Ask Nigel – July 12

Dear Mike
A fascinating question, and one which has been debated endlessly over the years. Did Prost indeed commit 'a professional foul' on Senna at Suzuka in 1989, or was it just a racing accident?
I was near the chicane at Suzuka that day, and walked back down to the pits with Prost after he had abandoned his car. And what I remember most was Alain's disbelief that Ayrton had tried to pass at that point on that particular lap. "He just wasn't close enough," he said, "and I never thought he'd try it. On some previous laps, he'd been closer than that - and hadn't made a move. Even if I hadn 't been there, at that speed, and on that tight line, he would never have made it through the corner..."

Then there was the response of Keke Rosberg, which was cynical, but also good-natured. "Alain is the cleanest driver in Formula 1," Keke chuckled. "Always has been. To be honest, I think he'd reached a point where he wasn't prepared to be screwed around by Ayrton any more - and so he simply closed the door on him. You could tell he'd never done anything like that before in his life - because he did it so badly!"

A couple of years ago, nearly a decade after the event, I spoke to Prost again about it, and this is what he said on the tape.

"Nigel, all these years later, I give you my word that, if I had deliberately tried to put Ayrton off, I would tell you. The situation was this: many times, during our two years as team-mates, he'd forced his way by, putting me in a position where I was obliged to get out of the way - otherwise we'd crash, and that would be both McLarens out on the spot.

"So, we got to Suzuka, with the World Championship to be decided between us. I thought about the situation, and then I said to both the team and the press, 'There's no way I'm going to open the door any more - I've had enough of that.' In the team, you know, we talked very often about the first corner, the first lap, and Ron [Dennis] always said that the important thing was we shouldn't hit each other, we should think of the team.

"Well, as far as I'm concerned, I thought about the team, and Ayrton thought about himself. All the time. I remember the start of the British Grand Prix in '89; going into Copse, if I hadn't moved two or three metres we'd have hit each other, and both McLarens would have been out immediately. And that sort of thing happened often.

"As for the accident at Suzuka, I know everybody thinks I did it on purpose: I did not open the door, and that's it. I took my corner, and that was the end of it. I didn't want to finish the race like that - I wanted to win it. I had a good car. I'd been very bad in qualifying, and concentrated absolutely on the race; in the warm-up I was much quicker than Ayrton, and for the race I was quite confident - even when he started catching me.

"I didn't want him too close, obviously, but I wanted him close enough that he would hurt his tyres a bit; my plan was then to push hard over the last 10 laps. As it was, he tried to pass - and for me the way he did it was impossible, because he was going so much quicker than usual into the braking area.

"I couldn't believe he tried it on that lap, because I looked in my mirrors as we came up to the chicane and he was so far back. I saw where he was, I came off the throttle, braked - and turned in. When you look in your mirrors, and a guy is 20 metres behind you, it's impossible to judge. I didn't even realise he was trying to overtake me, but at the same time I thought, 'There's no way I'm going to leave him even a gap of one metre. No way...'"

Back to where we started. Was it deliberate or not? I've always said that Prost is as honest a man as ever I have come across in Formula 1, and, after knowing him for more than 20 years, I have never caught him out in a lie. So that's my opinion.

Other people's opinion, though, perhaps counts for more. "In the end," said Jackie Stewart, "it doesn't matter whether or not Alain closed the door. The fact remains that Ayrton was in the wrong because he allowed himself to be at someone else's mercy. Once he made his move, the matter was out of his hands: if Prost was prepared to lose the race, OK, he'd be through; but if he wasn't, then Senna was in trouble..."

As for Mario Andretti, he cut through all the cant, and saw the coming-together as just one of those things. "If I was in Prost's shoes, I'd have done the same - and, let's face it, if the situation had been reversed, Senna would have done the same! Senna should have expected it, but you can't fault him for trying. That was the only place he was going to pass."

On this, I suspect, the jury will be out for ever.




Dear John,
Yes, I think it's possible to have a friendship with some of the drivers in these, as you accurately put it, 'PR-driven times', but it's not as easy as once it was. Since the retirement of Gerhard Berger, at the end of 1997, I would say the only 'traditional' Grand Prix driver left is Jean Alesi - in the sense that he alone speaks from the heart at all times. In that respect, Jean is a PR's nightmare - which, of course, serves only to endear him to the press even more.

