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David Brabham · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:14
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:28
  For this episode, I'm in Melbourne on the eve of the Australian Formula One Grand Prix.
• 0:33
  The event is celebrating 60 years since the late, great Sir Jack Brabham won the first of his three world titles.
• 0:41
  He's a legend of the sport who etched a special place in the record books, winning a championship in a car he constructed, a feat that is never likely to be matched in the modern era.
• 0:53
  Racing is in the family.
• 0:55
  His son David also made it to Formula One and fought tirelessly to regain and revive Brabham Automotive.
• 1:03
  He enjoyed a stellar career in sports cars, but it was never a certainty that he would follow a similar path to his father.
• 1:11
  It always shocks a lot of people when I talk about how I started my career and my kind of life, because obviously with dad being so famous as a racing driver and my brother's racing, it was kind of like, well, that was a given that that would happen.
• 1:24
  But it wasn't like that at all.
• 1:27
  I think two was enough at that point for dad and we had a farm and he really didn't want any of us to go racing, to be fair.
• 1:37
  Some of that's down to the fact that he went through a very dangerous period of racing, lost a lot of friends.
• 1:43
  And, you know, he retired.
• 1:45
  And he retired mainly because of Bruce McLaren going in 1970 as well as Joachim Wren, two of his mates.
• 1:54
  Jeff started only four years later.
• 1:56
  So he was like, you know, not that keen, particularly my mum as well.
• 2:02
  So that kind of holding back kind of went all the way through to me.
• 2:07
  So he retired when I was five and I was in Sydney and, you know, football, soccer was my thing.
• 2:18
  So I never really went to racetracks or anything like that.
• 2:21
  I was just really keen to do my own stuff.
• 2:24
  And I was keen on the sport and, you know.
• 2:28
  Even at a young age, just competitive, wanted to do the best I possibly could.
• 2:32
  I'd be in the backyard kicking a football day in, day out, day in, day out.
• 2:36
  You know, just always critiquing, critiquing, critiquing.
• 2:40
  So I was in Sydney and then I went to an agricultural boarding school because I was groomed to be a farmer.
• 2:47
  um and they didn't play soccer so i learned aussie rules so that's where i got a sort of passion for aussie rules and then when i left school at 16 i um i went to america uh for three months to watch my brother jeff race
• 3:03
  He was racing in IndyCars in 82, and that was the first probably time I really saw racing proper.
• 3:11
  I saw a go-kart in a workshop.
• 3:14
  Didn't even know people raced go-karts.
• 3:16
  Wow.
• 3:17
  Yeah, no idea.
• 3:19
  On the farm, we had a go-kart.
• 3:22
  My neighbour and I had one, and we built one together.
• 3:25
  You sort of went halves in it, I think, didn't you?
• 3:27
  Is that right?
• 3:27
  What did you do, the pair of you?
• 3:30
  Yeah, well, that...
• 3:32
  We just had a Briggs & Stratton with a bit of a steel frame and some wheels, and we just had a bit of fun.
• 3:39
  That was, yeah, just a real basher.
• 3:42
  And that was just a bit of fun.
• 3:43
  That was not like an inspiration to go racing.
• 3:46
  It was only when I went to America the inspiration to go racing kind of sparked inside me.
• 3:51
  So I came back to Australia and said to Dad, you know what, I'd like to have a go on a go-kart.
• 3:57
  And the look on his face, you know, he was stunned, you know.
• 4:02
  stunned and shocked and like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, not again.
• 4:05
  You know?
• 4:09
  And so he wasn't that helpful.
• 4:11
  So, okay, so the neighbour that we had the wrecked go-kart
• 4:17
  And we went to Griffith to have a look at the racing there.
• 4:22
  It was a go-kart trader.
• 4:24
  And it was both of us like, wow, it was just a completely different world to what we'd ever seen before.
• 4:30
  You know, the smell of the castral ar, you know, the whole buzz of it.
• 4:35
  We walked around just, you know, trying to absorb as much as we can.
• 4:38
  And we went back and we talked about it.
• 4:41
  You know, I was working on the farm.
• 4:42
  He was working on the farm.
• 4:44
  and we put our money together, and we bought a second-hand go-kart, and off we went.
• 4:48
  What was the kart?
• 4:49
  Can you remember details of it, the chassis, the engine, that style of thing?
• 4:54
  Oh, well, the engine was... We were racing in...
• 4:58
  I think it was...
• 5:02
  Australia 100 or it was like 100cc Australia class or something like that.
• 5:07
  And I think it was a Yamaha engine.
• 5:10
  The chassis, I don't remember.
• 5:11
  It was just an old chassis that we just picked up and off we went really.
• 5:15
  And, you know, dad came to the first race, which was a bit of a surprise.
• 5:20
  I ended up in hospital.
• 5:22
  What happened?
• 5:24
  Well, because I'd grown up on the farm,
• 5:28
  driving cars flat out sideways just the thrill of speed definitely was ingrained in me finding the edge pushing more finding more limits that was always there anything i did uh that was kind of a natural thing for me so when i jumped in the go-kart for the first time um i certainly surprised dad because because i just had that feel because i'd done all that training prior so i ended up uh
• 5:53
  going around the corners and passing people and just had a feel for it straight away.
• 5:58
  And then someone went wide on the corner in front of me.
• 6:02
  There's like a long bend, like a U corner, but it was long and fast.
• 6:09
  So some guy in front of me just drifted wide and I got on the inside.
• 6:13
  I thought, well, that's easy.
• 6:16
  So the next lap, I'm right behind the guy in front of me, and he starts to slide.
• 6:22
  I can see the rear starting to go, and I'm thinking, oh, here's another.
• 6:25
  In the inside I go, and of course, he didn't slide as much as I thought he was going to slide, and I've hit him.
• 6:31
  And of course, we're going around the corner, we touch wheels, and I've just barrel rolled.
• 6:36
  And of course, back then, we didn't have what they have now with all the overalls and stuff like that.
• 6:40
  I had a pair of jeans and a jumper.
• 6:43
  It was 30 odd degrees and I just wore a pair of, I think I didn't even have like racing shoes.
• 6:50
  It was just, you know, sneakers.
• 6:53
  And I ended up on my back and my jumper came up and my back was just going across the tarmac and just took all my skin off.
• 7:03
  So I've still got a scar today from that very first race.
• 7:08
  What was the conversation with mum and dad like post that?
• 7:12
  Because obviously he was not too keen to begin with and clearly your determination is already showing.
• 7:18
  So how did that go?
• 7:19
  I think certainly for my dad, I was like, he's done.
• 7:24
  He'll never get up from this, you know what I mean?
• 7:27
  Mum hated me in go-karts.
• 7:30
  She really just never felt comfortable with it.
• 7:34
  But, you know, once I got better, I got back in a go-kart and off I went.
• 7:39
  And I was at a race in Orange and I, like, won by half a lap or something.
• 7:48
  You know, it was kind of greasy conditions and I just, like, I just went.
• 7:53
  And Dad was there.
• 7:55
  And that apparently, he didn't tell me at the time, but he told me after.
• 7:57
  He said, that was the moment I knew that you could do this.
• 8:01
  Okay.
• 8:02
  And that you had something.
• 8:03
  And that's when he started to get behind me.
• 8:06
  So, you know, I had an old cart and I was doing well in it.
• 8:09
  But he said, you know, you're going to take this seriously, you know, because he knew the commitment you had to make in racing.
• 8:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:16
  And up until that point, I really hadn't shown much commitment to anything.
• 8:19
  I didn't know what I wanted to do.
• 8:21
  I was farming, but it's not really what I wanted to do.
• 8:23
  It was just there on the farm, you know.
• 8:26
  So he ended up saying, look, are you serious about this?
• 8:31
  I said, yeah, absolutely.
• 8:32
  So he's, right, well, let's buy a new go-kart, new engine.
• 8:36
  And off we went and did kind of like a year and a half of karting, which was fantastic rounding.
• 8:42
  Before I move on to the sort of the early part of your car racing career, I just want to touch on the fact that you, you know, about the farm life that you talked about.
