Motor Sports Page

The Great Gilles Villeneuve - Monaco 1981

The Donington Park Collection Website

Mr. Tom Wheatcroft's marvelous collection of Formula One cars. I visited on Sunday 4th July 2004 and I enjoyed a very interesting day.

Highly recommended.

My Brief Career as a Formula Ford Mechanic

In 1981 I spent a year helping Pete Hancock, a local Formula Ford driver from Sheffield. After carefully assessing my many talents Pete placed me in sole charge of the kettle. Eventually Pete let me loose on the car and the stopwatches. I don't know if Pete still races but we had some good times throughout the summer of 1981 culminating in Pete's appearance in the Formula Ford Festival at Brand Hatch.

That year the Formula Ford season had been dominated by a young lad from Brazil called Ayrton Senna. He did not drive in the Festival because he had returned to Brazil, some said for good. Chico Serra, fellow Brazilian and Formula One driver at the time, said Ayrton Senna was somewhat disillusioned with motor sport. Of course Ayrton's dissatisfaction only lasted to the start of the next season and the rest is history.

 

Peter Hancock at the Formula Ford Festival, Brands Hatch, 1981.

(Photo by Peter Hanna)

 

Peter Hancock's Festival ends with a shunt at Druids. Brands Hatch 1981.

(Photo by Peter Hanna)

 

Typical Formula Ford action from the 1981 Festival at Brands Hatch. Lots of broken bodywork and bruised egos.

(Photo by Peter Hanna)

Mad dash through Paddock Hill Bend at Brands Hatch during the 1981 Formula Ford Festival.

(Photo by Peter Hanna)

My Even Briefer Career As A Formula Ford Driver

On a cold December day in 1979 I enrolled for a course at The Jim Russell Racing Drivers School. I had some silly notion that the world of F1 was a mere step away and as a dreamy young man I wished away my youth with this absurd idea.

After signing on we received a quick lecture from our nervous instructor which mainly consisted of warnings that they would like the cars back without any modifications to the bodywork. I donned my loaned open-faced helmet, complete with fish-bowl visor, and jumped into the car. Some of my fellow students had some difficulty due to their larger waistelines but somehow they were all shoe-horned into their cockpits.

There I was, actually sitting in a racing car. Even though the boring instructor limited us to a modest rev limit I did taste the power of a single seater racing car. Although the engine was a mere 1600cc the cars lack of weight enabled it to shove you round at a fair rate of knots. The power came in very sharply compaired to a road car and the handling was very direct. Add to this the position of your arse 1mm above the track and I was in paradise as I completed the course over the next few weeks.

Of course like so many young men my hopes were soon dashed by the tiresome need for large amounts of cash that I didn't have. Despite the disappointment the experience did give me some nice memories of the times I thrashed around Mallory Park in an old Formula Ford Merlin.

After a few weeks of this heaven I was skint and so I reluctantly made my way back to the other side of the Armco barriers where me and my empty wallet could have no more harm done to us.

 

Me at Mallory Park late 1979/early 1980

Click here or on the photo for more images

Formula One Spectator: A View From Behind The Armco

Alan Jones at the wheel of the Williams FW07 at Zolder 1981

(photo taken by Peter Hanna)

Formula One has over the years been my main hobby. I have to confess that I yearn for the days when Grand Prix cars required the driver to contribute the car's performance on the track. Nowadays I think the sport is diminished by all the electronic gismos, which seem to have made the driver largely surplus to requirements. I liked the fact that drivers had to change gear by stirring the cogs with a stick and did not get their engineer to pre-programme the gearbox while the driver gets a rub down from his masseur. I suppose it would be a little tedious for Heir Schumacher to have to do this dreadful chore himself but I would rather like to see the car driven by the driver and not by an engineer's laptop.

I loved to see the old drivers like Gilles Villeneuve get his Ferrari into all manner of strange poses as the car was forced reluctantly to negotiate a corner at a speed that should have been impossible and would have been except on the occasions when it was being driven by the great Gilles. You see that's the point of Grand Prix racing, it should look like a task impossible for us mere mortals to achieve. Today I'm sure it still is, but sometimes it doesn't look that way.

Gilles Villeneuve at Silverstone 1981

(photo taken by Peter Hanna)

So get rid of the traction control I say. What's the point of having a device that enables the driver to slam his foot hard to the metal instead of using the throttle as a delicate means of coaxing the brutish power from the car's engine? The computer over-rides the driver's right foot like an over protective school nanny. Get rid of the gadgets I rant! Let the drivers drive the cars, I'm sure they will have much more fun and you never know someone may even overtake.

