How F1 team bosses used to be far larger characters

Did you find the Formula 1 Friday interviews hard work during the final six races of 2024? Scarcely a week went by without Tom Clarkson gamely attempting to inveigle interesting answers from team principals who gave the impression of wishing they were doing something else – even reading the FIA so-called ‘Vision’ about diversity, accessibility, sustainability and box-ticking.

The problem is that more and more team principals are engineers. I’m not saying engineers are dull. But they’re unlikely to take a pop at each other in the same way as Toto Wolff compared Christian Horner with a “yapping little terrier”. Now we’re talking! Being the owner of a Border Terrier, I understood Horner’s cheerful response when expressing admiration for the feisty breed. Silly stuff, maybe, but it made a change from earnest discussion about the value of aero elasticity. That’s not my particular forte, which is probably why I appreciated the characters who ran F1 teams back in the day.

Frank Williams was not in the least technically minded. This had become apparent in the 1960s when Frank followed the Formula 3 circus around Europe in the company of Jonathan Williams (later to become a Ferrari F1 driver). “Frank told everyone he was my mechanic – which was completely untrue,” said Jonathan. “He didn’t know a piston from a piece of tin. He would pick up a spanner and, if you were lucky, he’d go to the correct end of the car.”

Or there was Ken Tyrrell who, when times were tough, offered to drive a truck to Monaco with one of his F1 cars that had been completed late. When Ken finally arrived, the truck showed signs of heavy contact with a building – or two – along the route.

There was rarely a dull moment when Ecclestone, Tyrrell and Williams were F1 team owners

Photo by: Sutton Images

Although authoritarian at times, Tyrrell enjoyed a laugh. I made the mistake of telling Ken about forging a press pass to get into the F1 paddock in my early days. Ken happened to mention this to Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley (then team principal at March). They hatched a plan to haul me before the next Formula One Constructors’ Association (FOCA) meeting where Max, in his former role as a barrister, would deliver a roasting and threaten to remove my credentials.

It never happened because the FOCA meeting was preoccupied with some important issue. I knew nothing of this until told some time later by a guffawing Tyrrell. Being in my first season as an F1 professional, I would have been scared rigid when faced by the quietly menacing Ecclestone in partnership with Mosley at his magisterial best.

Of course, there were team owners with engineering as a primary interest. Colin Chapman was the outstanding example; a genius whose Lotus cars frequently redefined F1 technology. When he introduced ground effect in 1978, no one initially understood what Chapman was up to. There was a suggestion that a trick differential was delivering the dramatic decrease in lap time.

The two contenders just about managed to hold their tempers in front of a mesmerised and salivating audience noting every furrowed brow and wince. It was brilliant to behold

Armed with this erroneous assumption, I interviewed Chapman in the John Player motorhome during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend at Zolder. With Mario Andretti as his nodding co-conspirator, Chapman strung me along. As I played back the tape once the truth was out, the roguish boss never actually agreed the trick diff was the magic ingredient. But neither did he deny it. Chapman hadn’t needed to lay a false trail; this idiot journalist had done it for him.

On a lesser level, Morris Nunn knew which way was up when it came to intuitive engineering. That may not have been evident with some of his Ensign F1 cars, but the bold Morris would go to any lengths to discover winning recipes elsewhere in the paddock.

Rivals were keen to get a glimpse of the FW07's secrets in 1979

Photo by: Sutton Images

Williams had introduced what would become its title-winning FW07 at the US Grand Prix (West), the fourth round of the 1979 championship. Strange as it may seem by today’s standards, it was revealed in the pitlane – but not raced. Having completed the presentation, Williams covered the FW07 and parked it in the Long Beach Convention Centre, which acted as the paddock.

Early the following morning, Williams chief mechanic Ian Anderson arrived to see a pair of legs sticking out from beneath the FW07’s cover. Anderson (described by Patrick Head as “a fearsome-looking fellow with wild hair”) yanked the offending feet to reveal a chastened Nunn, complete with tape measure. Having later marched over to the Ensign camp, Head’s plan to deliver a furious rebuke was instantly dissolved by the sight of a trembling Nunn claiming, in his Brummie accent, he had been attacked by “a bloody madman – a wild man!"

Head would be central to a dramatic FIA media stand-off at Monza in 2003. There was no element of boredom at this one. Head (representing Williams, running Michelin) more or less accused Ross Brawn (Ferrari and Bridgestone) of prompting the FIA to adopt a different method of measuring tyre dimensions in the hope of rocking the Michelin boat at a crucial point in the season.

Head claimed it was no coincidence that this had occurred just after the French firm had given Bridgestone and Ferrari a hammering in Hungary. Patrick was sitting above and directly behind Brawn. Throughout, Ross never shifted his eyes from some distant point dead ahead and frequently spoke through gritted teeth as the hypothetical arrows rained down on him from the row behind. The two contenders just about managed to hold their tempers in front of a mesmerised and salivating audience noting every furrowed brow and wince. It was brilliant to behold.

A bit different to today, when the height of excitement is team principals being quizzed about a driver daring to use salty language on receipt of a disproportionate penalty for actually going racing.

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There was not always so much smiling in team boss press conferences when Head was present

Photo by: Toyota Racing