• 8:51
  Was it Wagga Wagga and are there any crazy air brain stories from farm life for you before the racing career kind of really took off?
• 9:00
  You talked about sliding cars and things.
• 9:01
  You were clearly always driving something on the property, were you?
• 9:04
  Yeah, and sometimes off the property.
• 9:06
  Oh, God.
• 9:09
  When I think about...
• 9:11
  all those moments where I could have lost my life, it's just scary to think about.
• 9:16
  It really is.
• 9:19
  I used to go to the local store.
• 9:22
  That was about a, you know, about a five, six kilometre run between where the front house is all the way to the store.
• 9:30
  Probably a bit longer, but dirt roads, lovely flowing dirt roads, drifting, you know, all that sort of stuff.
• 9:37
  And then you get to tarmac and then...
• 9:39
  The tarmac, there was a long, long section leading into a bridge that went into a T-junction where the local Galore store was.
• 9:49
  And it was on the way back.
• 9:51
  The challenge that I set myself was how fast could I go back over the bridge?
• 9:59
  Over the bridge and through a blind right-hand corner, how fast could I get on the exit of that by the time I got there?
• 10:08
  Like the glance at the speedo was the... That glance at the speedo on the exit of the corner was, did I get through there okay?
• 10:19
  So I, and when I think about it, I mean, the neighbors must have thought we were just reckless because, I mean, it was just crazy.
• 10:27
  It really was.
• 10:28
  And I had one moment where I'm absolutely going flat out.
• 10:33
  I mean, I'm not lifting for quite some time.
• 10:35
  I'm in top gear.
• 10:36
  I'm going over the bridge.
• 10:37
  The thing gets light and I'm going into a right-hand corner, which is blind.
• 10:41
  And I've taken the apex off.
• 10:44
  So I'm on the opposite side of the road.
• 10:47
  And as I've come off, a car's just gone like that.
• 10:51
  And that was a little bit of a wake-up call that I needed to settle down a bit.
• 10:57
  So, yeah, that was one of my stuff.
• 11:01
  And also...
• 11:02
  You know, my brother came back from England and I'd been driving his car.
• 11:07
  I actually did a rally in his car that he didn't know about, the Wagga Wagga rally.
• 11:12
  And didn't know what we were doing, but we just had a board.
• 11:15
  And so not a scratch on the thing.
• 11:18
  He comes home the first day and I go off to go to the...
• 11:22
  I always, I'll go, I'll go to the store, you know.
• 11:25
  Off I went, you know, flat out.
• 11:27
  And I remember coming back into where we had the big main gates on the main road and it was dirt, obviously dirt road.
• 11:35
  And depending if there was any cattle or sheep in the paddock, I could leave the gate open because by the time I got to the store and came back, the gate, you know, there was no animals around to come onto the main road.
• 11:48
  And the reason I left it open was because I'd go in there, I'd hit the handbrake, and I'd flick it one way, flick it the other.
• 11:55
  So then I'd go in between the gates and stop, get out, and shut the gate.
• 11:59
  Poor World Rally Championship spec we're talking here.
• 12:01
  Yeah, I should have been a rally driver, really.
• 12:03
  So, and I just loved doing that.
• 12:06
  And, of course, I got it a little bit wrong, and I hit the strainer post.
• 12:13
  And this, like, hole in the front of this Mazda 626 that we had.
• 12:19
  And I was going, oh, my God.
• 12:21
  I mean, it was so embarrassing.
• 12:23
  And, you know, the body was right up against the tire and I've had to try and pull it off and, you know, all that sort of stuff.
• 12:30
  So by the time I got there and I walked into the kitchen, I went, I've got to show you something.
• 12:37
  Ari Brabham perfecting the Scandinavian flick through the front gates.
• 12:41
  I love it.
• 12:42
  I'm not sure if I've got my facts straight here, so maybe you can set me straight on this one.
• 12:45
  Did you do a little bit of Gemini racing at one point, or is that not correct?
• 12:49
  Lee Diffie and I were talking in the lead-up to this, and he wondered if you might have raced a Gemini at one point or driven one, and Paul Morris had raced one at one stage, and we couldn't figure out if you'd done a bit of that before you went into laser racing.
• 13:01
  No.
• 13:02
  No.
• 13:03
  I went straight from karts and I was actually going to be doing another year of go-karting and then an opportunity came up to do the Ford Laser series that was just starting off and obviously Goodyear were heavily involved and Dad's connections with Goodyear and I'm not sure whether Jack or someone found a sponsor.
• 13:21
  It was a solar tint at the time and they got behind us.
• 13:25
  We got a car very, very quickly and it was of all last minute dot com time of deal.
• 13:31
  And off I went and did the laser championship with Scaifey.
• 13:34
  It was a great series that wasn't.
• 13:35
  I mean, it was front wheel drive, little Ford laser, as you say.
• 13:38
  Mark Scaife was among those that were in it.
• 13:41
  There was some quality racing in that series, wasn't there?
• 13:43
  It was, yeah.
• 13:44
  I mean, it was full on.
• 13:47
  And for me, I always remember the press release.
• 13:50
  They'd already written a press release on how well I'd done before the race.
• 13:54
  So the expectation was a little bit high for me.
• 13:59
  I want to get to that because that raises a really interesting subject.
• 14:03
  You're enormously proud of the Brabham name.
• 14:05
  That's clear.
• 14:06
  But it comes with this weight of expectation at the same time.
• 14:11
  How does David Brabham balance that?
• 14:13
  Because I sense in you at the same time you are, you know, your own person who's carved your own career and stood very much in your own two feet.
• 14:22
  But at the same time you're proud of the name.
• 14:24
  It's quite a challenging scenario really, isn't it?
• 14:27
  The only thing I've always sort of made comment about that is, I think at the end of the day, it's about being comfortable in your own skin.
• 14:37
  And that takes a while.
• 14:38
  I think it takes a while for a lot of people.
• 14:42
  But also in terms of living under a shadow of someone who's done such amazing, great things that people just want to talk about that.
• 14:50
  And then you want to have your own career and you're trying to find out who am I?
• 14:55
  Because when I was growing up as a kid, it was, oh, that's Jack Brabham's son.
• 14:57
  That's Jack Brabham's son.
• 14:58
  It was like, well, okay.
• 15:00
  But who am I?
• 15:02
  And it took time.
• 15:04
  And sometimes you have to have that confidence within yourself.
• 15:09
  And what drives confidence is success as well.
• 15:11
  So then you work harder to try and get that success to create your own identity.
• 15:16
  So in some way, it was a motivator.
• 15:19
  But it also had a little bit of an Achilles heel as well.
• 15:23
  Let's talk about the fact that you went from karts to front-wheel drive Ford lasers, but clearly the open-wheel path was something that you at some point decided, right, I'm going to go that direction, because in 86, you get into Formula Ford.
• 15:38
  That is, everyone looks back on the racing CVs of most drivers, and anyone who's had success has generally gone well in that class, and I still love those things today.
• 15:47
  Absolutely.
• 15:47
  Oh, I do as well.
• 15:48
  I mean, I was at Bathurst the other week and all the old Formula Fords were there and even the ones that I was racing in that period, I just love them.
• 15:57
  So, yeah, I mean, Formula Ford was such a great category.
• 16:01
  But I think what helped was there weren't that many categories.
• 16:05
  Not like today.
• 16:06
  There's just too many.
• 16:08
  So everybody was channeled all the way through into Formula Ford from karting.
• 16:15
  So you had always had a lot of talent in that category.
• 16:19
  And, you know, I remember the first time I got into a Formula Ford, it was at Oran Park.
• 16:25
  and we're doing a test, and I just felt at home straight away.
• 16:29
  Because I never healed and towed properly before, even in the laser it was like, oh, yeah, a little bit of this.
• 16:35
  But, like, you know, when you're in a single seater and the pedals are really close and it's, you know, the engine revs differently and the brakes and...
• 16:42
  but literally within the first lap, I was going down there.
