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Malcolm Oastler (Part 2) - Australian GP Special · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:20
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my podcast with former VAR Technical Director Malcolm Osler.
• 0:26
  It's all part of a special limited release as we celebrate the return of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix.
• 0:32
  The broadcaster, the designer and the legend, Will Buxton from Drive to Survive, Malcolm here and Alan Jones.
• 0:40
  They've all been dropped into the library to coincide with Albert Park and we really hope you enjoy it.
• 0:46
  Now, if you've arrived at part two of my chat with Malcolm and somehow missed part one, jump back to the Rusty's Garage Library and engage the starter button.
• 0:54
  From winning Aussie hill climb titles in post F1 life to Formula Ford racing as a young engineer and how he turned heads with very little experience.
• 1:04
  And you'll get a sense of the fascination he had with almost anything mechanical from a very young age.
• 1:10
  We begin part two by talking about the success of his F3000 creations, and that one he's got a soft spot for.
• 1:21
  The first car was 88, and it went out and won its first race and won the championship and stuff, but...
• 1:26
  At 89 we went on with a Lacey, but really it was a Lacey and Eddie Jordan.
• 1:30
  It's hard to say.
• 1:31
  The cars, our car and the Lola were quite different.
• 1:33
  They had an old-fashioned car with the weight forward.
• 1:35
  Our car had the driver behind the front wheels and had the long wheelbase and the weight rearward.
• 1:40
  So different circuits would suit our car and different circuits would suit their car, but we weren't really dominating.
• 1:47
  Until, and 1990, we only won four races.
• 1:50
  Eric Vanderpool won three and Irvine won one.
• 1:52
  But we rolled up with this new car in 1991 after a sort of horror year in 1990.
• 1:56
  And it was the fourth car that I designed.
• 2:00
  And the first car we'd done on CAD and sort of a few steps forward with the aero and what have you.
• 2:05
  And it was a phenomenal bit of kit.
• 2:07
  It just won everything.
• 2:08
  Such a good racing car.
• 2:10
  So that's the car.
• 2:11
  And then the 92 car, actually, they changed the rules again and that we had a bit of an aero.
• 2:15
  A bit of error development to do on that car with the new rule change, but by 93 we sussed it out.
• 2:20
  But, yeah, the 91 car really stood out.
• 2:21
  It just rolled up with Zanardi and Christian Fittipaldi and Tamburini and Nespetti and just, they just won everything.
• 2:30
  Some of those chassis, correct me if I'm wrong, filtered back to Formula Holden in Australia and they were a beautiful-looking car too, weren't they?
• 2:36
  Beautiful shape.
• 2:37
  I think so.
• 2:40
  I was racing against one down at Phillip Island a few weeks ago and the guy said, come up and have a look at this.
• 2:44
  And I walked into the garage and it's just, Mark Scaife sold 92 Reynard Ford and the 3000.
• 2:50
  I walked in the garage and I thought, what a good-looking car, you know.
• 2:55
  You mentioned about the IndyCar chapter, which I want to get to, but you just sort of sparked a thought in my mind here.
• 3:01
  I mean, the rapid change in the sport in terms of technology and development, and I guess you never stop learning.
• 3:12
  You mentioned CAD before, for example, and...
• 3:16
  How much did you enjoy that side of it and experimenting with new things?
• 3:21
  Because it is, when you ultimately got to Formula One, it is seen as the cutting edge of technology, the chance to do things that perhaps haven't been done before in that space, isn't it?
• 3:33
  Yeah, I suppose it's the cutting edge of technology at the time.
• 3:35
  Yes.
• 3:36
  You know, Formula One's come, perhaps since I stopped doing it, it's just come so far, even in the following five or ten years, let alone 20.
• 3:44
  You know, back then we didn't know what we were doing, really.
• 3:47
  I tend to look at sort of cars in the 1970s and...
• 3:50
  I think no one knew what they were doing, which is a bit harsh, but realistically.
• 3:54
  Actually, they certainly didn't know what not to do.
• 3:58
  And then the 1980s developed a little bit more aerodynamic understanding and ground effect changed things a lot.
• 4:04
  But it was quite common to have cars with the wheels falling off.
• 4:08
  That's no good.
• 4:09
  You can't be doing that.
• 4:11
  brake pedals that snap into and sort of carry on.
• 4:15
  It just goes on in leaps and bounds.
• 4:17
  And part of the joy for me was just learning, you know, learning just a better and better understanding of engineering.
• 4:23
  And I learned a lot, obviously, in my early years and at Reinhardt and then with the Formula One team.
• 4:30
  The thing at Reinhardt, we never had our own cars.
• 4:32
  We couldn't go out testing because we didn't have our own cars, didn't have our own team.
• 4:36
  So you're always on the sort of...
• 4:39
  about, you know, do you think this might work?
• 4:41
  Can you test this for us?
• 4:42
  I think, obviously, a Formula One team, you've got the cars, you've got all the data, you've got the drivers, you can do some serious analysis and development.
• 4:49
  So I learned a lot at...
• 4:52
  B.A.R.
• 4:53
  with our own crew of people and then went to Jaguar and learnt a whole lot more there from some other very intelligent, experienced people.
• 5:00
  And then, of course, I ended up on the farm building my own cars and having to do it all myself and I learnt a whole lot more because I had to do it for myself rather than rely on the next young bloke to come out of uni to do the stress analysis.
• 5:10
  It was all down to me.
• 5:11
  Terrific.
• 5:11
  We'll get to a couple of those little things that you've identified there because they're great, great parts of your career.
• 5:16
  Raynard as a company had, you know, had its moments where it had some struggles.
• 5:20
  I mean, you talked about how big it grew before to whatever it was, 300 odd staff.
• 5:25
  How aware were you of some of the challenges they faced along the way?
• 5:29
  Did that impact what you were doing?
• 5:31
  I don't know about challenges.
• 5:32
  When I was there, it just grew and grew and grew.
• 5:35
  And honestly, Greg, the Raynard Racing Cars in the 1990s must be some sort of model company.
• 5:42
  Everyone was so motivated.
• 5:44
  We were so successful.
