Ask Nigel: November 21

Dear Eno,
There's no logical reason why a great racing driver should become a great team owner - in fact, it very rarely happens, and not only in Formula 1. In NASCAR, for example, Cale Yarborough was one of the very best drivers the sport has known, yet he got nowhere as a team owner, and the same, albeit to a lesser extent, is true even of Richard Petty.

Conversely, Richard Childress, who never raised a blip as a driver, went on to become one of the most successful team owners in NASCAR history, with Dale Earnhardt in his car.

Over here, while Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren went on to found very successful racing teams, John Surtees, undeniably a great racing driver, ran an F1 team for a great many years which never won a Grand Prix.

What I'm saying is that there is nothing new in this. Some, like Roger Penske, who began as drivers, turn out to be born businessmen, but it ain't necessarily so. Talking of Emerson Fittipaldi and Alain Prost, the overriding problem both faced was the lack of an adequate budget. Emerson, I think, was simply too laid back to run a team day to day, but Alain has literally worked himself into the ground. In his case, I'm tempted to say that Keke Rosberg is right: "Alain is far too nice a guy to run a modern F1 team!"

Just because you have a genius for driving a racing car doesn't mean that that genius will transfer to anything else in the business. "I never realised," Prost says, "how easy life was when I was winning World Championships..."




Dear Geoff,
Tom Pryce was one of the nicest blokes ever to get into a racing car, and is remembered fondly by everyone who knew him. As well as that, he was hugely talented, and his car control was something to behold.

Pryce was not one of those who started in karts. In fact, he went to Motor Racing Stables, the school at Brands Hatch, and there won a Formula Ford car in a competition sponsored by the Daily Express. This was 1970, and he progressed swiftly, moving through F3 to F1 by 1974.

In '74 Tom's entry for the Monaco Grand Prix was turned down by the organisers, who suggested he was insufficiently experienced. Somewhat annoyed, he arranged a drive in the F3 race, then an extremely prestigious affair - and he walked it, in the process annihilating the very highly rated Tony Brise.

The following year, driving for the Shadow team, Pryce was often phenomenally quick, taking pole position at the British Grand Prix. But the cars were very unreliable, and his only victory was in the non-championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch - where he beat Jody Scheckter to pole position by a clear second.

Pryce was a charming fellow, as I said, and a very loyal one, too. Had he moved to another team, I don't doubt that many Grand Prix victories would have come his way, but he remained with Shadow, whose cars were emphatically not the best. In the rain, he was always sensationally good, setting the fastest time, for example, in the wet first session at the South African Grand Prix in 1977; in the dry, the Shadow was good for only 16th.

This was to be the last race of his life. On lap 22, in front of the pits, his Shadow hit a marshal running across the road to a car which had pulled off; ironically it was that of his team mate, Renzo Zorzi.

The marshal was carrying a heavy fire extinguisher, which hit Pryce on the head, and killed him instantly. The car then careered on for several hundred yards, colliding with Jacques Laffite's Ligier, before hitting the bank, and coming to rest finally, at Crowthorne Corner.

A truly ghastly accident, and one which should never have happened. Everyone was devastated by the loss of a delightful man who, I have no doubt at all, had the talent to become World Champion.




Dear Steve,
I'd agree with you entirely. Although his fellow drivers were only too aware of Tony Brooks's abilities, history underrates him terribly - not least, perhaps, because he was, and is, the most modest of men, never one to seek attention or publicity. Think of the absolute opposite of Eddie Irvine - in every respect - and you have some idea of Tony Brooks.

At the Goodwood Festival of Speed Ball in 1998, Chris Mears, the wife of four-time Indy 500 winner Rick, was seated at dinner next to Brooks. By the end of the evening she was aware that Brooks was a former Grand Prix driver, but he had told her little of his career. She wanted to know more, and spoke to Mario Andretti.

"That guy," said Mario, "was the best of the best of the best..."

Brooks himself would not agree. Like all his contemporaries, he revered Fangio, but after the great man's retirement, he, like everyone else, put Moss in a category of his own. "There was Stirling," he said, "and then the rest of us."

