It’s the turn of the 1990s as we introduce ten more of the most influential people in Formula 1
IF YOU THOUGHT THE DECADE OF EXCESS WAS OVER, THINK AGAIN. IN THE 1990s FORMULA 1 BECAME AN EVEN BIGGER BUSINESS, BUT WITH MORE MONEY AND POWER CAME MORE RISKS
The death of Formula 1’s most compelling performer on a bleak weekend at Imola overshadowed practically everything else that happened in grand prix racing during the 1990s. Ayrton Senna’s appeal transcended nationality, reaching multitudes otherwise indifferent to motor racing, and the mystery of his fatal accident attracted worldwide attention.
The removal of the Brazilian’s body from the wrecked Williams FW16 was supervised by Sid Watkins, F1’s safety and medical delegate. Sixteen years earlier, Watkins had been the head of neurosurgery at the London Hospital when Bernie Ecclestone offered him a job through which attitudes to driver safety would be transformed. The unnecessary death of Ronnie Peterson following a first-lap crash at Monza in Watkins’ first year accelerated the creation of new protocols that ensured expert medical treatment could arrive at the scene of an accident immediately and without obstruction. A medical car and a fully equipped helicopter became part of the grand prix scenery.
Fondly and gratefully known throughout the grand prix world as ‘Prof’, Watkins had become particularly close to Senna. At Imola, affected by Rubens Barrichello’s heavy crash and the accident that took Roland Ratzenberger’s life, Senna told Prof he didn’t want to race the next day. “Give it up and let’s go fishing,” Watkins replied.
That was a decision beyond his mandate, but one reason the double fatality so shocked the world was that his work over the years had turned death on the track – once a regular feature of grand prix racing – into a rarity.
As the president of the FIA, Formula 1’s governing body, and a long-time strategic adviser to Bernie Ecclestone, Max Mosley was a target of some of the outside world’s criticism for the accidents at Imola. Neither man felt able to attend Senna’s funeral. Many things they had done in F1 had irritated participants and enthusiasts alike, and now there seemed to be a chance to make them pay.
Mosley had driven in Formula 2 in the 1960s, but gave it up to become a partner in the new March company. That brought him into contact with Ecclestone, and together they guided the Formula One Constructors’ Association through its long and ultimately successful battle with the FISA for control of F1, and specifically its commercial rights, which would eventually make many people very rich, including Ecclestone and Mosley.
In response to the tragedies at Imola, Mosley went to work on making it less likely that such terrible events would be repeated, introducing measures that included higher cockpit sides and safer circuits. After that Max turned his attention to safety on the public roads, enforcing stringent crash-test standards on reluctant and sometimes litigious manufacturers. Just as he had done when helping Ecclestone to see off potential schisms, Mosley used his training as a barrister to deflect and disarm contrary arguments. In recognition of this work, the French government made Mosley a member of the Légion d’honneur. In 2009 he resigned the presidency following an exposé in the News of the World of his
alleged sexual escapades and threw himself into another battle: against newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch.
In the wake of the Senna accident, someone had to take on the job of making circuits more suitable for modern F1. Hermann Tilke, a German civil engineer, was commissioned by Ecclestone to modernise some tracks and design others from scratch. Tilke was on to a loser as far as purists were concerned. Over the years, however, his former critics have come to recognise his successes as well as those venues where the spectacle had clearly been devalued.
For all the tracks where racing is often neutered by a bland layout – Bahrain, Sochi, Abu Dhabi – there are others offering an interesting challenge, including the picturesque streets of Baku and the mix-and-match jigsaw of Austin. But acres of painted asphalt run-off are an offence to the eye and to the spirit of motorsport’s highest category. And it remains the case that the most treasured venues remain those with a heritage and an atmosphere going way
“A LONG-TIME STRATEGIC ADVISER TO BERNIE ECCLESTONE, MAX MOSLEY WAS A TARGET OF SOME OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD’S CRITICISM FOR THE ACCIDENTS AT IMOLA”
back beyond Tilke’s arrival: Monza, Spa, Monaco, even the disfigured Silverstone. Criticising the commitment to award Tilke a virtual monopoly is easy, but it was not his decision to make the circuits fit the cars, rather than vice versa.
Senna had made the ill-fated switch to a new team in 1994 because he had watched the work done by Patrick Head at Williams, ushering Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost to successive titles in 1992 and 1993 in cars that seemed unbeatable. The son of a naval officer who had raced sportscars in the fifties, Head studied engineering before gaining his first experience of building racing cars with Eric Broadley at Lola. In 1977 Head joined Frank Williams’ new team.