• 5:45
  Loads of money.
• 5:47
  And the quality of everything just went up all the time.
• 5:50
  The quality of the cars went up, the quality of the engineering service, the quality of the spare supply, the quality of the guys in the assembly shop guys.
• 5:58
  We had twice, we had cars go straight from the assembly shop to a race meeting and sit on pole.
• 6:03
  Crazy.
• 6:04
  And Misfetti actually won the race.
• 6:07
  This team, Italian team in 91, bought cars halfway through the season because whatever they were running, Lola's or something, wasn't competitive.
• 6:14
  Went straight from the assembly shop, straight to inner, put it on pole, won the race.
• 6:20
  And we did it again with IndyCar.
• 6:21
  I think Greg Moore's transporter went off the road and rolled and destroyed two or three cars and they had a brand new car for...
• 6:28
  for Australia, and I think he put it on pole.
• 6:30
  Maybe it was somewhere else.
• 6:31
  But, yeah, the quality of the show was phenomenal, and the engineering support and all the data the guys had, all the wind tunnel data, technical manuals, technical bulletins.
• 6:39
  It was a model company, really.
• 6:42
  Shame that it disintegrated, to be honest.
• 6:45
  I look even now at those mid-90s IndyCars and it's a look of love.
• 6:52
  Am I right in saying that you pretty much led that project from the start?
• 6:57
  And did the mission begin as far back as 1992 kind of thing?
• 7:01
  When did it sort of all start to ramp up on the IndyCar side?
• 7:05
  Yeah.
• 7:07
  No, 1993.
• 7:10
  It was one of those funny weeks in March where Adrian said, I've got a deal together to do IndyCar.
• 7:15
  Obviously, you were doing it.
• 7:16
  Away you go.
• 7:17
  We had a car running in October.
• 7:20
  But so I think that was on the Monday.
• 7:24
  And it was the week before the first race at Service Paradise.
• 7:30
  And all the people I needed to talk to, Cart, who did the rules, Goodyear, who did the tyres, Cosworth and Ilmore, they were all in Australia.
• 7:38
  So on Wednesday I was on a plane to Service Paradise to go and see all these people and talk to them about, you know, what we're planning to do and what information we needed.
• 7:47
  And Adrian managed to hook me up with Jim Hall's team.
• 7:51
  So they were very welcoming and showed me the car and...
• 7:55
  how it all worked and all the crazy systems on it with air jacks and wastegates and weight jackers and air equip on these cars like you've never seen what a mess we managed to tidy it up obviously did it become uh i mean you know different demands but but when you look at it from your perspective is it just another just another race car you just understand the rules and what you can do and and um or was it a matter of of understanding the uniqueness of of that american racing scene in indycar
• 8:23
  There are some things that took a while to understand, but as you said, four tyres, one steering wheel, fundamentally the same.
• 8:30
  But what we always intended to do at Rayneye was build a car that's mechanically sound, doesn't have any shortcomings like any silly things on it, and give it the category's best aerodynamics.
• 8:43
  And away you go.
• 8:43
  Yeah.
• 8:44
  It worked well for us.
• 8:45
  At one point, it did.
• 8:46
  I mean, it really did.
• 8:49
  There was, correct me if I'm wrong here, the company had a technical base in Indianapolis.
• 8:56
  So were you commuting?
• 8:57
  Were you mainly based in the UK?
• 8:59
  How did you sort of...
• 9:01
  run things in that regard?
• 9:02
  I'm based in the UK and used to occasionally go out and do two consecutive race weekends and a few days testing in the middle, but back and forth just across the Atlantic at least once a month, depending on where the races were.
• 9:14
  But I didn't need to do them all.
• 9:15
  It wasn't like Formula One where you've got a technical director's got to show up at the track every weekend, even though he's got nothing to do.
• 9:22
  It's just, you know, it was pretty tedious in the end, hotels, racetracks and airports for a living.
• 9:29
  But there is an Indy 500 win in there, which, I mean, must be immensely satisfying in that regard.
• 9:34
  And who were some of the IndyCar drivers that you perhaps got to know over that period as well that people will be fascinated?
• 9:41
  I suppose all of them because we ended up – nearly all of them drove our cars because they were successful.
• 9:45
  But I mainly – I worked in the first year with Tao Fabi, who was very fast.
• 9:51
  And then a couple of years with Gilles de Ferrand.
• 9:54
  And then with all of them, really, I didn't – I think I spent a fair bit of time with PacWest and Mark Plundell and – I know I did – Mark Plundell and Mauricio Guzman in 97, I think.
• 10:04
  But I designed my last car in 97 and 98.
• 10:06
  They just carried on with the product and had another good year.
• 10:10
  So by – funny, I mentioned the fourth Formula 3000 car was the one that really dominated and sort of – by 93 in Formula 3000, we had the whole grid.
• 10:22
  Nobody else was making a car like Dallara in Formula 3 now.
• 10:26
  In fact, the teams were saying, why should we buy 94 cars?
• 10:29
  We're all happy with our 93 cars.
• 10:30
  It was a bit of a new thing.
• 10:33
  And the fourth IndyCar was the one that just crushed everybody.
• 10:38
  Some of the races there scored down to 12th place.
• 10:42
  And in some races, we scored all the points.
• 10:45
  You mentioned before about, you know, looking at some of the cars from F3000 and having a bit of a fondness perhaps for one of them.
• 10:54
  What about across all of them over your entire career?
• 10:58
  Is it an Indy car?
• 10:58
  Is it one of the creations in Formula One?
• 11:01
  Is it an F3000 machine?
• 11:02
  Is there one that you just sort of sit back and go in the way you reflected about the Mark Scaife car before?
• 11:07
  Is there one that you think is, you know, just you felt at your Zenith and the car was an amazing thing?
• 11:13
  I guess not one, but I've got this thing with collections where people have got these huge collections of model cars or beer mugs or tutus or whatever it is, and the thing ends up owning it, you know, boxes and boxes and stuff.
• 11:25
  So just choose your favourite three.
• 11:28
  And that probably represents the whole collection to you, and get rid of the rest.
