Masters Degree: Christian Danner

"It was certainly the highlight of my career, because it was the only time that I could prove what I was capable of."

Christian Danner never fulfilled the potential that he threatened to following his 1985 season.

Following his stellar performances that year, it was he who looked like being the first German destined for Grand Prix stardom. A certain Mr Schumacher wasn't even on the horizon yet.

But Danner was restricted to just 36 Grands Prix driving for Osella, Zakspeed and Rial, and he never finished higher than his fourth in 1989 United States Grand Prix. Following his F1 career, he had a stint in Japanese F3000, and he became a race winner in the International Touring Car Championship and had some strong IndyCar drives. But, frankly, his way down was never as good as his way up.

It was '85 that Danner will always be remembered for - for not just winning a championship, but winning the first ever championship that would later groom several motor racing stars.

Named after the engine size in the series, Formula 3000 ran for 20 years helping to mould the careers of future F1 stars Damon Hill, Jean Alesi, Olivier Panis, Nick Heidfeld and Juan Pablo Montoya. And Danner was the series' first ever champion.

Christian Danner, 2006 © XPB/LAT

"It was a very crazy year," Danner recalls. "I did the complete World Endurance Championship with Porsche and some European Touring Car Championship races with Volvo.

"I did the Spa and Nurburgring 24-hour races and two Grands Prix, when I stepped in for Jonathan Palmer at Zakspeed after he broke his legs at Spa. And after I did my first Formula One GP, I finally did my first F3 race in Macau.

"And I did the entire F3000 championship. It was a wild and successful year.

"F3000 was an evolution of F2, because it was a European championship and this was a way to get rid of the Honda domination that we had. Unless you had a Honda engine, you were nowhere.

"F3000 developed into something quite interesting, but it was different to what it ended up like. Then, it was like a mini F1. We had our own teams. We had March, we had Reynard, there were Lolas and even a converted Williams.

"There were all sorts of different manufacturers and development programmes. There was a tyre war, which was Bridgestone against Avon. It was a little one, but it was there.

"There were some aero pieces, and there was some new suspension pieces and geometry. There were three races, and it wasn't like the F3000 it eventually became."

Earlier in Danner's career, he was on a three-year BMW driver development contract, jumping straight into F2 in 1981 with no single-seater experience. He only started to deliver at the end of 1983.

He signed for Bob Sparshott's unfancied BS Automotive team (which Danner pronounces using a Dick Van Dyke-style cockney accent) in '85, and he still had complete faith in their abilities to get the job done.

"I knew from day one I could be champion," he insists. "I knew that if I get what I want I will be champion. I knew - I was absolutely convinced. And I got what I wanted.

"I was so lucky with Bob Sparshott, who was a Lotus mechanic from the Jim Clark era. He was totally addicted to motor racing, and he just believed in me. He always said: 'Yeah, OK, if that is what you need, you can get it'. And I told him exactly what I wanted, and he got it, and we kept on winning.

"I wanted Bridgestone tyres, which was difficult for him to get, but he did. He always let me have a strange set-up on the car, which was a bit floppy, but it suited my driving style - the chief mechanic didn't like it in the beginning, but Bob said 'you're the fella'."

Christian Danner (Zakspeed 841) in the 1985 European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch © LAT

It worked. Danner surprised many, and the wins started coming. He was victorious around the drivers' circuit of Zandvoort and the notoriously difficult French streets of Pau.

"I won Pau, which was still the best track in the world. Take out the Nurburgring, Pau is the most difficult circuit in the world - then they still had off-camber roads, and it was fucking difficult.

"I should have won in Enna, but I didn't. I had a 28-second lead, but Bob did a modification on the fuel pick-up, because he was frightened to death of fuel evaporation.

"What happened, though, was exactly that. It evaporated, but it turned out his solution actually caused the evaporation."

Danner continued to rack up the points' finishes, and coming into the final round of the series at Donington Park, he was in with a shot of the title, lying third in the standing behind Emanuele Pirro and Mike Thackwell. Yet much of the race - his title-winning race and the highlight of his career - is now a blur.

"I can't remember it really. There was some pile-up at the start, I should have finished in fourth or something, but then I got bored and decided I should overtake them one after the other. But that was too boring.

"So, I thought, why not take the risk and win the race? So that is what I did. I took the chequered flag and thought 'oh, that's not so bad'."

Danner plays down his moment of elation, but at the time it was a big deal. He was the first German in the modern era to win an international motor racing championship. Yet, he doesn't see it quite like that

"My racing career is very, very English. I moved myself to England. I kind of grew up as a Brit - not only as a person, with the language and everything, but also racing wise. So for me I'm a bit anglophile anyway, but this made me a non-German racing driver.

"I was also a single-seater man. I always disregarded anything other than England in respect as far as race car technology was concerned. My origin has always been these six years in England.

"All the people I relate to and all the people I regard as being competent are English - Adrian Newey was my engineer in F2. We joke now, but I fired him because he was absolutely hopeless. He was hopeless! I was the only man ever in Adrian Newey's career to have fired him!

"Adrian knows why I did, and I was absolutely right, but going through time and now I'm working for television now and I see these guys and I just laugh. But we have a common origin - which is England."

Understandably, Danner believes his chances in Formula One never allowed him to show his full ability, while his F3000 championship year gave him exactly that. He believes that F3000 was such a strong formula that anyone that showed any degree ability there would always be quick anywhere else.

Christian Danner driving to 2nd in the GP Masters race in Losail, Qatar © Getty/GP Masters

"F3000 has always been underrated. Fast drivers in F3000 - you could put them anywhere in any racing car and they are fast. It is just a solid rule. So anyone who was fast in Formula 3000 or GP2, you put them in Champ Car, F1 car, a Group C sportscar, and they would be quick.

"But it depends so much on how much momentum and impact you can create when you enter Formula One. Because you can win anything you want, but unless you are in an F1 car, they don't realise you are alive.

"When you are driving a Formula One car, you have to be the flavour of the month, like Nico Rosberg, with fastest lap in his first GP. That's the way you have to enter Formula One.

"I started Formula One in a fucking Osella! It was alright, because it was an F1 car, but it wasn't a very good car. The Arrows BMW engine was frightening. Then, I did the Zakspeed, then the Rial thing. I never really made it to anything that had a good enough a car to show I was halfway decent."

But Danner isn't complaining. He is happy in his life now and is enjoying his Indian summer, securing second to Nigel Mansell in April's GP Masters event in Qatar.

"I never got near Nigel in my F1 career, so it was an honour to be standing next to him on the podium then."