ANDY PRIAULX’S JOURNEY TO THE TOP OF THE WORLD
Britain’s multiple world title winner tackles MN readers’ questions
Lewis Hamilton’s fifth FIA Formula 1 world title in 2018 put him truly on the tail of Michael Schumacher’s all-time record, but it also put him one clear of another highly decorated Briton Andy Priaulx. Priaulx took four back-to-back successes in Fia-sanctioned European and World Touring Car Championships and enjoyed an 13-year career as a factory BMW driver in a range of disciplines stretching from Super 2000 tin-tops, through the DTM and international-level sportscars too. Subsequent to that, he has been one of the mainstays of the
Ford GT programme in the World Endurance Championship and returned to the World Touring Car Championship.
The list of his achievements is an enviable one, but he has now decided to scale back his front-line activities and concentrate on a new role with Multimatic, the team which ran the Ford
Chip Ganassi Team UK GT programme. Priaulx will be on hand as an in-house racer, development driver, advisor and ambassador as he also gets his teeth into overseeing the motorsport career of his son Sebastian. The younger Priaulx, who is just 19 years old, will race for Multimatic in a programme of events in the US this season.
MN sets the scene: After dabbling in karting – and even powerboat racing – it was inevitable that young Andy Priaulx would take to the hills. His father Graham had been a participant in the British Hillclimb contest in the 1980s and returned in the 1990s. He shared a Pilbeam MP58 with his son in 1994 and 1995 and both were winners. Andy switched to circuit racing in the Formula Renault UK Championship in 1996 in a Startline Racing Martini MK72.
Question: “You started your career in the British Hillclmb Championship, which you won in 1995. What skills did hillclimbing give you, and did it give you any drawbacks when it came to switching to circuit racing?
Jonathan Semple
Via email
Andy Priaulx: “I think it really came into play later in my career, I suppose. It helped when you look at things like the Race of Champions, where I was always super competitive and won it [alongside Jason Plato for the England team in 2015]. It helps when you are going into Turn 1, dealing with cold tyres and it being purely an act of faith. You have to have natural instincts and an instant reaction. It is about turning things on really quickly, and that is something that I learned from hillclimbing. That was a skill that was transferable across when I was jumping in new cars as well and trying to find the limit immediately. It is living on your wits, and that all comes from my hillcliming background.
“In a lot of ways, though, it delayed my progress early on because simply I didn’t have the understanding of long fast corners and dealing with weight distribution and all the details that you learn from circuit racing. Hillclimbing is more about reactions and car control, whereas circuit racing is more about having a flowing style. I had to really work on learning all of that.
“I had a few years to begin with that were hard, and that was not only because my technical experience wasn’t there but also I didn’t have the money. That delayed my progress a bit. Once I got going, it was all good from there.”
MN sets the scene: Once Andy Priaulx had been bitten by the circuit racing bug, it bit hard but he knew he had to make some serious sacrifices to get his foot on the motor racing ladder. He moved out of his Channel Island home and went to Silverstone, pitched up in a caravan, which was home, and set his sights on a career.
Question: “Being from Guernsey, do you think that made you even more determined to succeed because of the effort involved to participate?”
Sally Goodson
Via email
AP: “I think the commitment I made to leave Guernsey and go and live in a caravan showed that determination. [Andy’s wife] Jo had left a good job in banking in Guernsey and I had left the family business. We went into the wilderness and it was a big step for us little islanders. But back then, we were living on dreams. When we came over to Silverstone, we didn’t have the network of people around us or the contacts – you know, all the things you require to leverage your potential and move upwards. Everything was so commercial. I had come from grassroots motorsport where there was no commerciality to that at all. Back then, you just went racing because you loved it and you prepared the car yourself. One of the marshals at Silverstone, who I went on to become good friends with, said he always remembered me. He said that I had caused
a red flag in some session or other and I went off. He said I did nothing but apologise and was trying to clean the car and help them lift it out the gravel. They were used to spoilt brats throwing the steering wheel and walking away. That is not the way I did things because I had always done all the work on my own car.
Question: “It was a hell of a leap of faith to come over to the mainland to chase a dream. Was the target always Formula 1? When did you realise that this was not going to happen?”
Richard Craddocks
Via email
AP: “Definitely the target was Formula 1. I just had a huge driving ambition that was in my soul. I almost can’t describe it. I just knew that I was not going to fail. I was determined to fight and go right to the bitter end to get my career on track and go out there and achieve something. There was a burning desire to achieve success. I have always said to all the young guys that I have looked after and tried to help that racing is all about having an indomitable will. You have to drive yourself and everyone around you beyond what is comfortable. It will take you to the end of your tether. It is the hardest thing you can do.”
MN: When you got up to Formula 3 level, even then it was a hand-to-mouth situation. Was there ever a time when you thought that you would have to jack it all in and do something else?
AP: “Never. It was hard work, we never had any money, but I was never going to turn my back on it. We were making huge commitments to racing teams without the budgets in place. One thing I am very proud of is that I drove for a number of teams as I was coming up through the ranks, I raised all the money myself and I never left a team owing any money at the end of the season. I always managed to find a way to pay the bills. I hate it when young drivers they seem happy to walk away from a steaming mess of debts and bad feeling [at the end of a year]. I always paid all my teams.”
MN sets the scene: The Formula 3 dream was into its second season for Priaulx in 2001 and he was looking for a way to make progress. Saloon car racing had not really been on his radar, but a late-summer chance to deputise for the banned Phil Bennett in the egg:sport-backed British Touring Car Championship team, at the wheel of one of its Astra Coupes, led his career in a totally new direction. He took two poles in his maiden meeting and finished second in the opening race of that weekend.
Question: “Did you have any idea where your British Touring Car Championship debut was going to lead? Did you see it as a career path at that point?”
Glenn Thompson
Via email
AP: “I took every chance back then. I did the Renault Sport Spider Cup in 1999 and dominated, I had a test in the Williams Renault British Touring Car
Championship car and also Renault’s works F3 team [Promatecme] and I turned that into a full-time drive. Everything was an absolutely career opportunity. I needed options.
Towards the end of 2001, I was talking to Formula 1 teams. I had been in discussions with Prost and with Jordan. There was talk and, of course, it was all about bringing commercial backing to those deals. I was still very much fixated on that, but I was also becoming a realist. I was already in my mid- to late 20s so it was already late on in my journey age-wise. I had drawn a personal cut-off for me that if I hadn’t done it by that stage, I needed to be earning or I was in the shit, really. I was getting close to that point. Sebastian was just a little baby boy and I had commitments I had to think about. I won my first race a few weeks after Seb was born, so all that bullshit about becoming a dad makes you slower is wrong: it was the opposite for me.
I was even more desperate for success because I had to feed my family. It drove me the other way.”
MN: It seemed your career was about to get stuck, and that BTCC deal, which ultimately led to a full-time driver with Honda for 2002, looked like it had saved you…
AP: “I have always said to [then Triple Eight Race Engineering boss joint boss Derek Warwick] that I owe my career to him. He phoned me and said that there was a chance for me to drive because Phil Bennett was in some hot water and was banned for a round. He asked me if I could do it and I asked where and when he needed me. I was there. That is something I am eternally grateful to Derek Warwick for.
“I felt pretty bad because they wanted me in the team and they offered me a contract after that [for 2002] and,
I have to be honest, I went for a little bit more money and went to join Honda instead, purely because I needed the cash back then. I was desperate. I had to make that choice and it was difficult,