3 February 1993
Dear Steve,
I am able to advise you that with effect from 1 January 1993 your salary will be increased to £23,474 per annum.
Thank you.
The year 1993 was a busy one. At the end of 1992 we left for Japan from the old factory in Witney and came back from Australia straight to our brand-new factory near Enstone. As far as the race team was concerned, the whole move was seamless; a very neat, well-organized idea. While we were out of the country for the final two races, the factory staff had been working flat out, moving all the machinery from one place to the other: mills, lathes, drills, folders, guillotines, metal, carbon, everything. On my first day at the new factory two things struck me about the place – it seemed enormous and it seemed very, very white. Some may even say a little too white. Great expanses of white painted walls, white work surfaces, white cabinets, white window surrounds, white litter bins (each sporting a Benetton emblem); we were all issued with brand-new, bright white lab-coats too (each sporting a Benetton emblem). In fact, the only thing that had managed to escape this minimalist colour scheme was the cushioned flooring, which was grey. Presumably you can’t get it in white.
At Witney, the stores area had been a small, cramped affair, with John and Alec, our two storemen, gradually becoming buried under ever-increasing piles of supplies and car components. As the team continued to grow, every spare inch of shelf space was eventually filled. The only option then was to store things in boxes on the floor, but the demand for more and more storage space continued unabated. Boxes were stored on boxes, then more boxes would arrive, which inevitably found themselves being stacked on top of boxes which had previously been stacked on top of other boxes. Slowly the stores became completely engulfed, turning the task of finding anything into a sort of black art, requiring John and Alec to make mental contact with the desired component buried deep within the dark reaches of the storage pit.
‘John, have you got a Schumacher brake pedal pad, please?’
‘Brake pedal pad for Schumacher, now, let’s see; they came in from Inspection about two days ago, then they went to be plated, they were picked from there last night so they should be in that bag there, on top of that box to your left, just to the right of the stuff that’s just come in for the cleaners. Unless Alec’s already put them upstairs, in which case they’ll be…’
The stores at the new factory appeared gigantic by comparison, with more floor space than the total combined area used by the machinists, the fabricators and the stores when we were at Witney. The machine shop is four times bigger than it was; the same is true for the fabrication and composite shops. The security house and its automatic gate (white) extend an initial warm welcome to any guests; there is even a heli-pad for those harassed, indispensable executives who simply have not got time to travel by road with the rest of us. However, regardless of that little bit of self-indulgent pretentiousness, it must be said that the new factory is a great improvement on what went before. In 1993 it was said to be the most advanced facility in the world for producing race cars; now with the proposed new McLaren building and the recent completion of British American Racing’s new facility, I think that claim could be challenged but, nevertheless, the Benetton building is still very impressive.
The nearest town to the factory is Chipping Norton, which lies approximately halfway between Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon. An old market town on the edge of the Cotswolds, it is a relatively small community of about five thousand people. Actually, the Chambers’s Encyclopaedia of 1895 quotes the populace as being 4222; reassuring to think that in over a hundred years it has remained exactly the same. Back then at the turn of the century, however, Chipping Norton was a thriving centre for commerce, with its huge Bliss Mill turning out some of the Empire’s finest tweed. The thick woven cloth was loaded aboard steam trains and dispatched straight from the station to the world’s most discerning clientele. How things have changed. The mill burnt down, the station was closed and the international tweed industry is all but dead. Despite the loss of Bliss Mill, Chipping Norton soldiered on until the arrival of the next great employer, Parker Knoll, the furniture manufacturer. Parker Knoll is well known because of its lounge chair, the Parker Knoll Recliner, which was an absolute exec must-have in the mid-sixties and early seventies. The company has since been through a very lean period (as have the rest of the planet, of course) but it survived and is still producing a range of quality furniture in Chipping Norton, although I suspect that demand for its magnificent recliner has dwindled since its earlier heyday.
