To hell and back, p.9
To Hell and Back, page 9
I went over to see Willy Dungl, who happened to be holding a training course at Bad Tatzmannsdorf. It was just possible, I said, well, you know, the new cars, g force and that sort of thing, I mean to say, what kind of physical shape am I in?
Willy said something like: ‘Mmmmmmh. As long as you’re here, you might as well come on a little bike ride with us.’
Willy knew exactly what he was doing. His seminar was made up of a group of well-trained, clean-living females, who proceeded to humiliate me over a twenty-mile course up hill and down dale. I got the message: in the state you’re in, you needn’t bother trying any sport, cycling included. To drive the point home, Willy asked, ‘I suppose you noticed how those women ran you into the ground?’ I had noticed.
I got him to prescribe me a short- and medium-term fitness programme that would be good enough to get me into a racing-car cockpit again, if I should perchance feel so inclined. I had a sneaking suspicion that this would soon be the case, because I had to get to the bottom of certain feelings which were suspiciously irritating. I drove down to the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Watching the race felt good. I liked it again.
McLaren’s Ron Dennis had kept in touch with me after I retired and had always made it clear that he was lying in wait for me. He would call up every other month and ask if I didn’t feel like coming back, waiting for the moment when I said yes.
Accordingly, it seemed logical to have a word with him at Monza. There is something bothering me, I said, and I’d like to get to the bottom of it. Could he possibly set things up for me? No problem.
Above all, what I wanted to find out was whether I would be capable of coming back. If I could click back a little switch in my brain enabling me to change to a different level of consciousness. I knew that, if I could reach that frame of mind, there was no reason to be intimidated by the new drivers who had made their mark in the interim – Pironi, Prost, Villeneuve, Rosberg, Piquet, the ‘young lions’, as they were known by the media. They would not have the edge over me.
Some reference to money is appropriate at this juncture, if only for the simple reason that so much was written on that subject at the time. When I embarked on the experiment with Ron Dennis, I was under no kind of financial strain. True, Lauda Air was not going well, but the losses were being held down and, furthermore – as Austria’s finance minister had suggested – I could have got out of the business any time I liked. I do not see how money can possibly be the sole motive for racing: either you are in the right frame of mind and feel the spirit move you or not, as the case may be.
I had to approach my first attempt to compete in Formula 1 again with the greatest conceivable caution – from every possible angle.
Ron Dennis took pains to ensure that the whole affair was kept as secret as possible. It was for this reason that he chose Donington, the rather odd circuit near Nottingham, to allow me to try out. I had never driven there before, but the circuit is completely walled in, which was clearly advantageous.
As far as my wife was concerned, I also had to exercise some caution. At that time Marlene seemed to have got a better bargain – a new-model Niki, less self-centred and less ruthless than his predecessor. Over the years I had developed a mechanism for coping with the pressures of being in the public domain. The Lauda System had ensured that everything happened logically, rationally and painlessly (painlessly for yours truly, of course). Family life had been one fairly smooth component of the System, and Marlene would have been too proud a lady to have indulged in nit-picking – one fine day she would simply have left. It was only on the final straight that it dawned on me how much had been wrong in all this; it was only then that I really put my strongest talent to work – to reconsider, analyse, probe for error, work out how things could be better. These various arguments were all very, very persuasive – and the notion of making a comeback was scarcely supported by them.
There had been regular rumours and newspaper reports that I was planning a comeback. Marlene would often ask me about them, and I would convince her they were absolute rubbish. This was easy enough because she was used to the drivel written about me, about her, and about our life together. I took her to England with me, but left her in London. I was off to test drive some car or other – nothing serious, of course, just for fun.
Donington, 16 September 1981. Beautiful weather. Ron Dennis is there. Plus John Watson, a few mechanics, an ambulance, a fire tender. No reporters. The secrecy has certainly paid off. Watson gives me a hand to set the car up, everything is so new to me. There have been incredible changes in the two intervening years: we are now in the middle of the wing-car era, in that technological one-way street where only ground-effect and senseless cornering speeds are important. (It was unfortunate that Formula 1 had allowed itself to be manipulated into this idiocy, but you had to live with it.)
The first thing I notice is that I don’t have the strength to drive three consecutive laps. I come into the pits after two and ask for something to be looked at. I am inwardly embarrassed at my shocking lack of condition, but not really worried about it because I know that Willy Dungl will have me as fit as any racing driver can be within a couple of months. Right now, it’s a question of lasting out the day and gradually building up speed to the point where I can make some meaningful assessment.
By the afternoon I am handling the car a little better. I go for a couple of fast ones and am only one tenth of a second behind Watson’s best lap time. That settles it: if I do come back, I’ll have the speed.
It was pure coincidence rather than the bush telegraph that brought Frank Williams to my London hotel that very same evening. He told me that Alan Jones had announced his retirement. How did I feel about taking his place? I told him I would think it over.
There wasn’t much to think over. Ron Dennis had set the whole thing up so cleverly that I already felt almost at home with McLaren.
