How a legendary F1 tester who turned down Ferrari became a key mover and shaker

There are those who used to say former driver Alex Wurz ruined Formula 1. He was, after all, among the key architects of the halo – back when it was fashionable among the opinionati to heap ordure upon a safety development that has now saved several lives (and, as Alex says, “hasn’t lost a single fan”). It’s little wonder that a man who still holds the record for the fastest F1 accident of all time – he was travelling at 189mph when an incorrectly mounted tyre burst at a Paul Ricard test – should be an advocate of safety, with a firm grip on the baton once held by Sir Jackie Stewart.

Why, you ask, does a driver who retired from F1 16 years ago still quietly wield so much influence? Because he’s respected by all the people who matter, from the championship’s stakeholders and power-brokers to the competitors themselves. Being the GPDA chairman is a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it…

GP Racing: Your dad did rallycross so racing was always in the family. At what point did you decide that motor racing was going to be for you rather than BMX?

Alex Wurz: There was no real karting scene in Austria. I’d always said I want to be a racecar driver because my dad was a racing driver, and my friend’s dad as well. But BMX came along and I did it for a few years until someone turned up in my dad’s driving centre [Wurz Sr ran a driver training company] and said, “Can I run in an engine for this go kart?” I saw it and said to my dad, “This is better than pushing pedals around!” I had a few laps in it and that’s how I started karting. I was already 15 so it was quite a late start – like I said, there was nothing in Austria, the guy who came to run in his engine raced in Germany.

So then I got hooked on karting. I was already too tall and too heavy for the rules but, anyway, we bought a two-year-old kart and I did the mechanics myself. It was very low budget, but that was OK because I’d done a lot of driving in my father’s training centres so I learnt vehicle dynamics and tyre science. And that proved later to be a very good advantage.

GPR: Budget seemed to be an issue in single-seaters and you ended up in touring cars with Reinhold Joest’s team, and that led to a drive at Le Mans and a victory that was probably pivotal to your career. But that car wasn’t expected to win, was it? It was a Jaguar XJR-14 chassis recycled
as a Porsche for IMSA racing, but the Americans had screwed Porsche by changing the rules…

AW: I did the International Touring Car championship in a two-year-old car [in 1996], paid for by Opel Austria. It was the only thing I could do other than become a driver trainer for my dad’s business. I was pushing for single-seaters, trying to have meetings with F1 team bosses, trying to find money for F3000. The ITC team was run by Reinhold Joest, who was already very successful at Le Mans. I spent a lot of time in the factory, just to bond with the mechanics and hoping to get a better car. And Joest noticed this.

I was always talking to him about his car collection. One day he said, “I want to show you something.” We went to the other garage and he showed me this Jaguar chassis with the roof cut off. He told me it was a Porsche project, the rules didn’t permit it anymore [in IMSA] but he could race it at Le Mans as a semi-factory entry. And then, OK, anyway, that was it – he said he already has six drivers. Thank you for teasing me!

Wurz became a worldwide sensation winning at Le Mans on debut

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Then another day he called and asked if I could come to Paul Ricard because he was doing an endurance test and one of the drivers had a fever. So I made my way there and it was like the middle of the night when I got there. I was supposed to drive the next day and then they said, “You can start now.” OK, it’s dark, I’ve never been to this circuit, and it’s really fast. One of the other drivers – Pierluigi Martini – explained the layout to me and I went out. What else could I do? And maybe I should have played a lottery that day because on the third lap I was the fastest in the test. Years later, Ralf Juttner [technical director] told me they checked the data because they didn’t believe it – they thought “Is this guy cutting the chicane?” So it was all cool, I felt super-privileged, and four weeks later I got a call to do another test, then Reinhold offered me a race seat.

But, before that, I met Flavio [Briatore, Benetton F1 boss] and we were begging to have a test or some sort of support. I felt he wanted to cut the meeting short – he knew who I was from F3 and that I’d screwed up the title. He asked me what I was doing next and I said Le Mans. “If you win
Le Mans you can have the test,” he said. It was a two-minute meeting – but to be fair, the Monday after winning Le Mans I got a fax inviting me to an end-of-season shoot-out at Estoril with Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli and Paul Tracy. And it all went from there.

GPR: Is it true that when you first got in contact with Flavio he said, “Who the fuck are you?”

AW: Most likely, yeah!

"I was P4 or P5 in most races – basically just behind the McLarens and Ferraris, sometimes ahead of [Eddie] Irvine. And then I got a fax saying I must visit Maranello and meet [Ferrari team principal] Jean Todt in his private villa" Alex Wurz

GPR: You did three GPs in 1997 substituting for Gerhard Berger [who had a sinus infection]. Being tall was a problem in terms of fitting in the car – is it true that Flavio wanted to have your legs broken and reset to make you shorter?