• 11:31
  So my top three would be the 87 Formula Ford, first car I designed, which went out and was very successful, possibly my finest work.
• 11:39
  And then the 91 F3000 car, which is a game changer.
• 11:42
  Wow.
• 11:45
  The fourth 3000 car, and even though later cars were maybe better, better gearboxes and, you know, better aeros, the 91 car was the game changer that dominated.
• 11:57
  And the 97 Indy car, the fourth Indy car, was just a phenomenal bit of gear.
• 12:00
  It was just like the 91 3000 car.
• 12:02
  It was just the same thing.
• 12:03
  Hop, go out into the track, two little changes.
• 12:06
  It was dialed in.
• 12:07
  It was fast.
• 12:08
  It was reliable.
• 12:09
  Great, you know, great in a race, very race-worthy.
• 12:12
  So those three, they're my top three.
• 12:14
  Yeah.
• 12:15
  Very cool recollections, mate.
• 12:16
  At some point here, late 90s, Formula One beckons or a door opens there.
• 12:23
  What was originally Tyrrell becomes British American Racing.
• 12:27
  How much of a step was this in terms of workload, staffing, stress and so on?
• 12:33
  Just give me the, if you can, share with the audience the phone call or the moment people walked into your office and said, right, this is what we're embarking on.
• 12:43
  Yeah, well, it kicked off at the end of 1997, so it's just done the dominant Indy car and I've already designed the 98 car.
• 12:54
  So in November 1997, Adrian said, we've got this deal together.
• 13:00
  Craig Pollock's put this deal together to go into Formula One and make a new team with British American Tobacco as one partner.
• 13:08
  Pollock, Villeneuve as a second partner and Raynaud as a technical partner.
• 13:11
  So the team was inaugurated at the beginning of December 1997 with three directors and one employee.
• 13:20
  I was the employee.
• 13:21
  We went from there, sort of hiring people.
• 13:24
  Unfortunately, we didn't get the best out of Tyrrell.
• 13:27
  We got some great people out of Tyrrell, but Harvey Postlethwaite was doing a bit of moonlighting, setting up a team for Honda at the same time.
• 13:34
  So he grabbed all his favourite people and wisdom off there.
• 13:38
  But that was just part of the madness.
• 13:42
  So, yeah, starting an F1 team from scratch, reasonable job.
• 13:44
  But we managed to get to the grid.
• 13:46
  We only just managed to get to the grid at the beginning of 99 with the car.
• 13:50
  We had a shocking year in 99.
• 13:51
  We didn't score a single point.
• 13:54
  I could tell you some stories about why we should have and didn't or shouldn't have and didn't, which were close.
• 14:01
  You can.
• 14:02
  Tell us.
• 14:02
  Share.
• 14:03
  The worst one, we walked into it, we came into it, and Craig did this deal to have the Renault engine, which for historical reasons had this funny firing order and this horrendous level of vibration.
• 14:16
  and all sorts of things used to just explode.
• 14:18
  They'd be sitting on the car, you'd put a taillight in the thing and just say goodbye to it because you knew when it came back in, it'd be in pieces hanging off the back of the car.
• 14:27
  It was horrific.
• 14:28
  Anyway, so it made the reliability thing very challenging.
• 14:32
  But we had this little tiny four inch Saks clutch
• 14:37
  which when we first ran it, it fell apart because of the torsional vibrations on the Renault crank.
• 14:43
  But they beefed it up and we got it working.
• 14:44
  But Villeneuve hated it.
• 14:45
  He'd only done one really good start with it.
• 14:48
  And we're getting towards the latter part of the season.
• 14:50
  And he said, I really just need a better clutch to be able to get off the line.
• 14:55
  And at that stage of the game, most of the cars are pretty reliable and you're not going to sort of luck into a lucky result.
• 15:02
  You've got to be strong.
• 15:04
  So we did just put an AP clutch in the thing, four and a half inch clutch or five inch clutch, whatever it was.
• 15:09
  more conventional thing for Nürburgring and did some testing with it at Santa Pard and ran it here and there and tried to do all the right things.
• 15:16
  Went to Nürburgring and it rained in the race.
• 15:20
  And Villeneuve was never very good in the rain.
• 15:21
  He sort of dropped back a bit and he spun at the chicane, but he managed to keep going and people were going off the track left, right and centre.
• 15:27
  And there he was in fifth place with five laps to go.
• 15:33
  going past the start-finish line, there's this big explosion and a ball of flame from the back of the car and this bloody clutch exploded.
• 15:40
  So we broke all the rules about reliability, our own rules about reliability and introducing proven parts to put this clutch in the car.
• 15:47
  $20 million.
• 15:48
  So Tyrell hadn't scored a single point the previous year.
• 15:52
  If you don't score points for two years, you hop off the...
• 15:56
  off the $10 million distribution, whatever it is that the top 10 teams get.
• 16:00
  So it took us out of that $10 million for that year and the next year.
• 16:04
  So, yeah, that exploded clutch.
• 16:05
  The two points that we're sitting on with five laps to go was $20 million cost.
• 16:10
  Wild things like that.
• 16:11
  Then put the Honda engine at the end of the year, which didn't vibrate, and went out and did a race distance the first time it ran the car.
• 16:16
  It was just the difference was staggering.
• 16:19
  Yeah.
• 16:21
  Tell people, if you can, a little of your world back at the factory.
• 16:27
  So are you designing and operating on your own?
• 16:30
  You've got a team of people.
• 16:32
  What are the influences and so on in this process for you?
• 16:35
  Well, I started off as chief designer and Adrian was technical director, but really he was otherwise engaged with Raynard trying to float the company and do other things.
• 16:43
  So I was always going to do Adrian's job in spite of the lack of title, but eventually they gave me that title because...
• 16:49
  They couldn't really have an absent technical director.
• 16:53
  So that became my job.
• 16:54
  And I designed a wishbone or something rather for the first car.
• 16:57
  That was it and a few sketches.
• 16:58
  But I was on top of the wind tunnel testing and sitting basically with the design office.
• 17:03
  Yeah.
• 17:04
  and obviously R&D and the race engineers and the race team to a certain extent.
