In a bid to cheer Gareth up, let’s talk about something more interesting than the cheating **…?? who are currently involved in the sport.
What has been your favourite era in F1? I thought long and hard about this, and eventually came up with the mid 80’s and the turbo period. Here’s a story from then:
It was the British Grand Prix, I think it was 1987, and Nigel Mansell’s team mate and arch rival was Nelson Piquet. I was playing league cricket at the time and we were in the middle of a pretty serious match with our nearest rivals. My girlfriend was keeping an eye on the GP from the pavilion television and was shouting out Nigel’s progress to me as we were fielding. Mansell had pitted with a wheel problem and rejoined some 30 seconds behind Nelson. I can’t remember the actual timings, but her shouted commentary went something like this:
“20 laps to go, Piquet 20 seconds ahead of Mansell!”
“15 laps to go Piquet 15 seconds ahead of Mansell!”
“10 laps to go and the gap is down to 7 seconds!”
“5 laps to go and Mansell is only 2 seconds behind!”
At which point the umpire whipped the bails off, muttered “F*ck the cricket!” and walked off, closely followed by all of us!
We watched the breathtaking and famous dummy Nigel sold to Nelson and roared our approval as he passed him on the penultimate lap.
I remember reading afterwards that Mansell had broken the lap record 11 times in his last 15 laps, and that he ran out of fuel within meters of the line. What a race! Funny, I can’t remember how the cricket match finished.
What’s your favourite era?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s a good one Mike!
Mine has to be (probably influenced by where I’d been last weekend) the 60s F1 era, with the DFV engines and space frames that Colin Chapman created. The cars were the last to rely on mechanical grip and Jim Clark ruled the roost.
When Lotus went over to the Indy 500, he upset all the Americans with his British Racing Green Lotus. Apparently, Green is considered bad luck in racing in the States when you overtake the car. Chapman said, “Don’t worry, you won’t overtake it….”
Class. And I’m now cheered up :)
Chapman was class for sure, and I love that Green Car response! The guy was such a genius when you think of the ideas he bought to the sport:
Monococque
Wings
Sponsorship
Twin Chassis
Ground effect
It goes on and on.
I loved the 6 wheel F1 car (Tyrrell??) – we had the Scalextric model, well my brother did, he wouldn’t let me play with it. (I had the yello Renault Elf).
My favorite era was when I first got into the sport properly, Senna Vs Mansell