by Alan Jones
I really wanted Daniel for the A1 team but I couldn’t get him because of contracts, and he has got a lot better since then. He’s just a really good kid – and very competitive. For all that smiling he is really what they used to call Glenn Seton: ‘a smiling assassin’.
He grows horns when he races. He is there to win, and he’s been able to do it without giving up his personality. As for drinking champagne on the podium out of a race boot – I can’t think of anything worse, but he does it and now he owns it. The beauty for him is that he is loved all over the world because he is bloody fast and likeable. He’s bankable.
Mark Webber
I have a lot of time for Mark Webber. He is very restrained and guarded, but he is typical of the modern Formula One driver, he’ll roll out the lines you want to hear easily. He’s a very proud Australian too and he has been a very good diplomat and promoter of the sport in Australia. If you think about it though, he’s done nothing controversial. Boring.
He didn’t win the World Championship, but he won nine grands prix. He should be proud of his achievements; it’s hard enough to get to Formula One and even harder for an Aussie. On one hand, we’re geographically disadvantaged. On the other hand, we’re geographically advantaged, because we’re far away from a lot of the shit that goes on in Europe and America. But you can’t exactly zip over to Monza to walk the paddock.
I’ve tried to get Australian companies to understand what they can get out of backing someone like Mark, or Daniel now, but they just won’t understand. There is not a lot of corporate vision in this country.
Eventually Mark made it there with not much support and he almost won the World Championship. He did end up with the World Endurance Championship and I think he is now running Porsche’s racing programs, which tells you something about his intelligence and knowledge of the sport.
23
Racing Philosophy
WHEN YOU GO motor racing, you’re there to win. Which means you must think you can win. There is no point getting out of bed in the morning and going to the track if you think otherwise.
If you don’t think you are the best, or as good as the best, there is no point pursuing the career of a racing car driver. There is no point if you don’t think, given equal equipment, that you can beat the others. You must go to the circuit with that philosophy. Except if you are getting fifty thousand in a brown paper bag and you are just going for that. That is still a win, just a different sort of win.
My philosophy was always to dot the I’s and cross the T’s at the beginning of each season. I was chasing the best equipment I could get. I was making sure all the insurance and other protection I needed were in place. I needed to know before I went onto the track that Beverley, and later Christian, would be okay no matter what happened to me.
Then get on with it.
You knew that you would have two or three good frights a year. I liked to get mine over and done with early. Just go out and go hard. It’s as simple as that. When I sat my bum in the car I always gave ten-tenths, except for that one time I drove it off the track at Portugal. I’ll give 110 per cent if I know the team is giving 100 per cent. If they are not, the tendency is not to drive your heart out. It was a psychological thing for me: I always needed to know it was as important to them to win as it was to me.
If the team was with me, I was going to be a very hard man to pass; anyone who wanted my spot was going to have to work hard for it. If anyone was in front of me, the slightest opening was seen as a gap. I would push people, let them know I was there … hello, here I am in this mirror, and now I am in this one.
It doesn’t mean you are a pain in the arse just for the sake of being a pain in the arse. If you are being lapped, don’t do anything silly or unexpected, and let the other driver through as easily as you can. You move out of the way, just as you do when you’ve done your qualifying lap and others are still going for it. For those guys that were unaware or just too ignorant to get out of your way … they were complete wankers. They were always given a bit of a talking-to afterwards, especially given some of them would be the same ones who’d whinge when it happened to them.
I always knew who was in front of me and knew what liberties I could take with each them. Like, with Gilles Villeneuve, you had to take into account that it was Villeneuve and that you had to be well and truly past him before you did anything. He’d hit you before he’d blink his eyes. There were others that if you stuck your nose in they would move over.
In terms of where you raced, you tried not to have favourite tracks and least favourites, because that would just be asking for trouble. It’s hard though: I liked Silverstone and the Österreichring before they were altered; big, fast, sweeping curves that were a challenge to the driver and required balls. I tried like hell not to think about how much I disliked Monaco because I wanted to go well there too. It was all in the head.
Regardless, I used to just treat them as they came. I didn’t get excited about a circuit I liked or flat about a track I didn’t. Like or dislike, it was a venue where I had to race. I always used to say, ‘The circuits I like the best are the ones closest to a hotel and an airport.’
Above all else, I was a driver. I didn’t break down my driving style and analyse my speed in corners, check my pulse and then see if my cheeks had colour. Frank Williams used to say the only training I ever did was by lifting my arm at the local pub. In reality I did more than that, but relaxation to me was important for my mental state on a race weekend.
Today I would have hated debriefs … hours of looking at computer screens and talking about why I did what I did there because the data said my left eye twitched on my first qualifying run and it was the right eye on the next run. Once I’d raced, I just wanted to get out of the track as quickly as I could. I would debrief with Patrick Head, tell him everything I could remember and then let him do what he did best. Frank was always a bit of a character. He’d sit there with his clipboard and at the appropriate time he would say, ‘Driver comfort?’ That was Frank’s input. I always used to say, ‘Yeah, good! No dramas.’ One day I said, ‘No, I think the steering wheel’s off-centre a bit.’ He looked satisfied – he had something to write down.
