The agent’s claim that the flat was built right next door to the palace was a little exaggerated, but a well-aimed stone thrown from my top window might just make it on to the two and a half thousand acres of beautifully manicured lawns which serve as the eleventh Duke of Marlborough’s back garden. (When the Americans debate how to increase engine performance they have a wonderful phrase: ‘You can dick around with the frills all you want, son, but there ain’t no substitute for cubic inches!’). The title of duke, the parklands and the money to build Blenheim Palace were gifts from a grateful Queen Anne – with the gentle persuasion of a delicate twist to her parliament’s arm – to John Churchill (great, great, great, great, great, great-grandfather to dear old Winston), back in 1704. He had planned and directed an inspired military victory over the allied forces of Louis XIV near the little town of Blenheim in Bavaria. Apparently, the Queen was thrilled at the outcome of the campaign and thought the result would deliver a marvellous crushing blow to the fighting morale of France. Certainly, the battle of Blenheim did alter the entire course of this tediously long and awfully costly war. She quickly rewarded the first Duke of Marlborough with a small token of her appreciation. By today’s prices that small token would be worth somewhere in the region of £50 million. Not a bad tip for a day’s work; it takes Schumacher and Villeneuve nearly all year to earn that sort of money.
After loading my tools into the Escort and saying my goodbyes, I finally managed to leave work at six o’clock. I was sad to go since my time with BMW had been great fun. Everyone wished me well; they gave me some music tokens and reminded me that if ever I needed a job I could always come back. I was genuinely very touched. I had worked with BMW for exactly a year on the very day that I left. Back home I loaded every spare inch of the Escort with clothes and books and things for the flat, and when it was full to bursting I rearranged everything and managed to get in a few more books. After a big hug from Mum, the handing over of my foil-wrapped dinner and a lot of fuss and tail-wagging from Heidi, it was time to go. Fully laden, the car felt decidedly reluctant to either accelerate, brake or change direction, which was a bit disconcerting. However, on the plus side, with the back of the car being so low and the front so high, the driver’s seat offered me a much better view of the stars. I was in no great rush (just as well) and together, under a frosty though brilliantly clear night sky, my old Escort and I slowly plodded along the roads to Oxfordshire. Off towards a new life.
The last time I remember looking at the clock it was 4:45 am, and I must have dropped off about five-ish. The next moment the alarm was ringing in my ear, loudly celebrating the arrival of seven o’clock. I awoke totally disorientated and without the slightest idea of where I was. When I tried to climb out of bed I couldn’t understand why the floor was only six inches away. I went to find the kitchen and make coffee. It was freezing cold. The kitchen smelled of fish.
I was at Benetton by 8:30, half an hour early, keen to set the right impression. Already the race-shop was a hive of activity with people bustling in and out, most drinking coffee from smart white mugs, decorated with the brand-new Benetton Formula emblem. The rabbit had gone, replaced by four brightly coloured flashes; quick streaks of yellow, red, blue and green, as though roughly applied from freshly loaded paint brushes. The result was a simple but striking design, another success by Benetton’s image-makers. I wondered if they’d miss one of these mugs if I was to take it back to the flat. I later discovered that these coffee mugs were brand-new, delivered to the factory only a few days before. Apparently, everyone else liked the idea of taking one home as well, and within three weeks nearly all of them had disappeared. More were ordered but they swiftly went the same way. As an experiment, plain white undecorated mugs were ordered instead, which lasted for well over five years.
I was presented to Dave Butterworth, the sub-assembly foreman, and he in turn introduced me to the other mechanics. I was given a blue lab-coat to wear – again adorned with the Benetton flashes on the breast pocket – followed by a tour of the factory. I was both apprehensive and exhilarated. The sub-assembly department was built along one side of the race-shop, glass panels making up one wall, so that when the mechanics stood at the single long work surface, they looked out into the race-shop. In reality it was a room within a room, built this way to keep the working environment as clean as possible and to separate the department from the relative vastness of the race-shop.
Directly on the other side of the glass panels, in the race-shop itself, were the three bays for the cars. The two race cars were housed at each end, while the third, known as the spare car, lived in the middle bay. The cars’ bays were basically three squared-off U shapes, with work surfaces and waist-high tool cabinets around the sides. Simple melamine walls, built about a foot higher than the cabinets, separated the area into three distinct bays; their low height allowing the race-team mechanics to lean over and chat with one another. When they did this their inevitable poses reminded me of old photographs taken in the 1930s of women hanging out their washing and exchanging the day’s gossip over the garden fences.
Each bay contained a B189 monocoque, which the mechanics were preparing for a forthcoming test. Each year Benetton numbers its cars in a systematic fashion: the B standing for Benetton; 1 for Formula One; and 89 for the year; so the 1990 cars would be numbered B190-01; B190-02, depending on the exact chassis number. It is usual for the leading teams to produce seven to ten chassis per year, depending on the amount of shunts they suffer. Back in 1989 I was told that the average cost of the materials to produce a Formula One chassis (I’m just talking about the monocoque) was in the region of £30,000. In 1998, just before I left Benetton, I enquired how much a chassis cost in raw materials and was again given a figure of about £30,000. With inflation and the cost of living constantly moving upward it’s good to know some things never change. A Grand Prix chassis is as astronomically expensive to produce today as it was ten years ago. And if you have to produce ten of them it soon gets rid of £300,000 worth of carbon a year. I once pointed these ludicrous figures out to someone at Benetton and he said: ‘Steve, listen and learn. No one ever said it was going to be cheap, and if it was cheap then everyone would be doing it.’ So, if you ever wondered why Grand Prix racing is so expensive, there’s your answer.
