RICKARD RYDELL
“IT’S A BIG STEP FROM F3 TO SPORTSCARS. IT WAS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BUT I ENJOYED IT”
Rickard Rydell is best known for his tin-top exploits during a 20-year run as a professional driver that peaked with the 1998 British Touring Car Championship title. But had the first of his manufacturer affiliations panned out differently, he might never have gone on to represent Volvo, Ford, SEAT and
Chevrolet in saloons.
The Swede had been courted by Toyota partner team TOM’S after impressing at the 1989 Macau Grand Prix and would be paid to race in Japanese Formula 3 the following year. But future F1 team boss Eddie Jordan – who signed Rydell to a management contract as part of his 1989 British F3 deal – had arranged for him to contest a dual programme in British Formula 3000 and sportscars that restricted him to just four Japanese F3 outings in 1990.
His limited schedule with a Schuppan Porsche 962C in the All-japan Sportsprototype championship, against Toyota, would also include Le Mans, where Rydell shone on his way to 12th alongside Hurley Haywood and Wayne Taylor, despite myriad mechanical problems hampering the build-up and lingering wrist pain from a huge Snetterton F3000 shunt.
Rydell remembers his Group C outings affectionately, including hitting 364km/h (226mph) at the end of the Fuji pitstraight.
“It’s a big step to go from F3 to sportscars,” says Rydell, whose best Group C result was fourth at Fuji. “It was completely different, being so heavy and quite slow in reaction.
But I enjoyed it and of course it was nice to get paid…”
However, it didn’t lead to further sportscar chances with Toyota – Rydell maintains “there was never a discussion”– which he puts down to not living in Japan during 1990. He spent the next three years in F3 with TOM’S but turned down the chance of combining it with Group A touring cars, which he reckons Toyota took as an indication that he“was probably not committed enough”.
“If I stayed in Japan and did everything they asked me to do, I probably would have been able to have a sportscar career with them,” says Rydell, who went on to win the GT1 class at Le Mans in 2007 with Aston Martin.“but I decided for 1993 to commute back and forth and I only did F3, I thought that was enough.”
He doesn’t regret turning down a Japanese F3000 deal for 1994 to join Volvo in the BTCC, though had some second thoughts after a few races in the“absolutely useless”850 estate…