Highlights
Series
Explore
Key scenes. Act One: first Formula One test. He snaps up the chance to take part in a Lotus young-driver try-out at Paul Ricard - just weeks after breaking his back in an Oulton Park F3 shunt. Popping painkillers like sweets, he tells the team he is perfectly fit and is the last of the eager quintet to go out. As darkness falls he completes 35 laps, ignoring his agony until he is out of the car. It's worth it: he's rewarded with the test driver role for 1980.
Act Two: first Grand Prix. Lotus runs a third car at Zeltweg and the test driver steps up to the plate. It's an unforgettable day - for all the wrong reasons. Mechanics spill fuel down his back as they top-up the car on the grid. They drench him in water to dilute the petrol, but it's no good: he suffers severe burns to his backside and legs. His ordeal ends when the engine blows after 40 laps. Then he struggles to walk away; fuel has shrunk his...hamstrings.
Act Three: first podium. Shaken by a moment of horror at the start of the 1981 Belgian GP at Zolder - Arrows mechanic Dave Luckett is crushed between his team's cars as Siegfried Stohr runs into the back of a stalled Riccardo Patrese - the Lotus driver thinks he has just seen a man die and wants no part in the restart. But his wife, his staunchest supporter, urges him to stay in the car. Two hours later he stands on the podium beside Carlos Reutemann and Jacques Laffite.
