Motor Racing’s Inherent Problem—Money

In the late 1960s—1969 I think—I started racing motorbikes in local races in Belgium. Not too powerful machines, just 50-cc, but it was a start. My car-racing debut was not until 1972. I won the Teddy Pillete Trophy for Formula Vee cars. I stayed with the formula, and had a few saloon car races, until 1974 when I was to move to John Surtees Formula 2 team. I soon became aware of the fight to get into race teams. As marketing director, my father was in charge of the budget of the audio company Bang & Olufsen Worldwide. Bang & Olufsen were sponsors of the F2 Surtees team. I honestly don’t know what happened from there on. I went to Rouen, and later to Austria, expecting to drive, but Surtees told me, “You’re not to drive.” My sponsor was on the side of the car but Watson and Dolhem were in the cars. I spoke to my father as I was completely baffled by the situation. Officially, there were two other Surtees for me and Pierre Dieudonne to drive, but neither of us got to even sit in the cars—they ended up as “T” cars for both Watson and Dolhem. I met John Surtees quite recently, at a motor racing show, and recalled the situation to him; he said it was a case of a bad sponsor and a bad driver. Maybe Bang & Olufsen paid. I know Dolhem was a driver who paid too, so Surtees got the money twice. It was a whole sorry business, which to this day, still leaves me very angry.

I eventually raced in Formula 2, in 1975, with sponsorship from Bang & Olufsen and Michele Vaillant. My teammate was Pierre Dieudonne; we finally made it despite the Surtees incident. In 1976, I had no budget. I raced in the Shell Sport Trophy with Bob Salisbury Racing; 1977 I challenged in the European Formula 2 Championship in a car entered by Bob Gerrard. We took a March Formula Atlantic tub and fitted a BMW engine into it. March was having problems with their chassis at that time; two races after we had done this, March themselves did exactly the same. They had many problems with their F2 car up until that point; they designated the changed car as the 772P. In 1978 and 1979 I drove again in F2 for Bob Salisbury and John MacDonald’s RAM Racing.