Ask Nigel: October 17

Dear Adrian,
Ivan Capelli occasionally made headlines in the Leyton House/March days, and was sometimes the only driver to get near the McLaren-Hondas of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in 1988, the year in which the pair of them won all but one of the 16 Grands Prix. Problem was, if it was often very much on the pace, the reliability of Capelli's car was awful, and he rarely finished a race.

A race which sticks in my mind is the 1990 French Grand Prix, at Paul Ricard, for Capelli led most of the way, and was passed by Prost's Ferrari only in the last few laps.

In 1992 came what seemed to be the realisation of every Italian driver's dream, for Ivan was invited to join Ferrari, as Jean Alesi's team mate. It turned out to be the worst decision of his career. Ferrari was an absolute shambles at that time, run by Fiat-appointed people who knew little about F1, and its cars were woefully uncompetitive. Capelli, always way slower than Alesi, had a terrible time there, and was dropped at the end of the season.

For 1993 he joined Jordan, but by now his confidence was in pieces, and he began to look like a man who really didn't want to be a racing driver any more. after failing to qualify in Brazil, he raced (poorly) in South Africa, and was then dropped by the team, in favour of Thierry Boutsen. Capelli never raced a Grand Prix car again.

He is still around in the paddocks, working for Italian TV, and still the charming guy he always was. How good he was, in ultimate terms, I'm not sure, but there's no doubt that when he was really on it, in that Newey-designed Leyton House/March, he could be fantastically quick. I liked Ivan very much in his racing days - we seemed to have quite a lot in common, including a great love of animals - and I like him still. In the end, though, it was a career which promised much more than it delivered.




Dear Eric,
Yes, Alfa Romeo in the late '70s and early '80s is a pretty good candidate for the dubious award of which you speak. I can still remember the utter disbelief I felt when Bruno Giacomelli told me what he was earning in 1981 - and when you consider that the team's other driver that year was Mario Andretti, you can be fairly sure it was the heftiest driver bill in the paddock!

Although the cars were sometimes quick, reliability was invariably terrible. Times without number, I remember, we were told that Mario or Bruno had retired with 'an oil leak'. After one race, I passed by one of the cars in the paddock, a sheet thrown over it, and saw the chief mechanic Ermanno Cuoghi nearby. "Oil leak again, Ermanno?" I enquired, a touch facetiously. He grinned. "Yes, I show you." He pulled back the sheet. "See, the oil was leaking here - out of this big hole in the engine..."

Moving to the current era, you'd have to say that BAR and Jaguar are pretty strong contenders for the award, too.



Dear Ross,
No, it had nothing to do with rock and roll, believe me. The story of Achille Varzi is akin to a Greek tragedy.

I remember once talking to a driver just out of hospital after a major accident. He was recuperating well, and considered himself fortunate to be alive, but for a while his agony had been so intense that they had given him morphine.

"If there's a next time," he insisted, "I'll get through without it. The pain was nothing compared to going 'cold turkey' when they stopped the morphine. And all the time you know that another shot would make you feel fine - for a while..."

The conversation set me thinking of Varzi, whose personality and career were lost in this same tide.

"The outstanding man," Enzo Ferrari said of the early '30s, "was Nuvolari, but he found a worthy adversary in Varzi, who surpassed him in his cool, perfect, style." The words have bite, for the Commendatore put Nuvolari with the gods.

The enigma of Achille Varzi has always intrigued me. Where Nuvolari was an uncomplicated hero of the people, his rival was a creature of mystery, uncommunicative and aloof. Of one nationality and vocation, they incited in their countrymen such passion that Italian motor racing splintered into 'Nuvolariani' and 'Varziani'.

On the track they shared only speed. Nuvolari was the great improviser, surviving on intuition and reflex, an emotional man often seen to beat the side of the cockpit of his frequently uncompetitive cars. Varzi was of ice and stone, impeccable of line, the classical artist. Like Niki Lauda, he was at his deadliest in pursuit, inducing mistakes in others, making none himself.

"His style," according to Ferrari, "reflected his personality: intelligent, calculated, ferocious in making the most of his opponent's weakness, mistake or accident. I'd say he was ruthless." And the great Rudolf Caracciola remembered chiefly this: "When you saw Varzi behind, you shivered..."

Born into a wealthy family in Galliate, near Milan, Varzi's arrival in Grand Prix racing was painless. After a successful motorcycling career, he simply bought himself an Alfa Romeo P2 in 1928, which led to a factory drive - and many Grand Prix victories - for the next couple of seasons.

For 1931, while Nuvolari remained with Alfa, Varzi moved to Bugatti, a decision considered traitorous by many Italians. Their response left him profoundly unmoved. His only requirement of a car was its competitiveness, and at this point he considered the French one better. After three successful seasons he returned to Alfa Romeo, again a purely pragmatic move.

These were the great years of rivalry with Nuvolari, a blessed time for sports writer and gossip columnist alike. In an obvious way, Tazio was the embodiment of extrovert heroism, the true Italian who talked with his hands and loved children, a jovial man. Achille, by contrast, was dry of wit, remote, apparently irresistible to women. He dressed elegantly, stayed only in the finest hotels, did not kiss babies. Like most racing drivers, he lived for himself. What many found unforgivable was that he did not trouble to hide it.