AW: That was Nick Wirth [Benetton chief designer]. He did a spreadsheet showing it would be cheaper to operate on me, taking one and a half inches out of my legs, than change the car. This was the second year and the car [the B199] wasn’t just tight, it was overweight.

GPR: You had obviously impressed enough while substituting for Gerhard to get a full-time drive. And then the results were good at first. How exciting was it, to have thought your career was going into touring cars, and then getting a break in F1?

AW: In a way lucky but sometimes you have to make your own luck. And when these one-off moments arise, you have to show up. It’s a performance-driven world and nobody is looking for another Austrian, they’re looking for a guy who can do the job. So yeah, I was super-happy – 1998 was a good year generally for Benetton. They were super-successful with Michael [Schumacher] then they had a recession [in 1996 and ’97], lost budget and then kind of had a counter curve with Giancarlo and me. I know now in the second part of ’98, I was starting to experiment a little bit too much with set-up when I should have focused on the driving.

Wurz under examination from GP Racing

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

GPR: Was this when you were approached by Ferrari?

AW: In the first half of the year I was P4 or P5 in most races – basically just behind the McLarens and Ferraris, sometimes ahead of [Eddie] Irvine. And then I got a fax saying I must visit Maranello and meet [Ferrari team principal] Jean Todt in his private villa.

I had to stop at a certain toll gate on the side of the autostrada, then follow a yellow Fiat to a fuel station. Then from there, follow a red Alfa Romeo – Stefano Domenicali was driving – and he dropped me at Jean Todt’s house. We talked. It wasn’t that he was offering me a contract right
there – he said, “We’re looking at you, we think you will fit very well.” So it was a very clear approach. But, at the time, all the talk at Benetton was very positive that we would be fighting for wins, so I told Jean I wanted to finish my three-year contract but we should stay in contact. In hindsight, I should have taken the opportunity…

GPR: Then the 1999 Benetton had all sorts of technology on it that didn’t really work. 

AW: They started to be very creative, which was very interesting. Fantastic for the spirit of motor racing, a very clever idea and system – Front Torque Transfer [a viscous coupling that helped prevent the inside-front wheel locking under braking for a corner]. On some tracks it was really good, but it was too heavy – I could never run it. So I was in any case overweight – first race, qualifying, I stood on the scales, 12kg over the weight limit [since 1995 the minimum weight had included car and driver]. And then in the next half of the season I was eight, at the end I was six kilos overweight. At the time, I couldn’t talk about it.

On an average circuit that’s about three tenths. The average gap to Fisichella in qualifying was two tenths and on race pace I was always better than I was in qualifying. So, weight-corrected, a good season but I had no chance to use ballast to play with weight distribution and I didn’t have the FTT. It was painful – people ask why you’re behind and you want to say it’s just the laws of physics, it has nothing to do with talent.

GPR: Was it purely because of your height? Because you were quite skinny.

AW: Maybe I look skinny but I’m not that lightweight. Years later when Frank Williams asked me about my weight and size, he said the ratio was a bit on the high side, so I said, “Yeah, that’s because I have proper balls.” He was laughing and then he called me back and told me I had the drive. But we’ve made the jump forward in time…

GPR: We have. Let’s go back – after Benetton you went to McLaren as test driver in 2001. Is it the case that you were up for the race drive in 2002?

AW: I could have gone to other teams to race – Prost and Arrows. But I decided to go all in, go to McLaren and see maybe if there was a chance to kickstart my career, convince them and get the race seat. So I put a lot of effort in. I had an amazing time there. In the second year I got so comfortable with the car we had one lap record after the other in testing. All was good.

Wurz was a favoured test driver by Newey in their McLaren days

Photo by: Sutton Images

Adrian Newey was in favour of giving me the seat [vacated by Mika Hakkinen], Martin Whitmarsh was in line with that. What we didn’t know was that Ron Dennis was trying to get Kimi Raikkonen out of Sauber. And it was two or three weeks of parallel universe. I was doing a long run in testing at Monza when Martin called me on the radio to come in. He said, “I just want to let you know, we’re taking the option on you to race.” I said, “You know, I could have finished the long run, Martin…” But he was very excited.

Then it went a bit quiet. I started to work out there was something going on. I found out Ron was doing the deal with Peter Sauber. So I knew what the salary in my race contract would be, I found out what Ron was offering Peter to release Kimi, and I did the maths. I texted Peter: “I’ll pay you what Ron is offering you as a release fee, and you can keep Kimi, you’ll make money and I’ll get my contract.”

Anyway he didn’t text back. It was a bit of a character-building time. Shit happens – if you go for the stars, then sometimes you end up in the trees.

"Frank phoned and said, 'Can you come up?' He thought I was just downstairs. I said, 'Frank, I’m in a supermarket, buying parsnips.' Silence. Then booming laughter – Patrick Head was there. They offered me this contract and said if I did a good job I could race the year after" Alex Wurz

GPR: Adrian Newey cars are technically ambitious but notoriously tight on space. The MP4-18 which never raced, for instance. How was it to drive?

