McNish remembers mentor Leslie

McNish talked to autosport.com about the 54-year-old veteran, who was killed in a plane crash in Kent yesterday.

Q: What role did David Leslie play in your career?

Allan McNish: A bigger one than many people realise. He was from Dumfries where I'm from, and when he was racing in Formula Ford my father went along and helped him as a mechanic with his father.

When I was six or seven years old, I was hearing stories of how he'd obliterated the opposition. I remember once, when he won the championship, he beat Nigel Mansell. The name Nigel Mansell didn't mean much to me then, but it did many years later when he joined Lotus. So I think from my personal point of view he was probably the inspiration behind me wanting to follow him as a driver.

Then later, he and his father took me to my first ever kart race. They showed me around and got me going, and then in Formula Ford it went a stage further. In 1987, they effectively ran the car between them, so from that point of view they were extremely instrumental in my career, more so than most.

They did the same with David Coulthard and Dario Franchitti. They took them from karting to a position where they were very recognised on a British map. Being a wee boy from Dumfries, to have that sort of knowledge, expertise and skill at your fingertips was absolutely invaluable. I do not believe that we would have had such an easy transition through motorsport if it had not been for them.

Q: David's loss is big enough, but was his influence in motorsport more wide-reaching than many people appreciate?

AM: My honest opinion of David is that he was a significantly better racing driver than many people realise. He was extremely talented, extremely fast and extremely good. But in his youth he was driving cars that were uncompetitive, in reality.

When he did get a hold of cars that were competitive, it was when he was in British Touring Cars. He had an extremely good season with a privateer Vauxhall, and at Nissan he finished second behind Laurent Aiello, who in my opinion is the greatest touring car driver. Aiello is someone I know very well from Porsche because we won Le Mans together, and also F3000, and Audi, so I'm in a reasonable position to make that judgment.

We also have to understand that David was the guy who did the development of the cars. As well as racing them so hard and winning, he was also the brains behind the development of the car. That was something that he tried to instill into me when I was in Formula Ford, it wasn't just about driving and being fast. I was to some extent quite reckless at that time and he taught me to think my way through things.

Q: David was also a nice man, as well, wasn't he? It didn't matter what area of the sport you worked in, he would give as much time for you as if you were a Le Mans winner.

AM: He had as much time for you as you wanted, and also had the ability to speak to you on your own level in quite good detail about your area of expertise. And he was very, very nice. He definitely took that from his father.

He certainly gave more to motorsport than it gave him, that was his personality to some extent. He also put a lot into drivers coming through, he was a guardian of the BRDC, and an honorary member of the Scottish Motor Racing Club. He had enormous respect from people within the industry.

Q: Did you know Richard Lloyd?

AM: Yes, I knew Richard from the Audi days and also Bentley and other programmes that were going on. I didn't know him anywhere near as well as I knew David, but from what I understand they were both in a similar mould. They were both quite quiet, dedicated to their job, and also very good people underneath it all - something you don't always find in motorsport."

Q: This news has had a huge impact inside the sport though hasn't it?

AM: David's loss is a big one for Scottish motorsport. It really is. It comes off the back of Colin McRae last year and then Jimmy Stewart at the beginning of this one. But in terms of the world of motorsport, I don't think many people realise just how many lives these two characters touched just on their own, let alone the engineer that was travelling with them in the plane.