It's certainly true that, at one time, the drivers were infinitely more accessible than now, but you have to remember that times were very different then. For one thing, the press corps was maybe a quarter of the size it is now, and thus it was much easier for the drivers to give time to individual journalists. For another, there were no 'official' press conferences after qualifying and the race, so to get across the story of his day, a driver was obliged to speak to journalists on a more informal basis.

This, of course, meant that you were more likely to get good quotes out of him, for he was not speaking in 'sanitised' conditions, but merely chatting to people he knew well. Formula 1 used to be far less a matter of 'us and them' than it is now; since it has become fashionable, so also it has become absurdly rarefied. Martin Brundle recently said not until you cease to be a Formula 1 driver do you begin to realise how 'precious' an environment you had been living in.

In the sense of winning races or championships, nothing changes from one generation to another, whatever some might claim, but in other respects much more is at stake these days. Alan Jones, for example, was never a man to hold back on his opinions, and if these included criticising his team, well, so be it.

The difference was that, in those days, Frank Williams had a chassis designed and built, for which he bought a Cosworth DFV engine and a Hewland gearbox, and then he went racing. OK, he had commercial sponsors to consider, but the team was still essentially 'Williams' - it was not in partnership with a major manufacturer, like Honda or Renault or BMW, and so was responsible only to itself.

These days, of course, political correctness has infected even motor racing, so that drivers and team owners tend to stick on safe ground and avoid the possibility of giving any offence, even when it is plainly justified. Off the record, a few of the drivers are just as they have always been - funny, irreverent, caustic - but as soon as that tape recorder is on, they start looking over their shoulders. Boring, but probably inevitable.

Conversely, I don't see a lot of paranoia around these days - at least, not among the drivers. Nigel Mansell was always convinced that his team-mate - whomever it might be - was trying to shaft him at all times, but I can't think of any driver who behaves that way at the moment. Team owners, however, are a different matter...




Dear Maurice,
An impossible question, really, because if you picked, say, a Maserati 250F, so you'd have to go for Juan Manuel Fangio or Stirling Moss as the driver. It was their car, their era, and their driving styles and techniques were honed to get the best out of it. When Michael Schumacher last year drove Patrick Tambay's 1983 Ferrari 126C2B, it frightened the life out of him, he said, because all he could think of was the consequences of having an accident in it.

Then there was the time Martin Brundle drove a 1955 Mercedes Benz W196 during a 'demo' at Spa - the 'new' Spa, I hasten to add, rather than the circuit at which the car actually competed. He relished the experience, but it also had a sobering effect on him.

"What's never changed about Grand Prix racing," Martin said, "is that the limit is the limit is the limit. In other respects, though, I'm starting to understand there are huge differences in the job of the driver from one era to another. Physically, I found the car easy to drive, because the g-forces are low, but mentally it was incredibly hard.

"When you're up around 150, going through fast corners, you begin to think about the absence of seat-belts, roll-over bars, and the like. In a modern car, if you're going to crash, you make sure you do certain things beforehand, but in this case I really had no idea what I'd do.

"All right, in the back of a current driver's mind is the acceptance that he might get hurt doing this, but back then it must have been right at the front of your mind, I'd have thought."

Stirling Moss, who raced the car in its heyday, reckoned otherwise. "No, it wasn't like that. Racing was dangerous, and you knew that when you went into it. It had never been safe - and it never crossed your mind that it ever could be. So you had two choices: do it, or don't."

Off the top of my head, I would say the 10 best drivers in Grand Prix history have been - not in any order - Tazio Nuvolari, Rudolf Caracciola, Bernd Rosemeyer, Juan Manuel Fangio, Alberto Ascari, Stirling Moss, Jimmy Clark, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. But who is to know how Senna would have been in an Auto Union, or Caracciola in a McLaren?

In my dreams, I suppose, I'd put them all to work at Rouen Les Essarts, install them in a 250F, and see if any of them could match Fangio through the downhill swerves...




Dear Rod,
Taking your last question first, I would guess that Mansell was the last driver to win an F1 race in his 40s - he was 41 when he won the Australian Grand Prix in 1994.

Like you, I'm pleased that things are finally going right for Roberto Moreno, one of the nicest blokes you'll ever come across in motor racing. If you look back at his career, though, you'll find that in F1 he drove for virtually every useless team - AGS, Coloni, Eurobrun, Andrea Moda, Forti... talk about 'Where are they now?'