To survive the late nineties, the town has had to diversify yet again, and the main industries now appear to be antiques and tourism. Shops selling such rarities as ‘interesting, turn-of-the-century cake tin’ or ‘an amusing eighteenth-century wooden spoon’ seem to spring up all the time (how amusing is it possible for a wooden spoon to be?). At the edge of the market place, right in the centre of town, stands a huge five-storey building, converted and now dedicated solely to the furtherance of the antique trade; they even have a tea room where, after browsing through the myriad of interesting and amusing kitchen implements, you can refresh yourself with a welcoming cuppa, a nice slice of Dundee cake and a good sit-down.
I visited one such establishment – although an altogether much smaller concern – run by a rustic-looking chap who appeared to specialize in what could only be described as the more affordable end of the market. In one corner of his dimly lit premises he had a selection of second-hand books arranged in comfortable, informal style. After an hour of rummaging I selected the three titles which best suited me, including two written in French, which I rather naively hoped would help improve my language skills. I asked the chap how much I owed him and he told me that I had to buy £10 worth. The books weren’t priced and there was no sign indicating that his clientele had to purchase a pre-set amount (presumably, pricing books and sign writing were to be the day’s priority jobs directly after the reading of the morning papers). I said that I didn’t want any more of his books and that a price of £10 was a steep sum to pay for the three somewhat dog-eared editions which I’d just spent the last hour choosing. He said I had to take £10 worth to make it worth his while. I said that I’d gladly pay him £1, even £1.50 for each of the three I’d picked, but that was it; a sale of £4.50, surely better than no sale at all and quite reasonable remuneration for reading the papers, I thought. No, it had to be £10 worth or it just wasn’t worth his trouble. I silently congratulated him for sticking both to his principles and his stringent trading policy, replaced his stock neatly on the floor, hoping not to disturb the look of his dumped-on-the-floor sales display, and swore an eternally binding oath never to enter his shop again for the duration of my life.
Over the years people have arrived, people have left, people have been born and people have died, but Chippy still keeps plodding on. I like the place, I like it very much. So much so, in fact, that I bought a house there. As a town it has everything I needed – a superb tandoori restaurant, two wine shops, an excellent bookshop and a cashpoint machine. And, in the Chequers, Chipping Norton undoubtedly has one of the best pubs in the world. The Chequers is a real-life Cheers, a pub where Josh, the landlord, seems to know absolutely everyone. Go in once and the next time he’ll remember your name. Standing well over six feet tall with a great mass of greying beard, Josh was born to be a pub landlord. He has that rare, special gift which allows him to chat to everyone, possessing sufficient knowledge on any given trade, pastime, or subject of study, to start and sustain an absorbing conversation. Whatever your own profession or passionate hobby may be, Josh is able to converse in your language. Go to the Chequers alone and you will chat as old friends; go with friends and he will unobtrusively serve drinks and discreetly leave you alone. The pub has won the Best Pub Award so often that in the end the brewery had to omit the Chequers name from the entry list to give someone else a chance. Difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes it such a compelling place, it�
�s just a pub after all, but it’s the perfect pub: good food, good beer, neither too busy nor too quiet, too posh nor too scruffy. I know that such a thing shouldn’t influence one of life’s major purchases, but if I’m being honest I have to confess that the Chequers was the main reason I bought into Chippy.
There had been one other change to Benetton’s company policy since Tom Walkinshaw’s involvement: we now had to start work at 8:30 as opposed to 9 in the morning. Apparently all the TWR companies started work at this earlier time and the alteration would bring us in line with them. The concept struck me as being rather unfair, for as our finish time was to remain at 5:30 (for whatever that’s worth in Formula One), it appeared – technically at least – that the net result was having to work an extra two and a half hours of unpaid overtime every week. I pondered this proposed scheme but decided not to get involved; it wasn’t really something to which I thought I could lend my full support. I continued to arrive at the new factory at my usual time; the only difference being that I now arrived fifteen minutes late instead of fifteen minutes early.
