Gil de Ferran

I could tell you about my wins in America, my first win in Britain, at Oulton Park in 1989. Or about when I won the F3 support race to last year's British GP. But they're all too recent. People know about them, so I will tell you about something from the darkness of my past in Brazil...

My first win in cars, back in '86, was great, but the best one was when I clinched the Brazilian FF1600 series at Interlagos in '87. This race was a fantastic win, at my home circuit, and it gave me my First championship in cars. It was very important to me, as I had spent the year coming back from a bad period in my career.

I have to give you the whole picture so you can understand what this race meant to me.

My career went like this. I had a good karting career, although it was only for three years. It was promising and made me confident for the future in FF1600. As it happens, I made a very, very bad decision as far as team, car and everything goes and had a year of struggle, hard work and no results in '85. You know how people have short memories in motor racing, well my reputation suffered.

For '86, I ran my own car, as I had in karts. But formula cars proved a little more complicated. And I had bad results in the first three races, so I sat down for a serious talk with my parents. We decided it was a waste of money to go on like that. Then I met 'Gigante', who ran the best team, and we struck up a deal for him to run me. Things went better after that, for the first time I finished in the top six, I won...

For '87, we wanted to keep working together, and started our test programme early. Trouble is, after I gave the green light, the sponsorship did not happen. Panic! But we restructured the deal with some clever economics...

Luckily, the year went really well, and I was many times on pole position, winning many races. In fact, I came into the race I will tell you about in a position to claim the Brazilian Championship with three rounds remaining.

I was very, very motivated to win the championship there and then. My main challenger for the title then was Augusto Cesario. I remember, through practice, he was sitting on pole position after the first session, and I was second, two tenths down.

But Interlagos is an interesting circuit, because you can do split times from behind the pits, from where you can see the whole circuit. In our splits, we were miles quicker than him in the infield section, but he was quicker than us by something like eight tenths from the moment you enter the pit straight to the moment you exit Corners 1 and 2.

There was a little engine problem, so we were really hammering our heads to find what it was. We couldn't adjust the carburetion properly. I remember we were very, very pissed off.

We identified two parts in the circuit where I could improve myself. These were Corners 3 and 4, at the end of the long straight, where it is almost flat in a Formula Ford, and also the corner on to the pit straight. 'Gigante' told me to work on that, as there was little to do in the car and we didn't know what to do with the engine. I was very, very pumped up...

Also, I remember walking down the pitlane, and Augusto was doing an interview. I heard him saying 'well, the championship is not over yet' and blah, blah, blah. I almost jumped at his throat.

So, I jumped in the car, warmed it up, and still the straight split was the same. We bolted on new rubber and I went out. On laps two and three of the tyres, I was flat through Corners 3 and 4. It was the first time I ever did that, and the last... And I was quick on to the pit straight, too, which gave me pole position by one tenth. That was very important, I really wanted it at the time. So we were all happy.

Then we found the correct jet settings and fixed the carburetion for the warm-up, giving me more speed on the straights. And I was quickest by about 1.5s...

In the nice, I got the lead at the start and drove like crazy, really pushing, doing every single fastest lap of the race. My worst lap was faster than everybody else's best.

I opened up a lead of something like 20 seconds in 12 laps to win the race. And that made me champion, as Augusto eventually dropped out of the race, as did Renato Russo who also had a chance in the championship.

When I took the flag, it was a fantastic image, as everyone was on the circuit, jumping up and down. I was very emotional at the time. It was everything that makes you want to go motor racing.

For the record, I won one the of the two remaining races, and spun down to third in the other.

It was the peak of a story that started in '85, turning the table on the times when things were bad and I was thrown to the ground and stepped on. The team was like a family to me, and 'Gigante' was like my conscience today, pushing me through the bad times and keeping my feet on the ground when things are going well.

So, that win gave me the opportunity to turn professional and come to England. If I hadn't done what I did, I would probably have finished my university studies and become an engineer... Boring!