Undeniably, Moss was the greatest of the late '50s and early '60s. But in speaking of 'the rest of us', Brooks does himself less than justice: if Stirling were pre-eminent in that period, so, equally certainly, Tony was next in line, well clear of such as Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins, both of whom were great only when the mood took them.

It may be that the driving of an F1 car, at a place like the 'old' Spa-Francorchamps or the 'old' Nurburgring, never came easier to any man. Physically slight, Brooks was always a fingertip driver, appearing merely to suggest to his car where it might go next, rather than forcing his will upon it, in the manner of a Hawthorn or Mansell. He was, in every sense, a 'natural'.

His arrival on the Grand Prix scene was, to say the least, unusual. For three years, from 1952, he was a successful club racer, but had no thoughts of making a profession of it, even after joining the Aston Martin sports car team in 1955. At 23, he was studying at Manchester University to become a dentist, and looming on the horizon were his Finals.

In October came a call from Connaught, a small, perennially hard up, F1 team of the time. "They were doing the Syracuse Grand Prix, they said, and would I like to drive one of the cars? Frankly, they couldn't find anyone else and they were scraping the bottom of the barrel. I had never so much as sat in a Formula 1 car before, but I said yes, and put the phone down."

Perhaps it was fortunate for Brooks that he was preoccupied with his exams. On the flight to Sicily he worked on his books, and didn't give a lot of thought to the race.

Favourites at Syracuse were three factory Maserati 25OFs, driven by Luigi Musso, Harry Schell and Luigi Villoresi. They had been way quickest on the first day, and it is some indication of Brooks's natural genius that he was soon lapping as fast as they, in a car which handled well, but was short of power.

"It wasn't terribly reliable, either," Tony said. "The team's finishing record was awful. 'Don't do too much practice,' they said, because there were no spare engines, and they were terrified of not getting the starting money. Quite understandable, but it didn't really help me! When the race started, I'd done no more than 12 or 15 laps."

By the end of it, he had won the first F1 race of his life. After playing himself in, he took the lead from Musso on lap 10, and was never troubled again. "I was very pleased at the time, but it didn't really sink in. Quite honestly, all I could think about was my exams! I remember swotting on the plane all the way back, too..."

After a wasted season with BRM in 1956, Brooks signed as number two to Moss in the Vanwall team, with Stuart Lewis-Evans as the third driver. Tony had no outright wins that year, but he did share victory with Stirling in the British Grand Prix.

A month before, he had been injured at Le Mans, and was by no means fit by the time Aintree came around. "I didn't break anything in the shunt, but I had very severe abrasions. There was a hole in the side of my thigh, and I could literally have put my fist into it."

The day before practice began, Brooks was still in hospital, but he reported for duty on time, and remarkably qualified third, behind Moss and Jean Behra.

"I had no problem in going quickly, but I couldn't sustain it for long because I was weak after that time in hospital. In those days, of course, drivers could take over other team cars if their own had retired, and it was agreed that I'd keep going as quickly as I could, and that if Stirling had trouble he would take over my car."

In the event, that is precisely what happened. After building up a good lead, Moss retired, took over Brooks's fifth-placed car, and put in a fabled drive to come through the field and win.

It was Vanwall versus Ferrari in 1958, but only Moss and Hawthorn were truly contesting the World Championship, for although Brooks was right there on pace - taking pole position, by a clear second, at Monte Carlo - by the beginning of August there were only eight points against his name, these scored at Spa, where he won a Grand Prix 'on his own' for the first time. Yes, it was eight points for a victory back then, only a couple more than for second. Never did seem right.

At the Nurburgring Hawthorn took pole position, followed by Brooks, Moss and Collins. Problem was, Brooks's practice laps had been restricted, and although his car was handling well with a light fuel load, he had run not so much as a lap on full tanks. While Moss raced away in the early stages, Tony thought it prudent to sit back a while.

"My car was diabolical on full tanks, and by the time it began to handle properly again, after four laps or so, the Ferraris were half a minute ahead. After another five laps, I was right with them."