The unveiling of Benetton’s new facility marked a wider-reaching change too, a geographical one this time. The hub of the Formula One industry used to revolve around Woking in Surrey, to the west of London, with McLaren International, Tyrrell, Ferrari, Benetton and Onyx, all, at one time, having their operations based in the south of England. The desire to be based close to one’s competitors is certainly not unique to motor racing; look at California’s Silicon Valley or London’s Fleet Street for similar examples. Grouping brings many benefits, not least being the increased prospect of successfully poaching staff from one another without the added burden of having to offer the incentive of a relocation deal. Also, around any gathering of big, like-minded companies there inevitably grows a useful plethora of associated small businesses, providing a multitude of outside services which can be easily utilized. In the case of Formula One, this means that a selection of electronic specialists and harness builders, precision machinists and metal finishers, decal manufacturers, composite specialists, even quality drycleaners are all close at hand.
However, much has happened over the last ten years: Onyx folded in 1990 (I was so relieved I didn’t get offered the job there!); and the Surrey-based Barnard/Ferrari, and the Barnard/Benetton projects folded too. Eddie Jordan went completely against the grain and opened his headquarters next door to the Silverstone circuit, which is in Northampton (north of Oxford). At the end of 1998 Tyrrell ceased to exist and its new incarnation, in the form of British American Racing, has built its new factory in Brackley (very close to Jordan’s place). Stewart Grand Prix has opened up at Milton Keynes and TWR-Arrows has built its headquarters in Leafield, just outside Witney. Unconsciously, the sport has gradually moved further north, resulting in a complete shift to the industry’s nucleus. Now, McLaren is the most southerly team, with Williams, TWR-Arrows, BAR, Jordan and Stewart all encamped around Benetton.
As I mentioned in the last chapter, the Italian Riccardo Patrese joined us from Williams in 1993, replacing Brundle to become Schumacher’s third Benetton team-mate since 1991. From a point of view of testing and developing our new car, signing Patrese was a perfectly sound move. He had been with Williams throughout the entire evolution of their all-conquering FW14B (in fact, he had been with them for five years), and as the B193 was to be an active car, having such a professional driver on board, one who was thoroughly proficient with the most successful active suspension system in the world, could only be a major advantage. The wealth of experience and knowledge that Riccardo had gained at Williams and which he brought with him to Benetton undoubtedly saved us weeks, if not months, in both our active suspension and our semi-automatic transmission research and testing programmes. In Formula One, where development time is everything, his inclusion in the team was invaluable.
On the downside, however, was the fact that he didn’t really want to be with us. It was a sad state of affairs really. Riccardo had been happy at Williams; he had won races at Williams; he had been runner-up in the Drivers’ World Championship at Williams (a result he referred to as Vice Champion). He knew the team, the team knew him. But when Frank had announced that Alain Prost would be joining his team in 1993 (following a year’s sabbatical after his dismissal from Ferrari in 1991) Riccardo had assumed that this would put him out of a drive. It was a fair assumption too: Nigel Mansell had just stormed the 1992 Drivers’ Championship, and the chances of Frank getting rid of Mansell in order to keep Patrese in the team must have seemed close to a billion-to-one against.
It had been announced quite early in 1992 that Brundle would not be driving for Benetton the following year, and knowing that Flavio had not yet made a decision on Martin’s replacement, Riccardo moved quickly in order to consolidate his position. With 240 Grand Prix starts, six wins and 261 points to his credit, Briatore and Walkinshaw must have been thrilled at the prospect of having Riccardo in the team; here was a seasoned professional, a perfectly able and winning driver (and one that just happened to be carrying all that invaluable Williams active suspension experience) asking to join and drive for Benetton. Yes! Of course you can drive for us, Mr Patrese; please, sign here! I’ve got a pen if you need one! Then, shortly after Riccardo had signed for Benetton, Mansell’s own negotiations with Williams collapsed and the next thing the world knew was that Nigel had left for America taking his Drivers’ Championship with him. In light of this development it now became evident that Patrese’s job at Williams would still have been open for him, the net result being that he would have partnered Prost instead of Mansell. Damn! Damn! Damn!
