Masters Degree: Derek Warwick

There are four pivotal milestones that define Derek Warwick and his Formula One career.

He was a British driver who was widely regarded as one of the most talented to have never won a Grand Prix, something that can largely be put down to being in the wrong car at the wrong time.

When he should have been winning with Williams, he was struggling in a Renault. When he should have been with making waves with Lotus, he was treading water with Brabham.

After a staggering 146 Grands Prix starts, Warwick left Formula One with only a brace of second places and a seventh place championship standing to his name.

Yet it could have been so different.

Milestone 1: Choosing Renault over Williams

Had Warwick gone to Williams instead of Renault, he could be where Nigel Mansell is now. Indeed, Warwick was believed to be the hotter prospect in the early eighties.

In three seasons with Toleman, Warwick made his mark. After a first season plagued with an uncompetitive car, he slowly started to impress in 1982 before he strung together a run of points finishes at the end of '83.

This moved on to the radar of French manufacturer Renault, who signed him to a one-year deal for '84.

It was a good season. He immediately impressed in his debut with the team in Rio, only losing victory when his RE50's suspension collapsed. He secured his first set of podium finishes in the next two races in Kyalami and Zolder, and later on in the year he scored a popular second on home soil at Brands Hatch.

His results totalled 23 points over the season and had reason to believe he had the world at his feet when Williams and Ferrari came calling towards the end of the year. But he didn't know at the time that he had just had what would be his best season in F1.

"I had had options in '84 to sign for other teams but I never took them up," Warwick says. "I thought that signing for a manufacturer would be the right thing to do. I have to say it was a mistake to stay with Renault, but that's hindsight. I'm happy I made the right decision to stay with Renault at the right time.

"Other people would have made a different decision. Renault put a lot of pressure on me in the middle of '84 to re-sign. I had a little bit of conversation with Ferrari but a lot of conversation with Williams.

"Williams weren't going particularly well at that stage. I was offered a good deal to stay and I thought... well, it was the right thing to do anyway.

"I had an offer on the table from Williams, though not from Ferrari. To be honest, I didn't really take them very far - I actually wanted to sign for Renault. I used Williams as a bargaining tool."

Having opted to stay with the French manufacturer, things went downhill straight away. Warwick and teammate Patrick Tambay noticed how bad the car was to drive at the car's maiden test at Rio, so much so that they convinced Renault mechanics to get the '84 car out of mothballs and conduct a back-to back test.

"The '85 car was impossible to drive," Warwick recalls. "It was three and half seconds a lap slower than the '84 car, but we were never allowed to revert back to the '84 car.

"The tub was not strong enough, and the chassis was moving all over the place. I couldn't set the car up. I remember having a slow, second-gear accident at Monaco and the car broke in half. It was just putty. It was flexing all over the place. They didn't build a new car, and the management thought that it was the drivers. The relationship disappeared and it was disappointing.

"I thought Renault was the way to go. That's when my career lost momentum. If you look at me and Mansell, we were going up the ranks together and then we separated."

Milestone 2: Being vetoed by Senna as his Lotus teammate

After the disastrous 1985 season, Renault pulled the plug on their works F1 team. Warwick was released and had the opportunity to finally go elsewhere; to finally show what he was made of, and drive for a team at the top of the grid.

And Lotus came calling, but a plucky Brazilian put the mockers on it.

"At the end of '85 I had a chance to drive for Lotus for next year. I had a contract ready to sign and everything. It was all agreed, then all of a sudden I got a phone call. I thought it was to tell me to come and sign the contract, but it was to tell me that I couldn't drive for the team.

"Ayrton Senna didn't want me in the team. Ayrton was big in the team then. He was influential with the sponsor, and the South American business was very important."

In Warwick's opinion, this wasn't a malicious action against him, however. It was just that Senna was doing all he could to get the equipment he wanted to be a championship contender.

"Ayrton sent me a Christmas Card wishing me all the best for '86. I don't think he thought there was any problem with it - it was really weird. It was a genuine selfish decision. He was very difficult and selfish, was Ayrton Senna.