• 17:09
  So technical director, you're responsible for everything and it basically ends up being everything that goes wrong.
• 17:14
  So a lot of the stuff I wasn't involved in until it broke and then like, okay, what are we going to do with this?
• 17:18
  Which became not very interesting really.
• 17:21
  And the other thing that was very time-consuming, we had Honda engines and...
• 17:25
  And Honda were also technically very interested in Formula 1 aside from the engine.
• 17:30
  They had a chassis program.
• 17:32
  They were spending $100 million a year on I'm not sure what.
• 17:35
  They didn't know themselves on what their objective was.
• 17:39
  I did ask them.
• 17:39
  They weren't sure why they were doing it, but they were spending $100 million a year on...
• 17:44
  They had built this Formula One car with Harvey Possess, as I said.
• 17:48
  But they had nine poster rigs and a wind tunnel programmer and all this.
• 17:52
  Everything sort of piggybacked onto what we were doing, trying to understand what went on.
• 17:56
  And I don't know what they were trying to do.
• 17:58
  But –
• 18:00
  But that needed dealing with.
• 18:01
  Honda technical meetings and all their developments and proposals and so that was quite a lot of work.
• 18:07
  Actually, the Honda side of it was a project in itself.
• 18:11
  Almost like a third of my time went into Honda work, Honda extra work and dealing with – we had a terrible year in 99.
• 18:20
  It took us to the last race to finish both cars.
• 18:22
  I remember we rolled out and we were like fourth and sixth or something in the first race in Australia in 2000.
• 18:29
  fantastic year.
• 18:30
  We finished equal points with Renault.
• 18:34
  So we were fifth, they were fourth because they jagged our second place in Canada, which we were sitting on before the race engineer decided to go for glory rather than points and put wets on the car, put dry tyres on the car in the rain.
• 18:49
  Anyway, but yeah, on today's point scoring system, we'd be a solid fourth, which is a fantastic year.
• 18:55
  phenomenal and totally under-recognised achievement for second year in Formula 1.
• 19:00
  Okay, we had Jacques Villeneuve, but he's not the only one who can drive and go out and finish fourth in the championship.
• 19:06
  No one's done that.
• 19:07
  Not Toyota.
• 19:08
  No one's done that since.
• 19:10
  And then even when Nui went to Red Bull, they didn't go out winning straight away.
• 19:15
  And neither did we.
• 19:16
  And then a tough year in 2001 with some challenges, which are probably aerodynamic, but we may never know.
• 19:23
  We had two podiums, lucky podiums.
• 19:25
  We had two podiums, finished fifth in the championship.
• 19:29
  Change of management at the end of that year, I got sent home because they didn't think they needed.
• 19:32
  We just employed, what's his name, Jeff Willis to give me a hand, and the new management fell in love with Jeff and sent me home, which was a fantastic thing.
• 19:41
  A few months off, and then 18 months at Jaguar with Mark Webber and co.
• 19:54
  Any predictions for the F1 World Championship?
• 19:58
  Ferrari is looking insanely fast.
• 20:00
  Red Bull is up there.
• 20:02
  It's got to be between those two, I can't really see anyone else getting close to be honest.
• 20:09
  Motor racing can be politically charged, right?
• 20:12
  I mean, how draining was it at the end there in that changeover that you talked about?
• 20:16
  I mean, and the sport is, as has often been said, Malcolm, it's a piranha club, isn't it?
• 20:21
  I mean, you probably just wanted to focus on the stuff that you do about making cars go faster, better, and, you know, trying to score points and win and so on.
• 20:31
  But was the other stuff in your space and was that something that was draining?
• 20:38
  Yeah, it became, when I was sent home in March 2002 or whatever it was, it was just like, they were going, it was called Black Friday, I think they sent 77 people home, including me.
• 20:52
  It's just a great relief.
• 20:53
  Like, I wasn't having any fun.
• 20:55
  I was getting well paid, but I wasn't having any fun at all.
• 20:58
  I wasn't doing any creation, anything creative, no engineering.
• 21:01
  It was just dealing with crap, really.
• 21:04
  But two things, I'd employed hundreds of people and I was really, in all due modesty, I was the only sensible person in the management to provide any leadership to where we were going and what we were trying to deliver.
• 21:20
  And I couldn't turn around and go, I've had enough of this, see you later boys, you know, all these people who are looking to me for leadership and deliverance.
• 21:27
  And there's that, and I was getting quite well paid, Greg.
• 21:30
  And I'd just, I'd be driving to work thinking, I don't need this shit.
• 21:33
  But it's like...
• 21:34
  Because I knew what I was going to face, you know, arguments with the race engineers about who was crap and who wasn't crap and what should be done about it.
• 21:42
  But I thought if I could just hang on for another six months, it's probably six years earlier I can retire.
• 21:47
  You don't have that money for much of your career.
• 21:50
  And so getting sent home was this massive blessing.
• 21:52
  I went home and built a hot rod in my garage.
• 21:53
  I had a wonderful time.
• 21:54
  What'd you build?
• 21:56
  It was sort of a scrapyard challenge with an XJS.
• 21:58
  I bought an XJS for 400 quid.
• 22:00
  I was sitting in a meeting, some Honda meeting,
• 22:04
  as usual, and I drew this Jag V12 engine pot rod, you know, with a, you know, Jag V12's got the lovely long single cam cover, with 12 pipes going down into it and 12 pipes coming out the bottom and a 32 forward hot rod built around that concept of engine.
• 22:22
  And it just, this is what happens to me, these things get stuck in my head.
• 22:26
  So it wasn't too long after that.
• 22:29
  I got a drawing board at home and drew up this chassis and, well, bought an XJS for 400 quid, pulled it apart, measured it all, drew up this Space Dream chassis to go around it and the fiberglass 32 Ford rose to body and built this hot rod.
• 22:45
  In England you can do all that stuff.
• 22:46
  You just build it and get an old Ford logbook and get it registered and away you go.
• 22:52
  You mentioned a couple of drivers here because we're getting to the Jaguar chapter.
• 22:55
  You mentioned Jacques Villeneuve.
