Formula One, My Day and Today

My drive with the Tyrrell F1 team came due to the close relationship my mentor, Dr. Frank Faulkner, had with Ken Tyrrell himself. Indeed, because of that close relationship, I spent five months living with Ken and his wife Norah at their home in the quaint English village of East Horsely. I was invited to test, along with a number of other driver candidates for the available 1983 seat at a private test session at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. I remember the day well, it was freezing cold and I was the last of the drivers to drive. By that time it was almost dark. Once I completed my laps I was told I was the fastest of all the drivers, which was very pleasing. Ken told me he would need me for a further test at Rio, home of the Brazilian Grand Prix. I went to Rio and seemed to wait around for something like eight days, just waiting for a chance to drive the car. At last my chance arrived, unfortunately, I was told that I could start the test on some `B` specification tires followed by a quick blast on some used qualifying tires. My teammate for that year, and the lead driver, was Michele Alboreto. Michele had been out on the qualifying tires from new and set some times. At the conclusion of my stint, I was only fractions of a second off of Michele’s time. Ken was very pleased, not only with the close times, but with my consistency lap after lap. So, it was all that which confirmed me as part of the Tyrrell F1 team for the 1983 season. Just typical of the way Ken Tyrrell worked.

The car wasn’t too bad, the Williams and McLaren cars were better and you have to remember this was the era of the turbo engines, it was a season where everyone was looking for an engine supplier to move up for a new turbo power unit. The Williams and McLaren cars were about the only other normally aspirated cars on the grid at that time and we pushed both of them hard in Monaco where the power differential was not so significant. Unfortunately, Ken, proud to be a Cosworth customer, was waiting for their contribution to the turbo era, which didn’t materialize. By the time he realized they were not “in the game” it was far too late, everyone had done their deals and Ken was left in the cold. I think he should have noticed that Cosworth weren’t developing anything and possibly, for once, had taken his eye off the ball. Certainly it cost him dear, his headline sponsor Benetton soon withdrew and defected to another team for the 1984 season leaving the team with little or no budget and a real headache to find a replacement sponsor. I’d tried to get him to negotiate with the Toleman team, they had a turbo engine designed by Brian Hart. While it wasn’t the best, at least it was a turbo. Of course, Ken wasn’t having anything of that and subsequently lost Benetton as a sponsor to Alfa Romeo at the end of the season. Benetton ironically took over the Toleman team in 1986, perhaps Ken should have listened? My future in F1 was dependent upon that Benetton money, or at least money from another sponsor for me to continue. Ken and I had to part company simply because he could not get the sponsorship and became totally reliant on drivers who paid to drive.