Formula One Features

What CAN you say about Formula 1 in 1989? Even the most hardened and cynical observers have been getting the giggles this year. Neighbours was never like this! No, folks, Formula 1 makes Dallas look like a kiddies programme.

FISA President Jean-Marie Balestre recently suggested that "prestigious heads may risk a fall" over the Suzuka affair. At a press conference in Paris last week Balestre launched a further attack in the extraordinary battle of wills between FISA and McLaren.

The recent battle between McLaren and the FIA/FISA looks set to spill over into the civil courts. The controversy was triggered by the accident involving the two McLarens of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost on lap 47 of the Japanese GP. Senna was excluded from the results. The McLaren team appealed against the decision to the FIA International Court of Appeal: the highest court in motor sport.

There was a big technical reshuffle at Ligier in 1989 and an American - Ken Anderson - found himself in charge of the engineering team at Magny-Cours - all the way from Florida. Gone are the days of Ligier being a purely French team. Today it has Englishmen, Americans, Belgians and even a Brazilian...

It's early Friday morning. There's a chill in the air and a dusty racing track. At this time of day, a sane soul would be rolling over in bed and re-setting the alarm clock.

"What was the gap between Senna and Prost on the last lap?" asked a frantic French radio journalist, running his fingers through his hair aggressively. His job on the Sunday afternoon at a Grand Prix is to scream down an intercontinental telephone line to his studio in Paris. His reports go every five minutes. He needs constantly updated and instantaneous information.

When the lights go from red to green at a Grand Prix, 27 powerful cars accelerate hard towards the first corner. Twenty-six of them have qualified for the race; some of them have even survived the turmoil of pre-qualifying. The 27th car has not qualified -- but it is always guaranteed a place on the grid...

"I'm happy," said Gerhard Berger at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. "I'm happy to be alive. I was very close to not being alive in San Marino."

In the intense heat and humidity of a race like the recent Brazilian Grand Prix, drivers are working hard in extreme heat. They are encased in triple-layer nomex suits, balaclavas and full-face helmets. The body's reaction is to sweat. If, in the course of a race, fluid loss becomes too serious, drivers pass out. It is only natural. Unconsciousness is the body's inbuilt protection mechanicism, yet when a driver does collapse everyone throws their hands up in horror. How can it happen?

The 1989 season was not exactly what one might call an easy year for Camel Team Lotus. It will not be remembered fondly by anyone associated with the team, or indeed by the many fans who have followed Lotus since the days when Colin Chapman ran the show, when Lotus was THE team.

In Mexico City after the Grand Prix, Ken Tyrrell stood in his team's pit and proudly surveyed his domain. Michele Alboreto, driving the team's new 018, had just finished third. One of the first people to drop by to offer congratulations was Bernie Ecclestone...

The Indianapolis 500 Hall of Fame is the most incredible and comprehensive collection of cars which have won the world-renowned race. And a few surprises. Wandering around the marbled halls of the Hall of Fame is fascinating and a great education...

In England every pub has a slightly inebriated man in the corner. Invariably this gent has an opinion about Nigel Mansell: race ace, celebrity, harrassed hero, diva, family man, policeman -- you hear it all. It's fun listening, but what is he really like? What you hear in the pubs comes only from what appears in the newspapers -- and you cannot always trust that.

The French have a marvellous expression: "There is no such thing as a pretty good omelette." It is a similar story of drivers in Formula 1. There is no such thing as a pretty good driver in F1. They are all exceptional but, contrary to the belief of some in the pitlane, Grand Prix racing does not have a monopoly on talent. There is always room for the next new star although in recent years very few new boys have been admitted into this exclusive society of Formula 1.

Mauricio Gugelmin has an annoyingly good sun-tan. It comes from having spent much of the last few weeks lying on beaches in Brazil and playing about with jet ski. This device has tried to kill him on several occasions as Mauricio attempted such optimistic manoeuvres as looping-the-loop!

Like most Formula 1 drivers, Derek Warwick is a busy man. Catching him, even for a few minutes, is never easy and, as a result, this interview took place in a speeding hire car, diving through the traffic at dusk in Rio de Janeiro from the Autodromo Nelson Piquet to the Sheraton hotel. Dodging the meandering sugar-cane and alcohol-burning Volkswagen Beetles, which make driving in Brazil such an entertaining pastime, Derek was driving at a rate of knots which you had no desire to discover by looking at the speedometer. Questions and answers were interspersed by the torrents of "unusual" language as someone carved their erratic path across our bows.

Julian Bailey had a rough time in 1988. It began well with the opportunity to become a Tyrrell Formula 1 driver. He took it but the car was not very good and by the end of the year Bailey was looking for work. Getting a drive in F1 was going to be tough. And then along came Nissan with an offer for sportscar racing.

The boss of Benetton is not an artistic Italian, nor a down-to-earth Englishman. Peter Collins comes from Australia and he admits that it was the romance of the sport which first attracted him.

Jean-Louis Schlesser is a popular man -- particularly among the Italian tifosi -- in their eyes he is the man who ensured that Ferrari scored a 1-2 at the team's home Grand Prix last year. It was his Williams which made contact with Ayrton Senna's McLaren and resulted in the Brazilian spinning out of the lead. The general consensus is that it was not Jean-Louis's fault, but it brought him more publicity than an entire career in racing - and a splendid season in the World Sportscar Championship...

John Cowen is the Chairman of the March Group PLC. A year ago he had never heard of the company.