That's an understatement ! Senna and Prost ended up hating each other at McLaren, and even Prost's departure to Ferrari didn't stop the rivalry. Senna of course claimed he had almost a God-given right to win, which irritated Prost a lot. Respectivelly refugees from McLaren and Williams, Prost and Mansell were uneasy bedfellows at Ferrari and stopped talking to each other at briefings. Piquet was a practical joker who took the piss of most of the other drivers. Piquet started to mock Mansell at Williams, saying he was an uneducated fat Brummie with an ugly wife! He used to call him a "fast moron" to the media ! Piquet also couldn't stand Senna's pseudo-mystic attitude and maliciously spread the rumour that he was gay! Senna wanted to sue him at one point. Of course F1 was far less PC in those days, and had real characters unlike now. I enjoyed these years, and I miss the atmosphere.
Prost and Piquet did ok, they had no problems...of course later i heard an interview where Piquet said Prost was a sneaky bastard, that he was very ugly and could not get laid, so he pretended to be friends with other drivers in order to get their women!!!, lololo
Since this is Monaco week, I thought I'd post this photo I took 40 years ago of Jacques Lafitte's Ligier coming into Casino Square with the Hotel de Paris (and people eating lunch on the outside terrace) in the background. I have never seen another Monaco photo shot from this perspective. I always thought that the Ligier Gitanes JS11, with its blue and white livery, was won of the prettiest cars back in that era. Gitanes was also one of our F2 sponsors, and we had the same livery on one of the cars Keke drove for us in the late seventies. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Check out the Casio watch (minus straps) placed on Schumacher’s Benetton steering wheel in 1993. I remember Pat Symonds telling me he bought a load in one purchase that year as Michael wanted a stopwatch in the cockpit. Image Unavailable, Please Login
1982 - The Race Nobody wanted to win. In a bizarre turn of events, 4 potential race winners either crashed out or ran out of fuel in the last 2 laps. Spitting rain in the closing stages made the track treacherous and Keke Rosberg crashed on lap 65. Image Unavailable, Please Login Prost spun into the barriers on the way down to Tabac, handing the lead to Patrese. But as the Brabham driver got half-way through the penultimate lap, he ended up entering the Loews hairpin backwards & had to concede position to Pironi & de Cesaris... Image Unavailable, Please Login Just three corners later, Pironi sputtered to a halt and then on the final lap de Cesaris's Alfa Romeo also stopped out of fuel. This put Patrese back in the lead. Image Unavailable, Please Login The drama didn't end there, as second place Derek Daly fired his car into the barriers at the Swimming Pool complex. Patrese picked his way through the carnage and very slowly and carefully crossed the line to take his first Formula One win. Image Unavailable, Please Login On this day in 1982, Patrese scored his 1st career F1 win at Circuit de Monaco. Image Unavailable, Please Login
It was a fitting race for a season in which it seemed no one wanted to win the championship, with 11 different winners, and Keke winning the title while only winning one race.
In memory of Klaus Bythiner, photographer and Phil Hill, World Champion. Monaco, 1960. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Oh man, Piquet was the best when it comes to jokes. I remember one interview where he said about Mansell coming into the pits every two laps during a practice session because of diarrhea. He noticed that and hid all rolls of toilet paper.
Good story on Gordon Murray and his design philosophy, Bernie, etc.: https://www.gptraveler.com/gordon-murray/features/
Gordon Murray WAS Brabham with all the responsabilities, and Bernie never rewarded him to his true value.
True that he was Brabham but he doesn't really sound like he has any hard feelings towards Bernie. He really did have free reign to design and run the cars as he pleased.
On this day 45 years ago Ronnie 'SuperSwede' Peterson won at Monaco in a Lotus 72E Image Unavailable, Please Login
Truly one of the greats. Is this photo from the 1973 season when Ronnie and Emmo were teammates? Emmo was reigning WDC that year and his car would carry the #1. It is a great image, thanks for posting.
