to be on the receiving end of that.”
Question: “Did you think twice about going to race in Indycar? Some drivers
shied away from it because of the danger involved on the fast ovals…”
Matthew Weatherley
Via email
MB: “No, I didn’t think twice about it in terms of the circumstances I was in. I was due to go to Sauber in 1996 in F1: I had signed a heads of agreement with them. I was ready to go. At the last moment, Dieter Mateschitz [Red Bull boss] came in and took a stake in the team. One of the things he wanted was a call on a driver, and he wanted someone who had won a grand prix. The only guy that was available was Johnny Herbert, and he got the seat and I was told it was no longer available for me.
“After what I had done at Mclaren and it being very late in the day, I got disillusioned with Formula 1. Mercedes, as a gesture and as a thank you, because, if you looked at the Mclaren results compared to Mika Hakkinen and what performance level of engine I had compared to my team-mate on occasions, they turned around and said thanks and told me that if I did want to go to America, they would supply me with an engine deal to put in my rucksack and take over there. That is how I went over there.
“It wasn’t a Mercedes engine to start with in the US. Because of my rapport with the guys at Reynard back then, they pointed me in the direction of the Pacwest team and they said that they thought I should go and have a chat with them.
I had got to understand [team owner] Bruce Mccaw at that stage. We did what we did in year one [with a Cosworth] but knowing we would switch to Mercedes the year after.”
Question: “Is there too much technology in modern F1? Do you think it is easier in F1 drivers today than it was in your day? It seems to me that Lewis [Hamilton] is where he is largely because of the car and the performance gap between Mercedes and Williams is too big…”
Simon Palmer
Via Twitter
MB: “Formula 1 has always been the cutting edge of technology and I don’t think you should ever change that.
As a driver it is the pinnacle and it is the ultimate in high tech, high performance racing car. In saying that, I do feel there are times when technology overrides the human factor and the human input and the car/driver split has always leaned towards the car more than the driver, which is why I have always said from day one that you could be the best horse racing jockey in the world, but if you are sitting on an old nag, you are never going to win. Formula 1 is no different.
“That split is bigger now than it was in my generation, and the car is now probably even more led down the line in terms of performance to the point now that they turn up at tracks and the car is pretty much already set up. There is not so much need now for testing pre-race and working on set-ups, etc. But the modern generation of drivers are much more technically and engineering-led than we used to be and that is a skill in its own right. Think of the pace they are running and the speed they are going, and they have to have inputs into the car maybe every lap with changes on the steering wheel, changes on the diff lock, engine performance and so on. I can’t say one era is better than the other, but you are still seeing the cream of the crop.
“Lewis would have got to the top anyway. He is like a bit of software. He is like racing driver version 8.1 – the best developed piece of software you can find in the country. He is an incredible driver, and you don’t get to the success he has had unless you are a bit special. Let’s not forget, it is not just the driver, there is an incredible amount of work behind that.”
Question: “What was your favourite British Touring Car Championship track and why?
Just Tanner
Via Twitter
MB: “There were some tracks I had never been to, like Croft and Knockhill, and Snetterton was a lot different to how I remember. My favourite would be Brands Hatch, on the Grand Prix circuit. Just because that circuit is so unique. I know we have Silverstone and it is the jewel in the crown because of the grand prix, but I still think Brands Hatch as a UK circuit is one of the class tracks in the world. Places like Paddock Hill Bend – they don’t make tracks like that anymore. If you have every been on Brands, you would have the utmost respect for it and love and passion for it, because it is something very special.”
Question: “When you look back, what was the favourite period of your career? And what was the best car you’ve ever driven?”
Joseph Mclennan
Via email
MB: “My favourite period would be those days of Formula Ford 1600. They were just brilliant days. When you reflect on it now and you look at the calibre of drivers that were around when I was racing, it is stunning. So many from that generation made it to Formula 1, it was a golden generation. Look at some of the races that went on there and it was just the purest form of motor racing I have ever done. None of us knew, back then, where we were heading. We all went there thinking we were the best thing since sliced bread and every weekend would throw up a challenge to try to knock you off that perch. It was just very, very special.
“Probably the best racing car I have driven was one that I never raced. I was a tester for Williams and I drove the FW14B grand prix car. It was amazing. Then it would be between the Peugeot
905 I won Le Mans with in 1992, and the Bentley Speed 8 I raced. They were just two fantastic sportscars.”
Question: “Apart from yourself, who is the best driver from the Rat Pack [the emerging single-seater talents in the 1980s, a collective name for Mark Blundell, Perry Mccarthy, Julian Bailey, Damon Hill, Johnny Herbert and Martin Donnelly]? And are you really Mega [Blundell’s nickname within the group]?
Chris Curtis
Via email
MB: “Mega is my nickname because when I was younger, apparently, I used to say it all the time! I got labelled with that, and Billy which is my other nickname. Within the Rat Pack we all have nicknames. Who was best? That is an incredibly tough question. Who did I feel had the most natural talent behind the wheel, I would probably say Johnny. He was naturally gifted. No disrespect because some of them have gone on to be much more successful than me – or even Johnny – but as a pure talent, Johnny was it. They are all good though – you can’t take that away because we all made the grade.”
Question: “You keep saying that things you do – racing in the British Touring Car Championship and now BTCC team management – are the ‘next chapter in your book’. When will you get around to writing it – and can
I have a signed copy please?”
Cathy Wythe
Via email
MB: “I think there will be one, but
I am not quite sure how it is going to be directed. Maybe I want to do something different, which has always been my style. Maybe it might be more business linked because of what I did and what I learned and how I took that into the business side of my life. There are not many sports people who transfer life into business, so that could be something to look at. It is something I have been considering for the last 18 months. So at one point, it probably will happen. And yes, Cathy, you can have a copy.”
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