Ask Nigel: October 3

Autosport's American Editor Gordon Kirby takes over the hot seat next Wednesday, so if you have a question for GK, send it to the usual address, but type 'Ask GK' in the subject bar.



Dear David,
Yes, I did go to Rockingham, and - eventually - much enjoyed myself. With Indianapolis on the horizon, followed by 10 days' holiday in the USA, I had a lot to do just then, and confess that as I stooged around all day on the Friday, the thought occurred that my time could more profitably have been spent elsewhere. It was all very pleasant, chatting with old friends, and so on, but when I left that evening I really wasn't very confident we were going to see a car run the following day, let alone get a race.

I felt very sorry for the CART community through those days of inactivity. For obvious reasons, all they wanted was to be back home, and the last thing they needed was time on their hands. There was considerable relief on Saturday morning when engines were finally fired up, and the cars began to go out - and even more than that when it was announced that the race, although late, although trimmed, would definitely take place. It said a lot for the teams and drivers that they were prepared to race on this 215mph track, after just over an hour's practice.

Rockingham definitely got out of jail that day. Even though ticket prices were very high - and, I thought, absurdly so when there was a need to attract an audience to a form of racing new to the UK - and much of the organisation was shambolic, a terrific race redeemed the situation. People were raving about the spectacle of CART racing afterwards, and if the Rockingham powers-that-be can eliminate the 'weepers' and pare ticket prices for 2002, they could pull a huge crowd, such as attended the race at the Lausitzring, where prices were considerably lower.

I thoroughly enjoyed the race, as indeed I expected to do. To my eyes, CART cars are considerably more attractive than contemporary F1 cars, and there's little doubt that the racing is hugely better. After the race, many of the drivers complained that the configuration of Rockingham was not conducive to overtaking, but the lead changed twice in the last two laps, and the spectators weren't complaining...

A very worthwhile addition to the British racing calendar, I thought. After all these years of having only one major meeting - the British GP - a year, it was great to have another bigtime single-seater event. I hope it will thrive in the future.




Dear Dave,
There are indeed parallels between Tazio Nuvolari and Gilles Villeneuve; in comparing Gilles with the driver he regarded as the greatest ever (along with Stirling Moss), Enzo could have paid him no higher compliment. Both had a freakish degree of natural ability, both were abnormally fearless, and both would fight as hard for seventh place as for victory.

I saw nearly all Villeneuve's Grands Prix, but none of Nuvolari's, of course, for he died in 1953, at the age of 61, when I was but seven years old.

In his Cambridge days, though, my father went with some friends to the Donington Grand Prix in 1938. "Really, all I remember about that day," he told me, "is Nuvolari, who won. He looked absolutely tiny in that huge Auto Union. All the cars were sideways as they came past us each lap, but it was noticeable that he wound off the opposite lock earlier than the others, while his car was still sliding - he knew just how much was enough. I remember, too, how he'd bang the cockpit side with his hand when he was being held up..."

Once, over dinner in Manhattan, I mentioned that to the late Rene Dreyfus, and his face lit into an animated smile. "Yes, yes, it was exactly that! He hated to be baulked, he got... very impatient!"

It is not often that one dines with a man who was Tazio Nuvolari's team mate (both driving Alfa Romeos for Scuderia Ferrari), and later that evening I rushed back to my hotel and scribbled down everything I could remember of our conversation. How had Dreyfus rated the drivers of the thirties? "Well, perhaps Rudolf Caracciola was technically the best, the most complete. But the greatest," Rene lingered over the word, "without any doubt, was Nuvolari."

You get this sometimes in Grand Prix racing, a man so ethereally skilled that his fellows - or most of them - concede that he is simply better than they. Michael Schumacher is in that position today. But rarer by far is the driver with a presence to make the roof of your mouth dry.

Nuvolari had it in spades, so did Fangio, and so did Senna. "You can't create it," Gerhard Berger said of Ayrton. "It's there, or it isn't. In Senna's mind, the only thing that existed was himself - he had to be first, and by this thinking he was able to create a power. That's the only word I can use. But he had this aura, too. When he came into a room, everyone stared."

Comparing drivers of different eras may be a futile exercise, for the demands of the job change as the sport evolves, but one constant remains, and no one ever put it better than Frank Gardner: "In the end, it's all a matter of more accelerator and less brake..."

Dreyfus thought that definition perfect for Nuvolari. First of all, what you had to understand about Tazio, he said, was that he drove in a manner wholly different from any of his contemporaries. "He's credited with inventing the four-wheel drift, but it wasn't a conscious thing - nothing was with him, because he did everything by instinct. He was strong for his size, and had great stamina, but the races were very long, and the cars were big and wilful.

