“I remember the first time we went to a track together,” he says. “We went to Savannah in Georgia to test the new March Atlantic car. Bobby Rahal was going to drive the car first and then Gilles was going to try it.

“Gilles was driving us in a rental car and we arrived at the track and the gate was closed. So I got out and opened it, and Gilles pulled the car through and stopped. As I was getting back in the car he decided he was going to do a tyre burnout. He just lit the rear tyres up on the rental car and kept going until one burst! There was so much smoke I couldn’t breathe and I thought, ‘What the hell have I got involved in here?’

“Then about three or four hours later we were sitting in the pitroad waiting for our turn with the new car. Gilles and I were sitting in the hire car chatting. He’d changed the flat rear tyre and Rahal cruised by on track in his hire car. Well, the conversation immediately stopped. Gilles turned on the ignition and we were off down the pitroad. He was going to catch Rahal.

“We were hauling ass down the straight and there was almost a 90-degree corner at the end. I was thinking, ‘He’s gonna brake. No, he’s not gonna brake!’ And he threw the rental car sideways. I was hanging onto the hand-strap on the roof and my feet were almost in Villeneuve’s lap as we went around this right-hander on two wheels. I thought, ‘my God!’ I’d never seen car control like this. He kept going round the track like that until some more tyre tread flew off and he had to stop. That was Gilles. Any opportunity he had he was going to drive fast.”

Wardell recalls how close the Villeneuve family was and how champion-to-be Jacques behaved as a child. “I had quite a nice relationship with the family. Gilles and Joann were inseparable and little Jacques hardly spoke any English. He would come creeping round the car and if he saw me standing there he’d come running by and kick me in the shins. Then he’d run away laughing his head off!”

Wardell also recalls that, fierce racer though Gilles was, he was also an eminently fair sportsman. “Obviously he had a good working relationship with Jody [Scheckter], who I enjoyed working with as well. I think Gilles was lucky to go to Ferrari with the other driver being someone like Scheckter. On a couple of occasions Gilles actually tried to help Jody win races or points to win the championship.

“And of course who can forget that 1979 French Grand Prix when Gilles and René Arnoux had their fantastic wheel-to-wheel race, both of them racing as hard as humanly possible but both leaving each other room? They weren’t trying to be dangerous in any way. They were just being full-blown racing drivers. It was wonderful to watch.”

It was indeed.

The biggest difference, it seems to me, is that the psychological challenge was greater in earlier years than it is now, when climbing into a racing car and going to the limit was extremely perilous. The kind of ‘mind management’ needed to overcome natural fears of death or injury mark out yesterday’s drivers as a breed apart.

I’m always staggered at the reaction to François Cevert’s death in 1973. The accident couldn’t have been more horrific, yet both drivers and team managers seemed able to put it behind them and get on with the job of racing. In Peter Revson’s biography, Peter Manso mentions Revson going to an exhibition of motor sport art which looked out on the spot where Cevert was killed that same day without batting an eyelid. Bernie Ecclestone has recalled mentioning the accident to Carlos Reutemann, and then the two of them moving on to discuss tyre choices for Sunday! Meanwhile Jody Scheckter, who did at least admit that what he saw changed his outlook on motor racing forever, was already in discussion with Ken Tyrrell with regards to joining the team in ’74. The only driver, it seems, who reacted ‘normally’ was James Hunt, who was described as looking pale and visibly shaken, yet remarkably he went on to finish second the next day!

Did it ever strike you that this sport is not only very exciting but also callous and indifferent to the lives of its main protagonists, and did you ever entertain doubts about whether it was all worth it?
Ryan

Dear Ryan,
No getting away from it, Grand Prix racing has changed out of recognition in the last 40 years, and no change has been more dramatic than that in safety. At Jacky Ickx recently said to me, “Nowadays you can do it, and you’re almost at risk zero – and that’s wonderful…”

It wasn’t like that in his era, though, and to some degree there was a sort of ‘Spitfire pilot’ attitude to the risks involved. During 1971, my first year of working as an F1 journalist, three Grand Prix drivers – Ignazio Giunti, Pedro Rodríguez, Jo Siffert – all lost their lives in racing accidents (although only Siffert was killed in an F1 race). That wasn’t untypical of the time. The year before, Piers Courage, Bruce McLaren and Jochen Rindt had all died. No surprise that Ickx – as you can read in the next issue of the magazine – is so grateful that he is still around.