• 16:45
  It would just seem very natural.
• 16:47
  Yeah, yeah.
• 16:48
  So I could just concentrate on other stuff which helped.
• 16:53
  And it was a challenging year because I made mistakes and whatever, but I also won as well.
• 17:01
  I won races at Oren Parker 1.
• 17:04
  So, yeah, it was cool.
• 17:05
  I think there was Surface Paradise success, wasn't there too?
• 17:07
  Yeah, Surface Paradise.
• 17:08
  Yeah, that was the first one.
• 17:09
  That was a funny one actually because when I first –
• 17:11
  went there, I did a test with mum.
• 17:15
  My mum came up with me, because she was with me most of the time.
• 17:18
  And then I ended up going out, you know,
• 17:22
  Today's world, you know, you go out and you walk the track and you do simulators and all that sort of stuff.
• 17:28
  I had a chat to someone on the side who knew the circuit, and they said, Oh, yeah, just go down here, and this one's quite fast, and then you've got a long left, and that's pretty quick as well, and then you've got a tight one, you know, there's all this sort of stuff.
• 17:38
  Oh, yeah, okay, so off I went.
• 17:40
  By the time I got to that fast left, he mentioned, it wasn't as fast as I thought it was.
• 17:46
  So I've gone in and I've gone straight off the track and I've got into a ditch and I'm stuck in a ditch.
• 17:53
  And, of course, there's no one around.
• 17:54
  There's not like today.
• 17:55
  I mean, there was no marshals or anything.
• 17:57
  And I get out of the car and I'm trying to get this bloody Formula Ford out of this ditch.
• 18:05
  And so I come back into the pits eventually and my mum's looking at me like this with grass all over the car and stuff.
• 18:12
  She goes, Sonny, where have you been?
• 18:15
  LAUGHTER
• 18:19
  Some great memories there, mate.
• 18:20
  Fifth, I think, in the Driver to Europe series that year.
• 18:22
  You raced a Van Diemen and, as you say, some classic tracks, some of them now gone, Amaru Park, Oren Park and so on.
• 18:28
  Formula 2 brought experience with more powerful motors and aerodynamics and things like that.
• 18:33
  You would win the Australian Drivers' Championship with a mega, mega drive from 38th on the grid at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Adelaide, the support event there,
• 18:44
  What are your recollections of that?
• 18:45
  And the back story, people can probably hear it in my voice, you had some great words of, let's call it motivation from Dad.
• 18:54
  Is that a way to describe it?
• 18:55
  You were pretty fired up, weren't you?
• 18:58
  Yeah.
• 19:00
  Yeah.
• 19:03
  Yeah, it was one of those situations which was very uncomfortable to begin with.
• 19:11
  Something triggered something with a conversation.
• 19:13
  You go out and you perform at a level you've never experienced before.
• 19:17
  So the problem I had was we weren't speaking.
• 19:20
  Okay.
• 19:22
  And a lot of that came down to the fact that he was not very happy as well as my mum, that my girlfriend was pregnant and I had all this talent
• 19:34
  sort of potential career that he really was you know getting himself into at this point because i'd done quite well up to that and uh he for him in the old school it was like you know no women no children you know it's it's a selfish sport and you've got to so we weren't talking
• 19:53
  So I'm standing there in front of him and mum, and I'd done qualifying, and I was qualified 38th because we did two qualifying sessions, and the car stopped each time, so I never did a time.
• 20:05
  So I had to start at the back.
• 20:07
  And then, you know, obviously you think about the race and you think about how you're going to go out there and perform, and you just feel this energy inside you.
• 20:16
  And then when I was talking to dad and mum, and, you know, he had a Formula One pass, and I said...
• 20:22
  oh, you better get me one of those one day when I'm in Formula 1.
• 20:25
  I didn't know what else to say, just trying to bridge the gap, you know, and he just said, well, the days of you ever getting to Formula 1 are finished.
• 20:34
  Simple as that.
• 20:35
  And there was a little silence and I felt this anger come up inside me.
• 20:40
  And I just told him to F off.
• 20:42
  I mean, I just was so, so angry, so angry.
• 20:47
  I just, I was, you know, just raging.
• 20:51
  So I ended up literally staying in that angered state all the way until I got in the car.
• 20:58
  and I was so and all of a sudden you know my whole mindset was different the way I viewed the race was very different the motivation I had was ten times higher than what I had previously leading into that race the point to prove something to somebody was intensified even more
• 21:20
  And, you know, I'm sitting on the grid and I'm saying to my mechanic, you go down there and tell those guys they better get out of my way because I'm coming through.
• 21:27
  Now, I would have not thought that other than, yeah, I'll go through them.
• 21:30
  But I was so angry that all my my my world had changed completely.
• 21:36
  Boom, bang, bang.
• 21:37
  I was like, you know, really aggressive and.
• 21:40
  telling people what to do and blah and so when when it when the green flag went i just took off i went from 38th to 17th and first on the first lap i mean i every gap i found i i got you know bang bang bang um and didn't nothing touch the car and and and i won the race you know in 15 laps
• 22:05
  Standing on the podium, you know, Jack was there and, you know, all of a sudden he was my mate again, you know.
• 22:13
  And it was an amazing experience.
• 22:16
  It didn't feel great before, but afterwards I kind of felt like I'd gone to a different dimension.
• 22:23
  in in life and in in in driving that i just it's like wow that was my gift because i i took a lot of what i learned there into my career um but you know sometimes you need something like that to take you to a place that that then takes you forward you know you see it as a negative to begin with but life has this way of sorting things out and
• 22:46
  For me, it was an absolute blessing.
• 22:50
  So, yeah, it was an amazing experience, and that catapulted me to Europe because Dad was there, Ken Tyrrell was watching.
• 23:01
  Jack actually got Jackie Stewart and Ken Tyrrell and said, Oi, come and have a look at my boy because he's looking at me catching everybody.
• 23:11
  And, of course, when I got up on the podium, Ken was there and he said, you know, Australia's got to get behind this boy and blah, blah, blah.
• 23:19
  So that really helped my momentum to be able to get a drive in England.
• 23:24
  Let's talk a bit more about that because there was in the CV a bit of racing in New Zealand, South America, but that whole Europe…
• 23:29
  chapter was what what beckoned formula three in the uk i think 89 was was a big big year for the class you know 40 car grids names like mick hacken and rickard riddell but there was you and another guy who would go on to star in the sports car racing aspect of your career in alan alan mcnish the pair of you were the stars that year weren't you
• 23:49
  Yeah, we were the ones that were really duking it out for the championship.
• 23:53
  And it was a fantastic year.
• 23:55
  When I look back, it was amazing.
• 23:57
  You know, for me, it was very successful because I obviously won the championship and the battle between Alan and I and West Surrey Racing and Bowman Racing.
• 24:05
  And I was with Bowman and Alan was...
• 24:08
  with West Surrey, and West Surrey had won all those championships, you know, before, so they were the gun team.
• 24:14
  You know, Senna drove for them and Guzleman and lots of other really talented people.
• 24:21
  And so I was going there against Alan, who I raced against a bit in Voxel Lotus before as Mika Hakkanen, and we were all then Formula 3 together in 89.
• 24:32
  And we had great battles.
• 24:34
  And halfway through the year, you know, literally with, I think, first four races, I had a 31-point lead in the championship.
• 24:40
  And we didn't have many points then.
• 24:41
  They're not like they have now.
• 24:43
  And, you know, 20-odd points for a winner was only like nine points.
• 24:46
  So I had a massive lead.
• 24:49
  I kind of felt like the team backed off.
• 24:51
  I was like, this is dumb and dusted, you know.
• 24:54
  And then...
• 24:55
  Mugen, who were new to Formula 3 at that point with Alan, they started to get more competitive and starting to beat us and something was going away.
• 25:09
  And we got halfway through the year, and little did I know, but my team put in a protest to West Surrey about the Mugen engine.
• 25:17
  And...
• 25:19
  All of a sudden, they've protested us on the Volkswagen engine that I had, the Spees Volkswagen.
