‘Yes?’ I said, my answer sounding more like a question than a statement.
‘Good, in which case I’ll connect you with Michael Dover’s office; he publishes all the illustrated books at Weidenfeld & Nicolson.’
God bless her!
1995 – Chapter Eight
Life in the Fast Lane – Herbert arrives – An appreciation
of Jos Verstappen – Corradini arrives – Schumacher wins
the Brazilian Grand Prix – Benetton disqualified
from the Brazilian Grand Prix – The Barcelona pit-stop –
The Championship at last
In Germany, at the end of every September, the book business has a trade fair in the Frankfurt conference centre. More correctly, it has the book business trade fair. It is the busiest, most important time of the year for the industry, with more international business being organized during the five days of the fair than is achieved throughout the rest of the year. Wine is drunk and translation rights are negotiated; books are sold from publisher to publisher; book-club buyers are entertained; freelance writers and illustrators tout for more work; the latest computerized equipment is demonstrated. Parties, liaisons, affairs, break-ups, breakdowns, it’s quite a ball by all accounts. I’ve never been there myself, but on the very day of my phone call to Weidenfeld & Nicolson, that’s exactly where Michael Dover was heading.
‘I’m intrigued by what you’ve told me, Steve. Your book sounds an interesting idea, but the thing is, if we like it, want to get involved and want it in the shops by March we’re going to have to move very quickly. Look, I’m flying out to Frankfurt tonight, in fact I’ve been trying to leave the office for the last hour, and must do so as soon as we finish this call! Can you fax me a copy of everything you’ve written so far directly to Frankfurt? I can’t give you a fax number for the hotel, but I’m staying at the Hotel Hoff. If you can find the number and have the manuscript waiting for me when I check in I’ll read it tonight and we’ll go from there.’
Five hours and three ink cartridges later, and the little Canon Bubblejet printer I’d borrowed had finally chugged and coughed its way through 150 sheets of A4. I managed to get a fax number for the Hoff from International Enquiries, but trying to transmit such a quantity of pages had caused my clonky old fax/phone machine to finally nip up. Probably a good thing too in the long run: it would have taken me another five hours to fax it page by page – and God alone knows what the phone bill would have been. If I was ever going to do this for a living I’d have to update my technology. Well, I’d have to anyway, the phone was dead. The next morning I wrapped the manuscript in plastic bags and brown paper to protect it from the rain and posted it Swiftair to Frankfurt. It was the best I could do.
On his return from Germany it was an enthusiastic Michael Dover who telephoned me; he’d read it, liked it and a contract was in the post – and on 23 March 1995, Weidenfeld & Nicolson published Life in the Fast Lane – The Story of the Benetton Grand Prix Year. Apparently The Mechanics of a Championship was a good title, it just wasn’t a great title. ‘Steve,’ Michael explained, ‘you’ll just have to trust me on this one.’
Johnny Herbert had been given the biggest break of his career towards the end of 1994 and had joined Benetton to replace Jos Verstappen as our number-two driver, playing a supporting role to Michael in the last two Grand Prix of the year. However, he failed to score any points for us in those final races – in fact, despite driving in every round of the World Championship he failed to score any points all year: thirteen races with Lotus, one with Ligier and two with Benetton yielded nothing better than seventh place. Not very impressive perhaps, but it must be remembered that Lotus was in its dying throes at the time, and Johnny had retired his car from five of his thirteen races with Lotus. (When I was checking these figures in the 1994 Autocourse I was surprised to see that Herbert had been placed no higher than thirty-fifth in the drivers’ listings! Surely that can’t be right, I thought; then I realized that the drivers without any points had been placed in alphabetical order – with people like Belmondo, Beretta and Dalmas being placed ahead of him. If his name had been Johnny Zerbert he would have been number 47 on the list, one line below Alex Zanardi, his Lotus team-mate).