I didn’t tell Marlene until I had definitely made up my mind to go back. She sensed that there was no way of challenging my decision, no point even in discussing it. All she said was: ‘You’re mad.’ She choked back any further comment and only gave vent to her feelings every six months or so thereafter.
The burning question for me now was: how much? There was absolutely no question of my selling myself short or settling for the norm. The people to deal with were McLaren’s sponsor, Marlboro. I promptly asked for more money than anyone had ever earned in Formula 1. There was a deathly silence, then they trotted out their main counter-argument: there was no way of knowing if I would still be fast enough. I was ready with my reply: ‘My PR value alone is worth that much. You’ll be paying only one dollar for my driving ability, all the rest is for my personality.’
In the event, this was the basis of our contract, albeit with the proviso that Marlboro and McLaren would have the right to declare it void, subject to appropriate compensation, after one third or two thirds of the season. This was presumably to allow for the possibility that I would put up such a miserable showing that my public relations value would also be zero.
There was no doubt in my mind that physical fitness would be immeasurably more important in the wing-car era than it had been in previous years. I weighed 143 pounds (thirteen too many, as was established later) and was in terrible condition. However, I had adjusted mentally to the programme that Willy Dungl had created to put me back on my feet, and I put myself totally in his hands.
Not only in his hands: Willy has a way of taking on the mantle of spiritual masseur, working not only on his protégés’ bodies but also on their mental attitudes. I must say, however, that one or two of his methods didn’t work as well with me as with some of the others. According to Willy, he had had tremendous success with concentration exercises developed for the Austrian ski-jumping squad; however, whenever he tried to get me to murmur to myself such magic incantations as ‘Relax, relax’, I relaxed so completely that I would fall asleep on the bench.
One of the routine situations Willy trained me for was ‘Accident’, the point being to reduce the effect – in some instances fatal – that shock can have on the human body. I had an early opportunity of proving to him that I was a willing pupil.
We were driving a first series of tests at Le Castellet when part of the rear suspension went. I happened to be on the Mistral straight at the time, so I must have been pushing 190mph. Then, suddenly, I headed for greener pastures. There were rows and rows of safety netting and I knocked them down one after another. Meanwhile, the car was falling apart at the seams.
My first reaction was to duck down, making myself smaller. Hope this doesn’t hurt, I thought to myself. However, when I finally came to rest and discovered I was still in one piece, Willy’s counsel prevailed: sit absolutely still for a moment, breathe deeply, unbuckle the harness, climb out of the car, walk a few yards away, sit down, breathe deeply in and out again.
It took maybe three or four minutes for a car to be sent out from the pits. Willy had come along too. He saw me sitting a safe distance away from the car. He took me by the wrist: ‘Ninety. Good lad.’ He had quickly taken my pulse and was clearly pleased with the situation. The car was a wreck and, all around, the safety netting had been torn down, but Willy was happy.
On the whole, Willy thinks my nerves are not bad and that I can be trained to accept what is required, provided that I can be convinced of its usefulness. Willy was once asked about the tension experienced by the average driver in this crazy sport. I quote:
I’m in a position to make certain comparisons to the extent that Niki isn’t the only racing driver I have treated. On the morning of a race, when a driver comes up to my room to have a massage and eat a sensible breakfast, his pulse will be between 90 and 100. With Niki, it is between 80 and 85.
We have a piece of equipment that looks a little like a wristwatch and which is designed to take continuous pulse readings and store the peak values. This makes it possible for us to record a driver’s pulse-rate during qualifying and in the race itself. Some drivers peak at 220 or even 230; Niki’s readout will show a peak of 190. Up in the extreme 220–230 range there is a chance of mini-blackouts – which may well explain otherwise inexplicable shunts to the extent that the driver loses consciousness for a fraction of a second.
While we’re at it, here are a couple of other notes my friend Willy has made relating to his work with me:
Niki was capable of being persuaded that it was important to use his nervous energy sparingly. This can be achieved by two different approaches – proper nutrition on the one hand and elimination of stress on the other. It is enough for the latter if you can simply and effectively tell yourself: i will not get angry. All the other techniques are secondary: deep breathing, bringing your shoulders up around your ears, then exhaling strongly, repeating to yourself that you will not get angry. Of course, you have to practise this over a longer period of time until you can switch on this defence against excess adrenaline and a racing pulse.
In Niki’s case, it is sufficient for him to reason with himself, telling himself that getting angry is unhealthy. This is why he was able to cope with the most stupid and most irritating moments of his stint with McLaren. Time and again, there were situations in training where nothing seemed to go right, where valuable time was lost or when repairs seemed to take an eternity. Other drivers might have been provoked into losing their temper. Niki, on the other hand, would keep his cool, sit in the cockpit and let them get on with it, as though he himself were sublimely aloof from the situation. He wasn’t, because every wasted second really hurt, but he had enough sense to understand that letting his emotions get on top of him would only drain him further.
Let’s leave Willy Dungl for the moment and return to the early weeks of my comeback.