• 25:27
  And all of a sudden, I was leading the championship with Alan, a joint points leader, and all of a sudden, we're...
• 25:36
  I lost 24 points because we got penalties because of this situation.
• 25:42
  Alan's team, where Surrey appealed, mine didn't.
• 25:45
  So he kept his points till the tribunal.
• 25:48
  So he was leading the championship and I dropped to six.
• 25:53
  So I was 24 points behind him in the championship.
• 25:56
  And so we got to a place called Snedderson in the UK and we got turned up for the race.
• 26:04
  So it was the first race after all our points had been taken away.
• 26:08
  And I'm sitting there working with my engineer
• 26:12
  And he was so fed up with the politics, it was like he'd just given up.
• 26:16
  And I ended up talking about the car, and he just said, well, it doesn't matter anymore, does it?
• 26:23
  I'm like, hang on, I've got to improve the car.
• 26:25
  So that was another kind of one of those moments in time that was a damn good gift for me, because I took charge of the day, where I was always relying on the engineer, and we'd work together.
• 26:37
  This time it was like,
• 26:40
  Okay, we're not going to get anywhere like this.
• 26:41
  I'm going to have to take over the whole operation in terms of the engineering, what the car is going to do, what I need.
• 26:47
  To drive that side of it.
• 26:48
  Yeah, exactly.
• 26:49
  So I said, right, I want this, I want this, I want this, I want that.
• 26:52
  And I just went quicker and quicker and quicker.
• 26:54
  And back then I got pole positioned by...
• 26:59
  I'm going to say six tenths, something like that, around Snedderton, which is a lifetime.
• 27:06
  And because I had such a gap, I can't remember the rules, but they ended up staggering the grid because I was so far ahead.
• 27:14
  I don't know.
• 27:14
  I can't remember why, but we ended up changing the way the grid was formed because I was so far in front.
• 27:22
  And it showed that I actually had the capability of doing that.
• 27:26
  And driving that side of it, and I knew enough about the car to, by then, was about halfway through the year, to know exactly what I wanted.
• 27:36
  And in the race, I just switched off on the start.
• 27:40
  I was in bloody dreamland.
• 27:42
  And just sitting there, my heart wasn't really racing.
• 27:44
  It all went, lights went out, and I just stalled.
• 27:47
  Pfft.
• 27:48
  and everyone went past me and I'm thinking, you know, obviously thinking of the championship.
• 27:52
  I'm trying to start the, you know, I've got my hand in the air, someone's going to hit me.
• 27:56
  And then I look in the mirror and there's McNish.
• 27:59
  He'd stalled as well behind me.
• 28:04
  Awesome.
• 28:04
  What did it mean to you, you know, given the nerve-wracking aspect of that to ultimately win that British F3 title?
• 28:11
  I mean, some great names have won it.
• 28:12
  It is clearly a stepping stone for most that have gone on to Formula One.
• 28:16
  What did that mean?
• 28:19
  Well, at the time, Alan was declared the champion until the court hearing, which was actually at the beginning of the following year.
• 28:28
  And up at that point, we were heading into the Macau Grand Prix, which that was the former three World Cup.
• 28:34
  So, you know, England had a championship.
• 28:36
  France had a championship.
• 28:37
  Germany had a championship.
• 28:39
  Italy had a championship.
• 28:41
  And, you know, you had Schumacher, you had Zanardi, you had...
• 28:45
  obviously our guys.
• 28:48
  Then you had some of the F1 stars come down, Eddie Irvine, epic line-up.
• 28:54
  Yeah, I mean, Julian Bailey.
• 28:57
  And so...
• 28:59
  The motivation, again, another, you know, I learnt a lot about motivation up until that point.
• 29:06
  And it was another trigger.
• 29:08
  It was literally like that championship's mine.
• 29:12
  I felt so angry.
• 29:16
  There was a journalist called Mark Skewis, and he was writing for Motoring News, and he sent through a fax of a story he was writing about Formula 3.
• 29:24
  And I started reading it, and I can't tell you how angry I got.
• 29:28
  Yeah.
• 29:29
  Alan McNish, the deserved winner, you know, he dominated the championship, all this sort of stuff, and I'm reading this, and Lisa's watching me, and I'm like, I just curled it in a ball, and I chucked it against the wall, and I'm like this, like that, and next thing the phone rang, it's Mark, and he was just taking the piss out of me.
• 29:51
  It worked.
• 29:52
  He wound you up.
• 29:53
  Yeah, he was.
• 29:54
  But that was like going to – that's what it meant to me.
• 29:57
  So going to Macau, it was like, I've got to win this.
• 30:01
  I've just, you know, if I don't win that championship in the courts, I've got to win this one.
• 30:05
  And I ended up winning it, you know.
• 30:07
  So to beat all those guys at that point and then obviously being then declared the champion later on that, or earlier on that next year, you know, just you've got a super licence.
• 30:19
  You could go and do Formula One.
• 30:21
  So it meant a huge amount to me.
• 30:25
  And it was, you know, you talk about being under the shadow of Jack and things like that.
• 30:30
  I think when I won the F3 championship, that was helped me to become being comfortable with who I am and the success that I got until that point.
• 30:39
  Just share with people that may not know.
• 30:41
  I mean, Macau in...
• 30:44
  F3 terms is a signature race.
• 30:46
  It's still a signature race meeting globally now.
• 30:48
  But what is it like to pilot one of those cars successfully at speed around there?
• 30:54
  Because it is just brutally unforgiving.
• 30:57
  Macau 3.
• 30:57
  Macau.
• 30:59
  It's one of the great street circuits of the world.
• 31:02
  It really is.
• 31:02
  It's...
• 31:04
  And, you know, always at Macau, there are accidents, always.
• 31:07
  And we took off on the start.
• 31:09
  And I think I qualified sixth or eighth or something like that.
• 31:14
  Wasn't a great qualifying.
• 31:16
  Hadn't been there before.
• 31:17
  So some of the guys right up front had been there.
• 31:19
  Some hadn't.
• 31:20
  Just didn't quite get it together in qualifying.
• 31:23
  But we knew we had a good race car.
• 31:25
  And took off down the straight, got a reasonable start.
• 31:29
  So I was about fourth, I think, going into the first big tight corner at the end at the Lisboa.
• 31:35
  And I just – everyone's on the right for a right-hand corner.
• 31:38
  And this is where I guess another lesson.
• 31:43
  Sometimes you get a sense about something.
• 31:46
  And you've got to go with it.
• 31:48
  And then what I did is I got a sense that there was going to something happen.
• 31:53
  This just doesn't feel right.
• 31:54
  This is going to be a disaster.
• 31:57
  So I pull over to the left where you should be to take a right-hand corner.
• 32:00
  I'm the only one kind of there amongst us.
• 32:03
  And, of course, everyone's piled in.
• 32:04
  There was a big accident.
• 32:06
  And I ended up having difficulty.
• 32:07
  getting caught in the accident, but my car was not damaged.
• 32:10
  So it was just a pileup, no one could move.
• 32:14
  So by the time they pulled everyone apart, there were some big guns got damaged.
• 32:19
  You know, McNish's car was up on top of somebody and you know, all this sort of stuff.
• 32:24
  Um, so that, that intuitive kind of, just, this just doesn't feel right.
• 32:29
  It helped me kind of win that race because some of the, you know, McNish, he didn't even start.
• 32:35
  So one of my main competitors gone, you know what I mean?
• 32:38
  So, um, Michael, Michael Schumacher and I ended up sort of duking it out for the first race.
• 32:44
  He was first, I was second.
• 32:46
  And then in the second race, um, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
• 32:50
  I, again, kind of, I was probably a bit tentative in the first corner, but it was fine.
• 32:56
  And I ended up saying to the team before, I said, look, just drop the rear wing.
• 32:59
  I just want as fast as I can be on that straight.
• 33:01
  I'll just deal with the corners myself.
• 33:03
  Don't worry about it, you know.
• 33:05
  And I was like a rocket down the straights and got into the lead and off I went and kind of won it.
