14/07/2006
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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Juan Pablo Montoya is going to NASCAR and will leave F1 with immediate effect. I shall miss you, Juan Pablo, but I think that is a great result all round. Some people in the F1 paddock will see your departure as a demotion, it is not. Formula One is only one branch of motor racing, as circuit racing is only one branch of motor sport.
Juan Pablo has had some wonderful moments in Formula One and we are the better for them. It has been clear for some time that his temperament, and his talent, were being wasted in F1.
J P M was FIA F3000 Champion in 1998 when he also signed as Williams test driver. He then replaced Alex Zanardi in the Target Chip Ganassi Racing Team in CART, and gave Toyota its first win in CART. He won the Indianapolis 500 in 2000 and there was nobody else in the race, he dominated, with panache.
In 2001, his debut season in F1, Juan Pablo won a Grand Prix (Italy) for Williams and for a driver to win in his first year is a rare occasion. In 2002 he was usually at the sharp end of the grid, he took pole ten times in his F1 career and that is impressive. He might have won the title for Williams BMW in 2003, but he made a couple of mistakes and there was a falling out with the team.
I have been wondering if there should be an adjective before 'mistakes', something that would describe the enormity of them. They were mistakes and I am not qualified to comment on them. I have never been crouched in a cockpit trying to stay alert with g forces hitting me from every angle. A footballer makes a bad pass which gives the opposition the opportunity to put together a series of moves which results in a goal, and the bad pass is soon forgotten. A racing driver goes into a corner at a speed, and with the commitment, that most of us cannot even imagine, his judgement is out by a sliver of a second, and in that instant he becomes Total Tosser.
Sir Frank and Patrick do not like to see their car leading a race only for it to crash. They have spent years developing a car so it can lead a race and sincerely they do not want it thrown at the scenery especially with BMW breathing down their necks. On the other hand, the talent, the passion, call it what you will, which empowered J P M to be in a Williams BMW, and to lead Grands Prix, was the same element of character which caused him to make mistakes.
Williams has a peerless record in promoting drivers to F1, Sir Frank understands drivers better than anyone because he wanted to be one. To discover how hard something is, you always go to the second or third tier, never to the top. You cannot ask Michael Schumacher about driving a car any more than you can ask him about growing his hair.
The dismal performance of Williams BMW in 2004 had to be laid at the door at someone, BMW itself could not be responsible. When there is a big company involved there has to be blame, because the board of directors are incapable of being wrong.
I draw your attention to the BMW range of road cars which was once the prettiest of any manufacturer. BMW's current styling is, er, a matter of debate. Nobody was responsible for the current styling save for former chief stylist, Chris Bangle, who has been moved sideways.
Sorry, but every concept has to pass scrutiny. It goes from a pencil sketch to the board of directors. When Ford produced the ugliest car in years, the updated Scorpio, there were a lot of people at many levels who could have raised objections to how hideous it was, and few things have been more clearly grotesque, but nobody raised objections. It was like the emperor's new clothes.
The original Scorpio was a good car, it was the first model in the world to have electronic ABS fitted as standard across the range. In 1986, Mercedes Benz offered electronic ABS as an option on certain models and then lied about it. Mercedes Benz claimed to be the first company to offer ABS when Jensen had ABS, and four wheel drive, as standard on the FF in 1967.
I heard the lie from the lips of the President of Daimler Benz on a frozen lake in Sweden in January, 1966. It was a three hour press conference and there was no place to go except into the sub Arctic wilderness. After an hour, the company of moose would have been preferable. After two hours, wolf packs seemed okay. After three hours with Herr I'm So Pleased With Myself, I was ready for anything. There came a point when being flayed alive was an attractive option because you knew that the agony would end.
German television broadcast the centenary celebration of Daimler Benz. It was so dire that the programme was pulled while it was being transmitted. Volkswagen holds the record with the five and a half hour press conference. Here is Helmut, more wheels on Volkswagens than anyone in history, he has put.
Companies tell lies on many occasions and, in my experience, German companies tell the biggest whoppers of all. One day I will tell pitpass readers how I came to have at my disposal the only Golf Mk IV in England and the only Skoda Octavia. Members of the board of VAG (that's the Volkswagen group) flew in to England to placate me.
The board of VAG could not understand that I was upset because one of their products had tried to kill me. Okay, perhaps I could merely have been maimed, like confined to a wheelchair for life. The throttle of a Golf V5 had stuck wide open in a corner, we went from 1,500 rpm to 7,000 rpm on a country lane and that is not funny. I don't think the lady at the wheel of the Metro coming the other way was much impressed either.
You have to meet the directors of large corporations to appreciate how useless many are. They cannot be wrong otherwise they would not be where they are. Apparently the board of VAG could not believe they had a lethal car, because they do not do lethal cars and therefore nothing happened, except there was nearly a big accident and I came close to dying and I object to that.
The board of directors at Ford (USA) passed the Pinto and its fuel tank. Better a few kids burned alive than making the car safe at six dollars a unit. The bean counters worked out how many people would be fried and how much it might cost in compensation. Ford's board of directors went with the bean counters because it was the cheaper option.
I may seem to be wandering from J P M, but it is important to make the point that car companies tell lies as a matter of routine and the prestigious German companies are the worst of all. You have to meet these people to understand how cracked they are. The terrible thing is that they believe they are doing it for the greater good, but we have heard that line before.