Five laps of the Nurburgring was a long way, but even so Tony's accomplishment - making up 32 seconds in a matter of 70 miles - was astonishing. "The Vanwall and Ferrari were pretty evenly matched that day. On handling there wasn't much in it, on braking I was better than them, and on horsepower, particularly at the top end, they had the edge on me."

At the beginning of lap 11, Brooks outbraked Hawthorn into the South Turn, and then swiftly got past Collins, who had led since the retirement of Moss. That done, he put everything into building the lead he needed to be out of reach on the long straight at the end of the lap.

"The tragedy was that Peter, trying to stay with me, overdid it and had his fatal accident. Obviously, I felt pretty bad about it at the time, although I didn't feel responsible or anything like that."

The loss of Collins was felt acutely throughout the racing world, not least in Maranello, for he had been one of that handful of drivers - like Nuvolari, like Gilles Villeneuve - for whom Enzo Ferrari developed a deep affection.

In Italy Brooks won again, with Hawthorn second, and Moss retiring. Three victories in 1958, then, and all of them at classic circuits: Spa-Francorchamps, the Nurburgring, Monza. Only Moss, with four, beat Tony's tally for the year, and yet both were beaten to the World Championship by Hawthorn, who won but once.

At the end of 1958, Tony Vandervell, sick at heart after the death of third Vanwall driver Stuart Lewis-Evans at Casablanca, decided to disband his racing team. And while Moss signed to drive for Rob Walker, Brooks became the latest Englishman to go to Ferrari.

It was a difficult year in many ways. Cooper's 'rear-engine revolution' was under way with a vengeance, and Ferrari, still front-engined, were hard-pressed to keep up on all but the quick circuits. For all that, Brooks remembered the 1959 season well.

"It was a gorgeous car to drive, that Dino 246. Rather like a Maserati 25OF in that you could drive it on the throttle through the corners. And its gearbox - after those two years with Vanwall - was a revelation."

He won at Reims, as Hawthorn had done, and also at Avus, site of the German Grand Prix that year, and went off to Sebring, for the last round of the World Championship, still in with a chance of winning, like Moss and Jack Brabham.

"On the first lap, I was hit by Wolfgang von Trips, my team mate, in the rear wheel, and a change in my philosophy may well have cost me the title."

Brooks, like all the Grand Prix drivers of the time, literally never discussed safety. "The attitude was that the spectators had to be protected at all costs, and that was it. The big attraction was driving a racing car on closed roads, and we accepted that the name of the game was keeping the car on the island. If you went off, you were in the lap of the Gods. You might get away with it, you might not. Nobody will persuade me that there isn't more of a challenge to the driver if he knows he might hurt himself if he goes off the road."

For all that, Brooks did not believe in adding to the dangers of his profession. "My philosophy changed somewhat when I was thrown out of the wretched BRM at Silverstone in 1956, and completely after the Aston flipped at Le Mans the year after. In both cases, there was something wrong with the car, and I knew it. Eventually I made a firm mental decision never to try to compensate for a car's mechanical deficiencies: if something wasn't working properly, too bad.

"I always felt that it was morally wrong to take unnecessary risks with one's life because I believe that life is a gift from God. I don't want to get theological about it, and thousands will disagree, but that's my view: I felt I had a moral responsibility to take reasonable care of my life.

"After von Trips had run into me at Sebring, my natural inclination was to press on. Believe me, that would have been the easiest thing to do, but I made myself come in to have the car checked over. I lost half a lap doing that, and still finished third. As it turned out, Moss retired that day, and Brabham ran out of fuel near the end, so probably my coming in cost me the World Championship. Still, in my own mind, I think I did the right thing."

Brooks was never to win another Grand Prix. He admits he never had the dedication of a Moss, and by the end of 1959 was already looking to a life beyond motor racing. To that end he bought a garage in Weybridge, and decided it would make more sense to drive for a British team. Therefore, much to Enzo's regret, he left Ferrari, and drove outdated Coopers for the British Racing Partnership in 1960 and outclassed BRMs the following year. Third in his last race, at Watkins Glen in 1961, he announced his retirement, at the age of 29.

