Alain Menu: Super Touring star

Consider for a moment the depth of quality of drivers who raced in the Super Touring era - not just in the British Touring Car Championship, but worldwide. Tarquini, Winkelhock, Biela, Cleland, Aiello, Pirro... the list is almost endless.

During this period, manufacturer money attracted some of the best drivers outside Formula 1, providing some of the most competitive racing ever seen in tin-tops.

Imagine then, the quality of Alain Menu, who tops AUTOSPORT's poll of the greatest driver of the Super Touring era, as voted for by those who raced with him at the zenith of Super Touring's 1990s pomp.

The statistics tell their own story. The Swiss won the BTCC twice, in 1997 for Renault and then three years later for Ford. He was victorious in 36 BTCC races and was regarded by many as the quickest man over a single lap.

Yet one of the true greats of this golden era of touring cars only found himself there by chance. After success in Formula Ford, he graduated to British Formula 3 and then Formula 3000, but money was always tight.

"I ran out of money in F3000," says Menu. "Then I had the opportunity to do the driver test for BMW, which I won in the summer of '91. A few months later, they signed me for '92. At that time, I have to admit, I was not really interested in touring cars, or looking into it."

Menu's first acquaintance with tin-tops actually came in the DTM. He raced for the Linder BMW squad at Singen and Hockenheim in '91, taking a best finish of 14th.

For '92, BMW initially planned to field him in a two-car junior squad run by Vic Lee, alongside Matt Neal. The plan changed, however, and the junior squad was fielded by Prodrive, with a brace of BMW 318is for Menu and Tim Sugden.

Menu did a good job in the first half of the year, during which the team's progress was hindered by not running the tyres of choice. In only his fourth outing, at Snetterton, Menu claimed third place in an incident-packed race. While he described it as "a little bit lucky", he had qualified sixth, as the best Pirelli runner, offering a hint of the raw pace that would later become his trademark.

"From what I remember, I was quick straight away, but I'm sure that was the case for anyone who came from top single-seater championships," recalls Menu, modestly forgetting there were plenty who struggled in such a situation. "The cars were slower so, on paper, they were easier to drive. And it was a BMW, so it was rear-wheel drive.

"The problem we had in '92, which is funny given what is going on in F1, was that we were on Pirelli tyres. At that time, they were not the best, and we struggled. Prodrive ran a good team, but it was very small then compared with what it became. For the first few races, I only had one mechanic on the car and we had one race engineer for two cars. But although we struggled with tyres, the team and the car were good."

Menu's BTCC career might well have ended after just eight outings. On Saturday evening at Knockhill, where the ninth and 10th races of the '92 season were being held, he was returning from his car to the paddock on a quad bike. While trying to go around a Volkswagen, which was coming in the opposite direction, he hit it head on. He suffered a compound facture of his right leg and ligament damage. His season was over.

"I was very close to not getting anything for '93," says Menu. "That accident was the end of my season, and at the end of the year BMW decided they could not keep all the drivers they had under contract. I was the last one to arrive, so the first one to go.

"But just before my accident, Renault had started talking to me, and in the end they joined the BTCC and signed me up as second driver to Tim Harvey. If it had not been for them, it would have been very difficult to find something else for '93.

"It was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. In '92, it never crossed my mind that the BTCC and Super Touring would get as big as it did."

So Menu went into '93 as a full-blown works driver. The season wasn't the easiest and the car was difficult to drive in dry conditions. In the wet, it was a different beast, though, and Harvey and Menu claimed a win apiece in rain-affected races at Donington Park at either end of the season.

Most impressively, Menu finished the campaign four places and 26 points ahead of his reigning champion team-mate.

"I was just so happy to be driving for Renault as a professional, paid driver that I don't remember struggling with the car not being competitive," he says. "OK, in Formula Ford I was winning, but in single-seaters after that I never had a full budget and was always struggling. So '93 was nothing new for me.