I was set to work alongside another fairly new recruit from Australia, Carl Gibson. We were to rebuild the uprights (the stub-axles, drive-shafts and hubs) for the three cars prior to the race mechanics fitting them to the gearbox and front wishbones. Every time the cars return to the factory they are stripped, cleaned, checked and rebuilt, regardless of whether the driver has reported a potential problem with a particular component. I was used to working in a clean atmosphere, but I was amazed at the precautions some people took to ensure total cleanliness. When the race mechanics removed the parts off the cars they would (should) wipe them clean with blue paper towelling, known as blue-roll (tons of this must get used in Formula One every year) and a chemical solvent such as trichloroethylene, a degreasing solution. To make life that little bit easier everyone but the most pretentious refers to the myriad of different solvents that are available simply as brake-cleaner or chemi-clean. As soon as the race mechanics hand the parts to the sub-assembly mechanics they are given a further spray with chemi-clean and another wipe.
Each mechanic had a big, soft cork mat to work on, which protected the white plastic-coated work surface from damage and allowed everyone a certain space of their own on the one long bench. I can’t really explain why but I always thought this cork mat was a good idea, and the one I used on that first day stayed with me throughout my entire time with Benetton. Even when the team moved to its brand new factory in Enstone I made sure that my cork mat made the journey too. Joan Villadelprat, who later joined us as team manager after a spell with Tyrrell, used to grumble at the sight of it in his new factory, moaning that it made his bright white race-shop look untidy. I have no idea why I was so attached to it, since it was just an
old cork mat, but I never felt comfortable working without it.
Anyway, it was on these cork mats – which some mechanics carefully wrapped in lengths of blue-roll for double-extra-cleanliness (I always thought this was going a bit too far) – that the axles would be stripped from the uprights and pressed from their bearings with a selection of special tools, all of which were made in-house. Then the bearings would be pressed from the uprights. At this stage the internal grease would be thoroughly washed from everything in one of several cleaning tanks, and the parts again dried off with chemi-clean. I found all of this attention to detail fascinating to watch, and it felt similar to working conditions in an operating theatre.
Carl would explain how he had been taught to proceed and then I’d have a go at the different stages of the rebuild myself. In many ways it was like being back at school. Much of what was being demonstrated was just standard mechanical procedure, all of which I had learnt ten years ago throughout my training as an apprentice. The work may have required no more than basic common sense and a few helpful guidelines, however the important thing for me was that I was working on components of a Grand Prix car. The tasks were quite straightforward and I was happy to do them, to be patient and to do whatever I was asked. I understood that I was a newcomer working in a totally new environment and the company had to gain confidence in my abilities before they would ever allow me to progress on to more demanding work. A simple ‘drop-off’, a careless assembly error by a nervous mechanic, can cause a Formula One car to stop on the circuit, perhaps on the last corner of the final lap, and Sod’s law would insist that the car was leading the race too! Best to take it steady and learn the trade stage by stage.
A few weeks later another big break came my way, directly after the first two races of the season. The engineers, Nigel Stepney and his race mechanics had left for America and round one of the World Championship. It was to be held in Phoenix in early March and the team didn’t return until after the second race, held in São Paulo, Brazil. On their return the race mechanics reported that they had found these first two races terribly hard work and the long hours had nearly drained them. Along with most of the other teams Benetton had suffered with brake problems in Phoenix. It was a street circuit and therefore consisted of a series of several short straights and very tight corners; all very demanding on brakes, which never received sufficient airflow or time to cool down before the driver was standing hard on the pedal again. This had given rise to overheating and very rapid wear of the material. Combined with this problem the mechanics had discovered hairline fractures running in between the ventilation holes around the circumference of the discs; as a result the discs and pads were being constantly changed throughout the course of the race weekend to try and stay on top of the problem.
Most people use one of two different makes of discs and pads, which are produced either by the French firm Carbon Industrie, which is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of composite racing brakes, or by an American company called Hitco. Carbon Industrie supplies the teams with several different brake specifications to choose from; three different disc widths are available as is the choice between either small or large carbon pads, depending on which size and make of caliper is being used. The brake calipers and master-cylinders are manufactured by two more companies, either AP Racing or Brembo, and these parts also come in a huge array of different sizes depending on track design and the team preferences.
Throughout these first two race weekends Nigel had been trying to keep ahead of all the extra work that these brake problems had provided, in addition to the multitude of other duties that his position as chief mechanic required. It had proved too much; the increasing brake work alone was enough to keep someone in a full-time job, and with Imola being the next race – another circuit notoriously demanding on brakes – the anticipated workload would only increase. Nigel wanted someone to travel with the race team and take control of this whole, somewhat chaotic, brake situation for him.
