John Watson’s top 10 greatest races

"I'm 78 now," remarks John Watson as a throwaway comment, and it catches you on the hop. 'Can 'Wattie' really be 78?' He's as active as ever. When he chats through his greatest 10 races, he's just back from commentating on the Spa 24 Hours, and time is against us - he has French magazine Auto Hebdo arriving at his home shortly for more interviewing.

Watson operated at the top of Formula 1 for a golden decade as a full-timer from 1974 to 1983, scoring five grand prix wins - most of them seemingly from impossible situations such as lowly grid positions. This rival of Hunt, Andretti, Lauda, Scheckter, Reutemann and other such greats was a master overtaker.

Autosport has selected 10 drives, but he wants to insert one in a little two-litre sportscar. This, then, is how the Northern Irish great recalls those performances.

10. Dutch GP 1983

The last podium finish (that counted!) for a 3.0-litre DFV in F1 against the turbo masses sneaks onto our list

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Car: McLaren MP4/1C
Finished: 3rd

While team-mate Niki Lauda gave the new Porsche-built TAG turbo engine its debut in the sister McLaren, Watson drove his outpowered Cosworth-propelled machine to a superb third place behind the Ferraris of Rene Arnoux and Patrick Tambay. With the exception of the illegal 1984 Tyrrells, it would be the last F1 podium for the 3.0-litre DFV unit.

“Niki looked at the ’83 season as being a waste of his time and effort, because he realised you were unlikely to win the championship in a Cosworth-engined car. He was pushing hard to get the turbo programme accelerated.

“At that point the TAG had pretty horrendous throttle lag. I outqualified Niki, and the set-up that I had the preference for was just fantastic around the circuit. On my favourite 05 Michelin tyres, it was just as nice a little racecar as you ever could wish. I sometimes read about what a fantastic drive Derek Warwick had in the Toleman [powered by the Hart turbo, and 33 seconds behind Watson] to finish fourth!”

9. Nurburgring 750Km 1974

Outpacing Gethin in a Chevron B26 at the Nurburgring stuck out for Watson although the end result was lacking

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

Car: Chevron B26
Finished: 15th

Watson may have competed in Group C and IMSA during sportscar racing’s 1980s pomp, but his endurance racing memory comes from piloting the works Chevron B26 at the world sportscar round on the Nordschleife. He planted the machine on pole for the two-litre class by 10 seconds, with a time that would have put him sixth on the grid for the following year’s European Formula 2 round… Contact with a Porsche 911 delayed Watson and Peter Gethin early on, before wheelbearing failure meant they didn’t see the chequered flag.

“It was the first of the full aluminium Brian Hart two-litre motors, and with the B26 Chevron, the combination of the weight of the car, the power of the motor, the design of the chassis – it was to me the ideal Nurburgring race car. And it helped me learn that the Nurburgring, instead of being 170-odd corners, it’s actually about 100 corners, because what you’re able to do is make a sequence into one big arc rather than three separate corners.

“The car was so confidence-inspiring that you could push yourself to a level that I’d never had at the Nurburgring. Peter Gethin, who was my co-driver, was hacked off like you can’t believe, because nobody in a Chevron was quicker than Peter! He was about a second and a bit slower. It was just a lovely little car.”

8. Italian GP 1982

Without the benefit of a turbo on a power track like Monza, fourth was the maximum result for Watson in 1982

Photo by: Sutton Images

Car: McLaren MP4B
Finished: 4th

No one could live with the turbos on a power track such as Monza, but Watson put in a gallant drive to finish fourth behind Rene Arnoux’s Renault and the Ferraris of Patrick Tambay and ‘guest star’ Mario Andretti. His McLaren was the only non-turbo to finish on the lead lap, and the result kept him – just – in title contention going into the finale in Las Vegas.

“Like in Austria [the previous month], we were running the car with too much downforce on a very high-speed circuit. We were just grinding the car into the racetrack in Austria. And to some degree when we started on Friday at Monza we were doing a similar thing.

“Between Friday and Saturday, Alan Jenkins and Teddy Mayer made substantial alterations to my car compared to, let’s say, the John Barnard [designer] set-up sheet that they were given. They took out a shedload of downforce and also made some mechanical changes, all of which culminated on Sunday morning when I went out and lapped quicker on full tanks and race tyres than I had on low tanks and qualifying tyres on Saturday. They’d freed up the car.

“I pissed past Niki in front of the pits like he was tied to a post, and I never saw him again. The team understood what I needed, gave it to me, and I made use of it.”

It was some vindication for what had happened a few weeks earlier in the German GP at Hockenheim, where Watson was headed for third place – over half a minute ahead of the next non-turbo car, Keke Rosberg’s Williams – when he went off at the Ostkurve: “Whether I momentarily locked a brake or whatever it was, it was as if the engine cut out and I wasn’t able to slow the car down sufficiently.