While Frank hustled, Patrick drew. In 1980 they won the first of nine constructors’ championships and, with Alan Jones, the first of seven drivers’ titles.
When Keke Rosberg and Nelson Piquet became their second and third champions in 1982 and 1987, Williams had established itself among the big teams of Formula 1. And in the early nineties, with Renault engines and help for Head in the shape of a young designer named Adrian Newey, they took the championship by the throat, thanks to the creative exploitation of new electronic aids, including highly sophisticated active suspension and traction control systems. Head was on the brink of adding a continuously variable transmission system when all such aids were banned for 1994.
Recovering from the loss of Senna, Head supervised the production of the cars in which Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve became champions in 1996 and 1997. Head’s engineering expertise inspired the company’s diversification into battery technology for electric vehicles and advanced military aircraft. After retiring in 2012, he was knighted in 2015 and returned to the team as a consultant in 2019. Head’s legacy to Formula 1 can be seen in his fruitful mentoring of a generation of future technical directors, including Newey, Ross Brawn, Frank Dernie, Neil Oatley and Paddy Lowe.
No driver derived greater benefit from Head’s work at Williams than Nigel Mansell. The rough-hewn Brummie had fought his way up through Formula Ford and F3 before getting his initial chance in F1 with Lotus in 1980, and then as number two to Elio De Angelis at the team from 1981-84.
Frank Williams hired Mansell in 1985 to drive alongside Keke Rosberg. Those who believed Mansell’s lack of social graces was matched by a crude approach in the cockpit were confounded during his first season with the team when he took the spectacular FW10 to his first win, on his 72nd start, at Brands Hatch in the European GP.
Five wins in 1986 narrowly failed to bring Nigel the title, and six the following year – including a victory at Silverstone after which he was mobbed on the lap of honour – still left him 12 points behind his team-mate Nelson Piquet, who took his third world title.
For 1989 Nigel moved to Ferrari, where his fighting spirit was equally cherished by the Italian fans. But the arrival of Prost at Maranello in 1990 worked against his interests, and the following season Mansell rejoined Williams, sending his supporters into delirium when he finally clawed his way to the title with nine wins in 1992.
During a particularly competitive era in Formula 1, “Red 5” had proved that, even in the ultra-conformist world of F1, being cut from a more coarsely woven cloth than most of his contemporaries was no barrier to greatness.
Membership of the Piranha Club – as the Formula 1 team principals were known in the 1990s – must have seemed a doddle to Eddie Jordan, whose education had come at a Christian Brothers school in Dublin, where corporal punishment was a regular feature. In the 1970s he arrived in British racing – already with a short career as a bank clerk behind him – as a confident and ambitious figure, driving in Formula Atlantic and Formula 3 before hanging up his helmet to found his own team.
His talents included attracting sponsors and spotting emerging talent. The team hit its stride in 1983, when Martin Brundle finished a close second to Senna in the British F3 championship. Four years later Johnny Herbert won the title at the wheel of one of Jordan’s cars. A move up to F3000 saw Jean Alesi crowned champion in 1989.
Jordan arrived in Formula 1 in 1991, with a singularly beautiful 7 Up-sponsored car designed by Gary Anderson. The 22-year-old Michael Schumacher made his grand prix debut with the team at Spa, creating a stir when he qualified seventh, but his clutch failed at the start. Before the grid formed up for the next race a fortnight later, Schumacher had been snatched by another team.
Several seasons of struggle failed to damage Jordan’s optimism. His team’s first victory came in 1998, when Damon Hill led Ralf Schumacher home at Spa, with the cars now decked in Benson & Hedges yellow. Heinz-harald Frentzen would win two more races for the team in 1999. That, and Giancarlo Fisichella’s win in a truncated Brazilian GP in 2003, would be as good as it got before Jordan banked a cheque for $60m and the team became Midland in 2006.
“DURING A PARTICULARLY COMPETITIVE ERA IN FORMULA 1, “RED 5” HAD PROVED THAT, EVEN IN THE ULTRA-CONFORMIST WORLD OF F1, BEING CUT FROM A MORE COARSELY WOVEN CLOTH THAN MOST OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES WAS NO BARRIER TO GREATNESS”
Without wishing to descend to cultural stereotyping, it can be said that Jordan’s most obvious contribution to the paddock, apart from his colourful wardrobe and his drumming at Silverstone’s post-race rock and roll concert, was the powerful stream of blarney that amply qualified him for a transition to the role of TV pundit. There must have been rare entertainment at FOCA meetings when the membership included not just the Irishman but his Italian equivalent, Flavio Briatore – the man who had snatched Michael Schumacher from under Jordan’s nose in 1991.