The moment I got wind of this potential job offer I put my hand up to volunteer. Working in sub-assembly was fine, but in the few short weeks I had been with Benetton I could already see that working directly with the race team would be the way forward. Purely on the basis of job security this seemed a sound move too, as actually running the cars on the world’s circuits is the main preoccupation of any Grand Prix team, and should the ugly head of redundancy rear upwards, it seemed obvious that the people directly involved with making the cars work would be the last to go. Also, I supposed that looking after the brakes would be something I could handle easily enough, regardless of my lack of race experience, and a position working with the race team would give me a good vantage point from which to observe the race mechanics and learn how their work is done. Besides, I wanted to travel and see something of the world, and if Benetton would take me and pay for me to go, then so much the better.
Despite my eagerness, Carl Gibson, my Australian work-mate, was offered the job first because of his slightly longer service with the company than me. However, miraculously (for me, certainly) he turned the position down, saying he was adamant that he wanted to progress through the ranks of the sub-assembly department and to train as a Formula One gearbox builder. He didn’t want to merely look after brakes for a living and he considered such a move as being a retrograde step. That decision and his reasoning were absolutely fine by me: I could see several major advantages in joining the race team, but if he wanted to organize his career via another avenue then good luck to him. I shook his hand in genuine thanks and gratitude. Actually, Carl resigned at the end of the season, leaving Benetton to join Eddie Jordan’s race team for their debut year in 1991. Some years later he met a Swedish girl in Estoril during a Portuguese post-race test. A budding relationship blossomed and shortly after she moved to England to stay with him. Carl ended his Formula One career with TWR Arrows, working with Damon Hill in 1997 – then the current World Champion – before finally waving goodbye to the pit-lane and heading back to live with his girlfriend in Australia directly after the 1998 Monaco Grand Prix.
With Carl turning the chance down, the job of running the Benetton race team’s brake department was offered to me. I eagerly accepted.
I was allocated some space out in the race-shop, on the mezzanine floor above sub-assembly, a space which also served as the travelling composite and fabricators area. When I looked over the railing the floor’s height gave a good view of the three car bays and the mechanics working below. I was given a couple of Lista cabinets – robust storage units with sliding steel drawers – to keep the brake stocks in. Nigel Stepney seemed pleased that I had volunteered for this new job (‘I like people who push a bit’) and introduced me to Steve Cook, the chief truckie, who would assign me some drawers and a work area on the race truck. When Nigel had gone back to his office the chief truckie told me not to bother calling him Steve, everyone knew him as Tats (he has several colourful tattoos, including one of Donald Duck on his leg). ‘Okay Tats,’ I said, ‘thanks very much for sorting out the drawers and workspace.’ Tats walked off, then paused for a second and looked back at me. ‘Just don’t even think about making a mess in the back of my truck with those stinking brakes; one smudge of black carbon on my clean paint-work and I’ll tip.’ He rounded the back of the truck and was gone, leaving me to ponder what he had said. Certainly, I got the general gist of what Tats expected of me, but I’d never heard anyone say ‘I’ll tip’ before and had no idea at all what he could possibly mean. Later I made a few discreet enquiries, discovering that ‘tip’ is an abbreviation for ‘tip me right over the edge’. This was the first time I’d heard it, but over the coming years up and down the pit-lane ‘tip’ became a common enough expression to hear; there are a few unusual variations too, my favourite of all being ‘That’s it! Now I’m really tipping; big-time bad and I mean it as well!’ (as well as what?).
If you spend long enough with the same relatively small group of people it’s inevitable that a certain idi
osyncratic vocabulary builds up, and I imagine that working with the Benetton race team would be a little like being in the forces in this respect. For instance, people would constantly refer to one another as Gambit: ‘Quick, Gambit, have a look at this!’ And if someone had just arrived on the scene and wanted to know what was happening they’d ask what the ‘sketch’ was, or if the same action was being repeated – such as another practice pit-stop – it would be introduced with ‘Okay everyone, same sketch’.
Tats had joined the team after years working with McLaren, where he was also chief truckie and tyre-man for Prost and Senna (at the circuits the truckies look after the preparation of the tyres and fuel). At the end of the 1993 season, after four years with Benetton, he was made an offer to return there and promptly left to be reunited with Ron Dennis in Woking. There is no rushing Tats with regards to forming a friendship – it is something that builds over time with a long trial period, and a relationship of mutual trust and understanding has to develop first. But once friendship is established it makes for a good strong bond. It took me more than two years to get to know Tats well, and on that first encounter in the back of the Benetton truck I was politely but firmly put on the first step of the ladder of respect.
After familiarizing myself with the layout of the race truck and measuring the internal size of the drawers, I wandered off to the fabrication department. I wanted to cut some material and make some drawer dividers in order to better organize and separate my precious cargo during their future trans-European treks. It would be awful to have to tell the chief mechanic that all his brand-new brake discs had chaffed on each other for the last two thousand miles and were now completely useless!
The Mechanic’s Tale Page 6