"In the case of Nuvolari, you had the impression of a man on an unbroken horse, but instead of fighting it, he let it run free. With him, there was no accepted 'line' around a circuit; he would turn into a corner early, aim at the apex, put the power down hard, and do the steering with the throttle, using his hands only for small corrections. It was his speed out of corners that was so exceptional. We all tried to copy his technique, but no one can borrow another man's instinct. Only Tazio could drive like Tazio."

All who knew him remember most of all Nuvolari's will to win, his sheer need to pass the car in front, be it for first place or 10th. If the fight had been exhilarating, he was always gracious in defeat, but there is a gulf between a good sport and a good loser. Nuvolari hated to lose, but there is no cliche story here of the boxer looking to escape the Bronx tenement. Born into a land-owning family, Nuvolari raced because he wanted to race.

He did not start young, however. The First World War postponed his debut, on motorcycles, until 1920, by which time he was already 28. For 10 years he was a winner on both two and four wheels, but after 1930 concentrated solely on cars, and although at different times he drove Bugattis, Maseratis and Auto Unions, his name will be for ever synonymous with Alfa Romeo, with whom the majority of his celebrated successes came.

The 1930 Mille Miglia was one such. Back then a race of more than 16 hours, finishing in darkness, it developed into the anticipated battle between Nuvolari and his greatest rival, Achille Varzi, both men in Alfa 1750s. In the closing stages Varzi began to suspect that the game was lost, for although ahead on the road, he recognised in his mirror the headlight pattern of Nuvolari's car - and Tazio's start time had been 10 minutes later. "It's him," Varzi mouthed to his co-driver, but after a while he started to hope again, for the lights behind were gone. Was Nuvolari out?

He was not. For Tazio, the racer nonpareil, it was vital not only to beat Achille on time, but also to lead him into Brescia, where the race finished. Within 30 miles of the end, Varzi was jolted from thoughts of victory by the blast of a horn. Nuvolari, his own lights switched off, had been sitting there for miles, driving on Varzi's tail lights.

Much later, Varzi would confide that in the bitterness of defeat he had found consolation in the implicit compliment paid by the man even he referred to as 'Maestro.' It takes faith, and more, to rely on another to guide you through the mountains at night.

The early thirties were years of glory for Alfa Romeo, and Nuvolari it was who did most of the winning. First in the 'Monza' Alfa, then in the P3, he had innumerable victories in both Grand Prix and sportscar races. By 1934, though, Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union were into Grand Prix racing, and the pattern of the years leading up to Second World War was set.

Alfa Romeo was nationalised at the end of 1933, whereupon the factory withdrew from racing, but the cars continued to compete under the banner of Scuderia Ferrari, which had already been responsible for Alfa's racing programme for three years. From 1934 on, the Prancing Horse replaced the quadrifoglio of the works cars.

By the beginning of 1935, Nuvolari could see that little possibility existed of beating the German teams, and he would have joined Auto Union that year, had not the move been vetoed by the recently signed Varzi. At a personal level, all remained well between them, but Tazio's rival refused resolutely to be his team mate again. It was not until 1938, following the death of Bernd Rosemeyer and the drugs-inspired retirement of Varzi, that Nuvolari was finally to go to Auto Union.

Every great driver has his day of days, however. By 1935, the ageing P3 had become wholly uncompetitive with the German cars, but at a circuit like the Nurburgring, genius could always count for something. If Nuvolari was lucky in anything in his life, it was that he competed in an era when driving ability could compensate for an inferior car.

"What you have to remember about those times," Dreyfus said, "is that the cars had almost no grip, almost no brakes. Therefore, cornering speeds were set very much more by the driver than by the car. I was also a member of Scuderia Ferrari at that time, and thought I was a pretty good driver, but Tazio would pass me in corners, travelling at a completely different speed - as if he were on a dry track, and for me it was raining!"

Nuvolari won the German Grand Prix in 1935, leaving an expectant Nazi reception committee po-faced and stunned. Pressuring Manfred von Brauchitsch's Mercedes on the last of the 22 laps, he took the lead after the Karussel, and crossed the line to near silence from the stands. Some little delay ensued before a record of the Italian national anthem could be found.

Spasmodic victories with the Alfa Romeo 12C-36, including the first Vanderbilt Cup race, on Long Island, came Tazio's way over the next two seasons, and in 1938 and 1939, now driving Auto Unions, he won several Grands Prix, including Monza and Donington. It was appropriate, too, that he triumphed in the last race of the era, the Yugoslavian Grand Prix, run the very day Britain declared war on Germany.

By the end of hostilities, Nuvolari was into his fifties, but he continued to race. In the fullness of his years, he was not at peace with himself, for both his sons had fallen cruelly victim to tuberculosis while still in their teens, and he sought to cauterise his grief in his beloved cars. Although in failing health himself, his essential genius remained, and twice more he dominated the Mille Miglia, losing victory each time through car problems in the late stages. He won for the last time in a Sicilian hillclimb in 1950, and was thereafter too weak to compete again.