 

 

 

 

Best Memory In F1

After the Zolder race in 1981 I bumped into Frank Williams as his car tried to negotiate the crowded exit road. I asked him for his autograph and he very kindly signed my race programme. I congratulated him on the win by his driver Carlos Reuteman. Frank Williams seemed a very nice man and was friendly and polite. This brief meeting was a momentary distraction for Sir Frank but to me it was a memory to be treasured for the rest of my life.

My treasured programme

signed by Sir Frank Williams

Worst Moment

I travelled to Belgium in '85 but the organisers cancelled the event the day before the race because the silly Belgians had re-laid the track's Tarmac the week before.The surface promptly broke up as soon as Formula One cars drove a couple of practice laps over it. You can imagine my disappointment after travelling all that way…..Bugger!

 

Great Drivers

I have many happy memories of motor sport too numerous to recall here. I have a few old snaps from way back when motor sport was a more gentlemanly occupation. I loved the Grand Prix races I witnessed in the early eighties. I visited the British Grand Prix several times and attended the Belgian event twice in 1980 and '81.

There were some great drivers at that time like Alan Jones, Jody Scheckter, Nelson Piquet, Carlos Reuteman, John Watson, Derek Warwick, Nigel Mansell, Nikki Lauda, Riccardo Patrese, and of course the late, much missed, Gilles Villeneuve, Didier Pironi, Ayrton Senna and Elio de Angelis.

I had the enormous pleasure of watching Gilles race on several occasions; Zolder 1980 and 81, British Grand Prix Brands Hatch 1980, and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1981. Sadly Gilles lost his life the following year practicing for the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder.

For me Gilles captured the essence of true racer. I know he didn't have the shrewdness of Nikki Lauda or the cunning of Ayrton Senna but for me he was the greatest of them all. God bless you Gilles.

 

 

Memories Of Formula One

These days my interest in Grand Prix racing is confined to watching the races on telly . I don't know if I am just wallowing in middle-aged nostalgia but I feel that some of the shine has gone from Formula One. I know Bernie Ecclestone is making a good old wedge from the sport but things just aren't the same. The cars' cockpits look like Playstation game consoles complete with pre-programmed buttons to stop the driver doing anything the computers don't like. Modern drivers go to public speaking coaches who teach them how to waffle on for ten minutes without actually saying anything that's relevant other than mentioning , in descending order of cash paid, their corporate sponsors names.

F1 is going through something of a difficult patch with some teams on the verge of bankcruptcy. This is because the cost to the teams of building and racing the cars has spiralled out of control because the big manufacturer teams have attempted to buy success. In many ways they have succeeded but at what cost to the sport? Teams will always do what ever they can to win races and it's up to the sports governing body to keep order.

In recent years I feel they have shirked their responsibilties and allowed these trends to go unchecked. The public have not been consulted as it appears our views do not matter. Most Grand Prix races are a four or five (sometimes one) horse affairs which I feel is not good for the sport. It must be remembered by those who control the political power in F1 that the sport is supposed to be a form of entertainment.

We the public love to see two drivers battling wheel to wheel. If you think back to the sport's greatest moments I bet none of them are memories of a new gadget being bolted to a car or a fantastic piece of new software being downloaded. No of course they aren't because that's not what we want. We want entertaining wheel to wheel racing with as much overtaking as possible.

Anyway enough ranting back to happier days. Here are some images from a by-gone era when traction control was a measure of how much self control the driver had over his right foot.

Gilles Villeneuve

In my opinion the greatest of them all.

Seen here at Monaco 1981

Gilles Villeneuve

The Donington Park Collection Website

Mr. Tom Wheatcroft's marvelous collection of Formula One cars. I visited on Sunday 4th July 2004 and I enjoyed a very interesting day.

Highly recommended.

 

 

 

Justin Wilson: Local Grand Prix driver from Woodall, Sheffield (which is about 2 miles from my house). Justin is probably the best of the new Brits. He has just signed for Jaguar and I hope he continues the excellent progress he has made with Minardi. In the right team Justin could go right to the top. Just a thought...isn't it time we had a British driver in the Williams team? eh Frank?

Click here on his photo to go to his website.