Adam Cooper F1

Dated June 12 1985, the postcard that started my career…

Today represents a special 30^th anniversary for me, as what happened on Wednesday June 12^th 1985 proved to be the catalyst for my career as a motor sporting journalist. It was around lunchtime on that day that I arrived at Le Mans railway station after an overnight trip from London. I caught a bus to the to the circuit, talked my way into the paddock without any kind of pass, and from there things escalated pretty quickly…

I find it hard to believe that 30 years have passed since that magical trip to Le Mans. The scary thing is that counting back from 1985 by the same number, you get to 1955 – a race that for me could have taken place a hundred years ago, so remote does it seem.

But let’s go to the start of my story. At the time I had recently turned 20, and I’d just come to the end of the first year of my university business studies degree. A devoted racing enthusiast, and obsessive reader of Autosport since I was 10, I was desperate to find a summer job in the sport. I guess at the back of my mind I had dreams of being a journalist – I’d mentioned the idea to a bemused school careers specialist when I was 15 or so – but it seemed about as achievable as joining NASA and heading into space.

But anything would do, and with my future business studies qualification in mind I wrote to the three F1 teams based within easy reach of my south London home, namely McLaren, Tyrrell and FORCE/Haas. Inevitably they all wrote back saying they had no temporary opportunities, although the letter from Ron Dennis at least said I should try again when I graduated.

I subsequently explored a few other avenues, including working at Brands Hatch – I’ll never forget the steely glare of the dragon lady on the circuit’s reception desk, who had no interest whatsoever in helping me. Then I came up with the idea of approaching Barry Bland, well known then as now as organiser of the Macau GP. I showed up one day at his London office. He couldn’t help, but referred me instead to someone who shared his premises, and who might need a helping hand.

That man was Chris Parsons, familiar more recently as a Le Mans pundit on Eurosport, but then a marketing man and racing enthusiast who had just set up OSCAR – the ‘Organisation for Sportscar Racing,’ a fledgling sort of FOCA for the then expanding FIA World Endurance Championship. To my surprise he suggested that he might indeed need some assistance at the upcoming Le Mans 24 Hours, so I eagerly offered my services, and began planning my trip.

Nearer the time when I rang up to confirm details Chris said the opportunity was no longer there. I told him I was by now committed to coming, and to placate me he said he would ask his pal Roy Baker – entrant of two Tiga Group C2 cars – if he could do with a spare pair of hands. That was all the incentive I needed. I just wanted a chance.

Thus sometime late on Tuesday June 11^th I set off by train from London Victoria to Dover, having finished my last end of term exam earlier that day. I can’t remember much about the journey, but I got a ferry to Calais, followed by a train to Paris Gare de Nord. A trip on the metro took me to Gare Montparnasse, from where I took the train to Le Mans. On arrival I bought a postcard from a little tabac to send to my parents – in those pre-mobile and email days I wanted to let them know that I had made it. That postcard now sits in my office.

“I have just got off the train at Le Mans and I’m about to get a bus to the circuit,” I wrote. “Journey was okay. Weather is cool. I still don’t know if I can get in or not!” Not exactly a good calling card for a would be journalist, but I guess I included all the relevant facts…

After a long trek from where the bus dropped me I told the guys on the various gates I passed through that I worked for Roy Baker Racing, and my team pass was in the paddock. Anyway, I eventually made it to the inner sanctum.

And then for reasons I can’t recall instead of seeking out Roy and the team I was ostensibly going to work for, I looked for Chris Parsons, who was using a little caravan as base camp for OSCAR. I don’t know whether he’d forgotten that he’d changed his mind, or was just impressed that I’d actually shown up. But all of a sudden the (unpaid) OSCAR job was back on. I never did work for the late Roy Baker, but he was to become a good friend over the years.

OSCAR was running a sort of official news service for the championship, and my job was to run around and gather information for Mark Cole, the journalist who was actually writing the press releases. I would then distribute them around the paddock and media centre, and run other errands, like taking messages to team bosses.

From somewhere Chris managed to produce an ACO press pass – technically that weekend I was accredited by Mosport Park, venue of an upcoming WEC race! Meanwhile when it dawned on him that I had nowhere to stay – it never occurred to me that I might need to sort something out – he agreed to let me crash out in the official OSCAR caravan, on the basis that I was out of the way when it was needed as an office in the mornings.