I think you’re wrong, though, to suggest that the attitude within the sport to these tragedies was callous. Certainly, the death of a driver was more commonplace in those days, and therefore the sport’s participants were more accustomed to dealing with it, but that didn’t mean that the losses were not keenly felt. Of Jimmy Clark’s death, for example, Chris Amon said this: “We all felt we’d lost our leader. If it could happen to Jimmy, what chance did the rest of us have?”

It’s a fact that I have on occasion encountered callousness in motor racing – less than an hour after Gilles Villeneuve’s accident in 1982, another driver asked me, “Who d’you think will get the Ferrari drive?” – but it’s been very much the exception to the rule. The fact is, times were different, death was more prevalent by far – and the belief, I think, was that it had always been part of the sport. Very regrettable, but occasionally inevitable. And bear in mind, too, that this was all long before ‘public grieving’ became so fashionable. Motor racing people may have borne their grievances discreetly, but certainly they felt them.

My question is this: were you a regular spectator at Crystal Palace and did you view from North Tower?

Each time I’ve passed you in a paddock or some place I’ve always forgotten to ask you in person. A daft question, but I’d love to know.
Berni

Dear Berni,
First of all, thank you so much for your compliments, and I’m pleased to hear you’re a fan of Motor Sport.

I can’t say I was a regular spectator at Crystal Palace because I’m a Mancunian, and didn’t move to London until 1967, soon after I left school – and that was only five years before the track closed. Prior to that, whenever I did come south for a race, invariably it was to Brands Hatch for Formula 1 or major sports car races.

That said, once I had started living in town I made a point of going to Crystal Palace, notably for the Formula 2 races run – as far as I remember – on Whit Monday, and invariably, yes, I did watch from North Tower. Don’t you feel sorry for anyone who never saw Jochen Rindt through there?

Crystal Palace had an atmosphere all its own. Although it was very short, I always thought it a real drivers’ circuit – and an extremely unforgiving one at that. There was no run-off area anywhere, and a mistake meant contact with those forbidding sleepers. I remember, too, that even in the early ’70s, when trees at race tracks were being felled by the hundred, a great many of those at Crystal Palace remained. Very dangerous, of course, but undeniably they allowed the place to retain its ‘parkland’ feel.

I was there in ’72, when Jody Scheckter’s McLaren won the last big race, and have only the best memories of the place. When I saw your question I had a look at YouTube, and came across the most wonderful footage of Jimmy Clark, hurling his Lotus Cortina round Crystal Palace in 1964 – made me quite dewy-eyed, and reminded me of those youthful days when I loved saloon car racing. If you haven’t seen it, go ito youtube.com and put ‘BRSCC Crystal Palace 1964’ in the search window. You’ll thank me, I promise you…

Dear Nigel,
In 1973, we lost François Cevert in a horrific qualifying accident at the US GP at Watkins Glen. My question is: did François know at the time of his accident that Tyrrell was retaining him for 1974? Jody Scheckter was confirmed for Tyrrell that weekend. He and Cevert had been involved in an accident in the previous round in Canada and François had hurt his ankle. He was quite angry with Jody.

Anyone watching Cevert over the US GP weekend thought he was driving a bit over the limit. Do you think that caused him to loose it in the uphill section? Did Arturo Mezario, blending into the course from the pits, affect his line?

And finally, did he have a solid offer to go to Ferrari in ’74? As we know, François had an amazing season, with six second places, three of them 1-2 with Jackie Stewart. It’s very sad that we lost him before he reached his peak.
Allan Fields

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