I thought it was the wrong decision to replace Jos, but I suppose the decision was taken because of Herbert’s many years of experience in relation to Verstappen’s. Jos had been thrown in at the deep end at the start of the year, drafted in from the test team to replace our original signing, J.J. Lehto, who had seriously injured his neck in a pre-season testing accident. Lehto had tried to make a comeback in the middle of the year, but it was no good; he was really struggling to drive the car competitively and after four disappointing races the drive was given back to Verstappen. In my opinion Jos did a remarkable job, regardless of the fact that it was his first season, and that he’d driven in six fewer races than Herbert and still managed to rack up two podium places and finished the season in tenth position in the Drivers’ Championship. Jos’s third place in Hungary made him the most successful Dutch driver in the history of the sport. Just looking at the bare facts of the situation I’d have to say that Verstappen’s maiden year was actually very impressive. However, I can still appreciate the reasons why Benetton’s management decided to bring Herbert in for those final two races; after all, winning the Constructors’ Championship was a distinct possibility for us in 1994 and someone with a thorough racing knowledge of the remaining two circuits could (should?) have made a difference to the outcome. Certainly this was Williams’ assessment of the situation too: like Benetton they had also replaced their own rookie driver, David Coulthard (promoted from test driver because of the Senna tragedy), in favour of Nigel Mansell’s vast experience. Right down to the wire the Constructors’ Championship could have gone either way, and in Adelaide as soon as Nigel got a sniff of a potential victory he shot off to take the final win of the year. In just four races Mansell picked up thirteen valuable points for Williams. (Surely that win in Australia must also be his last?) The thing about Mansell is that even after he has publicly announced his retirement from the sport and when you are firmly of the belief that there is not the slightest chance of him getting another F1 drive, when you next look back at the circuit Mansell is back in a Grand Prix car again, going for gold, eyes bulging, foot hard down, moustache ends fluttering in the wind.
In fact, at the 1998 Monaco Grand Prix, I saw a girl sitting on the palace banking waving a Union Jack with ‘Nigel Mansell’ embroidered in thick black letters across its middle. Presumably she was patiently waiting to see him screech round the exit of Rascasse – on full throttle and full opposite-lock – and then cheer him down the pit-straight as he blasted over the finish-line to set another devastatingly quick pole before disappearing into the distance again. The thing is, I was so wrong-footed by seeing her waving that flag that I completely lost my confidence and had no choice but to walk back to the press-room, just to check there hadn’t been a last-minute driver change.
In Australia in 1994 we lost the Constructors’ Championship. As a team we tried our best but our best just wasn’t good enough to take the trophy away from Williams. Lesson learnt? Try harder next time! However, it must be said that winning the Drivers’ Championship with Michael was a marvellous result, and if you can’t win the Constructors’ Championship, then certainly the next best thing is helping your drivers to secure the Drivers’ Championship. As a mechanic, there is only one drawback to winning the Drivers’ Championship, and that only arises when the World Champion driver decides to leave the team, for when he does so he takes his crown with him, leaving the team with nothing. It’s obviously disappointing when that happens but it’s just the way of the sport and another reason why there are two separate Championships.
In 1992 I said that I could never understand Benetton’s decision to replace Martin Brundle, and in 1995 I could never understand their decision not to reinstate Jos Verstappen as Michael’s team-mate. It just didn’t add
up. What Benetton needed was continuity; this constant chopping and changing of one driver for another, presumably on the grounds that they always failed to prove as quick as or quicker than Schumacher, was doing no one any good. The management needed to accept the fact that no one was going to be quicker than Michael and concentrate on consolidating the effectiveness of the second car (exactly as Ferrari has done with its continuous commitment to keep Eddie Irvine as Michael’s team-mate since both drivers joined the team in 1996). Piquet retires, then it’s Brundle in, out; Patrese in, out; Verstappen in, out; now it was Herbert’s turn and just like the others, he would be in, out and gone too. What possible feelings of team commitment does that give a driver?