“I went off, and that was me out of the race. It was a very minor thing but it had major consequences, because I could have had at least four points.

“We managed to get that MP4B to suit me. Niki preferred to have a slightly stiffer front and more downforce, that he turned the wheel and steered more from the front, whereas I liked a car I could steer from the rear and gave me a more confidence-inspiring car. It also gave me a more flexible race car.”

7. Canadian GP 1981

Watson believes he could have challenge Laffite for victory in a race where the rest of the field was left for dust

Photo by: LAT Photographic

Car: McLaren MP4
Finished: 2nd

In streaming rain, there were effectively only two drivers in this race at Montreal once Watson had passed the Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve, whose front wing was vertical and hampering his view following an early incident. The McLaren finished six seconds behind the Ligier-Matra of victor Jacques Laffite; Villeneuve, in third place, was 1m44s adrift.

“As it came towards the conclusion I was catching Jacques, but when you come down the back of the circuit under the bridge, that right-left, I made a small error of braking and had to run wide and go onto the grass. That was a race that I could have won, although I’m not saying I should have won it – it would have been a last-lap shit-or-bust move to try and challenge Jacques.

“That was a disappointment because it was a race where I thought I’d done a good job overtaking other drivers, and got up to a position where I think I could have potentially had a go.”

6. Belgian GP 1982

Watson claimed Zolder win on weekend of tragedy in fine style with late move on Rosberg

Photo by: David Phipps

Car: McLaren MP4B
Finished: 1st

The F1 circus was shellshocked following the death of Gilles Villeneuve in a qualifying accident on Saturday at Zolder. Watson qualified 12th, promoted to 10th on the grid by Ferrari’s tragedy-enforced withdrawal, and picked his way through the order. On the penultimate lap, he passed Keke Rosberg’s Williams for victory.

“On Sunday morning, it was much warmer than you’d expect it to be for the warm-up. I did a run of three or four laps, came in, and Teddy Mayer was working on my car. I said ‘Weiner [Mayer’s nickname], the left-front’s beginning to give up’, so he looked around in the garage and said to one of the guys, ‘See that set of tyres up on the rack? Get the left-hand-side set down and put it on John’s car.’ And I went, ‘What are you doing?’

“Teddy prevaricated and wouldn’t tell me, and I said, ‘I’m not bloody putting those tyres on’, and it went on like that for three or four minutes. Eventually, I said, ‘All right, put the bloody things on.’ They were a set of Michelins that had been run in Las Vegas [at the end of 1981] – we didn’t run them, they were just tyres Michelin had there, a different philosophy.

“So I went out in a negative frame of mind, fed up arguing about it, and thought I’d prove my point. On the first lap there was a slight imbalance to the Michelin 05 compound on the right, and on the first flying lap it didn’t feel bad, and after a couple or three laps it was actually quite reasonable but consistent. So I came back in and said, ‘Teddy, you know what? If the weather stays warm, that’s the way to go.’

“In the garage afterwards I was talking to Niki, and I said, ‘This is what I’ve just done and if you don’t do it you’re a f***ing idiot. I’m telling you now, you will end up understeering off the racetrack if you don’t do what I’ve done.’ He wouldn’t do it, and I dragged it out of him, and it was a very interesting, important insight into him.

“He said simply, ‘Because I haven’t tried it myself.’ It went to the core of a lot of his fundamentals of what being a race driver was all about. He was somebody who liked to do a lot of testing; don’t try it in a race before you’ve tested it. He couldn’t go against that value.

“I passed him right in front of the McLaren pits, which gave me enormous pleasure, and I drove away from him. On the penultimate lap I caught up to Keke, who was on Goodyears, and usual thing with Keke, he’d worn the tyres out. I was able to pass him and he didn’t even attempt to challenge, so that was it. It turned out to be an easy victory for me.”

5. Austrian GP 1976

Watson reckons a 'magic' set of tyres helped him to his first GP win and the sole victory for Penske in F1

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Car: Penske PC4
Finished: 1st

Twelve months on from Penske talisman Mark Donohue losing his life at the Osterreichring, and two weeks after Niki Lauda had suffered near-fatal burns at the Nurburgring, Watson produced a fairytale result for Roger Penske’s team. After qualifying on the front row, he emerged from an early battle with Jody Scheckter and Ronnie Peterson – later joined by Gunnar Nilsson – for his maiden GP victory.

“The car was super-balanced, had good grip, and was quick. It was a bit of a seesaw at the start, because you’d hit a damp patch and you’d lose a position. There were four or five of us all in contention until just before half-distance, and then I was able to break clear of those pursuing cars. From that point onwards it was just a very easy job to bring the car home.