For all their differences in character, though, and despite a pitiless professional hostility, the two men got along well. So long as Nuvolari was not around to hear it, Varzi would invariably refer to him as "Maestro", and their respect for each other was absolute.

Once a match race was proposed, an attempt to settle the question once and for all. "If I lose," Nuvolari said, "I shall never again find peace. And if you lose, I shall feel sorry for you. Whatever happens, our friendship will be tainted. If you like, we'll do it, but I don't think it's worth it." They shook hands, and the matter was never raised again.

In the 1930 Mille Miglia - at that time a race of more than 16 hours, finishing in darkness - they fought the expected battle, no other car within half an hour of their Alfas. In the closing stages Varzi began to suspect that the game was lost. Ahead on the road, he recognised in his mirrors the headlight pattern of Nuvolari's car - and Tazio led on time by ten minutes. "It's him," Achille mouthed to his co-driver.

After a while, though, Varzi began to hope again. The lights behind were gone. Was Nuvolari out?

He was not. Within 30 miles of the finish, Varzi was jolted from thoughts of victory by the flash of lights and the blast of a horn. For miles Nuvolari had been sitting there on his tail, lights off. There can be no sweetness in defeat, but perhaps Varzi was consoled in part by the implicit compliment he had been paid. It takes faith to rely on another to guide you through the mountains at night...

In 1934, both in Alfas again, it was Varzi first, Nuvolari second, but Grand Prix successes were coming hard by this time. Each man knew in his heart that an era of German domination was coming, but while Tazio eventually committed himself to the Scuderia Ferrari team of Alfa Romeos for 1935, Achille, head in command, accepted an offer from Auto Union. And it was this decision, apparently so logical and dispassionate, which led ultimately to chaos in his life.

It started well. With talent as natural as his, Varzi adapted without particular problem to the immense power and wayward handling of the rear-engined cars, winning at Tunis and Pescara. He was, by common consent, at the height of his powers.

Early in 1935, however, during testing at Monza, the saturnine Milanese had met Ilse, the wife of Paul Pietsch, Auto Union's young reserve driver. Their affair began almost immediately, discreet only for a while, and soon they were together everywhere.

Varzi stayed with Auto Union for 1936, his partners Hans Stuck and the meteoric Bernd Rosemeyer, whose great year this would be. And all was well until Tripoli.

This was Achille's favourite circuit, fast and demanding, a track where precision was all. Already he had won the Grand Prix twice, and now came a third victory - by a couple of lengths from Stuck, whom he overtook on the run up to the line. On the last lap he averaged more than 141 mph, and was afterwards a well contented man - until the banquet that evening, at which the Governor of Tripoli asked for silence, lifted his glass and proposed a toast to the winner...Hans Stuck!

There was an excruciating silence. Varzi, someone murmured, had won the race, not Stuck. But the Governor would have none of it: Varzi may have finished first, but Stuck was the winner...

And gradually the truth of the matter emerged. These were the days of the Rome-Berlin Axis, and General von Ribbentrop had directed that, whenever possible, Italian drivers should win Italian races - so long as they were in German cars, of course. In the closing stages Stuck had been slowed by his pit, allowing Varzi to pass. The race had been, in short, a political demonstration. A fix.

Varzi had been ignorant of this, and believed he had won on merit. Now, his honour publicly impugned, he hurled his glass to the floor and stalked out, raging. In his room he found sleep impossible, his mind in turmoil.

"Try this," said Iise. "I often use it when I can't sleep. It helps a lot..."

She held out a syringe. They had been together a year, but this was the first he knew of her addiction. It had started, she said, in hospital after a minor operation. What more, Achille wondered, could go wrong this night? Hours later, still sleepless, he held out his arm for the needle.

Had he been an unkempt man, garrulous and undisciplined, the change in Varzi might have been imperceptible for a while. But in one such as he the transformation was startling. Morphine is not kind.

What had happened? His colleagues wondered and worried. In Tunis, only a couple of weeks later, he was unshaven, dishevelled and shaky. Much of the time he chattered, often without making a lot of sense, then lapsed into bouts of desperate silence.

More, his driving was awful stripped suddenly of its glitter and precision. That weekend he had the first major accident of his career, the Auto Union somersaulting at close to 180mph. Somehow he came out of it without injury, too shocked even to hold a cigarette.

After another couple of undistinguished races, Varzi disappeared. Not even his parents knew where he was, but the Auto Union management finally traced him to a villa in Rome. He was existing, the team's doctor discovered, on champagne, coffee and cigarettes. By now morphine's hook had complete hold, and he was slipping away from reality, face ravaged, speech slurred. He was 32, and old.

The medical man reported back. Not surprisingly, Auto Union decided against a renewal of the contract for 1937.

There was no sign of Varzi through most of the season. By now he had moved to an hotel in Milan, friendless and quite without cares. Only his mistress remained, but the relationship was all but over, and Achille eventually walked out.