• 33:12
  But certainly, I think, even today, winning Macau is such a big deal.
• 33:17
  But back then, it just felt enormous.
• 33:21
  Very much, you can tell that.
• 33:23
  Listeners will be able to pick this up in the conversation.
• 33:25
  You've talked about the motivational aspect, but you're very in tune with the mental side of the racing game, aren't you?
• 33:32
  And when did that become a thing for you, really?
• 33:35
  And, you know, you clearly took charge before in the Formula 3 example you gave in an engineering sense, but clearly you grasped the fact that the mental game is vitally important, didn't you?
• 33:47
  Yeah, I can always remember my dad.
• 33:51
  He didn't give a lot of advice.
• 33:52
  He didn't really say a huge amount because it was really like, well, get on with it, learn yourself, which was a great way of doing it.
• 33:59
  And he would just put his finger to his head and go, David, it's all up here, mate.
• 34:04
  It's all in the head.
• 34:06
  He couldn't articulate it, but he was damn right.
• 34:09
  And, of course, I've expressed some of those moments for me, sort of having experienced what it's like to take yourself to a whole different level mentally and what are the key mechanisms that help you get there, the drivers that do get you there.
• 34:25
  So as my career went on, I started to understand
• 34:30
  I started to research it more and read books and, you know, whether it was, you know, books on science or books on spiritual stuff, it was, I was a whole mixed bag of books.
• 34:42
  a thirst for information.
• 34:43
  I was a thirst for information because I had experienced stuff and it was not always easy to carry that into every race, you know.
• 34:51
  And I started to understand, for me, was how important to find something, lots of things that were motivating, not just to win, but what other added stuff that would just take me to that kind of next level.
• 35:07
  And I, yeah, it was probably 15 years,
• 35:12
  year journey towards the end of my career where I really not just started to think about myself, but it was also about the team and my teammates, how the energy of that team is operating.
• 35:22
  You get a sense of the energy in a room.
• 35:24
  You know, everyone has thoughts, feelings, emotions.
• 35:29
  They all play a role in what's going to be created next.
• 35:33
  So I started to look much more deeper into the way people thought,
• 35:38
  what people were saying to me, how they were saying it to me, how the engineers were talking, how my teammate was talking.
• 35:44
  Is he confident?
• 35:45
  Is he not confident?
• 35:47
  If he wasn't confident, how do I help him get confident?
• 35:49
  Because if he's not confident, his world's going to be such, he's going to take the direction of the car the wrong way because he'll interpret the world differently to me.
• 36:00
  And I had one of those experiences where,
• 36:04
  I was in Formula 3 Class B before I went into the main game.
• 36:08
  And I was testing at Alton Park.
• 36:12
  And I was in a Rolt and my teammate was in a Rolt.
• 36:15
  And he had a slightly different car to me.
• 36:18
  The rear end was, you know, the gearbox was lower.
• 36:21
  And theoretically it was a better car.
• 36:25
  But I was like a second quicker than him.
• 36:28
  And the mechanic on his car came up and said, look, can you just please jump in the car?
• 36:33
  Just please.
• 36:34
  You know, he's complaining about this.
• 36:35
  He's complaining about that.
• 36:37
  And we just don't know, you know.
• 36:39
  So I jumped in the car and I went a tenth quicker in his car than I did in my car.
• 36:44
  And his interpretation of the world and my interpretation of the world, my confidence and everything was so different to his, but he was complaining about stuff that I wasn't.
• 36:55
  So that was, again, that was kind of like, well, when you're in that mindset, you're going to interpret the world differently.
• 37:02
  You're going to then come up with ideas around that world that take you down the wrong path.
• 37:07
  So when you get yourself into a much clearer, more focused, more confident state of mind,
• 37:13
  your interpretation of the way you think is different.
• 37:17
  So that changes your outcomes.
• 37:19
  So then it was, okay, my outcome is I've got to win.
• 37:21
  So who've I got to be?
• 37:23
  Who am I being now?
• 37:24
  What's my mood?
• 37:25
  That was the biggest thing for me.
• 37:27
  What mood am I in when I go into a race?
• 37:30
  That was for me the key.
• 37:32
  And what's the mood of the team?
• 37:33
  What's the mood of my team?
• 37:35
  You just have to watch.
• 37:36
  You have to feel all that sort of thing.
• 37:39
  And I worked much more with the team than I did myself towards the end of the career because I knew that.
• 37:46
  I was okay.
• 37:47
  And I would work on myself always and then work with the team and just get that level up, that confidence up, that mindset where that becomes champions, you know what I mean?
• 37:57
  So you get your break in Formula One at around 1990, but I think you might have – did you test it in late 89?
• 38:05
  When was your first test?
• 38:06
  Where was it?
• 38:07
  What was your first –
• 38:08
  experience like in a formula one car share that with us yeah sure i mean it was kind of weird because i did obviously run their three stuff and then um team a team called middlebridge contacted me um and i went off and um had a chat to them and then eddie jordan offered me a test and i tested at silverstone um
• 38:31
  Did it blow your mind?
• 38:31
  Was it everything you thought?
• 38:32
  No, this was Formula 3000.
• 38:34
  Yeah, so this was Formula 3000 because obviously that was the next step.
• 38:38
  Formula 1, I didn't even think about Formula 1.
• 38:40
  I was like, well, okay, done that.
• 38:41
  So what's next?
• 38:43
  F3000, what's the opportunities there?
• 38:44
  I didn't have any money.
• 38:45
  I had to find something.
• 38:47
  And then Eddie Jordan gave me a test.
• 38:50
  Complete disaster.
• 38:51
  It was half dry, half wet.
• 38:53
  Went out there on slicks.
• 38:54
  It was cold.
• 38:55
  Spun.
• 38:57
  It's half spun.
• 38:57
  So I'm going sideways down the track and I hit a curb and it bumped up and it bumped down.
• 39:03
  It wasn't much of an accident.
• 39:04
  It got going.
• 39:05
  I came in the pits, but it punctured a hole in the tub.
• 39:07
  End of test.
• 39:08
  Done.
• 39:11
  So that wasn't clever.
• 39:13
  And then Middlebridge, I did a test in an old Lola and that went really well.
• 39:19
  And so next thing you know, I'm signed up to do Formula 3000 and Damon Hill was going to be my teammate.
• 39:25
  And we had brand new Lolas coming and, you know, you just knew this was going to be a good year.
• 39:30
  The car was fast, the engines were good, team were good, me and Damon together, who I'd raced in Formula 3, and I didn't know at that point how good he was going to become because he didn't show it in Formula 3, he kind of struggled a bit there.
• 39:45
  He suited the much bigger cars than he did the smaller ones.
• 39:48
  And I was really looking forward to it.
• 39:50
  And the Formula One, Middlebridge bought the Bradham Formula One team.
• 39:57
  So they were heading off to Phoenix, the week of Phoenix.
• 40:02
  I think it was like the Monday of Phoenix.
• 40:04
  The phone rings.
• 40:05
  David, how would you like to come over and race in Formula One at Phoenix for the first round of the championship?
• 40:11
  What?
• 40:13
  Where the hell has this come from?
• 40:15
  And I just thought about it for a moment.
• 40:16
  So I thought, hang on a minute, I'm not fit enough.
• 40:18
  I know I'm not fit enough to drive those cars.
• 40:21
  I don't know the track.
• 40:22
  I don't know the car.
• 40:23
  I just didn't feel confident that I could do it justice.
• 40:26
  So I refused.
• 40:28
  I said, I just don't think I'm going to do it justice right now.
• 40:31
  So I'm not going to do it.
• 40:35
  Which kind of like someone's just knocked back a Formula One drive.
• 40:38
  What the hell is going on here?
• 40:42
  And so that was it.
• 40:44
  Didn't think much of it.
• 40:45
  And we were getting ready to test the brand new cars.
• 40:49
  They'd already done two races of Formula One at that point.
• 40:53
  And I get called into the office and they said, right, we're closing the Formula 3000 team down to focus on Formula One.
• 41:01
  Really?