So there I was, suddenly at the centre of the action at one of the biggest races in the world, dashing around the paddock, the pit lane and through the alleyways in the back of the old pit complex, still exactly as it was in the Steve McQueen movie. It was a dream come true. That weekend I met team bosses, drivers and journalists, and one of those encounters was to change my life.

Up in the old press tribune opposite the pits I bumped into Quentin Spurring. Known to everyone as Q, he was then the editor of Autosport, as well as its WEC correspondent. But to me, steeped in the magazine since I was a wee lad, he might as well have been God.

I told him what I was up to, and handed him a copy of that day’s OSCAR press release. And then out of my back pocket I produced a tatty copy of the rather amateurish CV that I had typed up before I left home, just in case it came in useful. There wasn’t really much on it, as I hadn’t really done anything up to then except study, so it didn’t take long for Q to scan it.

He mentioned my school, and I responded by naming the one he had attended. He looked a little surprised, but impressed. I’d done my homework. Many times I had scanned the potted biographies of racing journalists in a handy reference book called the ‘Motor Racing Directory,’ looking for clues on how they had started their careers. And for some reason that little detail of Q’s education had stuck in my mind. I guess that caught his attention!

The Joest Porsche 956 won the race, and the weekend came to an end all too soon. On the Monday morning a guy I’d met from Canon cameras gave me a lift to Paris. He dropped me at his office, and I did the tourist bit at the Pompidou Centre before heading off to Calais and getting my ferry back to Dover, and finally a train to London.

That could have been the end of my motor racing adventure. But I badgered Chris Parsons by phone, and he said if I could get myself to the next WEC race in Hockenheim, I could help out there too. Not convinced about German public transport, I decided to try and get a lift instead. So I rang C2 team Spice Engineering and arranged to meet their motorhome at Dover a few days before the race.

I was standing at the gate of the ferry terminal at 11am on the Wednesday morning or whatever it was, and sure enough the aforementioned team vehicle came into view at the agreed time. I was on my way to Hockenheim – and it was free! Team boss Jeff Hazell, who had been at Williams just a few years previously, was a bit surprised when he realised that I was also planning to sleep in the motorhome. I managed to convince him…

I met Q again that weekend, and bothered the poor man with another sales pitch. Then the week after that came the British GP. A contact from Le Mans had put me in touch with someone involved in running the Silverstone media centre, and I landed myself my first F1 press pass and spent the weekend doing whatever odd jobs were required, and as usual, without payment.

Q showed up once again, and this time I surprised him by handing over a copy of report of the Hockenheim WEC race I had written, just to see if I could do it. By now he must have thought I was his stalker…

But my persistence paid off, and a couple of days later the phone rang at my parents’ house. It was Q. Somebody at Autosport was going away on their summer holiday for a couple of weeks, and would I be interested in coming in and helping out at £2.50 an hour? There was no guarantee that I would last beyond the first day, but I didn’t need to think it over. I had a foot in the door…

So it was that on Monday July 29th 1985 I headed to Autosport’s ‘satellite’ base at its typesetters in an old industrial building near London’s Old Street station. Following the instructions I’d been given I climbed the stairs to the top floor, and I eventually found a dreary, barely furnished office. It served as home for the junior members of the magazine’s editorial team until the early hours on every Monday and Tuesday, when that week’s issue was being put to bed. The only things in the room were some tables and a collection of huge, manual typewriters. Scattered around were pages of that week’s magazine, in various stages of completion.

My three new colleagues were already there, working away. Their names, I was to find out, were Bruce Jones, Tony Dodgins, and Joe Saward. They acknowledged this wide-eyed interloper with an air of curiosity – who was this kid, and why had their usually sane boss Q given him a chance to join their profession?

I suspect that thirty years later all three are still trying to work it out…

A year after Daniel Ricciardo’s sensational win Red Bull experienced a tough time in Montreal, with the Aussie struggling home in 13^th and team mate Daniil Kvyat managing only ninth.

Team boss Christian Horner stressed that the circuit demonstrated how far behind Renault currently is.

“You have got a Force India and Lotus that probably haven’t been touched since Melbourne and it is just a different race,” said Horner. “The power unit influence is highlighted more than anywhere here; and unfortunately the next race in Austria is probably the most dependent circuit on the calendar.

“The emphasis is on power unit of the three elements of power unit, chassis and driver, even if you have the chassis and driver bit it doesn’t compensate for the power unit. So it is significant and very difficult to over ride.”

