CLIVE HOWELL ON DRIVERS

Clive Howell, as an enthusiastic 22-year-old Brabham employee, was standing at the pitwall at Kyalami for the 1977 South African Grand Prix when Renzo Zorzi’s Shadow expired on the other side of the track, smoke wisping gently from its engine. A few feet away from Howell, two young marshals responded by running from the pitwall across the track. The one carrying the fire extinguisher, Frikkie Jansen van Vuuren, never made it. They were just beyond the brow of a hill and suddenly four cars appeared at 170mph; one was Zorzi’s team-mate, Tom Pryce, who struck van Vuuren and the extinguisher, the impact killing both driver and marshal.

This was one incident that would have persuaded Howell never to get too close to drivers. The one that convinced him he was right came in 1999 when cheery and talented Gonzalo Rodriguez was killed in a Penske at Laguna Seca.

Howell asserts: “Drivers are just commodities like the rest of us, they’re employees like the rest of us, they’re mortal like the rest of us. So they go in and out of your life according to contracts or death. So I’ve never wanted to get close with our drivers. Hanging out with them away from the track isn’t my idea of fun because drivers at this level are generally selfish bastards. I’m sure that’s what makes them fierce competitors, but it doesn’t make them congenial company.

“I liked calling the races for Paul Tracy at the start of his career, although he could be brutal. I liked spotting for Helio [Castroneves] – him and Gil de Ferran made a good team – and I liked working with Will [Power, above] because he was young and eager to learn ‘The Penske Way’, so if you told him to jump, he’d ask how high. But they’re working relationships, and that’s far as it needs to go.

“When [Juan Pablo] Montoya came to the team [in 2014], he was the epitome of your typical race car driver. Tim Cindric had asked me to call the races for Juan and I said, ‘OK, if you can’t find anyone else.’ Well that lasted until Detroit [round six]. Juan ripped into us about something or other, and I think it’s important to maintain self-respect so I told him to go f**k himself.”

Brabham F1 drivers from the first stage of his career didn’t impress Howell much either.

“They all seemed a bit aloof from where I was standing, but that may have just been because I was new on the scene,” he says. “John Watson was a decent and polite guy but I can’t say I really knew him.

“The only driver who I’ve regarded as a friend is Rick [Mears]. We can hang out and talk about racing but also motorbikes, boats, remote control planes and so on. Maybe it’s because he’s the only top driver I’ve worked with who didn’t come across as a headcase in some way or other!”