• 41:02
  Oh, Christ.
• 41:02
  And then you're starting to think, right, well, this is pretty late in the season.
• 41:05
  How am I going to find something now?
• 41:07
  Then they said, we want you to do Formula One.
• 41:10
  Wow.
• 41:11
  So I either go and find a job or go and be a Formula 1 driver.
• 41:16
  I think I'll be a Formula 1 driver.
• 41:17
  You know what I mean?
• 41:18
  Didn't take much arm twisting.
• 41:19
  No, exactly.
• 41:19
  Yeah.
• 41:20
  So obviously then it was a case of going to the team and doing a seat fit.
• 41:27
  I sat in a BT 58, which was a pretty good little car.
• 41:31
  They'd been on podiums that year in Monaco and other races.
• 41:35
  And it was just a tidy little package.
• 41:38
  Got in the car at Silverstone, sitting there, the engine's revving, got the Brabham emblem on the steering wheel.
• 41:45
  And it was just such a moment.
• 41:46
  Surreal.
• 41:47
  Yeah, it was such a moment.
• 41:48
  My first time in a Formula 1 car is a Brabham.
• 41:51
  I mean, it was just unreal.
• 41:53
  And then I think I probably did 10 to 15 laps, you know, and getting feel for it and the thing's like, oh, this feels fast, you know.
• 42:03
  But I was, you know, I was getting quicker and quicker and quicker and by the time I got to sort of lap 15, my neck was falling off because the G-forces were so much higher than I was used to and, you know, I hadn't drained my neck enough, you know.
• 42:16
  So I did that test and it was off to find a...
• 42:21
  coach, a gym instructor and said, mate, you've got to get me fit because this thing's like killing me, you know.
• 42:27
  And I was fit doing F3 and F3000 wasn't too much of a problem, but F1 was another jump, you know.
• 42:34
  But, you know, they were happy with the test, I was happy with it.
• 42:39
  Can you remember the power plant and the sort of horsepower?
• 42:43
  Was it a three and a half litre Judd V8?
• 42:45
  What was the engine that was in it at the time?
• 42:48
  It was a Judd V10.
• 42:48
  V10?
• 42:49
  Wow.
• 42:51
  It was quite peaky.
• 42:52
  Didn't have a lot of talk, which was an issue.
• 42:55
  But that whole year was a bit of a disaster, to be fair, because I didn't realise how much in trouble Brabham were when I got there.
• 43:03
  The 59 wasn't the 58, was it?
• 43:05
  No, no.
• 43:06
  I mean, God, we tested her ref with the 58 and the 59.
• 43:10
  The 59 was two seconds laps later.
• 43:13
  So it was a dog, basically.
• 43:15
  Sergio Rinlan, who's a good mate of mine, designed it.
• 43:18
  I mean, I always take the piss out of him every time I say it.
• 43:20
  And he always says, every time he talks to people and I'm there, oh, I made him the worst Formula One car ever, you know.
• 43:27
  And, you know, there was no money.
• 43:30
  The wind tunnel, we had problems with the wind tunnel.
• 43:33
  The gearbox, which was the first transverse gearbox that the team had done.
• 43:37
  It didn't come until halfway through the year, so we had last year's rear end on with a new front end, and all the geometry was wrong.
• 43:45
  And, you know, it was just wrong, really wrong.
• 43:48
  I mean, you just don't go racing like that.
• 43:50
  And, of course, I was...
• 43:52
  pretty naive going into Formula One in many ways.
• 43:55
  You know, it wasn't worldly enough in some sense because everything was not easy, but, you know, I had everything around me and everything was working.
• 44:02
  Went into a, you know, quite political situation.
• 44:06
  No money, a lot of stress.
• 44:07
  You know, you're in the world's eyes now.
• 44:10
  You know, I'm Australia's next Formula One driver, you know, from Alan Jones.
• 44:16
  So there's a bit of weight of expectation there.
• 44:18
  I'm a Brabham, I'm in a Brabham.
• 44:21
  And it was a tough year.
• 44:22
  Didn't qualify for half the races.
• 44:24
  You know, it was you're either in or you're out because we had 30 cars going for 26 lots.
• 44:29
  The first time I tried to qualify, I missed the first session and I missed the second session every time I went out, the car stopped because it was a brand new car.
• 44:37
  We never turned a wheel.
• 44:40
  And I missed out by three tenths in qualifying.
• 44:43
  You know, my first Formula One race was Monaco, which was the next one.
• 44:48
  So I managed to qualify at Monaco, which was a huge feat back then.
• 44:52
  I think Michele Alboreto didn't even qualify.
• 44:55
  He was behind me in the footwork.
• 44:58
  So it was really tough at the back, really, really tough.
• 45:01
  And as the season went on, I didn't get new bits.
• 45:05
  I was getting Stefano Modena's bits from what he wore out because there was no money, you know, and he was the number one, I was the number two, which is fine, I get that.
• 45:14
  But, yeah, I walked out of there scarred massively, you know, and it took a bit out of me.
• 45:20
  The challenge, was that compounded by the fact that, you know, nowadays –
• 45:24
  bringing money to a race team is such a significant thing.
• 45:26
  And you talked about the fact that there wasn't much money there before.
• 45:28
  Did you have to bring or garner funding to help what you were doing?
• 45:31
  Was that an issue too?
• 45:32
  What about the political aspects?
• 45:34
  What were the eye-opening parts of that?
• 45:36
  Because it is, I mean, it's been written about, hasn't it?
• 45:38
  They talk about it being the Piranha Club, and it's a really tough environment, Formula One, isn't it?
• 45:43
  Yeah, it is.
• 45:44
  I've never bought money to a team.
• 45:48
  Never had that kind of funding or anything like that.
• 45:51
  So I had to find my way through and find drives where I could.
• 45:54
  But certainly in Formula One, you know, I kind of felt like when I got there, half the team wanted me, half the team didn't.
• 46:03
  Half the team...
• 46:05
  didn't because they were brabham they were fairly successful they'd done the pretty good the year before obviously i'm standing on the podium at monaco is a pretty good deal you know i mean um and so they felt they wanted a more experienced driver than someone like myself um and i was the second youngest driver on the grid at 24
• 46:28
  So for them, I get it, you know, I didn't have the time, but I get it now why, you know, there would have been people there.
• 46:36
  So, well, you know, it's great, but, you know, we need someone with experience.
• 46:41
  And I didn't have it.
• 46:42
  And then at the end, I think I was made a bit of a scapegoat in some way.
• 46:49
  I didn't keep the drive and then I had to go off and find something else.
• 46:52
  I ended up going back to Formula 3000 because there was an opportunity to have a free drive there.
• 46:58
  And also I had F1 experience and they were quite keen for me to be in the team.
• 47:04
  So I led the team.
• 47:05
  I had a Mexican teammate who bought the money.
• 47:09
  And then I ended up doing a...
• 47:13
  the XJR 15 sort of little series they had with Monaco, Silverstone and Spa against all of these good drivers and Derek Warwick was there and stuff and he was a works Jaguar driver at the time.
• 47:28
  And we went to Monaco and Derek was first, I was second.
• 47:31
  And I was, you know, standing in the pits after the race and feeling pretty chuffed with myself, you know.
• 47:37
  I think about going down the inside of one of those corners.
• 47:39
  It was turn one, I think.
• 47:41
  I should have done it.
• 47:42
  If I had it, I would have won.
• 47:43
  But it's funny how these things stick in your mind.
• 47:46
  It's like that was one that was missed.
• 47:48
  That was my fault.
• 47:50
  But, you know, I must have impressed Tom Walkinshaw because then he said, how would you like to test the XJR14, which was the silk-cut Jagger in the 91 World Championship.
• 48:05
  I didn't know at the time, though, looking for a replacement for Martin Brundle because he was dovetailing between F1 and... because he'd gone back to Brabham.
• 48:13
  And then I was like, okay, I'll go and do a test.
• 48:17
  So I rang up.
• 48:19
  to say, well, what about this test?