Now, I don’t know this for certain but I suspect that as far as Frank was concerned, Riccardo could have rescinded his newly signed Benetton contract and stayed with Williams. In fact, he would probably have been more than happy for their working relationship to have continued for another few years (securing Riccardo’s knowledge of the Williams active project would have been justification enough for some sort of contract extension). However, I don’t imagine that Benetton were remotely keen to let go of such a valuable new employee, though perhaps an agreement could have been reached whereby Patrese was released back to Williams; but the bottom line was that Riccardo decided to stick with his Benetton agreement, and that decision says an awful lot about him. He is a real gentleman, a man of ethics and one who is genuinely true to his word. Despite preferring to have stayed with Williams he had agreed to work with Benetton and as far as Riccardo was concerned that agreement – be it either verbal or written – was as firm as being set in stone.
So with Patrese quite prepared to honour his commitment to us it was left up to Frank Williams to find a replacement for him. Enter: Damon Hill, the Williams test driver, a man who knew the team well and who, like Patrese, had driven thousands of miles in a Williams active car. And who could they find to replace Hill as the team’s new test driver? Enter: David Coulthard, promoted into Formula One from F3000.
There was only one aspect that I found unsatisfactory about all of this, and that was the fact that Mansell had turned his back on Formula One and decided to drive in the US Indy-car series the very next year after clinching his Drivers’ Championship. To my mind I don’t think that decision was ethically correct; I didn’t agree with his decision back in 1993, and I still don’t agree with it today. I would have no objection to the move if he had decided to go to the States at the end of 1991 or at the end of 1993 (providing he didn’t retain the Championship), but to abandon the sport without defending his crown in the following year’s competition seems wrong to me. It’s probably just a personal thing but I believe that if you win something you should then compete against your rivals to defend the right to retain it or, in the face of superior talent, compete and graciously pass the prize to the new winner. For whatever reason, perhaps Mansell couldn’t have stayed with Williams but it’s impossible to think that a reigning World Champion couldn’t have found a Formula One seat somewhere. Not enough money on of
fer from a smaller team? Let’s face it, when you’ve just been crowned Formula One World Champion you’re not going to be short of a few bob; if you never earned another penny for the rest of your life you’d still be a multi-millionaire. This is not a situation unique to Mansell, of course, there are many such examples (Prost did exactly the same at the end of 1993), but I just cannot agree with it.
My criticism of his departure is in no way a denunciation of the man himself, however. Mansell is a wonderful personality, a true showman, full of character, something that many of the new breed of drivers seem to lack. In his prime years he was the Bulldog Drummond of Formula One, capable of taking an average car and wringing every last drip of performance out of it; either that or driving it so hard that the car would simply blow up under the strenuous demands he would make of it. During one race, I remember watching him drive out of the Ferrari pits with such fury that he tore both drive-shafts out of the gearbox. For a few seconds, accompanied by great plumes of white tyre smoke, the V12 screamed and wailed in complaint, then BANG! Game over.
Another of Mansell’s great appeals is that he’s capable of producing and sporting the most astonishingly big moustache. A huge, bushy affair, a real classic of a moustache, one which seems to possess a life and a personality all its own. The media loved Mansell too, not merely because of his moustache (although that must have been an added attraction for the photographers and cartoonists), but mainly because he always had a story to tell about how tough his weekend had been, or how much his foot was hurting or that he had a headache like there was no tomorrow. Things like that just don’t seem to happen anymore. The sport has changed. The drivers have changed. Anyway. Nigel Mansell did take his Formula One crown and leave for the States, so that’s that.
The Mechanic’s Tale Page 14
