Memories of Ken Tyrrell

Thus, we gathered at Guildford Cathedral last Thursday afternoon to say our farewells to Ken, and the attendance was predictably huge. As someone affectionately said afterwards, half the folk in the building had probably, at some stage, been on the receiving end of a Tyrrell 'froth job', but Ken's greatest gift, I always felt, was that he never allowed an argument to linger, to build into anything more. If he didn't agree with you about something, he would earnestly say his piece, and then that great toothy grin would take over. You'd sit down for a cuppa with him, and talk about the comings of Graham Hick or -if you still felt brave - Spurs.

Formula 1 team owners tend to be obsessive folk, tunnelling steadfastly towards either great success or great wealth, or both. In the company of most of them, Tyrrell was inevitably something of an anachronism, for his involvement went back to a time when there was comparatively little money to be made, when people ran teams primarily because they had a passion for the sport.

As Fl became more and more commercialised, Ken had to make concessions, of course, because he wanted to stay in the game. At one point, his sponsor - I seem to remember it was Benetton - required team members to wear luridly coloured clothing, and in the paddock I one day encountered someone in pink trousers who looked like Ken Tyrrell. I said nothing, just looked at him quizzically.

"Don't even think it, Nigel..." he growled. Then the grin again. "Listen," he said, "if people sponsoring my team want me to wear a suit of bloody armour, I'll do it!"

It was a sadness to me, and others, that Ken would never countenance writing an autobiography. No, he wasn't interested in all that old rubbish, he'd say, and although he would always claim to be interested only in the future, when he started reminiscing there was no holding him.

During the service I remembered something Gerhard Berger had said to me about Ayrton Senna's funeral: "The organisation was unbelievable - it was as if Ayrton had done it himself! I thought, 'He's up there, watching, and he's going to be so upset if one person moves the wrong way at the wrong moment...'"

In the same way, this sunny afternoon in Guildford reflected Ken Tyrrell to a tee. He loved traditional jazz, for example, and some time ago asked Chris Barber, a good friend, if he would play at the service. This Barber, complete with big band, did: The Panama Rag, a particular favourite of Ken's, and then, at the end, When The Saints Go Marching In.

I like jazz, too, but for many of us the unforgettable moment was Richard Strauss's Morgen, sung sublimely by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, no less. The beauty and power of her voice, in this setting, was overwhelming.

"Wonderful, wasn't it?" said Patrick Head afterwards. "It's always quite something to experience someone who can really do something as well as that."

Jean Alesi flew up from Avignon to pay his respects to a man he revered. "The team didn't have a big budget when I was there, and Ken... always thought a lot about that. In 1990 I had a fantastic race with Senna in Phoenix, led the first half, got passed, passed him again, got passed again, and finished second. I was disappointed, but Ken told me he was relieved when Ayrton took the lead, because what he needed was those six points!

"At Monaco he said, 'Look, Jean, I know you're going to push in this race - but I don't want to have to come to the hospital to see you!' Like in Phoenix, I was second to Senna. It was very funny, the way Ken was always trying to cool me down..."

What made the Tyrrell team unique, all his drivers agreed, was its 'family' atmosphere. "Ken thought of his drivers more than he thought of his team," said Alesi. "There is no one else like that.

"Once, in wet practice at Monza, I spun between the first and second chicanes. It was completely my fault, and in the pits I told Ken I would prefer to wait a bit, until it was dry. Ken asked me where I had spun, and I told him. 'Hmmm, quick place...' he said. 'Go out again, and get your confidence back. If you crash... well, there's always the T-car'. I never worked with anyone else who would say something like that.

"He thought first of his drivers, that was the thing, and it was very difficult to leave him for Ferrari - I had to do it, but still I was sad. Ken understood I was going to a big team, and he never complained, but, with all his experience, he knew how difficult it was going to be for me at Ferrari, and he was worried about me. He never said, 'Don't go there, because I want you to stay with me'; it was always, 'Don't go there, because they will kill you!' I also had an offer from Williams, and Ken thought I should go there.

"More than anything about that time," Jean said, "I remember him and Norah, always going out together, every night, to some nice restaurant. There was nothing to say this was a famous Fl team owner and his wife... they might just have been fans. They enjoyed their life together so much, and that feeling went through the whole team.

"Ken was the best man I ever met in motor racing."