In Jos Verstappen the team had a driver who was liked, a driver who knew the team well and one who was prepared to work damn hard in the car. With the signing of Herbert all that was lost to us, we would have to start from scratch again. The team’s decision on its 1995 driver line-up must have been a devastating blow to Jos’s confidence after all he’d done for us.
Anyway, that was what happened, and what was done was done; there is never anything to be gained from whingeing, and the obvious contrasts in our drivers’ achievements would certainly make for an interesting challenge. Michael Schumacher would commence the season as the reigning Formula One World Champion while Herbert would start the year with a career total of just eighteen points; he had never finished a Grand Prix sufficiently high enough to stand on even the lowest step of a Formula One podium. Their respective records could hardly be further apart! Never say die. Off we went to Brazil, Michael jumped into our new car, I strapped Johnny into the other, and the chase for the 1995 World Championships began.
The first race of the season concluded in pretty much the same fashion as most of 1994 had: Benetton won the Grand Prix and was promptly disqualified. Of course, we were getting quite used to this sort of thing by now, and I actually took the news that we’d been kicked out to be a good omen for the season’s eventual outcome. However, when the official announcement came that both we and Williams had been thrown out – allegedly for using illegal fuel – our new gearbox mechanic, Claudio Corradini, sank to the ground in total disbelief. There seemed no consoling him, his face was ashen and he stared at the floor with the same blank look as the man who’d just bet all his worldly possessions on red, only to see the ball clatter and finally fall to rest in the wrong hole.
Claudio had only recently joined us, leaving his beloved Italy in the winter to take up his new position at Benetton. It had been a difficult move for him, one fraught with all sorts of uncertainties. Not only had he packed his bags and left his home and his country behind, but after fourteen years of continuous service he had resigned from Scuderia Ferrari too. Claudio wanted to see England, wanted to live in England and wanted to improve his (already good) English, but the pressure on him to remain in Italy and to stay with Ferrari had been pretty intense.
We all know that Ferrari holds a unique position in automotive engineering, with their Formula One team looked upon and treated as a revered legend. That devotion is felt most strongly in Italy itself, of course; I’m English and when I worked for Ferrari I thought it was terrific fun, a special time; but to be Italian and work for the Ferrari road-car factory is far more than just fun, it’s an honour and a privilege. However, to be Italian and work for the Ferrari Grand Prix team is to be bestowed with a duty and an accolade like no other. Your country expects. In the words of Phil Barnard (one of my old Ferrari service managers): ‘You have, most definitely, arrived!’
Claudio had been a most loyal and dedicated employee, serving his country’s national team with great honour, and was constantly volunteering for another arduous tour of duty. Now it was time for change, time to leave the Ferrari stable and explore a little. Is there life outside the gates of Maranello? He had finally bolted from Ferrari, driving over the mountains, through Mont Blanc, across France and into England. ‘Welcome to Benetton Formula Ltd. Please have your FOCA pass ready for revalidation.’ He had joined up and travelled to Brazil with us; he had proudly pulled on his new blue and white race shirt and had won the first Grand Prix of the year. What a sense of relief he must have felt! His decision to uproot, move to England and join Benetton had proved to be the right decision after all. Then, within minutes of the podium celebrations, his new team was immediately disqualified for an infringement of the rules.
Our disqualification was caused by a technicality. The fuel we had used during the race, supplied to both Benetton and Williams by Elf, had been a perfectly legal concoction, conforming in every way with the Formula One technical regulations. So why had both teams been disqualified? Because the sample of fuel given by Elf to the FIA – to confirm its legality at the commencement of the season – didn’t match the fuel samples taken from the cars by the FIA after the Brazilian Grand Prix. All three samples were perfectly acceptable, but the chemical fingerprint of the library fuel didn’t match with the post-race fuel.