• 22:56
  I think Ricardo Zonta was there in that period too, wasn't he, with BAR.
• 23:00
  What were those guys like to – what were they like to work with?
• 23:03
  Villeneuve, good at first, he became quite difficult.
• 23:10
  Hmm.
• 23:11
  Yeah, strange bloke, strange bloke, strange guy, very strange attitude and appraisal of the human race.
• 23:17
  He had total disdain really for most humans on the planet.
• 23:20
  They're all morons.
• 23:22
  And he had no idea really of how to interact with them and how to get the best out of things.
• 23:27
  So opening, he's opening Salvo.
• 23:30
  We go to the first test down at Barcelona with this car that everyone's worked 12 months, like busting their balls to get this car built.
• 23:36
  Going to Barcelona, it was quite fast for the first time out.
• 23:40
  And so his note to the press was, yeah, things are going okay, whatever, quite promising.
• 23:48
  Everyone at the track's working really hard and I hope they are at the factory as well.
• 23:53
  And like, really?
• 23:55
  Like, are you that out of touch?
• 23:56
  And everyone just about down tools.
• 23:58
  Like, we've been killing ourselves to get this guy.
• 24:01
  You're exhausted.
• 24:02
  You have no idea whether anyone's doing any work or not or how hard they're trying.
• 24:06
  I hope they are at the factory as well.
• 24:07
  Just that, and it went on from there.
• 24:09
  Just no concept.
• 24:11
  So, yeah, funny.
• 24:12
  To build a team around Jack Villeneuve is an incredible oxymoron sort of thing.
• 24:17
  What was it like to work with Mark Webber and how did that, I mean, you touched on Jaguar before, how did that opportunity, how did that come to pass?
• 24:24
  Yeah, so I was at home building my hot rod and Jaguar, as you know, was a very sort of volatile thing.
• 24:31
  They, the technical, when I went there, when I turned up there, the guys in the drawing office told me that the technical director's office in the corner of the drawing office was called the departure lounge.
• 24:44
  They used to make jokes about the rotating door at the front of the factory and this sort of thing, but they'd been through quite a few changes.
• 24:49
  Anyway, I went there and they were actually legalists.
• 24:52
  They had no one in charge.
• 24:53
  But what had happened, Nicky Lauda was running it and Ford had bought Jaguar and PI, the electronics company, and Cosworth as their sort of premium
• 25:07
  Formula 1 dream wasn't working out, to be honest.
• 25:10
  And they commissioned Tony Pennell, who was her own PI, to look into it and do like a management consultant type job on should we be in Formula 1 and how do we fix our program?
• 25:22
  And so he did that for Ford and recommended they did stay in Formula 1 and they said to him, can you fix it, please?
• 25:29
  And I knew Tony quite well from all the F3000 and IndyCar and wind tunnel stuff.
• 25:35
  They supplied our wind tunnel software.
• 25:37
  And obviously he had some respect for me and he said, would you be interested in working for Jaguar?
• 25:42
  And I said, well, I'm sure I can help them.
• 25:44
  I know a lot of stuff that would be of benefit to them, but I don't want the big job.
• 25:48
  I don't want to be a technical director.
• 25:49
  Yeah.
• 25:50
  because that sucks.
• 25:52
  So I went along there three days a week as a consultant just to give them some leadership and tie things together and had a great time.
• 25:57
  It was such a different environment, just people, good people working in this atmosphere of mutual respect.
• 26:02
  It was so refreshing.
• 26:04
  infighting and backbiting and stuff at the other place.
• 26:08
  And so when Nicky was shown the rotating door and Dave Pitchworth and co. came in, they wanted me to stay, but I couldn't really be chief engineer as a three-day-a-week consultant.
• 26:18
  So I wrote down what I considered to be except the working conditions.
• 26:24
  Yeah.
• 26:26
  Not much money and not much time.
• 26:27
  And I had a fantastic time with them in 2003 with Weber.
• 26:33
  But then by 2004, it sort of became, you know, Ford didn't know what they wanted.
• 26:38
  They wanted to sell it because they were selling it.
• 26:41
  Mark was heading on somewhere else.
• 26:43
  And it became a bit Ford Motor Company near the end and it was just sort of driving cars around in circles.
• 26:49
  It didn't seem to matter.
• 26:50
  So now's the time to leave.
• 26:51
  So I pulled up in, bought a farm.
• 26:53
  And literally that was the conclusion of the F1 chapter.
• 26:57
  Just a couple of quick reflections as we get to that.
• 27:00
  Nicky Laudo, sadly he's left us now, legend of the game.
• 27:05
  Did you have much in the way of dealings with him and what was he like?
• 27:11
  Not a lot.
• 27:12
  And I guess we shouldn't speak of the dead really, but I don't think he took the job that seriously.
• 27:15
  Okay.
• 27:17
  He, one little story that probably tells you enough is, you know, he's in the big office with the big mahogany table that Bobby Rahal and everybody else has had at, and he's a very, very serious professional PA.
• 27:29
  He used to put stuff in his in-tray.
• 27:32
  So he'd come into the office, you know, two days a week or once every two weeks or whatever.
• 27:36
  But nothing ever came out.
• 27:37
  Nothing ever.
• 27:38
  The in-tray.
• 27:40
  Just kept growing, did it?
• 27:41
  Well, it didn't seem to keep growing.
• 27:43
  But see, he went in there one day and the in-tray, he found the in-tray just got emptied into the bin.
• 27:47
  Without being looked at, just got stuck in the bin.
• 27:50
  And he used to read Autosport and talk to his mates on the phone all day and turn up at Grand Prix's and have a bit of a chit, you know, make a few statements.
• 27:55
  So, yeah, he didn't take the job all that seriously.
• 27:58
  So...
• 27:59
  Good for Nicky, you know.
• 28:00
  Did you get a window into the determination of Mark Webber?
• 28:04
  He would go on to win nine GPs to Monaco's and so on.
• 28:07
  But at that stage, you know, climbing the ladder had come from Minardi to you guys before going to Williams and then ultimately on to Red Bull.
• 28:16
  What was he like at that stage of life?