• 48:21
  You know, I'm kind of keen to get in to see what this looks like.
• 48:23
  And then they said, well, there's no point in you testing if you don't race for us.
• 48:31
  Are you offering me a drive?
• 48:33
  Yeah.
• 48:34
  And they said, well, yeah.
• 48:36
  So it's like, right, okay, because I have had commitments with my former 3000 team.
• 48:42
  I said, well, yeah, I'd love to, but I've got to talk to my team first just to...
• 48:47
  Tell them, yeah, clear it.
• 48:48
  So I went to the team and they didn't have any money.
• 48:51
  So I was like, we can't keep you.
• 48:54
  So I was like, yeah, go for it.
• 48:55
  It's a great opportunity for you.
• 48:57
  So then I ended up doing the deal for Jaguar and becoming a works Jaguar driver alongside Derek Warwick and Tao Farby.
• 49:05
  So I ended up driving one and finishing in the other because he only had three.
• 49:09
  Tom would only pay for three drivers, not four.
• 49:11
  So my first race at the Nürburgring, I finished first and second.
• 49:19
  Just explain that.
• 49:21
  Well, because it was a three hour race and I would start with one car.
• 49:26
  So I started in Derek Warwick's car, took off, off we went.
• 49:32
  And I actually had Keke Rosberg in front of me in a Peugeot.
• 49:37
  Michael Schumacher was there in the Mercedes with Carl van Langer and all those guys who I raced in F3 as well, and Heinz-Herald Frenzen.
• 49:46
  Yeah.
• 49:47
  And, you know, we qualified up front.
• 49:53
  Obviously the two main drivers did the qualifying.
• 49:56
  And so this is my first race as a Jaguar Works driver.
• 49:59
  I'm following Keke and he's spewing out oil and this oil was just coming up all over my screen.
• 50:08
  And I'm thinking, well, I've got to pit soon.
• 50:09
  And next thing, he spins off.
• 50:12
  And I look up ahead.
• 50:13
  I can't see Teo.
• 50:14
  Teo's gone.
• 50:16
  But he wasn't gone, like, up the road.
• 50:19
  He'd spun off on the oil as well.
• 50:21
  And he was behind me.
• 50:21
  So all of a sudden, I'm in the lead.
• 50:24
  Yeah.
• 50:26
  I can't see where I'm going.
• 50:27
  Do I come in?
• 50:28
  Do I stay out?
• 50:29
  You know, and it was all very confusing.
• 50:32
  So I decided I could just see enough.
• 50:35
  I couldn't see exactly like straight in front of me because of the oil.
• 50:38
  In fact, I think Schumacher behind me,
• 50:42
  came in to clean his screen and I was one in front of him.
• 50:45
  So was there a little gap in the windshield or something?
• 50:46
  How did you see it?
• 50:47
  Well, I can remember going down the main straight on the pit straight and I'm looking to the left to see the markers because I couldn't quite see on that side.
• 50:54
  You know what I mean?
• 50:55
  It was just like that the whole time.
• 50:57
  And I led up until the last lap of my stint and someone got past me.
• 51:03
  And then we came in.
• 51:04
  So I did my job because if I'd come in and got the screen, I would have been behind.
• 51:09
  And now Tao was catching me at a hell of a rate because I couldn't see where I was going.
• 51:12
  If I could have seen, I would just disappear.
• 51:14
  That thing was so fast.
• 51:16
  And then I get out.
• 51:18
  I'm waiting for an hour for Derek to do his, no, for Tao to do his double stint.
• 51:23
  Derek's now gone in to finish the race with a double stint.
• 51:26
  So I have a rest for an hour.
• 51:28
  I jump in Tao's car and off I go.
• 51:32
  And it was a very emotional race for Derek because it was the first race that he had done after his brother got killed.
• 51:39
  And we're all quite close.
• 51:41
  And, you know, that was, again, that picking, trying to pick the teammate up.
• 51:46
  trying to get them motivated and focused and so forth.
• 51:50
  So that was another kind of new experience for me to be in.
• 51:55
  And so the cars finished first and second on the road.
• 52:00
  So it was nice for Derek to win.
• 52:03
  So by that time we were kind of one, two, and it was like, no, keep that as the thing.
• 52:08
  So Derek won.
• 52:10
  I think they wanted to do it for Derek as well.
• 52:13
  And so...
• 52:15
  it was time to go up onto the podium and it's like, well, I'm not standing on the number two step.
• 52:19
  I'm going to stand on the number one.
• 52:21
  But I finished first and second in the same race.
• 52:24
  Yeah.
• 52:24
  I love it.
• 52:25
  They are an iconic car in sports car history.
• 52:28
  Tell us a bit about what they were like to drive and a bit of the, if you can remember some of the data on the engine and the package generally, what was it like?
• 52:37
  Yeah.
• 52:39
  The car would have qualified in the top 10 of a Formula 1 race.
• 52:43
  Mega.
• 52:43
  That's how fast the car was.
• 52:46
  In pure, like, say, full downforce spec, it was like 10,000 pounds of downforce.
• 52:51
  No car has that today.
• 52:52
  You know what I mean?
• 52:54
  It was phenomenal.
• 52:56
  It had an aerodynamic issue on the front.
• 53:00
  It just understeered too much.
• 53:02
  I don't think I ever had the car snap on me on the rear.
• 53:05
  The rear was just absolutely locked to the ground.
• 53:08
  which gave you so much confidence going in the corner, but all the tweaking, all the set-up was around trying to get more front.
• 53:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 53:17
  And every time we got closer and closer to the ground with the ride height, you start to get the front to porpoise.
• 53:24
  So jump up and down.
• 53:26
  And it would jump up and down.
• 53:28
  It was quicker in the corner that way, but on the straight, the thing was just bouncing, just up and down, up and down like a porpoise.
• 53:34
  And so much so that if I was driving with my visor up and I wanted it up, I had to put tape
• 53:42
  on the visor to stop it from falling down because of the...
• 53:46
  The vibrations.
• 53:47
  Yeah, the bouncing.
• 53:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:50
  And when I first drove the car, I was in a small track in the middle of France, I was just blown away by the performance.
• 53:57
  The Ford 3.5-litre, it was the HB that the Benetton team were using that year with whoever was there.
• 54:07
  Who was it?
• 54:08
  Piquet?
• 54:08
  I think it was Piquet and stuff like that.
• 54:13
  Oh, in Schumacher, because Schumacher shot across too.
• 54:15
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, from Jordan, yeah.
• 54:18
  And, of course, I was with the Judd in Formula One and then I jumped in this with the Cosworth.
• 54:27
  And I was like, wow, okay, now I know this.
• 54:30
  Yeah, now I knew what I was missing the year before big time.
• 54:34
  So the package, it was Ross Braun's last car that he ever designed.
• 54:39
  And the tunnels on it were massive.
• 54:40
  The ground effect tunnels were massive.
• 54:43
  But, you know, we talk about how impressive that car was, but when the new Peugeot came out...
• 54:52
  By the time we got to the end of the season, that Peugeot was a rocket.
• 54:55
  That thing just drove away from us.
• 54:56
  Michelin tyres had just taken a massive leap forward.
• 55:00
  The Peugeot package.
• 55:01
  So the Peugeot ended up obviously towards that, winning Le Mans 2002 in 2003.
• 55:07
  My brother Jeff drove it in 2003.
• 55:09
  And that was even quicker, obviously, than what we were driving in.
• 55:12
  I mean, that must have been unbelievable.
• 55:14
  I can't imagine what those things were like.
• 55:17
  But just to be a Jaguar works driver, working with a professional team that had budget, we went testing.
• 55:23
  All of a sudden, I saw what a proper team kind of really looked like because Bradmore was in disarray.
• 55:29
  It had no money and it was, you know, we had no testing and bits were falling off and all that sort of stuff.
• 55:34
  So all of a sudden, I went from the worst to one of the best scenarios.
• 55:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 55:39
  And that team in F1 would have done really well.
• 55:42
  They were just at that kind of level.
• 55:44
  Obviously, Ross proved that.
