Danny Sullivan

There are two races which stand out in my mind. The most obvious one is Indianapolis in 1985, when I won after two big moments; one with the spin when I passed Mario, and the other when I was in second place and Tom Sneva and Howdy Holmes got into a big accident and I missed Sneva by inches! The other race that was really good for me was the 1983 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch with Ken Tyrrell.

When I was doing FF1600 I lived right across the street from Brands. Elden used to be based there, and we would go down and test every Wednesday. I have fond memories of those years; we had high times, and people were good to me. That's what made that Brands race a little different.

I made a good start, but what a lot of people never realised was that Alan Jones, Roberto Guerrero and all of us got tangled up a little bit at the first corner. I got punted, and actually went around Jones and around the outside of John Watson at Paddock.

'Wattie' came up to me afterwards and said. 'That was a helluva pass', and I thought, 'John, if you only knew that I was hanging on for dear life just trying to gather it up! It was just one of those moments when a guy just gives you a tap and you lose that little .bit of control. The outside of Paddock may be good for Jacky Ickx in the wet, but it's not so brilliant normally...

It was only my third F1 race, and for once, because all the turbos dropped out, everyone was on equal terms with the Cosworth engines. After a while I got up to second, and all of a sudden I caught up with Keke Rosberg. At one stage I'd been quite a way back, and I think he was probably trying to nurse it.

I could see his blistered rear tyre, but he wasn't hanging around, and there was only a little problem in a couple of corners. Keke is one of the best guys I've seen in adverse conditions. I couldn't get around him enough to pass him in a place where he wouldn't expect it; there was no way he was going to leave the door open for me going into Clearways or whatever. He just wasn't going to do that.

He was a little slow at Paddock, and I got a good run at him on the last lap. He blocked me going up the inside into Druids, so I thought okay, and I just tried to go round him. I figured that when he shut the door he would never expect me to go round the outside! If we touched, it was very lightly. I didn't get by him, but I guarantee that if we'd gone all the way down to Bottom Bend he'd have stayed right there...

But we were up there with him, and it gave me more credibility, especially as he was the reigning World Champion. Keke made that normally-aspirated thing fly longer than anyone else. He was incredible.

Ken was really pleased. It had been a last minute deal, as Alboreto was supposed to do the race, and Ken had rung me on the Wednesday before in California. After the race he said, 'I don't know what it was. but you've got to do it more often'. He wanted me to fly to Grands Prix from California at the last minute!

What he didn't know was that I'd had a hard time the night before the race. I guess I can tell the story now...

I was staying in London with Russell Wood, who had been a great driver in F3. I had a huge fight with my girlfriend on the telephone, so Russell and I went out for a curry. He said it was okay to have one beer the night before the race. So we were eating a poppadum and having a beer, and we were eating another poppadum and having another beer. The dinner was a little late... and the next thing I was just ripped!

So I got up on race morning with a heavy head... If only Ken knew the truth!