One of the guys at the factory said I was hard on the gearbox, but I had very few mechanical failures that were my fault. I had very few non-finishes due to riding the car too hard. And I probably saved a few engines by having a very good feel for vibration and noise. I couldn’t say what it was or why it came about or what to do about it, but I could come in and say, ‘This has got a vibration.’ And it did.
Touring cars were slightly different in terms of tolerance, but again I didn’t break many because I was ham-fisted or changing gears too hard. One of my philosophies is that when you hop in a car, you drive 100 per cent (unless you are so far in front you don’t need to). You change gears as quickly as you can, you brake as late as you can and you jump over curbs if you can. If they haven’t built a car to take that, well tough.
Today I feel a little sorry for the drivers. The cars are so good there is little room for a driver to have the same impact we did. Our braking distances were longer, so there was more room to get on the brakes later. Today, there’s no such thing as ‘out-braking’. The cars are so similar, and the performance of the brakes is so good, you just put yourself in a position where you spoil a bloke. If that means running into a corner side by side, he’ll have to relent. In the old days you would go desperately late and hope it was going to slow enough. Which is what we saw Senna do so brilliantly at Donington in that wet race, his car control that day – and most days – was just phenomenal.
It was like the day at Hockenheim 1981 when I out-braked Alain Prost at Sachs Curve and slipped between him and René Arnoux. That was a big opportunistic move. I knew Prost was cautious and we caught his teammate at just the right spot, and wham. There I was. It looks spectacular on the TV, and it felt great in the car. That was the sort of feeling I went racing for.
I’
m not saying the drivers aren’t important today, but I think in terms of pure race craft we had more of an impact. But no matter what happens with rules and cars, the cream always still rises to the top, and that is what tells you the driver still has real value.
I used to go back to the hotel every night and think about how I could improve my lap. I used to think, ‘Maybe in turn 4 I could try this,’ but that was about the extent of it. It was just a corner that had to be taken and you took it. If you could work at a better, slightly quicker way, then you do that. You may even do it by paying attention to others, but I was a race driver more than a thinker.
Today I enjoy my role as a race steward when I get to it. I think it is important to have ex-drivers in the decision-making process, and we have such amazing technology at hand. We have three or four big screens. We have the ability to replay an incident from many angles, we can call up their radio and listen to what they had to say. We can access their telemetry, so we know everything they know in the pits. We can see if they lifted under yellows or not, which is important.
It is also important that more than one person is involved in the process. Charlie Whiting is the Formula One racing director, and he sits in race control, where he might spot something and then refer it to us. We might already be on it though, and we’ll make a decision on whether it was stupidity or bad luck or intentional. If it is stupidity, we determine what penalty we’ll give him, based on what the manual tells us we can do. There’s a bloody book for everything these days. Sometimes we do it afterwards and talk to the drivers, which gets in the way of me leaving the track quickly. I do it for the honour of doing it – they meet our expenses, but that is it.
For me though, it keeps me involved and I love that. I love car racing, and I love that I can still be involved now that I am in my 70s.
24
Family
THINGS GET COMPLEX in this chapter, but one thing that is clear is that I love my family, all of it. Even the ones I was never really a father too, and yes, I have regrets there but I can’t change the past.
Nothing I do is uncomplicated and obviously I get myself into these binds. The broader family has few kids from many different ways and directions. None of it, except Christian, was planned. I spoke earlier about the early days with Beverley, so I don’t plan to do that here. Suffice to say my divorce from her in 1997 was more about financial pain than anything else, we had grown to a point where that was the best thing for the both of us.
When I first got to London it was so different to Australia, it was alive and so free and open. All the stories you hear about the place in the late 1960s, they’re all true. And for a confident young lad from Australia this was like a lolly shop. And maybe I took after the old man more than I realised; when it came to the desires of the flesh I was like him. I’m not now of course, but when I was younger I was a bit weak in that department.
Carnaby Street was in full swing and Earl’s Court was a lot of fun with all the Aussies. I was 19 and had a big share apartment with a bunch of other Aussies and there were parties on virtually all the time. We had various people coming and going at all times of the day and night. There was always something happening.
Kay was one of the girls who came around, a ‘counties girl’ who used to find her way to our place when she was in London. You’ve got to remember it was a very different time back then. We had some fun together and that led to the bedroom, but it was never very serious. After a while she hooked up in a more permanent way with one of the blokes sharing the apartment, Joe. She ended up staying with him in the apartment for a few weeks. One day there was a knock on my bedroom door and the two of them were standing there.
‘We want to have a talk with you. Kay’s pregnant, and you’re the father.’ I was already packing for my trip back to Australia and they were happy together, so that was it really. I don’t think they were after anything from me and I think they were happy with my approach.
They were together for a very long time and even moved to Joe’s native Tasmania. Emma was born and eventually they had two other daughters too. I think Emma had some sort of inkling that she wasn’t Joe’s daughter, but you’d have to ask her that. Her sisters are both natural blondes and she has jet black hair. It was when Joe and Kay split up that Kay and Emma had a bit of a talk one night around a fireplace and over a couple of glasses of red. I think that’s when it came out about me being her dad.