Horner is hoping that the situation improves: “I think that with what is being discussed for 2017 when the chassis will become more of a factor, that will be a positive thing. And hopefully over time, these engines will converge in performance, but I think Ferrari have done a super job and thrown an awful lot of time, effort and resource at closing that gap and have demonstrated that it is possible. I take heart from that and I am hopeful that Renault can make the same commitment to bridge that gap.

“The frustrating thing with the power unit is the lead times are just so long. There are some important tests going on over the next two weeks in Viry on the dyno and they will have a significant impact for next year. Or at least a direction. It is a big two weeks behind the scenes at Viry Chatillon.”

Horner’s main concern is that unlike this year after the start of the 2016 season no development will allowed – until a small window opens in the winter of 2016-17. RBR is still pushing to have the rules changes to allow in-season development.

“From Renault’s perspective, it is the worst thing for them. Because that is it then. The engines are effectively frozen forever after. So if you have missed it by February 28, the scale of difference is unachievable in that timeframe, so really as these regulations still are relatively immature, it would be sensible as this year to allow development in the season.”

Jenson Button expects to take a drive through penalty in the Canadian GP in addition to starting from the back of the grid.

Button said on Twitter: “Tough day today but we’ll stay strong even though I’ll be starting last with a drive through penalty to take!”

Although there has been no formal confirmation from the team, that suggests that he has taken fifth engine elements after the failure in FP3 that kept him out of qualifying.

Prior to today he was on his fourth MGU-H and fourth turbo. By taking the fifth examples of each he will get a 10-place penalty for the first, and a five-place penalty for the second.

Because he is at the back of the grid, he cannot fulfil the 15-place penalty. And under the FIA rules for failing to take 10-15 places he will have to do a drive through.

Max Verstappen is in a slightly different situation, in that since he has fewer untaken penalty places he gets a 10s penalty, which will be added at his first regular stop.

Sebastian Vettel has suffered another blow after the FIA stewards handed him a five-place grid penalty for passing Roberto Merhi’s Marussia after a red flag came out in FP3 this morning.

Vettel said that the Marussia was going slowly, but the FIA has always regarded such an offence as very serious. That was emphasised by the fact that Vettel has also received three penalty points on his licence.

The German had qualified only 16^th anyway after suffering ERS trouble in Q1. Also penalised is Max Verstappen, who goes back 15 places due his Monaco penalty and another for an engine change, while Jenson Button is at the back after failing to take part in qualifying.

Regarding his problem Vettel said: “Right from the start we didn’t have the full power available, so when I went out for the first run we tried to fix the problem, but we couldn’t. Due to the lack of power we couldn’t make it further. For sure we have to investigate but I don’t think that there’s anything to do with the engine. I think it has more with the electronical side, but I am confident that we can fix the problem in time for tomorrow’s race.”

The bosses of the four major teams met this afternoon in Montreal to discuss some of the ideas that emerged from last month’s F1 Strategy Group meeting – with a focus on how customer cars, or what they now call “franchise” cars, will work.

Hosted by McLaren’s Ron Dennis, the meeting was also attended by Eric Boullier, Toto Wolff, Niki Lauda, Maurizio Arrivabene and Christian Horner. Williams and Force India, the other teams in the Strategy Group, was not represented. The FIA’s Charlie Whiting as also invited along for part of the meeting.

Wolff insisted that today’s meeting was just a follow-up to the May 14^th Strategy Group gathering, and was intended to refine some of the concepts tabled at the time.

“The mandate of the Strategy Group was for some of the teams to sit down and discuss potential avenues of customer cars versus third cars, the rules and regulations for 2017,” he told this writer. “This is a structured approach, and we have been discussing some of the issues. It was a good meeting. It’s important to get it right, and therefore all the solutions and possibilities were discussed, and it needs to be tackled in a good way.”

Wolff first used the term “franchise” cars in Monaco, and he said that the phrase has now been officially adopted.

“We call them franchise cars. I think we need to have a contingency plan in place to say what happens if a team or two drops out? What do we do? I think we don’t want to be in front of the snake, ‘Oh my God. now we are down to 18 cars or 16 cars.’

“We hope that everything stays like it is, and they [the struggling teams] can make it commercially viable for themselves. But you need to be responsible enough for F1 to say, ‘What happens if’?