That was the year after Briatore arrived in F1, brought in by Luciano Benetton, for whom he had been working after a somewhat murky early history as a ski instructor, restaurant manager, stockbroker and gambling syndicate member. Ignorant of almost every aspect of motorsport, ‘Flav’ formed an early friendship with Ecclestone, who spotted a kindred spirit. Briatore was never reluctant to suggest ways of jazzing up the spectacle – by reversing the grid, for instance – which seemed scandalous to those who cherished Formula 1’s traditions.
Often at the centre of controversy, Briatore supervised Schumacher’s first two championships with Benetton in 1994 and 1995, left in 1997, and returned when the team was sold to Renault three years later. Flavio was in charge in 2008 when Nelson Piquet Jr crashed on purpose in Singapore in order to fix a win for Fernando Alonso, the team’s number-one driver and Briatore’s protégé. Although an indefinite ban from Formula 1 was lifted on a technicality, Briatore limited his subsequent involvement in F1 to criticisms from the sidelines while running his night clubs, restaurants, boutiques and other enterprises, happy to be living life among the super-rich.
After an apprenticeship in karting, Michael Schumacher had come to prominence as a member of the Mercedes-benz junior team in the World Sportscar Championship. He took his first grand prix victory with Briatore’s Benetton team at Spa in 1992, his second season in F1, an early demonstration of Michael’s skill in wet conditions. Two years later Schumacher took his first championship, winning six of the first seven races and enduring controversies over suspicions that his car was using banned traction control systems and over the contrived collision with Damon Hill, his rival for the title, during the final round in Adelaide.
There was less controversy over Schumacher’s second title, in 1995; a coming-together with Hill at Silverstone was definitely the Englishman’s fault. But in 1997 Schumacher’s blatant attempt to run Jacques Villeneuve’s Williams off the track could not prevent the French-canadian from taking the championship.
A switch to Ferrari in 1996 would bring Schumacher recordshattering success. To achieve it, however, he had to show patience while the team was rebuilt over a period of four years. It was there that the best of him was to be seen: a man who stayed late at the
track watching his car being prepared by mechanics who knew that for every extra hour they put in, Schumacher would find a fraction of a second in speed on the track.
And that, through 100% commitment, was how those career statistics were built: seven world titles, 91 wins and 68 pole positions. It was a record that nothing – neither an unsuccessful F1 comeback with Mercedes nor a tragic skiing accident in 2013 – could begin to dim.
Schumacher might have had at least one more title to his name had Mika Häkkinen not delayed the Ferrari renaissance by winning the last two championships of the 20th century. After graduating from karting, winning the British F3 title and putting in two seasons in F1 with the struggling Team Lotus, the Finn joined Mclaren as a test driver in 1993. He became a favourite of Ron Dennis and, after the termination of Michael Andretti’s short, unhappy stay, was promoted to the race team at the 1993 Portuguese GP. Häkkinen’s first victory came at Jerez at the end of 1997, a Mclaren one-two (with David Coulthard) repeated in Melbourne at the start of 1998, the first of eight wins that took Mika to his first title in the Mercedes-powered MP4/13. Schumacher was that year’s runner-up, but the German’s challenge the following year ended midway through the season with a broken leg in an accident at Silverstone, at a moment when Häkkinen was ahead by three wins to two. Two further wins gave Mika his second title.
Two years later, with Schumacher and Ferrari well into a run of five consecutive titles, Häkkinen announced his intention to leave Mclaren at the end of 2001 and take a sabbatical from F1. He had won his penultimate GP, at Indianapolis, but never returned to the top flight, despite talks with BAR, Williams, and, eventually, Mclaren again. Three seasons in DTM and a handful of rallies were the last that would be seen of a driver who, in true Finnish style, always loved a tail-happy car.
Before forming its partnership with Mclaren, Mercedes’ return to F1 had come as the engine supplier to Sauber. The 3.5-litre V10 was designed by Ilmor Engineering, a company formed by Mario Illien, a Swiss engineer, and Paul Morgan, initially as a project to build an Indycar engine with the help of Roger Penske and General Motors.
Illien and Morgan had met while working on racing engines at Cosworth, and by 1991 they were supplying F1 engines to Leyton House. In 1993, with Mercedes as their new partner, they were seeing the beginnings of success in Europe and America, where their engines won the Indy 500 in 1994. Ilmor’s first F1 win came with David Coulthard’s Mclaren-mercedes in Australia in 1997, followed by Häkkinen’s successes. After Morgan was killed in a plane crash in 2001 and Mercedes took over the whole of the company in 2005, Illien moved on to other projects, but his DNA is in the engines that have propelled Lewis Hamilton to every one of his victories, carrying a project that began at the start of the nineties into the 21st century.