Only once did he land a drive with a top team, and that was with Benetton, whom he joined late in 1990, following the sad departure of Alessandro Nannini, who had been badly injured in a helicopter accident.

Roberto's first drive for Benetton was at Suzuka, and he had a dream start: second place, behind his team-mate and great friend, Nelson Piquet. In '91 he was retained by the team, but his best finishes were a couple of fourths and a fifth, and when, at Monza, moves were made by Benetton to secure the services of a promising young German driver - one M Schumacher - his days were numbered. Literally overnight, he was on the street.

Since then, in CART, Moreno has acquired the reputation of a 'super sub', taking drives as and when they came up, with this team and that, and invariably doing a better job than his car's usual occupant. For years I wondered why no decent CART team would give him a permanent ride, and then finally, for 2000, Pat Patrick did just that. Good on him, say I.




Dear Allan,
I think that Enzo Ferrari would thoroughly approve of the successes currently being achieved by the team bearing his name, and I think that Schumacher's aggression would delight him. As for everything else...

No, I don't believe he would be happy at all with orange for his cars, rather than Italian Racing Red, any more than he would like the sponsors' sign-writing which now covers them. Who can forget his remark, 30 years ago, that a racing car should look like a racing car, rather than a cigarette packet? And as for Tic-Tac mints...

Like you, I can't pretend that I feel the way about Ferrari as once I did - nor that I approve of much of the way the team goes racing these days. Unquestionably, it has become Schumacher's team', and it is inconceivable that the Old Man would ever have allowed that to happen.

It strikes me at Monza every year that most of the banners in the grandstands are for Alesi and, particularly, Berger, both of whom left Ferrari at the end of 1995.

This I mentioned last September to my friend, Mario Acquati, who owns the wonderful racing memorabilia shop in the Monza paddock. Mario wasn't surprised: "I sell hardly anything to do with Schumacher or Irvine, and it has always been like that. Italian people have no feeling for them - they respect them a lot, but they don't worship them, because they feel there's no passion there. The drivers they loved were people like Alesi and Berger - and, most of all, Gilles."




Dear Anton,
I take your point about additional tarmac at Magny-Cours; there are many who believe that an expanse of tarmac, as a run-off area, is a preferable alternative to gravel traps, and - in certain circumstances - they may be right.

Stirling Moss once said this: "To take a corner at 150mph, with grass on either side, is one thing; to take the same corner, with a brick wall on one side and a sheer drop on the other, that's an achievement!"

Different times, however. Moss was a driver who fundamentally believed that motor racing should be dangerous; it wasn't that he wished to see people hurt or killed, but that he believed the risk factor was an essential element in the sport, that it constituted part of the challenge.

The world has changed, however. Nowadays, the overwhelming priority in Formula 1 is that it should be safe. As one who has lost friends in this business, I rejoice when I see a driver escape from an accident which would once have killed him, and I'm all for any changes which make the cars and tracks safer.

That said, I think Ken Tyrrell has a point, too. "It's a matter of finding the right balance, isn't it?" he said to me. "Of working for greater safety, but at the same time ensuring you don't finish up with something no one wants to watch any more..."

What I hate to see is the gradual disappearance of great circuits and corners. Early in 1996 Mosley announced his determination to eliminate 'life-threatening corners', of which, in the estimation of the FIA, there were 16. This did not sit well with some of the drivers. It wasn't that they relished such corners because they were dangerous, but that inevitably it was corners of this kind which separated the great from the good, which gave driving a Grand Prix car its buzz.

"If you take away Eau Rouge," Ayrton Senna once said, when the celebrated switchback at Spa was under threat, "you take away the reason why I do this."




Dear Andrew,
It always amazes me how many people turn up at a Grand Prix, spend the practice days in the paddock - and then fly home on Saturday evening and watch the race on TV. If I were making a fleeting visit to a Grand Prix, I'd do it precisely the other way round: arrive on Saturday evening, and go to the track on Sunday.

Still, different strokes for different folks. Now that there is only one day's qualifying, and that chances are the teams have recently tested at the relevant circuit, Fridays are a stone drag these days. I will always enjoy qualifying, but for me - even after witnessing around 400 Grands Prix - there is nothing like the race.

The day I don't automatically reach for my cigarettes as the cars come up the grid, is the day I'll know it's time to go and do something else with my life.