"He believed that the team could only produce one good car and he wanted total rights on the spare car. He realised if I came into the team I would dilute the effort and I would go in as equal number one with alternate use of the spare car. Which is why they signed Johnny Dumfries, who was happy just to get into a GP car.

"There was no negotiation - it was just that I was not driving. He saw me as a threat in terms of speed.

"I don't think I would have done the same thing in his shoes. I don't think I was hard enough. It shows that sometimes you need to be hard to be a great champion."

Milestone 3: Replacing de Angelis at Brabham

With no Renault and Senna locking him out of Lotus, all of a sudden Warwick was out of a drive in Formula One. There were no other options. He switched to Jaguar's sportscar programme instead, but did get a swift return to Formula One following the death of Elio de Angelis in a testing accident.

"It was a sad moment for all of us when Elio was killed at Paul Ricard," Warwick recalls.

"I didn't phone Bernie. I thought there may be an opportunity of a drive, but there is a right and a wrong time to contact a team after they have lost one of their drivers.

"Then, all of a sudden, out of the blue Bernie rang me and said 'Derek, do you want to drive for me?' I told him that I thought he was talking to other drivers.

"He replied: 'I had drivers ringing me hours after Elio was confirmed dead saying that they were available. I would not have them in my car.'

"So I went there and negotiated - actually I didn't; you don't negotiate with Bernie Ecclestone.

"I went in there thinking that Bernie needs me, the team needs me, and it is a difficult time for them and they needed a British bulldog to pull them through it.

"I went in there thinking whatever Bernie offers me, I'm going to want double.

"But then I hesitated. Bernie said: 'you don't understand, Derek, this is the contract'. So I signed the contract."

Yet Warwick admits that it was another poor decision to drive an uncompetitive car.

"It was a bad mistake, because the car was as bad, if not worse, than the '85 Renault. It was just horrendous, and I really struggled with the car. I was just killing time, and a lot of the good drivers were in the middle of two-year contracts, and I ended up driving for Arrows for the next three years.

"I made the most logical, correct decision in performance, not on finances. Whether it was a British team or a German team or whatever, I made the decision on what was best for Derek Warwick at the time to give him the best results."

Milestone 4: Racing on at Jerez in 1990

One of Warwick's best decisions, and one which perhaps he should be most admired and respected for considering the uncertainty he faced at the time, was choosing to race on after his teammate Martin Donnelly suffered a horrific accident in practice for the 1990 Spanish Grand Prix.

Hot on the heels of his own spectacular accident in the previous race at Monza, Warwick had to watch from the pitlane when his teammate had an even worse shunt in Friday practice. Not knowing the exact cause of the accident at the time, the mechanics and Warwick decided not to race.

"When I got to the circuit on Saturday, there were masses of media following me, and it looked like Martin Donnelly was going to die. It looked like Lotus were going to implode.

"I remember I got to the track and saw the mechanics put a reinforcement in the monocoque where it kept on breaking, and they convinced me 100 per cent that the car was safe.

"I ended up racing because I thought it was the right thing to do to save Lotus. And I went out there and the corner where Martin was 'killed' on my second lap I was flat through there. And I think that takes a lot of bravery, courage and commitment.

"I had to do it, because if I thought there had been a lot of easing off there, I would have had too many doubts. I qualified the car in the top ten."

Warwick retired from the race with gearbox trouble, and Lotus survived for four more seasons. Donnelly recovered, although he never raced a Formula One car again. But without a Grand Prix win, perhaps the 1990 Spanish Grand Prix should be what Warwick is remembered for.

"I'm proud of what I've achieved and proud of where I've come from," Warwick concludes. "I'm proud of the way I've conducted myself.

"When I sit here and have interviews such as this, I'm disappointed not to have won a Grand Prix. I felt maybe I had the talent to challenge for a world championship in the right situation.

"But I'm only one of a few hundred drivers who would have the same conversation. We have this inbuilt confidence that we're one of the best."

We want to hear from you!

Let us know what you would like to see from us in the future.

Take our survey

- The Autosport.com Team

Read and post comments