The first meeting with Emma was pretty emotional. She came up to Symmons Plains when I was there one weekend, and she turned up with her dog in the back of the station wagon. We all got together and went back to the hotel that I was staying at and had a big dinner and that was it.
She was in her 20s at that stage. Now 20-20 hindsight is a wonderful thing to have, but what has happened has happened and I cannot change that. Of course I would have liked to have been there, but from Emma’s point of view, she had a father and she was happily living with her family in Tasmania. It wasn’t for me to knock on the door and upset that.
I think between Joe, Kay and me we had an unspoken thing that they were going to bring her up and I would stay out of it until such time as they chose to tell her or she found out. I’m not a doorknocker and I respected that until it all came to its natural conclusion.
Emma and I talk nowadays, but I do wish I’d been there for the growing up. To watch her grow into the woman she has become. But as they say, such is life. She has two daughters now, so I have two grandchildren and that is special too.
Christian was next, the only one who was planned. We’d tried for quite a while to have children. Bev and I spoke about it for a while and we decided to adopt. It is one of the best things we ever did. One of the best things I ever did.
Christian was born and given immediately to Beverley. He was born on 27 September 1978. I was driving car number 27 and I was at the end of what was my best season to date. I left England for the Canadian and United States grands prix without any children and came home to a baby.
I couldn’t love Christian any more or any less, and as far as I’m concerned, Christian’s my son, end of story. I love him dearly. I hope that I’ve been able to give him all the things he wanted in life – except a Formula One drive. I had a fair crack at helping him out with that, but in his eyes I just didn’t do enough there. In my defence, I don’t think he pulled his weight fully in that arrangement.
He won the Asian Formula Three Championship. He came third and fourth in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia when, and I know this sounds like a typical father talking, he failed to win both of them through no fault of his own.
Christian’s got a lot of ability and could be out there racing competitively today if he put his mind to it. But that is up to him.
It is funny, we look very similar and people often say he’s a ‘chip off the old block, it must be in the genes’. Particularly when he won the Asia Formula Three Championship but no, to his credit it was simply because of his ability. I think he was more inclined to go motor racing because he was my son than if he was a butcher’s son. I think you’re influenced by your surroundings and he shows that talent behind a wheel doesn’t need to be inherited.
Camilla is my next child and I suppose she helped me with my divorce from Beverley, whom I was still with when I met Robyn, her mother, through a mutual friend. Well, one thing led to another and we ended up in some sort of relationship, some people might call it an affair. I don’t think Bev was overly impressed with the situation when she found out; if only I was an Arab and was allowed more than one wife. Bev didn’t see it that way.
So Camilla was the result of that union, and she’s a lovely girl, very bright and very pretty. She’s currently working for lawyers in Canberra.
I don’t see her as much as I’d like. There have been several occasions where she’s been in Brisbane and I’ve had to go overseas. I’m sure a lot of the time she thinks I’m avoiding her, which I’m not. I do love Camilla, she’s my daughter and I wish I could spend more ti
me with her.
So from that part of my life, the only regret I have is not being able to spend enough time with either Emma or Camilla. Today, I have a young family with twins that are still children – although they probably don’t see it that way – and that takes my time. Distance is also a major factor; I’ve got Christian and the twins up here with me on the Gold Coast, but Emma is in Tasmania and Camilla is in Canberra for the time being.
That brings me to Amanda, who I met a few months after I had separated from Beverley. Maybe 20 years ago, one of Amanda’s best friends was going out with a guy I know up here on the Gold Coast. I was out on the Broadwater on my boat and Bob – the boyfriend – was on his boat. We used to hook our boats up and tie a rope onto the bow, let it run the whole length of the boat in the current down to the back of the boat, and then the kids that were with us would jump off and follow the current, then grab the rope and come back on the stern. Along with those kids was me too.
Amanda came over on a jet ski to see how her daughter Amber was getting on and I thought, ‘Oh that’s not a bad sort.’ I did a bit of work there, but she didn’t want a bar of me. Initially, I think she only saw the bad side of me the first couple of times, the jungle juice. Eventually I wore her down and we went out to lunch and from that point on we’ve never really been apart.
This was me in salesman mode, I had to sell myself. I wore a shirt and tie to lunch in Surfers Paradise – that was working hard I can tell you now. People must have been laughing at me. But I was putting on Mr Nice Guy. It has worked out really well, Amanda is my best friend and I can’t imagine not being with her. It helps that she is successful in her own right. She is very bright and good at what she does.
Amanda had Amber and she was living with us when Amanda and I moved in together. Amber now lives up in the north of Queensland working as a teacher, but I think we thought that was it for us in terms of kids. The twins were not planned, in fact we thought we weren’t going to have kids together. I’d known Amanda for about four years when we were away for the Goodwood Festival of Speed and then went for a holiday in Spain. One day after we returned home, she asked, ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ and then she told me she was pregnant with twins. I’m not sure which part of it she felt was the bad news.
