15/03/2011
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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When writing about Tom Bower's 'No Angel - The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone' a reviewer's hardest task is to convey how slipshod and incompetent it is. I have never before read a book on a mainstream topic which is so riddled with errors of fact and has so much invention. Errors of fact I can forgive, to a certain point, this book passed that point after 30 pages, but inventing history is not on.
A main player in F1 until his recent retirement was Paddy McNally. If you had never heard of Paddy, you should be able to guess his nationality. You may not know that Paddy hails from County Monaghan, Ulster, but you will have guessed that someone called Paddy might be Irish and the name will indicate the side of the religious divide he is from. Does he drink Jamesons or Bushmills? Fearlessly, Bower calls Paddy an Englishman. You would think that there has never been any problem between the English and the Irish, a mere 700 years of strife.
The most junior cub reporter on a local paper might have queried someone called 'Paddy' being English. Bower does not do even basic checking, yet he is described by his publisher as having a distinguished reputation as an investigative historian. I am the Emperor of China, I have said so.
Some reviewers have tried to be kind and have made excuses for the depth and breadth of Bower's sheer ignorance of motor racing. As an historian myself, I reckon that some basic knowledge is essential and, if you are in any doubt, you employ a researcher, you do not make things up.
Bower had a potentially easy ride, a lot of groundbreaking research having already been done by Terry Lovell in 'Bernie's Game' (and the revised version, 'Bernie Ecclestone, King of Sport') and Timothy Collings in 'The Piranha Club'. Bower gets Collings name wrong, but chin up, Tim, you are not alone.
There is also 'Bernie - The Biography of Bernie Ecclestone' by Susan Watkins, wife of the former FIA Medical Delegate Sid Watkins - an important part of the sport's history, yet who doesn't rate a single mention in Bower's tome - but I haven't read that yet. (Hint, hint).
Of the few books on the sport that Bower acknowledges as having used, he gets the name of one of the authors wrong. Almost everything else comes from newspapers and it is noticeable that his narrative becomes stronger as papers went on-line. It used to be scissors and paste, now it's Google. You really cannot mess up Stepneygate or Max and the hookers, it has been written for you.
I believe that I know who set Max up and it is not one of the usual suspects. Bower does not have a clue. If I said who it was, I would betray my source and I do not do that.
Bower has the reputation of dishing the dirt on several well-known figures so Bernie defused him by inviting him to lunch. Bower claims to have had 'unprecedented access to friends and to Bernie himself' and all I can say is that he blew it. The number of direct quotations is small, we proper historians notice details like that.
I am angry with Bower for screwing an opportunity and I am angry with Faber (and Faber) for not employing a competent editor. Faber used to be a guarantee of quality, TS Eliot was a director. There is a difference between an airport and an airfield, as Biggin Hill is. You cannot write 'a Battle of Britain airport', there is no such thing.
Did you know that the Yardley BRMs were painted pink? That Carlos Reutemann was a World Champion or that March made the fastest F1 cars in 1969 when, in 1969, March made just one car, for Formula Three. I bet you did not know that Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac won three World Championships, 1962-70. I dare not tell Jack, he will only speak of money.
Apparently, Frank Williams signalled to his (unnamed) driver to let James Hunt by in the 1976 Japanese GP, thus securing James the World Championship. Frank rigged the Championship except, at the time, both of Franks's cars were out by lap 49 of 73. Bower made that up.
Hey. what about Mercedes-Benz being in F1 in 1973? They kept that quiet.
Bernie won a 500cc race at Crystal Palace in 1950. Crystal Palace did not reopen until 1953.
In an interview available on YouTube Bower appears to be taking the line ascribed to Honore de Balzac, 'Behind every great fortune lies a great crime'. In fact, Bernie's dealings have been so transparent that we know, in broad terms, how he made his money. Details of the Concorde Agreements are supposed to be confidential among the people concerned, but there have been leaks.
As long ago as 1983 a former team manager gave me chapter and verse of the workings of the then Concorde Agreement and I am not the only journalist to have been so briefed. Never once have I betrayed the trust, but the knowledge has informed my writing as other briefings have informed other writers.
Bower cannot let go of the fact that Bernie was once a used car salesman who dealt among the spivs and sharks on London's notorious Warren Street. Oddly, he does not mention that Colin Chapman also dealt on Warren Street, his off-campus activities being a contributory factor to his twice failing an important component of his degree.
Chapman's involvement in the used car trade has been in print for more than 50 years.
I think that Ecclestone and Chapman missed each other on Warren Street by about six months, but I bet they had stories to share. There was the stocking down the dip stick which would muffle the failed big ends and there was the sawdust in the transmission. Such larks!
