Johnny Herbert

The Formula Ford Festival in 1985 was definitely my best race meeting ever. The way it happened made the thing that much more special; it was just incredibly good.

I was driving the Quest for Mike Thompson. Mike, as a designer, had always wanted to win the Festival with his own car. The year before I'd driven a Van Diemen RF84, which wasn't exactly a wonderful car.

Then I did a test for Quest at the end of '84, and one race at Brands. It was just more darty, you could just turn it in and it went. It was a lot more the sort of thing I liked. And we hit it off straight away. It was just a big bit of fun, but serious at the same time. The whole atmosphere in the team was very good. They had this thing about beating the shit out of me; if I did something wrong they'd punch me -jokingly!

During the year I'd always been there or thereabouts. I'd won one race at Brands and been second thousands of times, but it was always a Van Diemen in front, which was a bit of a pain. There was always a bit of rivalry with Van Diemen - Mike had all those ads going in AUTOSPORT, like 'Don't get VD - buy a Quest!'.

Going up to the Festival, testing had gone really well, and we were under the lap record. So I was really confident. And then we went into practice.

I went out, and I could see it was damp, so there was no point in being quick. It was a bit slippery, and I can remember going into Paddock on my first flying lap, and actually thinking, 'Let's not go too quick because it's wet, and it's going to be quick at the end of the session.'

So I turned in, and it just went! I just cannot, to this day, say why. I wasn't going quickly, I was in third, and I just turned in, and bam, it was off. So it was spinning, and I was thinking, it's gone off, but we're not going to hit anything...bang! I hit the catchfencing, and did a front corner.

So I was walking back, holding my helmet, throwing my gloves in it, banging it. I went through the tunnel, and I met Mike and my mechanic Ian Blackman coming back. We couldn't say anything to each other, but Ian probably wanted to kill me at the time!

I said there and then, "We're still going to win this." Later Ralph Firman was standing there in the paddock, laughing and everything, and he said, "When you **** up you **** up in a big way!" So I told him, "You wait, you haven't won it yet..."

We had to organise the rigmarole of qualifying, because I had to do the three laps. The officials were quite good - the Pre-74s were doing their session, so they said I could do my three laps, and then start at the back of the grid for the heat, with a 10 second penalty.

So I did the three laps, and started at the back of the grid, nice and relaxed, no problem. I had Ian there with a stopwatch timing the 10 seconds with the official. I thought that they'll all reach Paddock, and then I'm going to go. And they went up to Paddock, and down the hill, and they were gone... I was sitting there literally jumping up and down!

And then dead on 10, bang, I went. The car was going well, and basically I drove as hard as I damn well could, passing everybody at any opportunity, and I came through to sixth.

So that meant I started 12th in the quarter final on Sunday. I passed one or two a lap at some points, and I got up to fourth in that one, and just caught third place, which was great.

So I was moving up the whole time, and everybody was getting pumped up. I started eighth for the next one, the semi. I had everybody in this race; it really was the deciding one. Bertrand Gachot. Paulo Carcasci, Jonathan Bancroft, Andy King, they were all in it; my biggest threat was Carcasci in the works Van Diemen.

And of course there was the accident. Jonathan Bancroft moved over, and there were two of them on the inside, Carcasci and Bertrand Gachot had nowhere to go; I saw him going up, and he rolled right in front of me. I thought I was going off there! There was also a wheel - it bounced up and I sort of ducked, and it missed me. It was probably 20 feet away, but it looked like it was going to hit me.

The Van Diemen people just went mad. They were rushing about trying to rebuild Carcasci's car for the restart, running everywhere, but they didn't make it.

I was still confident, even before the semi-final was stopped, that I would do well. The accident obviously did help me a lot. It gave me a real buzz - Mike and the whole team were going: "You can do it!"

I made a great start, and was up to fourth, then I passed Allan Seedhouse, and then Andy King. I caught Bancroft, and on the last lap I was trying to pass him, but I finished second. It was probably a silly thing to do, because the outside of the grid at Brands is the best place in many ways.

So I'd come from absolutely nowhere to be third on the grid for the final. All I needed was a great start.

The atmosphere was amazing, and I was still pumped up. Sitting there, getting the revs up - I didn't get a brilliant start, but I got away as well as Bancroft. And then on the run up to Druids, I got in front. There was a big gap there, so I had no problem. It was just very straightforward, the final.

The race itself was boring; I just remember crossing the line, with my belts undone even before I got to Clearways, hanging out of the car - I thought I'd get disqualified for that!

Normally in the Festival, you have all the shunts, but the actual storyline to it is that 'he's going to win', and then he wins. I did 'he's going to win', and then shunted! What with Ralph saying what he did, and me saying that we would win it anyway, it was a good way of doing it...