“I’d never led a GP, and it was all new territory, but the car was absolutely fantastic and it was easy. When the car is doing all the work, you’re just guiding it, and that was what was happening. The result came much to the delight of a certain Austrian racing driver who was recovering from his injuries…

“We had found a set of Goodyear tyres – it was the best set I’d ever had. There were a lot of inconsistencies in the diameters, of the rears in particular. If you didn’t have matched tyres you had to use air to either inflate or deflate the tyre so you’d get, say, two rear tyres that were a similar diameter. That’s how it was, and that set was just a magic set!

“At the Dutch Grand Prix two weeks later, the car didn’t seem to have the same balance that I’d enjoyed in Austria. Roger asked where the wheels and tyres I’d raced on in Austria were, and our tyre guy fished them out, put them on the car and I don’t know why… This one set of tyres was just fantastic. I had a major battle with James [Hunt] for the lead, but unfortunately I had a gear break.”

4. French GP 1977

Watson suffered a galling defeat to Andretti on the final lap at Dijon when his Alfa Romeo-powered Brabham ran out of fuel

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Car: Brabham BT45B
Finished: 2nd

This was just one of those that got away in Watson’s first season with the Brabham-Alfa team… From fourth on the grid, he moved up to second on the opening tour, then passed James Hunt’s McLaren for the lead on the fifth lap. Mario Andretti later overtook Hunt in his Lotus, and going into the 80th and final lap it was still Watson from Andretti…

“The Lotus was undoubtedly a more nimble car, but on that circuit the Brabham had sufficient straight-line performance, and it was a circuit that wasn’t stop-start, so it was good for that car [and its V12 Alfa engine]. On the final lap down at the hairpin, I turned in, got back on the throttle, and it was just went buuuuggghhh.

“It was a fuel issue, and nobody after the race understood whether it was a miscalculation in the amount of fuel put in, or did the engine use more fuel than was anticipated? I was never given the full story as to whether it was one or the other.

“It was a lovely engine to drive, but it was much thirstier than a Cosworth, and consequently you needed more fuel. I did all the hard yards, and that momentary hesitation was enough to let Mario accelerate and get up alongside me going into the following left-hand turn. Again it gave a little sort of burp, and that was it – all over. It was very disappointing, and it taught me a lesson: never assume you’re going to win a race until you receive the chequered flag.”

Two weeks later, Watson led the British GP from Hunt until 18 laps from the finish: “I got the jump on James at the start, and then there was a fuel-related issue. It was something in the bag tank assembly, where some of the one-way valves had been put in incorrectly.

“Years and years later, when James was asked whether he would have won anyway, James said, and I really respect him for this, ‘No, that was John’s race. I did everything I could and I couldn’t get past.’”

3. Detroit GP 1982

From 17th on the grid, Watson charged to win the inaugural Detroit GP - but he'd win from even further back too...

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Car: McLaren MP4B
Finished: 1st

Watson qualified way down in 17th for the inaugural grand prix on the streets of Detroit. An early red flag meant this became a two-part aggregate race, and Watson charged through the field to pass Keke Rosberg’s Williams for the lead going into the final third. It was a matter of time before Watson negated his aggregate time deficit, and Rosberg fell to an eventual fourth place.

“After the race got stopped, we went back into parc ferme, and Pierre Dupasquier, who was the boss of the Michelin F1 programme, came to me. We were on the 06 compound, which was the softest that Michelin had, and in practice and qualifying we just couldn’t get the tyre to switch on. Pierre came to me and said, ‘Look John, take these tyres off, put on a set of 05s, and you’ll win the race.’

“We restarted and the car came alive, because with the extra fuel on board it put extra energy into the tyre, which gave more core tyre temperature. Niki [Lauda] had been sitting behind [Eddie] Cheever and [Didier] Pironi for God knows how many laps.

“One of Niki’s strengths – or vulnerabilities – was he often predetermined things, and if he thought he couldn’t overtake he wouldn’t. ‘Nobody can pass at Detroit’ was the big byword of the weekend. I came up behind Niki into Turn 1 and made a normal move I would make, a clean overtake, committed. Further round the track, a harder move on Cheever – he tried to pinch me a bit, but he realised that was a mistake. And two corners following that I got past Pironi. I passed all three of them in one lap!

“And do you know what happened then after? Niki woke up – he’d seen me coming and go ‘bosh, bosh, bosh’. ‘Oh, you can overtake!’ Eventually I caught up to Keke going into Turn 1, and at that point I was three or four seconds a lap quicker than him. It was just crazy, inevitable.

“I needed to extend my advantage to him by 15 or 20 seconds, which I managed to do, and he had no response. Then my team-mate came up behind Keke as well but he dithered, he did that ‘will I? won’t I?’ move up the inside, and Keke said, ‘F**k it, I’m going to turn in and take my line’, and clipped Niki and that was Niki out of the race.