• 28:18
  I guess the determination is a given.
• 28:21
  If you want to be a, you know, if you can race in Formula 1, you've got to be determined.
• 28:23
  It's like, but the thing that stood out with Mark is just what a good, straightforward, honest bloke he was and, you know, gathered people around him who wanted to be part of his party and make it all work.
• 28:35
  Very motivating for the team.
• 28:37
  Yeah.
• 28:37
  And, you know, gave them good credit and good feedback.
• 28:40
  Everyone loved him.
• 28:41
  You may not think this way, but is there a little part of you that sort of goes, you know what,
• 28:47
  What ultimately BAR more or less started with has ended up with, I think if I've got the lineage right, you know, Ross Brawn, Jenson Button winning a crown and the foundations of what is now the ultra-dominant Mercedes team.
• 29:02
  And then the same more or less for Jaguar, which I think ultimately ended up as the beginnings of Red Bull, didn't it?
• 29:10
  Yeah, yeah.
• 29:11
  No, Red Bull bought it from Ford.
• 29:14
  But, I mean, I was chief engineer there for 18 months, I don't think.
• 29:17
  And I did a lot of good there.
• 29:19
  The place was in total disarray when I arrived and I installed a lot of communication channels and systems and procedures and the fundamentals of doing things properly there, a lot of which carried on into Red Bull, but, you know, not...
• 29:37
  not beyond Adrian Newey.
• 29:40
  So, no, it's nice.
• 29:41
  It's an anecdotal thing, really.
• 29:43
  I worked at, I was the last chief engineer at Jaguar, and we set up BAR, which became BAR Honda, which became Honda, which became Brawn, which became Mercedes.
• 29:52
  But someone's still using my office, but that's about it, really.
• 29:54
  And there are still people there from day one.
• 29:57
  So you call time and was there ever a moment of second thought on that?
• 30:04
  And were there ever phone calls shortly thereafter where you were tempted by someone else to go back?
• 30:08
  Did you get overtures?
• 30:11
  Not for a Formula 1 job, you know, various things people wanted me to do, but I wasn't interested.
• 30:17
  I guess the wrap on the whole thing was I went down to the Grand Prix just for a social call at the beginning of some year or other, 2004 maybe, you know, four or five, 2006 I think.
• 30:27
  Yep.
• 30:28
  To Albert Park, you mean.
• 30:29
  Yeah, and the BAR Honda thing was working quite well by then and Jensen was on pole.
• 30:35
  And I think the farm wasn't going that well with Gremlins
• 30:37
  drought and cattle and what have you.
• 30:38
  So anyway, went down there just to pop in with a hard card and cruise around the pits and see some old faces and catch up with people.
• 30:47
  And Jensen was on pole in the Honda and I thought, in the Honda, I thought, this is pretty cool really.
• 30:53
  And there's something here that I missed, to be honest, because it's quite glitzy and glamorous and quite good fun.
• 30:57
  It's like great engineering toys and good people and everything else.
• 31:01
  Anyway, so that was sort of Friday or Saturday.
• 31:05
  headed back home and I was home on Sunday and watching the thing on TV and Jensen takes off from pole and steadily drops back through the field and eventually he's battling with someone for fifth place and three corners to go, the engine explodes and this big ball of fire.
• 31:18
  Big wobble.
• 31:19
  I remember this.
• 31:20
  This is shit.
• 31:22
  And I wouldn't go back and I couldn't go back, but there was something I was missing, but that cured me completely.
• 31:27
  Did it.
• 31:28
  And the best thing was when the race was over, I switched to tell you off and went out in the shed.
• 31:30
  There was no false meeting, no flying back to England and all that sort of carry on.
• 31:34
  So, no, totally cured, mate, totally cured, no interest at all.
• 31:37
  Well done.
• 31:38
  Let's power to the finish here with a few if we can.
• 31:42
  Firstly, Malcolm, we often get aspiring engineers, budding race mechanics and so on listening that may perhaps dream of doing that chapter in Europe or England or maybe even America, for example.
• 31:52
  If they were pursuing a career internationally in motorsport on that side of the pit wall, what sort of advice would you give them?
• 32:03
  Study aero, aeronautical engineering rather than mechanical.
• 32:06
  Because really you don't need to know much about coal-fired power stations when you're going to be a racing car designer, which is all, you know, mechanical is very broad.
• 32:14
  Aero, obviously the aero element to F1 is very high and the structures and the vehicle dynamics are relevant, much better degree to do.
• 32:22
  I suppose in some parts of the world you can do a racing car degree now if you want to go to England.
• 32:25
  I don't know if they do one here at all.
• 32:28
  Do that and get your hands dirty.
• 32:29
  You know, I used to get hundreds of CVs across my desk every year for people wanting jobs.
• 32:35
  And surprise, surprise, they've all been to school and most of them have got a degree of some sort.
• 32:39
  What stands you apart?
• 32:40
  That's the guy who's raced a sports sedan in Australia or built his own go-kart.
• 32:44
  Yeah.
• 32:45
  I used to give a job to anyone who could weld.
• 32:47
  Did you?
• 32:47
  Yeah.
• 32:48
  If you could weld, that's it.
• 32:49
  You're hands on, you know.
• 32:52
  It shows you know how things work.
• 32:53
  You're on the coalface and you're interested in building stuff.
• 32:56
  Yeah.
• 32:57
  Pre-COVID, I reckon you and I caught up in New Zealand and you'd rekindled a bit of love for Formula Ford.
• 33:04
  And I think if memory serves, you and Adrian Raynard raced there together, didn't you?
• 33:09
  Yeah.
• 33:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:11
  It's sort of, have you ever heard of a bloke called Bill Stone?
• 33:13
  He was, Bill Stone's his Kiwi that actually put Adrian into business back in the 70s.
• 33:19
  Wow.
• 33:20
  And went back to New Zealand eventually and we became quite close friends and,
• 33:25
  Bill invited us over there for a race.
• 33:28
  Bill subsequently passed away, but we used to go back there as a bit of a Billstone memorial to go and do a bit of Formula forwarding in his honour.
• 33:35
  Nice.
