Autosport 70: Menu gets his just deserts
Autosport interviewed newly crowned British Touring Car champion Alain Menu this week in 1997. The Swiss racer had been a top contender for years, and the Williams-built Renault Laguna allowed him to dominate. He clinched the title at Snetterton, with three events still to go.
Menu had finished second in the standings for the three seasons prior to 1997 and, in the interview with Marcus Simmons (then as now our BTCC correspondent!), railed against suggestions that he had previously lacked consistency.
“In 1994, 1995 and 1996 I could not win the title – the best I could hope for was second place,” he said. “In 1994 there was Gabriele Tarquini and the Alfa Romeo, then 1995 was the first year with Williams, we had reliability problems and we were not consistently quick. And, last year, there was Frank Biela and the [four-wheel-drive] Audi.”
Menu confirmed that the team knew the Laguna was special during preseason testing, with the Sodemodeveloped engine being a key area of improvement. He also had some blunt things to say about some of his rivals. Honda “had a car that was not far off ours, but they kept having driver mistakes and a lot of reliability problems”, Volvo was described as “always not quite there”, while Vauxhall’s John Cleland came in for some of the most stinging criticism.
“You have to have fun in life, but people like Cleland – too many jokes are detrimental to the championship. He makes it look not serious enough, and I’m afraid it’s a very serious business,” added Menu.
Volvo’s Rickard Rydell would take the 1998 crown, with Menu fourth.
But Menu would secure his second title with the Ford Mondeo in 2000, the final year of Super Touring in the UK.