“Ron [Dennis, McLaren boss] was really pissed off because Niki realised he hadn’t been driving as he ought to have done in the first place. That could have been a 1-2 for the team. Ron was not happy about it, although he was happy that I won. No, he was happy that McLaren won.”

2. British GP 1981

British GP victory in 1981 is a special memory for the Ulsterman

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Car: McLaren MP4
Finished: 1st

The new John Barnard-designed, carbon-fibre McLaren MP4 had carried Watson to third place in the Spanish GP, followed by second in the French. And at Silverstone the sequence was completed with victory. But that was only after a flirtation with disaster at the end of the fourth lap, when he effectively stalled while avoiding Gilles Villeneuve’s accident, and had to carve his way back up from ninth place. With eight laps to go, he passed the ailing Renault of Rene Arnoux for the lead.

“It was inevitable that Villeneuve was going to lose control, and when he spun there was so much tyre smoke that Alan Jones wasn’t able to avoid him. I was able to read what was happening and get stopped without having any contact. The engine had stopped because I’d had to brake so hard, but I had a little bit of momentum left so I very quickly flicked the electric fuel pump, got it into the right gear and just managed to bump start it, and off I went.

“I had to overtake a number of cars, and I was left with Arnoux leading and me in second place. Arnoux was slowing down and I overtook him, and from that point onwards all I was thinking about was keeping my head down. All of a sudden the spectators were realising that there was a very good prospect that I was going to win the race, and you could see their energy developing, and I became aware that there was a huge amount of support for me.

“I didn’t want that to be distraction. And on top of that I had Ron [Dennis] on the pitwall going ‘slow down, slow down’. The way I chose to slow down was basically to reduce the rpm, so I dropped from ten-five, ten-six for changing gear to 10,000. And ‘slow down, slow down’. I dropped it then to nine and a half. ‘Slow down, slow down’. And finally I was changing gear at 9000, and it only made about a couple of tenths a lap difference. But I didn’t want to lose my momentum, my rhythm. That’s when you can find yourself starting to make little errors.

“It was a momentous occasion for everybody within the team. My family were in the grandstand at Copse, so they had a special day as well. It was validation for what Ron had been able to achieve with John Barnard, believing in the technology, and the backing that Philip Morris had given Ron and John in going down in a new direction. While carbon-fibre was not new to F1, it was the first time a carbon-fibre chassis had won a grand prix.”

1. United States GP West 1983

Nobody has ever won a GP from as far back on the grid as Watson at Long Beach in 1983

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

Car: McLaren MP4/1C
Finished: 1st

Watson’s final F1 win was arguably his finest, and his charge from 22nd on the grid to victory on the streets of Long Beach still represents the lowest starting position from which anyone has ever won a grand prix. The lightweight, non-turbo Cosworth-powered cars had trouble switching on their tyres in qualifying – Watson and Niki Lauda would even fail to make the grid in their McLarens in Monaco – but races were a different matter.

“I flew in Brazil [the opening round was held in Rio]; the car was fantastic. After that there was a Philip Morris (parent company of Marlboro) South America tour and it was going to be me Niki, me and Rosberg.

“On the Saturday of the Brazilian GP, newspaper journalist Barrie Gill came to me and said, ‘John, we understand you’re going on this tour of South America and you’re going to Argentina’, and this was only a few months after the Falklands War. He said, ‘Obviously it’s going to be a big story back home: Britain’s leading Formula 1 driver visits Argentina on a celebratory tour.’

“So I went straight to Marlboro and said, ‘Look I’m not going, because I’m going to be crucified.’ Instead I went straight up to Long Beach with Willi Dungl [Lauda’s long-time fitness and health guru], and I had the benefit of Willi for six or seven days while the tour was on. That was a seminal moment for me, because Willi got to know me, and I got to understand better his preparation and philosophy.

“After the race, when they were all standing around somewhat shellshocked, Willi said to me, ‘I knew you were going to win the race.’ Part of it was I’m a fairly simple kind of person, and it’s a bit like you follow a guru, and I became a disciple of Willi Dungl.

“It was not a crutch, but a way of me getting to understand myself a bit better, and know that there was somebody else contributing to that. It was very straightforward stuff at the time – a mixture of diet, a little bit of training or whatever, but it helped me, and in the race I felt particularly strong.

“When it came to catching and overtaking Niki, we’d been running nose to tail throughout the race, and I knew that if we let a car get between the two of us it was going to be hard to get back on his tail. Every time he passed, I was doppelganger and followed him through.

“Eventually I made a bit of a late move into the chicane and the car just flinched a bit, but it got the job done and on I went. I did a similar thing to Laffite for the lead midway round the circuit, with a momentary little lock-up on the left-rear, but got through and I was on my way.”

Lauda appears disgruntled as Watson enjoys the spoils of a famous victory

Photo by: Motorsport Images