I'd be surprised if Chapman and Ecclestone did not resort to such tricks, the only way to survive in a pool of sharks is by being a shark.
Bernie once told a friend of mine, a senior F1 designer, that his used car lot was on top of a hill. He would tell the punter that he had to go to the post office so why not combine the two, the punter could test drive the car and if he liked it, they would clinch the deal. The point was that the post office was at the bottom of the hill and the car worked fine, when assisted by gravity.
Chapman was a genius, according to Bower, whereas Bernie is forever a used car salesman. Bernie appears to have formed a relationship with Enzo Ferrari whom Bower describes as a former used car salesman. He made that up,
We are told that Tony Blair, when leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, had to meet Bernie in his motorhome at Silverstone because the RAC would not allow a member of the Labour Party into its club house. The RAC does not have a club house at Silverstone, Bower confuses the RAC with the BRDC. Bless, they are both sets of initials and Bower is easily confused.
As a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, I often used the BRDC Clubhouse and could sign in a guest. The idea that anyone was barred for their politics is tosh, he made that up. . Neither Bernie nor Max are members and they have chosen not to be. I could have signed in Blair, but Bernie could not. Membership is the point of a club.
According to Bower, Bernie had problems with the BRDC because they were all snobs. In fact, in 1992, the year in question, most were former second-hand car salesmen, and successful ones at that. They were of Bernie's cut and that is why he had difficulty with them. Bernie could romance princes, but not people of his own ilk.
A dear friend of mine was a former used-car salesman, the late Alan Brown, a British F3 Champion and a stalwart of the BRDC. Every time we met, he tried to sell me some dud motor. There was the Peugeot 504 Estate and when I protested that I was single, Alan came back with, 'Dear boy, you never know when you are going to meet a beautiful, wealthy, widow with five children.'
Bower appears not to like Ron Dennis and there is no reason why he should, but he might at least get his facts right. Ron is described throughout as a 'former junior mechanic' or as 'a grease monkey'. This is the same Ron Dennis who has just given us the McLaren MP4-12C, the only supercar I want to own.
When he joined Cooper, Ron was the youngest mechanic in the Formula One pitlane and there were not many more than two dozen mechanics; then, as now, the elite. When Jack Brabham formed the Brabham Racing Organisation, he recruited Ron, and Jack is the canniest driver ever.
I have no idea what Tom Bower's first job was but, after I was asked to leave school, my first full-time job was as a farm labourer. I would be pissed off if I was forever known as a mucker out of pig sties and a builder of middens. Standing up to my knees in cow dung is part of my life, I use it to wind up townies, but it does not define who I am.
A key point to Bernie, which Bower misses, is that he became close to three drivers: Stuart Lewis-Evans, Jochen Rindt and Carlos Pace and all were killed, two in cars, one in a plane. After Pace's death Bernie deliberately distanced himself from drivers, the pain was too great. If you do not understand the pain, you have no hope of understanding Bernie.
Bower says that Bernie became the manager to Lewis-Evens and negotiated him out of a contract with Connaught and into one with Vanwall. I was the first person to write in depth about Lewis-Evans so naturally I spoke to Bernie who, I discovered, has a sentimental streak. There was a catch in his voice when he spoke of Stuart.
Bernie merely advised Stuart because he was a friend of the family, he was not Stuart's manager, I have that from the man himself. Bower depends on hearsay despite his unprecedented access. Soon after Stuart finished fourth in the 1957 Monaco GP, Connaught folded. Ferrari signed Lewis-Evans who drove once for the Scuderia, at Le Mans, where he co-drove a Ferrari to fifth place.
Tony Vandervell, patron of Vanwall, wanted to enter a third car. He had bought F1 Ferraris in the past and his Thinwall bearings had solved major engine problems for Ferrari. Tony Vandervell and Enzo Ferrari had grudging respect for each other and Vandervell secured Lewis-Evans. Bernie had nothing to do with the transfer, and has never claimed that he had. Bower made that up.
By the way, the Connaught auction was in 1957, not 1958, and Bernie did not buy everything as Bower suggests.
After Ayrton Senna's fatal crash at Imola Max Mosley is quoted as saying, 'They were driving at 170 mph in an unprotected petrol bath without even a seat belt as protection. Make a mistake and all you had was two yards of grass before you started collecting pine trees.'
Max was probably talking about Hockenheim 1968 and Jim Clark's crash. Max was doing a season of Formula Two in 1968 and he drove in that race. 1968, 1994, seat belts, no seat belts, it is all the same to Bower.