The biggest liar on the block is DaimlerChrysler, BMW and VAG are close, they tie for second. Porsche used to be good at the downright lie, but they have slipped of late. I once pointed out all the inaccuracies in a Porsche press release and I was banned by Porsche (UK) from ever writing about Porsche again. The chairman's name was Kevin (Brits will get what I mean, we use the term, 'a right Kevin', Americans could try 'Elmer'). A man called Kevin barred me from writing about Porsche because I pointed out the lies (and the apostrophic abuse) in a press release. Porsche (UK) was claiming victories it never scored. I ignored him, of course. If you begin to listen to a Kevin, the next thing is that you are selling your soul to Mephistopheles.
I divide the world into racers and those who do not race. It has nothing to do with formal competition, it has everything to do with attitude of mind. Ron is a racer, so is Sir Frank, and Jean, Ross and the other guys at Ferrari.
Peter Sauber is a racer, but nobody on the board of BMW can grasp the concept, if they did they would be shouted down, but there was a time when BMW was largely comprised of racers. Look how the company arose from the ashes following the misunderstanding, 1939 45. BMW's main factory landed in the East, the first car to be made in München (Munich) was in December 1952. For some years BMW was chiefly known for bubble cars, now it owns the Rolls Royce Motor Company, though the board screwed the purchase and had to pay millions to VAG to be able to make the Phantom. I will be surprised if BMW is ever able to balance the profit on the cars against what they had to pay to secure the right to the name, which they thought they had, because the entire board was so incompetent that nobody read the small print.
VAG had a field day, of course, and screwed every last pfennig from BMW, as you would. It cost BMW a lot of cash and I do not think there was a single resignation. The same board of directors has bought a Formula One team and it is absurd to think it will ever win a race. The only people who do not know that it is a risible idea are the board of BMW.
I admire BMW, there is a lot to admire, but it will never win a Grand Prix on its own. It will waste hundreds of millions of pounds trying (as will Toyota) but the money the directors are spending does not come from their own pockets. Motor racing money rarely does, it comes from the pockets of share holders.
I think that J P M suffered from Bavarian rage at one step removed. The directors are never at fault, but there is always a fall guy. Bavaria is not like the rest of Germany, it is a bit like what Wales is to England, it is different. Orson Welles was wrong about the Swiss inventing the cuckoo clock, it comes from Bavaria. BMW had to win and, if it was not winning, there had to be blame. It could not be BMW so it had to be Williams.
Juan Pablo got a terrific deal from McLaren Mercedes, but he did not notice the second part of the name. He thought he was dealing with McLaren, but he was also dealing with Mercedes Benz, a failing car company. I assume that every reader knows about Mercedes Benz's recent quality problems, and its falling profits, so I don't need to go into that. Mercedes Benz and its board cannot possibly be to blame. No member of the board agreed to cut corners and so pay vast amounts in product recalls. It must have been someone else.
Montoya suffered a nasty injury messing around on a quad bike or, perhaps, playing tennis. It was embarrassing to watch Ron Dennis having to give the line about the tennis injury. Nobody, in the history of motor racing, has been more loyal to his drivers than has Ron. He had to deliver the line that J P M had suffered an injury playing tennis because that was the line, the lie, decided by the liars in Stuttgart.
If you say something you know to be untrue, it is not PR, it is not spin, it is lying.
If you looked at Ron's body language you could tell he was unhappy, but Mercedes Benz, a company which once made very good cars, and which was then spiralling into an abyss, was
insistent. To his credit, Ron did manage to convey that he had bought into the package, you hire a driver for what he can do on the track, but you buy the whole man and that includes what he does off the track.
I was once talking to an F1 team manager when the team owner breezed in. He asked after the performance of a driver. The owner knew the results, he wanted to know the performance. The manager said, "Different whore every night. He shagged Olympic standard." The team owner grinned and said, "That's what I like to hear about my drivers."
I cannot condone this attitude. For a start She Who Must Be Obeyed is bigger than me and has been working out. At the time when this exchange took place Juan Pablo was still singing treble, so it has nothing to do with him.
Juan Pablo is a top driver, there is no question about that but he is not for a corporation. He is a racer and there are fewer racers in the F1 pitlane than once there was.
Juan Pablo was signed by Ronzo for the best of reasons, he can be mighty. He then had an injury and has never been quite on top form since. I blame people in Stuttgart, they required him to return too soon. Juan Pablo had been playing around, true, but that is what drivers do. He got hurt, but he wouldn't be who he is if he was playing patience. Juan Pablo has never been the same driver since, he has not that slight edge, the odd tenth of a second, which made him awesome. He needed a bit more time and he was not granted that time.
It's only people like the directors of DaimlerChrysler who are so stupid they think they can get away with a whopper like the 'tennis' injury. Ve vill say he was playing tennis, jah, und der vorld will believe us despite the fact we are losing 85% of our profit in product recall because ve now make der Krappenwagen, but it is okay because we remain pleased with ourselves.
I hope that Juan Pablo is a superstar in NASCAR, he is a wonderful driver, always has been, always will be. I hope he makes stacks of money and is a top man twenty years from now. NASCAR is peopled by racers, real racers and Formula One now has too many people of influence who are not racers, I mean the boards of directors of large companies who get their paddock passes at the expense of their share holders.
I also hope that Formula One wakes up to the fact it is not the be all and end all of racing. Formula One is only one section of one branch of motor sport and it is poorer for Juan Pablo's departure. We are all the more poor for his leaving. Juan Pablo has not been demoted, he is going to a better place, a place where racers count. Hee Haw!
Mike Lawrence
mike@pitpass.com
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