In the course of his long career, Nuvolari crashed countless times, broke countless bones. Apparently immune to fear, he was cynically well aware of the perils of racing. "When he was going to the Targa Florio in 1932," said Enzo Ferrari, "I gave him a return ticket. 'Everyone says you're good businessman,' Tazio said to me, 'but you're not. You should have bought a one-way ticket only - when your driver is leaving for a race, you should always consider that perhaps he'll be coming back in a wooden box...'"

Some say that eventually Nuvolari prayed to die in a racing car; whatever else, he said, he did not wish to languish in a bed, yet, weakened by tubercular problems, he suffered a stroke in the summer of 1953, and died at home, in Casteldario, on August 11. "Bury me in my uniform," he said to his wife the evening before, and he went to the grave in the familiar blue trousers and yellow shirt with the 'TN' monogram and tortoise emblem.

"He was the kindest of men," Rene Dreyfus said. "Completely unpretentious, wonderful company. In the Italian Grand Prix in 1935, you know, I handed my car over to him after his own had failed, and he finished second. Afterwards he refused any of the prize money, said it should all go to me. 'It was your car, and you allowed me to race it,' he said. 'That was all I wanted.' No, no, there has never been anyone like Nuvolari."




Dear John,
The problem with starting down the path of 'A is quicker than B, and B was usually quicker than C, so therefore C will get blown off by A...' is that if you keep it going long enough, you can probably build a case for saying that, in the right car, Tarso Marques might be a threat to Michael Schumacher. Well, not really, but you get my drift.

Nick Heidfeld is extremely disappointed that his Sauber team mate, Kimi Raikkonen, has been selected to replace Mika Hakkinen at McLaren, and you can understand why. Heidfeld's links with the team go back quite a way, after all, and he did a very good job in the F3000 team, winning the European Championship in 1999. The following year, in the Prost team, he did not impress, but in 2001 - at the wheel of the best car Sauber have ever built - he has truly made his mark.

So, too, you must say, has Raikkonen. He may be low on charisma, but his natural ability screams out at you, and has done from his Grand Prix, at Melbourne. There are those who suggest that the next great rivalry will be that between Kimi and Juan Montoya (actually, I think the next great one will be between Michael Schumacher and Montoya, but still...), and maybe down the road they will be right.

Next year it will be fascinating to see how Raikkonen gets on in a McLaren-Mercedes environment. Already, he has a reputation for stubbornness, which may grate with Ron Dennis, but history shows that a team can tolerate just about anything from a driver who is winning races.

It may be that Kimi will have a disappointing second F1 season, as is so often the case, but then again, in an absolutely competitive car, he could well be one of the year's stars. So far, I'd have to say that, yes, I do feel he has 'superstar speed'. At the same time, though, I can't say I blame Heidfeld for feeling a little hard done by.




Dear Lee,
The first French Grand Prix to be run at Paul Ricard was in 1971, the year I began covering Formula 1, and I clearly remember that the reaction of the drivers was anything but positive. They thought it 'boring' and 'clinical'.

Amazing how perceptions change, isn't it? Had the drivers known of the horrors to come, such as the Hungaroring, they might have weighed their words more carefully, but you have to remember that in 1971 they were still using circuits like the 'old' Nurburgring, the 'old' Kyalami, the 'old' Buenos Aires, as well as places like Brands Hatch and Watkins Glen, so it was perhaps inevitable that Ricard - even with corners like Signes - came across as a touch bland.

Essentially, the Grand Prix moved to Magny-Cours in 1991, and it should be remembered that, by then, following the death of Elio de Angelis in a testing accident in 1986, Ricard had effectively been 'halved', making it far less of a good track than it had been.

Why did it go to Magny-Cours? Simple: politics. The then President of France, Francois Mitterand, came originally from the Magny-Cours area, and government money was used to fund the building of a new race circuit there. Ricard, at the same time, needed a lot of money spending on it to bring it up required standards. Thus, the move was made...




Dear Paul,
Were I 30 years younger, and had the talent and/or financial backing to get into it, yes - like a shot!




Dear Mark,
I know what you mean about Trulli. He is undeniably a quite brilliant qualifier, able to put together that single 'once and for all' lap as well as anyone in F1, yet so many times, once the race has got underway, he has fallen back, often with a great queue of cars behind him.

In fact, I don't think his often disappointing race performances are due to an inability to concentrate for a whole race distance. It is an undeniable fact that Jordans are not renowned for good reliability, and I hear tell that, many a time, Jarno could have gone a lot quicker in a race, had he not been advised by his team to concentrate, above all, on finishing - and thus, hopefully, to score all-important points in the Constructors' Championship. This could be mere hearsay, of course...

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