Bower confuses 1977 with 1982 when some teams, Bernie's among them, were running underweight cars in qualifying and adding ballast for the weigh-in. Frank Williams saying that he sold Bernie the lead to ballast his cars is an invention. In 1977, Frank was running a second-hand March 761 for pay drivers. He did not know that it was second-hand, Max had sold him a 'new' car. In 1982, Williams did not use lead for its underweight cars however, there has always been speculation that the team fitted tyres filled with water prior to being weighed.
Bower was born in 1946, he is of my generation. He does not know that a V-1 was a pilotless aircraft and not a rocket, that was the V-2. When the motor cut, Bower says that the V-1 fell vertically whereas it glided for about 40 seconds, it being an aircraft, and then came the bang. Bower is the only English male of my generation who does not know this.
By the way, I received the blast of a V-1 in my face, it brought down the roof. The cat got out and had kittens.
Bower is puzzled that one of Bernie's early business partners hit a problem. Bernie was dealing in motorcycles, the partner was dealing in cars. Between 1st December, 1947 and 1st June 1948, the petrol ration in Britain was suspended and car sales stalled, I would have thought that a distinguished investigative historian would have known that.
There is a picture of Bernie with that partner posing with a prewar Studebaker. It is actually a postwar Hudson. It says Hudson on the bonnet, which is something of a giveaway.
If Bower was any sort of researcher at all. he might have asked how a postwar American car was in the possession of an Englishman in 1948. Something very naughty would have gone on there and it would have almost certainly have involved the black market. Just asking.
Bower has sold his book (the Daily Mail has published extracts) on tittle-tattle about Bernie's relationship with his former wife. I think that it is plain wrong, not to say daft, to attempt to dissect someone else's marriage. It is common knowledge that the former Mrs E was capable of throwing a strop, but the relationship worked for a quarter of a century.
Bower mentions in passing the many acts of kindness Bernie has performed, but fails to highlight even one, so I will give an example. To celebrate 50 years of the World Championship, Bernie threw an exclusive bash and auction which raised the best part of a million pounds for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Bernie celebrated 50 years of the World Championship by raising money for a children's charity. Bower somehow missed that.
Bower portrays Ken Tyrrell as Bernie's gritty opponent. In fact, Bernie bankrolled Tyrrell which is why, during the FISA/FOCA 'war' it was Ken who slapped in all the protests on behalf of FOCA and Tyrrell alone of the FOCA teams competed in the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix. Ken owed Bernie so much money (I have heard thirteen million pounds, but that is rumour)) that selling the Tyrrell team to BAR was a formality.
One thing Bower fails to grasp is that Bernie has been inventive about his past. Bower has the first job with the Gas Board version. An alternative is that Bernie worked for the Electricity Board manning a sub-station. The call came through to turn on the juice and Bernie was demonstrating a motorcycle, he was fired and swore never to work for anyone but himself
Bernie has told different stories to different people and he loves the wind-up. If you don't get that about the man, you get nowhere.
The blurb says that Bernie was born into poverty, yet he won a place to a grammar school and his parents could afford all the kit. Passing up a place at a grammar school because you could not afford the uniform, that was poverty. It happened to my mother. I am so glad that she lived to see me receive my PhD although, by Bower's rule, I am forever a mucker out of pig sties and a herder of sheep. In fact, I was a pretty good herder of sheep.
Bernie was not the first person to see the future of sport, I guess that was Jack Kramer and his professional tennis circuit. Mark McCormack was the man who showed how much money there could be made from sport. Bernie was not original, but he was smart enough to learn from others. Colin Chapman could have done it, he was in place, and so was Ken Tyrrell, but neither did.
It was Bernie, and he alone, who created modern Formula One. I do not like everything he has done, and I will continue to criticise him, when I think it is justified, but he did it.
Bernie has transformed a minority interest sport into a global TV spectacle. I used to have to apologise for being a motor racing writer, I had been a teacher so it was seen as a fall from Grace. Now it is, 'Do you know Lewis Hamilton?'
I have saved the best until last. When Niki Lauda arrived in Sweden in 1978 to drive a Brabham BT46B. he was not told that it was fitted with a fan. Niki was the only person not to notice that there was a fan, a yard in diameter, at the back of his car. According to Bower, Bernie was keeping it a secret. We do not learn whether John Watson was also kept in the dark, Wattie does not rate a mention.
If you want to know how useless is Tom Bower, imagine Niki and Wattie not knowing that the Brabham BT46B was fitted with a fan because Bernie kept that secret. And his special tweak for qualifying was to load the cars with fuel. I do not think so.
There is still a book to be written on Bernie, and I am sure that Terry Lovell will do a wonderful job when Bernie gets his pass to the Great Paddock in the Sky. In the meantime, avoid Bower's sorry mish-mash.
Mike Lawrence
mike.lawrence@pitpass.com
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