In his saner moments he thought again of the career he had tossed away. At the San Remo Grand Prix he drove his own Maserati - and won against indifferent opposition. Enthusiasm reawakened, he then turned up for the Italian Grand Prix at Leghorn, pleading with Auto Union for one last chance. He had been treated, he assured them, and was cured.

Rosemeyer supported him, and Varzi was tentatively hired for the last three races of the season. During practice at Leghorn it was as if he had never been away. He was sensational in the Auto Union, beaten only by Caracciola's Mercedes.

But the race was a different matter. If his genius remained, his stamina did not, and before half-distance he was into the pits, exhausted, drenched in sweat. "I understand," he muttered when they told him not to bother turning up at Donington.

Early the following year Rosemeyer was killed in a record attempt, and Auto Union had desperate need of a top-class driver. Again they briefly thought of Varzi, but there was no way. He was back with Ilse, still in the snare of drugs. It was Nuvolari, ironically, to whom Auto Union turned.

Varzi was not seen at the circuits through 1938-39, but when racing resumed after the war he was back as a member of the Alfa Romeo team once more. And he was himself again, free of addiction after months in a home, and now married to a woman he had known before the years of tribulation. On the track, and off, he had regained all his former grace. With the great Jean-Pierre Wimille as Achille's team mate, Alfa dominated the early post-war years.

The first Grand Prix of 1948 was the Swiss at Bremgarten, and early evening was settling in as Varzi went out on the opening day of practice. It was damp and murky, and the track was slick. As Louis Chiron followed, the Alfa went into a slide through the fast Jordenrampe S-bend, then clipped a wooden barrier and somersaulted, throwing Varzi out on to the road.

Chiron immediately stopped, but there was nothing to be done. Varzi, as ever wearing only a linen helmet, had been killed instantly, and it was left to the Frenchman to bear the sorrowful news back to the pits. Norma Varzi, already evident as a woman of fortitude and dignity, responded with amazing courage. No, she said, she did not wish Alfa Romeo to withdraw from the race: rather, the team should honour the name of Varzi by winning the race for Italy. And on Sunday Felice Trossi's car duly triumphed.

No one grieved more deeply than Fangio, at that time unknown outside South America. He had met Varzi in Argentina, where Achille had won, and they had become firm friends. The country had so captivated Varzi that he spoke of retiring there to open a racing school. And when Juan Manuel came to Europe a year later, his team raced under the name of Squadra Achille Varzi, based at Galliate.

"Varzi was, to me, a god," Fangio later said. "He spoke with great simplicity, and gave me precious advice. He is probably the driver I have most admired in my life, a man who cared only for his art."




Dear Andrew,
You're quite right, F1 does not necessarily have the 22 best drivers in the world at any given time. That's no more than inevitable, given that some are there for no reason other than nationality or backing, but there's nothing new in it.

Of the drivers I'd like to see in F1, who are not currently there, I'd mention two from CART: Dario Franchitti, rated highly by Juan Montoya, with whom he tied on points in 1999, and to whom he lost the title only on number of wins, and Helio Castroneves, who often gave JPM something to think about in the 2000 CART season, and has been the best road racer in the series this year.




Dear Ben,
Not necessarily. I realise that in today's world anyone over 12 is considered 'old', but I don't think a racing driver should have a 'sell by' date, after which he's automatically pensioned off. Jean Alesi is only 37, after all - two years younger than was Nigel Mansell when he won the World Championship in 1992.

Certainly I'm all for new blood coming into the sport - but not for the sake of it. By that, I mean that the new blood should be of high quality, like Juan Montoya, rather than some middling talent with a budget. When we lose a driver - and man - of the quality of Jean, in other words, if we get a highly sponsored brat of average ability in exchange, it's a poor trade.




Dear Barry,
I'm afraid I'm not quite sure what your question means. When you talk about Ferrari's dominance this year, and putting the season into context with the rest of F1 history, are you meaning 'Ferrari's season compared with previous Ferrari seasons' or 'Ferrari's dominance compared with other teams' dominance in the past'?

If it's the former, I'd venture to suggest that probably this year's F2001 is the best car Ferrari have ever built. As Martin Brundle said of Michael Schumacher at Suzuka on Sunday, "We've never before seen Michael in easily the best car." I think that's true. It has been the best car of the year, and you can't often say that of a Ferrari. Perhaps BMW have had a little more power, but the Ferrari chassis has been superior to any other in 2001, and the team's reliability was unapproached, as we have come to expect. Put the best driver in it, and a World Championship is virtually guaranteed.

It it's the latter, well, Ferrari's record - nine wins in 17 races - is mighty impressive, of course, but is by no means the best we have seen in F1. Consider McLaren-Honda in 1988, when the team had the two best drivers in the business, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. Of 16 races that year, eight went to Senna, and seven to Prost; only Monza, where neither finished, escaped them.

I'd be very surprised ever to see a team achieve this level of dominance again - unless, of course, Schuey one day agrees to partner Montoya!

If you have a question, send it to AskNigel@haynet.com.