Unlike our disqualification from Spa 1994 – where I still firmly believe we won the Grand Prix fair and square – I think the FIA’s decision on the Brazilian fuel issue was perfectly correct. It was a simple case of black and white: our fuel did not match the library sample as the rules of the game stipulated it should have done, therefore the rules had been broken, and the teams not conforming to the rules should be thrown out. I was behind the FIA’s decision all the way (unlike that decision on Spa, as I’ve said. But let’s not dwell on that any more, it’s over, finished, done. We have to move on).
However, there was one part of the Brazilian ruling I couldn’t agree with, and that came a little later when the decision was taken to reinstate the drivers with their points, but for the teams to remain stripped of theirs. The thinking was that as the drivers had no control over the fuel that was used, they couldn’t be held responsible for any irregularity; hence their points were returned. Sorry, but I don’t agree. As far as I’m concerned the drivers are part of the team. If the constructors were to lose their points so should the drivers. Consider this: should a driver be allowed to keep his victory if his team was discovered to have won the race with a car equipped with a six-litre engine fuelled by nitrous-oxide injection? I think not. Yet there would be no extra cockpit controls to operate, so theoretically the driver would be as oblivious to such modifications as he would be to merely having a perfectly legal but non-registered fuel in the car’s tank. Should the engine manufacturer have been allowed to keep their race win in Brazil? How about the brake disc manufacturer? I seriously doubt they could have had any control over what type of fuel was used. Should it only have been Elf who suffered, with everyone else being reinstated?
‘No’ is the only true and just answer. ‘No’ because the fuel supplier, the engine manufacturer, the brake disc manufacturer, the car constructor and the driver are all one and the same thing: a team, and if one element of that team transgresses the rules then the whole of the team should be penalized for it.
The good news was that when Claudio realized that our dis-qualification was for such a petty technicality and that we hadn’t actually done anything underhand, he cheered up again, and later that night, back in the hotel bar of the Morrumbi Novotel – despite none of us having slept for two days – he persuaded me to join him in a couple of Caipirinhas to celebrate his first race with his new team. ‘Here’s to winning the Championship!’ he toasted as we chinked glasses. ‘Cheers, Claudio! Welcome to the wonderful world of Benetton!’ I quickly drank the hideously strong mixture of vodka, sugar, mashed limes and prawn juice and woke up in the wrong bedroom, still fully clothed, nursing a ferocious headache.
On the Friday afternoon of the Argentine Grand Prix I received a fax from the BBC. It arrived during lunch and rather took me by surprise; I don’t often receive correspondence from the British Broadcasting Corporation. I was fairly confident of owning a TV licence, or (as Dirk Gently might muse) at least I had no overriding memory of not owning one, so perhap
s my fax was just a friendly check, South America being just a tad out of reach to expect a personal visit from a detector van. My fax was from Broadcasting House – home of BBC Radio – an invitation to join them as a guest on Radio 4’s Midweek, a prestigious chat show which goes out live every Wednesday morning at 9:05 sharp. I was truly flattered. For me, Radio 4 is radio, there’s nothing else, and whenever work schedules allow I listen to Midweek. I have to say it’s not my favourite programme, since that place in my heart is forever taken by Just a Minute, hosted by Nicholas Parsons (oh, how I’d love to be invited on it, though, as the producer doesn’t know me from Adam I think it’s destined to remain one of life’s unrequited desires, quite frankly).
I quickly phoned the Midweek researcher, Celia Quantrill, telling her I’d be delighted to come along.
‘Good,’ she said, ‘just one slight problem, we’d like you to join us next Wednesday, the twelfth of April, the week straight after your Grand Prix. Will you still be able to make it?’
‘Yes, well, I hope so anyway; let’s see, the flight to England leaves Buenos Aires the day after the race, Monday afternoon, and gets into Heathrow sometime on Tuesday evening, the eleventh, about sixish I think. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m feeling a little jet-lagged but barring any delays I should be okay.’
The Mechanic’s Tale Page 19