• 33:35
  And we ended up, Adrian got invited to race, I don't know if it was a, it might have been a bit of a Reinhardt 50th year or something, I don't know.
• 33:42
  He was there and someone scrounged up this beaten up old Lola for me, which I don't think it had been out of the shed for about 10 years.
• 33:48
  Where we had it parked, it looked like someone had just serviced an old Land Rover.
• 33:51
  It was all rusty water and all over the ground.
• 33:54
  And he's just sorted out and got it running.
• 33:56
  And we had a great weekend thrashing around Hampton Downs.
• 33:58
  You underrate yourself.
• 33:59
  If I recall, you hustled very, very well in that car.
• 34:02
  Now, when you and I last did something TV interview orientated, it was actually for some Shannon's video content, as I recall, and you wore thongs.
• 34:11
  Now, you're probably even in a pair of them now as I talk to you.
• 34:15
  But people listening can actually find you on YouTube mucking around in your thongs doing a bit of engineering talk, can't they?
• 34:22
  Yeah.
• 34:23
  Yeah, actually one of the funny things, one of the first things that went on there was a video about starting up this old Simpica Vedette engine which hadn't run for 20 years.
• 34:33
  And I got it all, the camera set up, got it all ready to go.
• 34:36
  Came in the house for lunch or whatever and out, we got an old farmhouse with a solid timber floor which is only like 20 mil thick and it's really cold in winter.
• 34:44
  So I put a pair of slippers on, I wear slippers in the house.
• 34:46
  Went back out in the shed, finished the video in slippers.
• 34:51
  Nobody commented on the old V8 firing.
• 34:54
  I remember we wanted to talk about my footwear.
• 34:59
  Oh, fantastic.
• 34:59
  So now you're a YouTuber.
• 35:02
  How are you finding sort of that?
• 35:04
  I sense when I look at some of that stuff, you just be you basically, don't you?
• 35:09
  With that stuff.
• 35:10
  No point trying to be anybody else.
• 35:11
  No.
• 35:11
  No point trying to be Greg Rust.
• 35:13
  No, well, no one should be doing that.
• 35:15
  What I do want to get to is some of the cool little creations.
• 35:18
  You've got one that grabbed my attention.
• 35:20
  You've been working on a two-wheel project as well.
• 35:23
  Is it a Mercury two-stroke V6 outboard boat engine in that thing?
• 35:27
  What is that?
• 35:29
  That is, you know, I was talking about the XJS hot rod in England.
• 35:34
  Yes, this is the two-wheel version of that.
• 35:37
  Yes, no, same problem.
• 35:38
  I get these ideas in my head.
• 35:40
  Ooh, that'd be cool.
• 35:41
  And you can't shake the idea without actually creating the thing.
• 35:44
  But two-stroke outboards, like you look at that little letterbox on top of the outboard and think, there's a two-and-a-half-litre two-stroke V6 in there that makes 200 horsepower.
• 35:53
  How cool is that?
• 35:54
  Yeah.
• 35:55
  As we know, everyone with a soul loves a two-stroke.
• 35:57
  Yes.
• 35:57
  And I thought, well, there's got to be a way of putting one in a motorbike and eventually there was enough gaps between the other projects that I found one on the fence down at Marimita at the outboard shop with something broken in it.
• 36:08
  Yeah.
• 36:09
  And took it home, pulled it apart and designed a motorbike around it.
• 36:12
  So I put the pistons back in it yesterday, Greg.
• 36:14
  Wow.
• 36:15
  So is the goal with this, I don't know, where are you taking it other than maybe just building it?
• 36:20
  But I mean, is there a want to see it at Bonneville on the salt flats or something?
• 36:25
  No.
• 36:25
  What are you doing with this?
• 36:26
  I just want to see what it sounds like.
• 36:27
  Do you?
• 36:30
  I actually hear what it sounds like.
• 36:31
  No, the goal with these things, I built a hot rod here in Australia, which I regret selling, but the goal with them is to get them registered, which certifies them as a part of society, really.
• 36:44
  Yes.
• 36:45
  You know, you can build all sorts of crazy stuff and have it on the wall of your shed, but having it registered means someone else can use it, for instance.
• 36:52
  So it's built, the outboard motorbike, as it's called, is based on an old 85 Suzuki, so it only has to comply with the 89 and 85 ADRs.
• 37:01
  Okay.
• 37:02
  So it doesn't have emissions rules and various immobilisers and stuff.
• 37:05
  Yeah.
• 37:05
  But, yeah, have it registered, ride it, it'll be cool.
• 37:08
  It'll go, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, something like that.
• 37:13
  down the street and blows blue smoke everywhere.
• 37:15
  And then when I've got it all sorted out, once I got the V8 bike I got out the back there with the Vedette motor, I rode it for the second time in 12 months yesterday to take it out of one shed and put it in the other shed.
• 37:27
  Once it's all sorted out, I just put it in the shed and get on with the next thing.
• 37:31
  It's a bit sad, really.
• 37:31
  I should enjoy my toys more.
• 37:33
  Can you give us a quick overview then?
• 37:35
  You've gone there with one of the other bikes.
• 37:38
  What else is in the garage?
• 37:39
  Yeah.
• 37:41
  There's a 650 V-Strom.
• 37:42
  There's a Suzuki two-wheeler.
• 37:45
  There's an old 1973 Alpha Spider, the car I wanted when I was 21.
• 37:48
  Fantastic.
• 37:49
  Which I also don't drive.
• 37:51
  The...
• 37:53
  The V8 bikes there, which is a 1970s BMW with a 2.5-litre Simca Vedette side-valve V8, which is a lovely thing.
• 38:01
  Lovely thing to ride.
• 38:01
  Gosh, it's nice.
• 38:04
  Mr. Juicy's there, John Smith's RT1.
• 38:06
  Yep.
• 38:08
  I've got Kevin – this thing isn't mine, but it's Kevin Bartlett's first Formula 5000 car sitting in there, which you may or may not be aware of.
• 38:15
  That's brilliant.
• 38:16
  Yeah.
• 38:17
  I've driven it a bit.
• 38:18
  It's fun.