"My goal was just to try to be faster than Tim. He was the current champion, so I thought if I proved that I was as good as him, it would give me a good chance to stay in the BTCC."

Menu had arrived. Now, it was time for Renault to come up with the machinery. In April '94, the new Renault Laguna went on sale in the UK, and the 19 was condemned to history.

Metal Composite Technology (MCT), then running the factory Renault effort, did a decent job with the car in its first season, but '94 also heralded the arrival of Alfa Romeo, which transformed the nature of the championship. The aerodynamic era had arrived.

"Right away in '94, the Laguna was a good car," says Menu. "MCT didn't do a bad job, but the problem we had was that Alfa Romeo joined the championship. They kept it very quiet and only put their rear wing on the car at the first weekend."

A special-edition Laguna road car was hastily released onto the British market, and for the British Grand Prix support race Menu's car sprouted a rear wing. At the same time, Alfa Romeo eased off its contentious front splitter and the playing field was more even. Menu had already won once, at Oulton Park, where Alfa had withdrawn in anger at demands it should modify its splitter, and he claimed a second victory at Knockhill. A hat-trick of second places in the final three rounds gave him second place in the championship.

"The rear wing was quite crude, but it did help, and for the second half of the year we were quite competitive," he says. "Then when everything moved to Williams [for '95] they took it to a new level. It was the same with Tom Walkinshaw and the Volvo. In '94 with Alfa Romeo and BMW, and then with Williams and TWR in '95, that was when the BTCC really took off."

Suddenly, things were getting very serious in the BTCC. In '95, Menu and new team-mate Will Hoy were part of what was increasingly becoming an all-star series, with Alfa, Renault, Ford, Vauxhall, Peugeot, Volvo, Toyota and BMW all running works teams. Things had changed very quickly.

"In '92, the Prodrive effort was two cars, and there were maybe eight people in the whole team," says Menu. "Then, three years later, Williams had I don't know how many [more than 40] and they brought F1 expertise into touring cars. It was fantastic. I still say today that '95-98 were the best years.

"The championship was fantastic, with up to 10 manufacturers, very good drivers from all over the world and big budgets. The Williams team had top people at every level and the atmosphere was really nice, so for me it holds the best memories."

For much of the time, Menu's memory was of finishing second. He was title runner-up in '95 (to Vauxhall's John Cleland) and '96 (to Audi's Frank Biela), earning a reputation as the eternal bridesmaid. For a driver who had yet to win a car racing championship, but had finished second in several single-seater categories including British F3000, it was starting to get frustrating. As he said in an interview with AUTOSPORT previewing the '97 campaign, "I have to say, I'm getting cheesed off with it."

It soon became clear it would, at last, be Menu's year. He started the season with back-to-back double victories at Donington Park and Silverstone. He never looked back. Menu won the most races, 12, and ended the year a country mile ahead of Biela in the standings.

The campaign wasn't entirely straightforward, though. Menu didn't initially take to new team-mate Jason Plato, who astonishingly claimed three pole positions on the bounce at the start of his BTCC career. Plato, who owed his place in the team to a combination of sheer speed and single-minded refusal to take no for an answer, was determined to make his mark, and the way he carried himself didn't endear him to Menu.

"In '97, we did not get on, everybody knows that," says Menu. "His personality, the way he handled himself, was not the way I'd been brought up. He was quite brash, not my cup of tea. But as a driver he was very quick. Then he calmed down in '98, and the relationship was much better. Now when we bump into each other, there is no problem."

After one more season with Renault in '98, during which Menu won four times and finished fourth in the championship, he decided to move to Ford. This was huge news - one of the biggest stars in the championship moving to a manufacturer that had generally failed in the BTCC.

The Ford Mondeo arrived in the championship in glorious fashion, winning three races in the hands of Paul Radisich during its debut half-season of '93. After that, wins became increasingly sparse. So it was a big surprise when Menu traded a dominant car to join a marque that had had one win in three years.