AW: I don’t mind sideways tight but my knees have to go somewhere, usually quite high. So, for example, I was once called by BMW to sign for them but the car was already designed and crash-tested – Mario Theissen [team principal] said, “If you don’t fit, we have a problem because we’re late.” So it was impossible and the contract went to Robert Kubica.

Adrian designed the MP4-18 so I could fit. The first test at Paul Ricard, the car was difficult but faster than the MP4-17 – which was a very fast car, my favourite race car of all time. And that was the only time it was faster.

More: The interim F1 McLaren that unexpectedly challenged Ferrari

We did another test a week later in Jerez. Normally Turn 4 is flat. So on the third lap I went flat and in the middle of the corner there was big snap of oversteer – bang! – into the wall. The fuel hose broke, there was fire, it got effing hot in a split second. They came up with theories that I just was too hyper-motivated – but five weeks before, in the old car, I did it flat in the first lap. The corner wasn’t an issue.

In fact, the floor collapsed off and then stalled. The key metrics for this car were aero and low centre of gravity – I had an engine blow because it was mounted so low, the oil started to foam in the reservoir. This happened two or three times. The conrod went out of the block and cut the brake line so I had no brakes. Pedro de la Rosa had the same thing.

Wurz got to realise his F1 dream despite his size being a major constraint

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

At Silverstone, going through Maggotts/Becketts, there was so much load on the uprights going through there, and they were lightweight construction – the wheelnuts would fly off. Four times! Then I lost the car at Bridge – into the wall, huge shunt, everything off the car.

I got back to the motorhome, phoned Martin and said, “I really apologise but this is the last time I’m driving this car.” He said, “I expected this call.”

The car was trendsetting. It was just too early, pushing the boundaries of materials and knowledge at the time.

GPR: So BMW didn’t happen. You found your way back in with Williams, testing through 2006 then racing the year after. What sold you to Frank?

AW: I had nowhere to go in 2006. I thought, “Maybe this is it.” Frank called me up and said, “We need to up our game as a team, we’re lagging in testing expertise, would you consider it?”

It was 12 December so I said yes! I had the interview at 11 in the morning, he really did laugh about the balls thing, then he said, “OK, come back in two hours.” I went to the next village to buy parsnips. My wife is British and she’d told me to get them for Christmas dinner – we don’t have them in Monaco.

Frank phoned and said, “Can you come up?” He thought I was just downstairs. I said, “Frank, I’m in a supermarket, buying parsnips.” Silence. Then booming laughter – Patrick Head was there. They offered me this contract and said if I did a good job I could race the year after. And this did happen.

GPR: 2007 was a strange year. In Canada you went from the back of the grid to a podium with your rear wing in pieces. Then just one more points finish and you left before the end.

AW: It was an interesting season. In 2007 F1 went to a spec Bridgestone tyre which had a very weak front end. I want a front which when I look at it, it turns in. I got very cranky with it. And it really still irritates me now.

Nico [Rosberg] always had an edge of one or two tenths in quali, which meant sometimes he made it through to Q2 or Q3 and I didn’t. I did a lot of overtakes but was always racing out of position. I had to be honest with myself – if I can’t change my driving style for this shitty front tyre it’s not good enough. I got angry with myself, thinking, “You’re just a tosser, not fixing your style for one lap.” I was really honest with Frank. And he was too. He said he wanted to try Kazuki [Nakajima] and we came to an arrangement. It helped the team – and I signed with Peugeot [for its sportscar programme] very quickly.

Wurz never intended to become chairman of the GPDA but the situation changed after Bianchi's crash

Photo by: Patrik Lundin / Motorsport Images

GPR: You went on to win Le Mans again. But you’ve also stayed involved in F1 via the Grand Prix Drivers' Association. How did that come about?

AW: I had TV work in F1 so I was going to GPs. One day Sebastian Vettel said to me, “The drivers need to be more united, it’s time to revive the GPDA. Would you help me?” I said I’d done it before, I didn’t want to do it again, but I’d talk to them all. We arranged a meeting to organise it – it was at the circuit hotel at Suzuka and all the drivers came. Jules Bianchi was there and spoke a lot, he was very interested, and afterwards he said, “Alex, while you said you wouldn’t do it [be the chairman], it would be very good if you could help us.”

Then, on the Sunday, he had his accident. Later Jean Todt called and asked me to be part of the investigation panel to represent the drivers. I found myself suddenly in the role – the drivers said, “Well, you’re doing it now, could you continue?” And that’s how it began. Drivers are competitors but it’s really important they unite to have a voice.

As GPDA chairman Wurz continues to make sure the drivers have a voice

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images