• 38:19
  It's like truck racing, but it's quite nice.
• 38:21
  And I've got the little dart that I built, which is all over YouTube, the Ninja Mobile Dart.
• 38:26
  That's cool.
• 38:27
  We encourage people to go on YouTube and have a closer look at that.
• 38:30
  You're a proud dad.
• 38:31
  I think you've got daughters from memory.
• 38:33
  Do they love what you've done, what you've achieved along the way?
• 38:37
  Or are you, like I'm the sort of daggy dad with my girls, are you sort of the nutty professor?
• 38:41
  How do they feel about what dad's achieved over time?
• 38:44
  It's funny, the best thing that's happened for my daughter's appreciation of my career is that Netflix, YouTube, whatever it is.
• 38:52
  The Drive to Survive.
• 38:53
  Yeah, yeah.
• 38:53
  Changed your world.
• 38:54
  So they watch that.
• 38:55
  And all of a sudden, after 20 years, they'll ask me questions.
• 38:57
  That's cool.
• 39:00
  Having shown no interest, you know, when I was in the house and heading off to Grand Prix, there's no interest in it at all.
• 39:06
  They wanted to ride their ponies and what have you.
• 39:08
  Brilliant.
• 39:09
  What's next for you?
• 39:10
  I mean, you're clearly enjoying Tinkering in the Shed.
• 39:12
  You've talked about ticking the hill climb box and winning five Australian titles, which I think is tremendous.
• 39:18
  And your world's come full circle as far as starting out with a bit of racing, studying and engineering, blending it all together and working successfully in Europe for all those years, and then coming back to steer a bit more.
• 39:29
  Are there more little racing plans or what's in the pipeline?
• 39:33
  Yeah.
• 39:34
  I guess I'm 63 this month.
• 39:35
  I'm trying not to make myself too busy.
• 39:37
  That's my disease.
• 39:38
  I sort of take on too much.
• 39:39
  And like, there's a race meeting here.
• 39:40
  I'll take the 5,000 car.
• 39:41
  And then the week after, we'll get the Mr. Juicy up to whatever, Malala or something.
• 39:46
  And then I'm going cycling with my wife in Adelaide for a week.
• 39:48
  And when we get back, you know, we're off to England for two months.
• 39:51
  And I just need to sort of put the brakes on a little bit, really, and just act my age, I think.
• 39:56
  It's probably a good idea.
• 39:58
  And are you juggling things around the farm in a work sense as well?
• 40:00
  What are you doing there?
• 40:01
  Yeah.
• 40:02
  I'm a serious work dodger when it comes to the farm.
• 40:08
  I was never a good farmer.
• 40:09
  Now I'm a terrible farmer.
• 40:11
  But I do set it on an adds and needs basis.
• 40:14
  When the water pump down at the creek stops working, I go and fix it, but I don't go and play with it for fun.
• 40:19
  I've got some fences I need to put back up where the termites have eaten the posts.
• 40:21
  But no, I keep shrinking the farm.
• 40:24
  I started off with 110 hectares and now I'm on 10.
• 40:26
  Okay.
• 40:27
  And two sheds.
• 40:28
  Yeah.
• 40:30
  Not much timing goes on here really.
• 40:32
  Congratulations on a great career, Malcolm.
• 40:35
  I mean, great inspiration for those that would like to potentially follow in your footsteps.
• 40:42
  You know, taking the punt from a pure love of engines and things that clearly got you at a very young age and it took you all the way to the top and it's been a joy to
• 40:53
  to walk back over some aspects.
• 40:55
  I'm sure there'll be, you know, even more things that you put your moniker on over time, but you should be enormously proud, mate.
• 41:02
  Some very, very big boxes ticked there.
• 41:05
  Yeah, great.
• 41:08
  After I came back here and went farming, I sort of was in denial about it all for a while.
• 41:12
  And it took me probably five years or so to actually appreciate and celebrate what I'd achieved over there.
• 41:16
  Because it is, you know, when I left Jaguar, when I retired from motor racing, resigned from motor racing, whatever,
• 41:23
  Dave Pitchfaw, the MD at the time, said, you know best what your career's all about.
• 41:27
  Can you write your own obituary?
• 41:29
  So I did.
• 41:30
  You know, for the press release, I wrote down what I'd achieved in my career.
• 41:32
  It's bloody amazing when I actually wrote it down.
• 41:37
  You know, two wins in a second out of three Indy 500s, and I don't know how many times we've won the 3000 Championship and the IndyCar Championship.
• 41:46
  And, you know, I know we had a party at some stage of the game, it ran out in 97 or something for our 50th race win.
• 41:52
  And it went on from there for another few years.
• 41:54
  And, you know, I've spoken about the F1 achievements.
• 41:57
  It's really, for a bloke, you know, mucking around and he's with scooters and lawnmowers in Wurrunga, getting bits from the tip to create stuff to ride up and down the paddock, it's a long way.
• 42:09
  But I went to England with Europe with no plan.
• 42:11
  The only plan I had was to ride my pushbike around.
• 42:14
  And it's just the opportunities were there and I took them and they worked out well, so you got the next opportunity and...
• 42:19
  do the right thing.
• 42:20
  Well done, mate.
• 42:21
  It was a great time.
• 42:22
  Well done.
• 42:22
  And we hope you get to do that lap of Europe on the bike at some stage.
• 42:26
  That's the only thing you didn't take, isn't it?
• 42:28
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:29
  Hopefully I'll be doing a month over there on a motorbike at the end of the year, or a little bit later in the year.
• 42:33
  Terrific.
• 42:34
  Thanks for spending some time with us.
• 42:35
  It's been wonderful to catch up, Malcolm.
• 42:38
  Pleasure.
• 42:38
  Fun to reminisce, to be honest.
• 42:39
  Yeah, it's really good.
• 42:47
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 42:51
  Series editor and producer is Ed Gooden.
• 42:54
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 42:57
  If you've got a guest suggestion, get in touch with me via social media.
• 43:01
  The Garage.
• 43:03
  It's where a journey begins with a tank full of passion-fueled stories.
• 43:16
  Listener.