Allan McNish Q&A
Toyota F1 boss Ove Andersson finally confirmed on Friday that Allan McNish will partner Mika Salo in 2002, 'unless something really bad happens.' Although Allan's testing role in 2001 has always been secure, his long-term position was not clear, and there was obviously speculation that he might be eased out in favour of an established name. The Scot will thus make his F1 debut at the age of 32 in Melbourne next year. To put his career path into true perspective, you have to remember that he was team mate to Mika Hakkinen in Opel/Lotus back in 1988. Had he got the opportunity afforded recently to Kimi Raikkonen at a similar stage, Allan could have been in F1 as early as the start of 1989 - and would thus now be the most experienced driver in the field, beating Jean Alesi by half a season! Instead he became test driver at McLaren when Ayrton Senna was at his very peak. While graduation to the race team was always unlikely, in retrospect it was his failure to land a fulltime seat elsewhere on the back of his McLaren job that left him stranded for a decade. Adam Cooper spoke to McNish about his future
"I think it proves one thing. If you keep your head down and you keep working away and doing your job the best you can, then things come to you. Obviously I'm very pleased that all the work I have done has actually come to fruition. When I signed the contract for Toyota I explained very much my desires and what I wanted out of it, and they also felt the same way. In motorsport you don't often get a pat on the back, so it was nice to get a pat on the back."
"No, it's not a case of that. Basically at the end of the day, like all racing drivers you've got to perform, and if you don't perform, you don't get the seat. And that's the case, and to some extent it's still the case now, for example if I got into the car and I'm three or four seconds off the pace. I'm pretty sure I'm not, although I'm sure a few people will be thinking that. When Toyota contacted me about the programme they obviously felt that I had the capabilities technically and also from a racing point of view to do the job, or they wouldn't have invited me to do the job back in the beginning of 2000."
"Obviously you look back at things that maybe don't go your way, and you think 'Yeah well, ifs and buts,' but there's no real point in that. You're better using your experience and using it your advantage. I think that now I'm in a much, much better position to handle anything in motorsport than I was then, and that's a fact of life. What went on in the past and what happened, that's ancient history, and now let's look to the future."
"I think that was obviously the start. I came to the Le Mans programme purely and simply to win Le Mans, nothing else. And I had no ideas of an F1 programme, not even looking towards it. And afterwards they told me about the F1 programme, and obviously that was interesting. But I think really the testing work and the racing that I did at Le Mans was the first thing that made them interested in Allan McNish, beyond Le Mans."
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