Green Races Red. Maurice Hamilton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ better that we are aware of such poverty. It makes me think about the attitude of certain people in Northern Ireland who are unemployed and believe they’re hard done by. A few minutes spent in Sao Paulo would alter their outlook.

      Typically, of course, the problems of the world are soon left behind when you climb into a Formula 1 car. Nothing else matters and I would have plenty to hold my attention within minutes of practice starting.

      For the first time, I had one of the latest steering wheels fitted to my car. It does everything. Apart from carrying the paddles which we use for the clutch and to change gear, there are buttons for the radio, as well as for scrolling the read-out, operating the pit lane speed-limiter and selecting neutral, and there are dials for adjusting controls such as the brake balance. Across the top of the wheel is the digital read-out, which gives lap times and other information, as well as the display of sequential lights, previously mounted on the dashboard, which signal the moment to change gear. Using the wheel to actually steer the car is almost incidental.

      I drove out of the pits and I couldn’t believe how hard the wheel felt. It was like holding a vibrator – not that I’ve ever handled such a thing, of course! These were vibrations from the engine. Whenever I reached 16,000 rpm, there were 16,000 vibrations per minute going through my hands. I had never experienced anything like it and I felt sure there must have been an engine problem of some sort. I went through the first two corners and then down the straight. As I went into the third corner, a left-hander, I was just about to radio the pits to tell them about the vibration when – bang! – the rear of the car hit a bump and I was off the road and into the barrier. Just like that. I couldn’t believe it.

      The car had turned sharp left and spun onto the inside of the corner; normally, when travelling at speed, the car would be thrown to the outside of the corner. In this instance, I was going so slowly, the car shot straight across the grass on the inside and removed most of one side – wheels, suspension, radiator – against the barrier.

      I didn’t know what to think. It was one of those things. There was no alternative but to walk away. I was given a lift back to the pits with Sid Watkins, the FIA doctor. It looked as if it had been quite a big accident and he checked me over. There was nothing wrong with me – which was more than could be said for the car. It wouldn’t be fixed until after practice had finished, so that was it for Friday. Half a lap and no progress whatsoever.

      Nobody in the team said anything because they could see from the telemetry that I hadn’t been going quickly. It was an easy corner, so it shouldn’t have been a problem. There wasn’t much grip on the track at that stage and the tyres were probably not up to temperature. Even so, it came as a big shock.

      I was really worried about the following day. By the time I got started on Saturday morning, everyone else would have done thirty laps, so they would have been much better prepared. However, within four laps, I had set a competitive time, so I knew it was not a major problem.

      I qualified in tenth place, which wasn’t too bad considering the alterations that had been made to the car because of the problems we had experienced in Australia. The gearbox had been changed to an older specification because the new one kept cracking and the casing was in need of a redesign. This had a knock-on effect because the return to the 1995 gearbox meant we also needed to go back to the old floor. I don’t know whether it was these alterations which made a difference to the handling of the car in Brazil, but it certainly did not feel brilliant.

      The Interlagos circuit is run anti-clockwise and is a strange one; people who succeed in Brazil for some reason don’t do well anywhere else, and vice versa. I had not been helped by discovering that my car had sprung a fuel leak moments before qualifying was due to begin. I had to jump into the spare car, which didn’t have the latest differential and that made a big difference in slow corners.

      I was very cautious during my first qualifying run and yet I was only one tenth of a second off Michael’s time at that stage. But my position on the grid gradually fell as others improved. I went out with another set of tyres and found a bit more time, which surprised me because I didn’t feel I had gone that much faster and yet it was a much better lap than the first one. I could only assume that the track conditions had improved.

      I went out for a third time and Mika Hakkinen in the McLaren deliberately held me up by backing off in the middle of a fast right-hander, so I had to go off line. I could forget that lap. I waited for Hakkinen – if he thought he was being smart, then I could be smart as well – and I held him up on the start of his attack lap.

      I had one lap left. I pushed really hard but, on the last corner, the back of the car stepped out of line and that cost three-tenths of a second – which made a big difference. Michael was on the second row and I was on the fifth row. There may have been just half a second between us, but it was night and day.

      I couldn’t complain because I was in the spare car, I didn’t have the right set-up, and I had made a mistake. But that didn’t get away from the fact that I was tenth on the grid, which, on paper anyway, didn’t look that good.

      We spent a lot of time discussing everything in great detail and I didn’t get back to the hotel until early evening. James Bowles, a friend with whom I occasionally stay when I am in Oxford, had come to Brazil. I left specific instructions with the front desk to let James into my room. He arrived at 8 am and, at 7 pm, he was still sitting outside the hotel because they wouldn’t let him into my room. He was not happy! Having James there made life a bit more fun than it had been in Australia. Unlike Melbourne, where the teams were in various hotels scattered across the city, everyone uses the Hotel Transamerica in Sao Paulo, mainly because it is comfortable and close to the track. It is a sociable place as a result; quite lively at night. Once again, I didn’t go out much in the evenings. The local speciality seems to be the Churrascaria, a popular type of restaurant where they serve as much meat as you can eat. They carve it off massive swords, straight onto your plate. Maybe once in a while is okay, but eating slabs and slabs of meat can’t be good for you. It didn’t appeal to me, so I usually ate in the hotel.

      When I woke on race morning, I had a feeling that the day wasn’t going to work out. In fact, the feeling had persisted all weekend. Even before I went to Brazil, I was telling people not to bet on a good result at Interlagos. So far, I had been proved correct and I didn’t feel it was going to get any better.

      The warm-up wasn’t bad – but neither was it good. The car felt okay, nothing more. I told myself not to take any chances in the race, just plod round, bring the car home and perhaps score a couple of points.

      Then, just as we were about to go the grid, the heavens opened. It really poured, the track was flooded and the car was aquaplaning. I was thinking: ‘You don’t want to be tenth on the grid in these conditions.’ Just for good measure, the engine began to misfire and they couldn’t do much about it at that stage. I made a good start initially but then found I couldn’t control the throttle because I didn’t know how much power I was going to have at any given moment because of the misfire. People started to go past me as we went onto the straight in a cloud of spray.

      I was really scared. I just couldn’t see a thing. I couldn’t see beside me, nor could I see in front or behind. When it’s like that, you just drive, hoping that you are going fast enough to avoid having someone go into the back of you, but not so fast that you are going to drive into the back of someone else.

      Racing in wet weather is the most dangerous aspect of Formula 1. The worst place here on the Interlagos circuit was at the end of the long straight. Damon Hill was leading and, if he had spun in the middle of the track, no-one would have been able to see him. We would have cannoned into each other; it would have been carnage.

      You think to yourself: ‘It’s time they did something about this.’ But the problem is, the СКАЧАТЬ