Today Moss says that if he were running a Grand Prix team, and could have any two drivers from history in his cars, they would be Jimmy Clark and Tony Brooks. "I suppose my choice of Tony would be a surprise to some people, but to my mind he is the greatest 'unknown' racing driver there has ever been - I say, 'unknown,' because he's such a modest man that he never became a celebrity, as such. But as a driver, boy, he was top drawer."




Dear Scott,
It's true I'm not a fan of touring car racing, particularly as it is today, with little cars festooned with wings, playing dodgems. That said, I used to love it in the days of Jimmy Clark and the Lotus Cortina.

DTM cars are rather more interesting, however. For one thing, they are rear-wheel drive; for another, they have quite a lot of horsepower. I can't claim to have taken a huge interest in them thus far, but I saw some of the cars on a recent visit to Mercedes, and they certainly looked good.

When first I heard that Jean Alesi was going to test the car, I was surprised, because I remembered him telling me of his one and only touring car race to date, in an Alfa Romeo at Pau some years ago. It was, he said, the most awful weekend of his racing career, and he never wanted to go near a touring car race again...

Last week I chatted to Jean (in England for Ken Tyrrell's Memorial Service), and he was very enthusiastic about his first test. "The car was much quicker than I expected - almost 500 horsepower - and I was surprised how enjoyable it was to drive. You could get it really sideways, and steer it on the throttle - I love a car that can do that!"

As of last week, Alesi had not actually done a deal to race for Mercedes in next year's DTM, but said he wanted to do it, and was sure it would happen. It has to be good for the DTM to have a star name in its ranks - and one from outside Germany - and I'm sure Jean's presence will add to the series considerably. Certainly, it will add to my interest in it...




Dear John,
Yes, I do have more than a passing interest in NASCAR - although I have to confess that it's rather less than it was. For one thing, in the '80s I went to the Daytona 500 several times, and saw the cars lapping at close to 210mph; I also went several times in the '90s - after the 'restrictor plate' regulation had been introduced - and thought how 'slow' they looked, with the pole now around 190.

I know it's all relative, but you're talking about a five-second difference on a 2.5-mile track, and that's a lot. Losing 20mph in 20 years seems a curious sort of progress to me, but I do understand the track insurance problems which arose after Bobby Allison's huge accident at Talladega.

The worst thing about the 'restrictor plate' rule is that the cars have no throttle response, and overtaking is much more difficult than it was. It was the sheer quality of the racing that was always NASCAR's highest card, and too often these days it seems to me processional. Time was when the last place you wanted to be at the start of the last lap was in the lead...

The irony is that, in slowing the cars down so much, NASCAR appears to have made the chances of a multi-car accident infinitely higher, for the cars tend to swarm around endlessly in a huge pack, like a freeway gone mad. Still, it's up to them.

I confess, too, that the loss of Dale Earnhardt has diminished my interest in Winston Cup racing. Some fans hated him, I know, but many more loved him, and I always strongly rooted for him - it seemed to me his fundamental driving ability was on another plane from that of most of his rivals.

I met Dale a few times when I went to Daytona, and in December 1996, when he was a guest at the AUTOSPORT Awards in London, he and his wife, together with Bill France, were on my table. That evening I had the opportunity to talk to him at length, and very enjoyable it was. Just before he left, I suddenly thought to ask him to sign my menu, and I'm so glad I did.

In February I felt a tremendous sense of loss; he really was one of the giants of racing history, and watching Cup races on TV this year has seemed a little flat to me.

I have to say, too, that I was somewhat appalled by the published report of the investigation into his accident. Back in '93 I persuaded Keke Rosberg to go to Daytona with me, and if he thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience, he was stunned - after sitting in Kyle Petty's pole-winning car - by what he saw: "What happens if you hit something head on? Jesus, there's no deformable anything!"

Now that Earnhardt is gone, it seems that Jeff Gordon has no real rival, in terms of pure driving ability. I must confess, though, that I've always regretted Gordon's move to NASCAR, simply because my first love will always be single-seaters, and there is reason to believe - not least from his teenage exploits in sprint cars - that he has the sort of once-and-for-all talent that would taken him to the top in any category of racing, and could have given CART the American-born superstar it has long lacked.

And had he eventually come to Europe, just think of what that would have done for US interest in F1...

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