Menu's recruitment was part of a serious push by Ford, with Nissan ace Anthony Reid also recruited for '99 and Rickard Rydell coming in a year later. This also marked Menu's return to Prodrive, which had taken over the Ford project from West Surrey Racing.

"I did not go there for the money, I went there for the challenge," insists Menu. "I was convinced that Prodrive could do the job and take the Mondeo from where it was in '97-98 to going for the championship. Most observers used to say I only went there for the money and that the car would not be competitive.

"It was a bit of a struggle in '99, and we only won one race. The main problem was the aero because we did not have enough rear downforce. But that was fixed by more development, and the package was a winning one in 2000."

After finishing 11th in the championship in '99, Menu and Prodrive hit their stride in 2000. While this was the final year of Super Touring, with only Honda and Vauxhall left to race against, along with the rapid privateer Nissan of Matt Neal and Team Dynamics, it was as hard-fought as any title scrap of the era.

It boiled down to an all-Ford showdown between Reid, Rydell and Menu. Reid held an 11-point lead over Menu heading into the Silverstone shoot-out, with Rydell the outsider.

"Super Touring was winding down, and quite a few manufacturers had left because it had outpriced itself," says Menu. "But it was still very, very competitive. There were not as many manufacturers, but the cars, the drivers and the teams were still at the top level. Internally, at Ford, I was fighting hard with Rickard and Anthony who were among the top drivers of the time.

"We had success ballast for the next race weekend, and sometimes you couldn't get pole because your team-mate was lighter, so you just had to make the most of it knowing he would then have a heavy car.

"The penultimate round was at Oulton Park, where I always go well, but that time Anthony was quick because I was 40kg heavier than him. He led going to Silverstone, so he was heavy for the final round and I wasn't. Therefore I wasn't stressed at all, I just had to get as much as I could at Oulton, and then I would be in good shape for Silverstone. Also, Rydell had a problem at Oulton, so he was on the back foot."

In the first race, Menu had a moment while attempting to defend against Plato at the Becketts hairpin and ended up being hit by the luckless Vauxhall driver. This meant Menu was out of the race, with Rydell second and Reid seventh. But come race two, everything fell right for the Swiss.

First, Rydell was ruled out when his new engine developed a water leak on the way to the grid. That left only Reid to fight, and with a few laps to go Menu was where he needed to be - just. He ran second behind Honda's Tom Kristensen, with Plato behind and Reid fourth. Had he lost second, or Reid picked up a place, that would have been that. Then, Vauxhall driver Vincent Radermecker hit Reid at Becketts. The Scot was out and Menu was champion.

"It was quite dramatic because the last race was at night," says Menu. "There was some pressure, but in the end it all worked out for me. However, in the first race, I ended up in the gravel. The first few laps I was watching the race and thought, 'It has gone.' Then I did the maths, and realised it was all to play for.

"I just needed to finish in the top two in the last race if Anthony was fourth or lower. That's how it was with a few laps to go, he was in P4, and then he got taken off and I decided to slow down and let Plato through because finishing third was enough. It was a fight the whole year through."

Silverstone marked the end of the Super Touring era in the BTCC and Menu's last appearance in the category. He continued to enjoy a successful career in tin-tops, first with Opel in the DTM, a disappointing three-year stint, and later in the World Touring Car Championship with Chevrolet, winning 23 races and showing all his old speed despite never quite managing to lay his hands on the title.

Today, he is on the sidelines, having dropped out of the Porsche Supercup, but even at the age of 50 he is still a driver who can do a top job in touring cars.

By rights, there should be a few more chapters to add to the Menu touring car story. But whatever they may be, nothing is likely to reach the heights of the Super Touring era.

"I had some great times in my career, but for me the years 1995-2000 were the best," he says.

"I would go back there now."

For more Super Touring special content, see this week's AUTOSPORT magazine