Tony Dodgins: Off Line

As invitations go, they don't come much better. Would the British press like to avail themselves of Mike Gascoyne's hospitality on board his Bavaria 50 sailing yacht moored in Cap D'Ail, then head on a few steps to a beachside restaurant, also in the company of Ian Phillips, one of F1's best raconteurs?

Is the Pope catholic? Do bears, etc...?

We arrived to find an amused Mike chortling at the latest issue of an F1 business mag which reckoned he'd gone from hero to total zero: from the tech director everyone in the paddock wanted to hire to the man working pointlessly for the team propping up the grid. Tanned, and having just sailed up from Barcelona with charming partner Sylvie, he didn't look overly bothered.

Mike has always been good value. He calls a spade a shovel. If ever you've listened to a bit too much propaganda, or you're in danger of being led astray, he's a good reality check.

I've got to admit to being a little perplexed when he turned up at Spyker at the back end of last year. Three years of a multi-million dollar Toyota salary and I figured he'd played the game supremely well, would stack his chips on the cashier's desk and sail into the sunset.

Why could he be bothered with the aggro of a back-of-the-grid, limited-budget team when he had come from the resource-rich facilities of Toyota? The only answer that really rings true is that Mike likes to be in control, and it had been Toyota's decision to dispense with his services. There had been some personality/methodology clashes and it hadn't all ended the way he would have liked.

To show there were no hard feelings, Gascoyne had entertained 20 of the Toyota boys on the boat the previous night, a couple of rips around the Bavaria's windscreen bearing testament to the riotous occasion.

When Mike arrived at Spyker the team already had a technical director - James Key - and still has. The two already knew each other from Jordan days, where James was known as 'Jimmy the Key' (his name, obviously, and also his propensity for exhaustive data analysis).

Key retains his TD role, while Mike's title is 'chief technical officer'.

"I had a chat with James right from the start and explained that I wasn't after his job," Gascoyne says. "Two heads are better than one and I had no interest in fetching in the factory milk and switching the lights out when I left. I'd done that. I told him that if he tried to do everything himself he'd probably be working all hours God sends and be headed for a divorce or a nervous breakdown. We discuss things together, decide on a direction and a timeframe and then he gets on with it."

On the subject of Spyker's own Adrian Sutil, too, he was more than complimentary. The words proved highly prophetic when, on Saturday morning, Monte Carlo presented us with an entirely wet free-practice session.

In the dying minutes, with the weather looking like it might extend into qualifying, Sutil shot to the top of the timing screens.

"Must be drying out a bit," someone said. But no, it was representative. Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton were still on the circuit and going for it. They couldn't budge Sutil from the top.

"Wouldn't it be bloody funny if it hissed down again this afternoon and Mega Mike's Spyker started from the Monaco pole!" someone else laughed. It would have been, but sadly the elements didn't oblige.

Sylvie, meanwhile, was hoping the weather would be kinder when it was time to up anchor and head out of Cap D'Ail. She'd been sick just the eight times on her last watch, while Mike caught up on some sleep. But that was fine, she said, she'd loved it, especially the solitude of sailing in the dark.

If it reached double figures though, she'd probably lob him overboard and F1 would have its very own Robert Maxwell.