I got myself an Austrian racing driver’s licence, but then it was discovered that I didn’t meet the requirements for the new super-licence that had just been introduced. The super-licence had been dreamt up to prevent any old clown from climbing into a Formula 1 cockpit just because his father had come up with a penny or two. Of late, several dangerous situations had developed because of inexperienced – bad – drivers who got in the way and reacted wrongly. As a result, it was decreed that you had to have won a certain number of Formula 3 or Formula 2 races in the season prior to moving up to Formula 1.
An exception was made in my case (as, indeed, two years later, when Alan Jones made his comeback) and I received a strange application form in the post. I was apparently supposed to fill in how long my contract with McLaren had to run and to acknowledge that I did not have the right to switch to another team. The super-licence was to be granted to Niki Lauda/McLaren.
I couldn’t quite follow this. Either you’re good enough to be granted a licence or you’re not. Surely it has nothing to do with the team you are driving for. I called Didier Pironi, the President of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association.
‘What is this funny clause supposed to mean?’
‘Don’t worry about it. We discussed it at our last meeting. Just go ahead and sign.’
Obviously, I had more of a suspicious nature than my colleagues. I seemed to be the only one to whom it had occurred that we were on the point of being shafted by our respective team bosses. If the super-licence was only valid for Lauda/McLaren, then I would be at the mercy of a third party if I made up my mind to drive for, say, Ferrari the following season. I could envisage transfer fees as in soccer, and all the horse-trading and contract buy-outs that implied. A veritable paradise for the Bernie Ecclestones of this world, who would then have unlimited scope to demonstrate their talents. Deals would be struck between one squad and another, and we would be caught like idiots in the middle, hoping for a handout.
There was no way I was going to sign that form, and I managed to persuade Pironi that we should all get together and do something about it. He made a few calls and was just in time to prevent most of the other drivers from sending their forms, duly signed, back to Paris.
When we all met up in South Africa in January for the first Grand Prix of the 1982 season it emerged that only five drivers had signed out of a total of thirty. The twenty-five that had not signed were required to do so before qualifying. Pironi and I stated our cases clearly: that there should only be contracts that were mutually binding, i.e. if I am not allowed to leave McLaren, then McLaren is not allowed to fire me.
FISA President Balestre and Ecclestone (in his capacity as spokesman for the bosses) had teamed up to show us who was really in charge. We had a choice, it appeared: accept the conditions as set out or go to hell.
It was one of those strange coincidences that this dispute should come about immediately before my first race after coming out of retirement. It gave the impression that, whenever Lauda is around, the fur will fly. However, the issue was far too important for me to stay in the background. Not least because the younger, more inexperienced drivers were in a weaker position and needed an old hand to show the way.
At a meeting of the drivers it was established that, with the exception of Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass, we were all in favour of holding out. It was decided that we would call a strike and boycott Thursday practice.
Drivers solidarity had never been all that impressive in Formula 1, not even in the days of Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart. There were too many loners. In this instance, however, solidarity was extremely important, because we couldn’t afford to let the united front crumble. We had to give the more vulnerable drivers something to hold on to.
The bus was my idea. At seven o’clock on Thursday morning, a bus drew up and parked at the entrance to the paddock. Inside it: a chauffeur, Pironi and the undersigned. As each of the other drivers arrived, they were asked to park their cars and get into the bus. We were going for a ride. Jacky Ickx and Jochen Mass wouldn’t go along with this but, eventually, all the others took their places in the bus rather than on the starting grid.
Not surprisingly, there was a great to-do and excitement ran high. Everyone seemed happy and there was a sense of strength through unity. We took the bus the long way round to a beautiful hotel in Johannesburg. In our wake trailed a whole convoy of reporters, photographers and TV crews.
Pironi had a further consultation back at the circuit. No dice. He joined us at the hotel with the news that, if we didn’t start training right away, we would all be banned for life. Sure enough, the PA system broadcast all thirty names that afternoon. All disqualified, all banned sine die.
We pottered around the swimming pool and had a really splendid day. Any anxieties were camouflaged by high jinks and laughter, although even long-serving drivers knew that the consequences could be drastic. A case in point: Bernie Ecclestone had already issued an ultimatum to his two drivers, Piquet and Patrese. The deadline had expired and, in theory, both of them had already been sacked for breach of contract.
It was the younger drivers, however, that constituted the main problem. They were still accustomed to the team chiefs having the final word, and they were clearly more afraid than we were at the prospect of broken contracts and the possibility of being sued for damages. They were afraid of how their sponsors would react at the thought of hard-earned cash lying idle in the pits losing interest. For many of them, not being able to start in this, the first race of the season, would be nothing short of a catastrophe. I was convinced, however, that there was only one thing for it: hang in there, stay tough and stick together. If we didn’t, the opposition would take us on one at a time and make mincemeat of us.
The good mood persisted through dinner, and there was a lot of laughter and carrying-on when we asked the hotel manager for a room – one room for the whole lot of us. If we’d taken single rooms, that would have been the collapse of the united front, I’ve no doubt about that.