“We need to talk solutions, like how is it viable in terms of the sporting and technical regs? Who’s going to pay for it or who’s going to finance it? Who’s going to supply cars? Do we want to have standard suppliers entering, or do we want to do it ourselves? Can last year’s cars enter or not? Down to the detail, like who’s going to go on the podium? We’ve also discussed the downsides. We don’t want to have junior teams.

“All of us are responsible enough that we need to look at the next years. At the moment we hope it stays like it is.”

Wolff says that while there were different ideas on how to progress, the meeting was a positive one.

“I think we had really good discussions which are not ‘actual,’ because it’s not happening, but we need to have a contingency in place. There are different ideas and different opinions, but we kind of went through a multiple choice, and we found a pretty good consensus on most of the things.”

He confirmed that Bernie Ecclestone’s idea for a ‘GP1’-style package to be provided by a third party has lost momentum: “I think the way forward which we including Bernie see at the moment is that the constructors should be able to supply cars to interested parties, rather than having a single source of chassis supplier.”

Another key subject discussed today was how F1 cars should look in 2017.

“We talked about the regulations we have decided on for 2017, wider tyres, wider cars. We discussed, ‘Are those cars attractive?’ Or if not, do we want to tackle it from a design side, or do we want to tackle it from a technical side? Do we want to say those cars want to be five seconds quicker and they just happen to look like they do from a technical point of view, which is my opinion? Or do we want to bring up some design concepts and say this is how the car needs to look, which is not going to make it faster.”

Meanwhile Horner agreed that it had been a good meeting.

“We had a mandate from the Strategy Group to discuss a few things,” the Red Bull boss told this writer. “All of the discussions for the future were positive, so nice to see that the teams were on the same page for once. Customer cars are something I’ve supported for a few years now. It’s to offer an alternative if teams really get themselves into trouble. They can focus on being a race team. I think it would be a healthy thing for either an existing team or a new team coming into the sport.”

Plans for revised tyre rules in 2016 remain in limbo after the F1 teams were unable to decide on the details in a meeting on Thursday night.

The subject was discussed by the team managers and the FIA at a gathering of the Sporting Working Committee, where the other key item on the agenda was refuelling (see separate story).

The original proposal, put forward by Force India, was for teams to be allowed to chose in advance which of the four tyre compounds they want to use each race weekend. Several more detailed plans were presented in the meeting, including versions proposed by Pirelli, Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren.

Among the ideas discussed were having as many as six compounds, three compounds in use per weekend, drivers not starting on the tyres that they qualified with, and a ‘joker’ system that allows teams to select their own tyres four or five times a year.

As noted previously Pirelli is concerned about teams choosing an extreme compound, experiencing problems and then blaming the tyre supplier for any shortcomings. The Italian company made that clear when summing up the aims of its own proposal, saying that any plan should “not jeopardise safety or the tyre supplier reputation,” while at the same time “providing more and better publicity for the tyre supplier, making the tyre choice and tyre usage a talking point before and during the race weekend.”

Pirelli also gave some idea of the logistics involved by suggesting that teams choose their tyres for the first races of the season as early as November of the previous year, and then make their selections for the latter part of the season in April.

Plans for the reintroduction of refuelling to F1 in 2017 look to be dead in the water following a meeting at which representatives of the teams expressed unanimous opposition to it.

It’s understood that the FIA’s Charlie Whiting will now report the findings of the meeting back to the F1 Strategy Group, whose members came up with the idea in their May 14^th gathering.

Tonight’s regular Thursday F1 team managers’ meeting morphed into a meeting of the Sporting Working Committee, whose role is to refine regulations. Refuelling was one of two main items on the agenda, along with 2016 tyre rules.

Surprisingly perhaps the main opposition to refuelling was on the basis that it would be detrimental to the show, rather than cost or safety.

Data analysed by various team strategists and presented at the meeting provided solid proof that refuelling would not improve the racing – for example in 2010, the year after it was stopped, there were twice as many overtaking moves as in the previous year.

It was also agreed that if refuelling came back it would again have to be on the basis of drivers qualifying on race fuel, a concept that the teams felt was not successful, as it did not present a true picture of who had the fastest car.

Although cost was not the main driver of today’s decision it’s estimated that a return to refuelling would cost £1m in the first year, and then £500,000 a year thereafter. Some teams have expressed doubts over safety, as the desire to have fast pit stops that depend on the tyre changing time would require much faster flow rates than previously, for example a 33 litres per second flow as opposed to 12.