• 55:48
  And it was just a great experience.
• 55:51
  And having done F1 and that, that helped me, I think, just pick up lots of drives along the way because I had that experience with those people and those type of cars.
• 56:01
  And then, like I said, I've never had money to pay for a drive.
• 56:04
  If I had half a million dollars in 91, I could have got the Jordan drive.
• 56:09
  Amazing.
• 56:10
  Yeah.
• 56:10
  But I couldn't find any money.
• 56:12
  The word you used before was a bit scarred from that first experience.
• 56:16
  So clearly doing this sort of stuff gives you a bit more confidence again.
• 56:20
  How did the door open to get back in Formula One?
• 56:23
  What transpired there?
• 56:24
  Yeah.
• 56:25
  Well, I did a couple of seasons in Formula One, sorry, sports cars.
• 56:28
  I went to Toyota the following year.
• 56:30
  And then 93 was a bit of a barren year.
• 56:32
  It was not a lot of drives out there.
• 56:35
  It was a good time to get married.
• 56:39
  So we got married.
• 56:41
  And I did a few races.
• 56:43
  And, of course, then there was – I met up with Nick Worth, who was trying to put a Formula 1 team together.
• 56:50
  And, obviously, I'd had all that experience in Formula 1 and sports cars.
• 56:53
  I was the perfect fit for them.
• 56:55
  And it was my only way really to get back because I kind of felt like it was a bit unfinished business in Formula 1 because I'd had – in terms of my career, I had stepped up a lot from when I first got to Formula 1, having been with Jagger and Toyota and, you know, I was just a better driver.
• 57:10
  So I felt like I could, you know, that was my time to be in Formula One in a sense.
• 57:17
  But it was a difficult year, you know.
• 57:21
  Get money, big problem.
• 57:24
  Going from race to race, hand to mouth and not having the money to develop.
• 57:29
  Nick was 28, I was 28, he was the designer, the team owner, everything, you know, credible brain, but, you know, inexperienced in that field, you know.
• 57:39
  You're playing in the biggest possible field in motorsport.
• 57:43
  Absolutely.
• 57:45
  So, you know, it was a bit like being a duck in a lion's den, you know what I mean?
• 57:51
  It's just...
• 57:53
  So I ended up obviously during the year, but it was a tough one.
• 57:57
  We lost Roland, which wasn't great.
• 58:01
  Difficult for the team to get through, but we did.
• 58:03
  And got to the end of the year and that was it really.
• 58:06
  I mean, Formula One was done for me.
• 58:10
  I tasted sports cars and life outside of that, which I quite enjoyed.
• 58:14
  Um, went to do British touring cars with BMW because Nick was very close to Paul Rocher.
• 58:20
  And, and he said, look, I'll talk to Paul, see what I can do with BMW.
• 58:23
  And he did.
• 58:25
  Went and met up with Paul Rocher and Paul.
• 58:27
  Yep.
• 58:27
  All right.
• 58:27
  Let's just do a deal for you to race in, in England.
• 58:31
  BTCC.
• 58:31
  And British touring cars.
• 58:32
  Yeah.
• 58:33
  If you don't mind, can we just finish the SimTech chapter there, 1994?
• 58:37
  I mean, you talked on the passing of Roland Ratzenberger, and I mean, it came on the same weekend that Etten Centre passed in Italy.
• 58:45
  I mean, it still to this day made sense chills up the spine of people that loved their Formula One.
• 58:51
  How did you deal with that?
• 58:52
  And you are to be credited because for the rest of the year, you showed incredible leadership to help the team come out of that and to keep going despite all the challenges you detailed there before.
• 59:03
  Yeah.
• 59:04
  Yeah, I mean, when I think back, I think all those experiences I had previous to that in terms of the mindset and everything, I understood that a lot more.
• 59:15
  So obviously when Roland died and Ayrton died, that whole weekend was just black.
• 59:21
  It was heavy.
• 59:24
  But, you know...
• 59:25
  I chose to race the next day after Roland died, um, you know, and he had a problem with the front wing, um, it collapsed.
• 59:31
  And so, you know, I'm going into the race and, you know, is this thing going to happen to me as well?
• 59:36
  You know, so it was, it was tough.
• 59:39
  Um, I can remember going down, down the straight towards where Roland's going and the adrenaline is pumping in a different way that it would normally do.
• 59:48
  Out of fear?
• 59:50
  Oh yeah.
• 59:50
  Also, I mean, all sorts of things going through your mind.
• 59:53
  Um,
• 59:56
  where my, I would be flat out, but my, my actual leg was, was bouncing with adrenaline.
• 1:00:02
  I had no control over my leg.
• 1:00:04
  I could keep it flat on the straights, but my, my leg was just, just moving.
• 1:00:09
  It was just like pumping with adrenaline and it was just bouncing.
• 1:00:12
  And I had, you know, it was just the weirdest sensation.
• 1:00:17
  And, you know, I was lucky myself that race because I had an issue in there and went off the racetrack and luckily I didn't hit anything other than a bunch of tyres.
• 1:00:28
  You know, my steering column broke.
• 1:00:31
  So it was like, yeah, it could have been horrendous.
• 1:00:35
  So...
• 1:00:38
  difficult weekend to get out of there with confidence you know again it just your your whole the whole demeanor about the team and yourself is just at such a low and you've got to pick yourself up and the only reason I raced was for the team because we did warm up and I said I'll make a decision after warm up and I did warm up we actually did quite well in warm up normally we were down the back
• 1:00:58
  for obvious reasons, but I don't know if they put less fuel in the car to make me feel good.
• 1:01:03
  I don't know, but we were in the top 20 and I think we were 15th, 16th, which was really – we'd never been that high.
• 1:01:10
  Came into the pit and I just noticed this black, dark cloud that was over the team.
• 1:01:15
  It just shifted slightly.
• 1:01:17
  There was just a bit of hope.
• 1:01:18
  I just sensed hope, a little bit of hope in the team.
• 1:01:22
  And I thought, I've got to create more hope.
• 1:01:24
  I've got to do that for the team.
• 1:01:26
  So I didn't race for me.
• 1:01:27
  I just raced for the team.
• 1:01:28
  And off I went to just keep things going as Roland would have wanted to.
• 1:01:32
  As long as you're safe, just you're a racer.
• 1:01:36
  Get out there and race.
• 1:01:37
  That's what you do.
• 1:01:38
  It was unusual.
• 1:01:41
  It is unusual for a team to race after that.
• 1:01:43
  They would normally pull out.
• 1:01:45
  But it's a choice.
• 1:01:47
  And my choice was, they said, it's up to you.
• 1:01:51
  What do you want to do?
• 1:01:52
  So you've got sponsors, you've got this and that and that.
• 1:01:56
  And it's like, Marley, I didn't really think about that too much.
• 1:01:59
  It was about the team, about the people.
• 1:02:01
  So that's what I did.
• 1:02:04
  And we managed to get through to the end of the season.
• 1:02:08
  But yeah, it couldn't continue.
• 1:02:11
  I couldn't bring the funding or anything that other people couldn't.
• 1:02:14
  And that was it.
• 1:02:26
  The diffuser is at the rear of the car providing downforce by using the airflow under the car's floor.
• 1:02:33
  That diffuser creates nearly 50% of the car's total downforce.
• 1:02:38
  It had a taste, as you say, of sports cars and that in your career, mate, we'll get to a few of them, you've driven some amazing things.
• 1:02:44
  Just quickly, the BTCC chapter, that was, you know, the British Touring Car Championship, people still in the mid-90s and the 1990s full stop remember it very fondly.
• 1:02:56
  It was ultra competitive, wasn't it?
• 1:02:59
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:03:00
  There were so many manufacturers involved and the level that they were at was high.
• 1:03:06
  And for me, going into it from Formula One to a two-litre touring car was a major shock of how slow these things were.
• 1:03:14
  Just diametrically opposed.
• 1:03:16
  They're different, aren't they?
• 1:03:17
  Yeah, I mean, they didn't stop.
• 1:03:18
  They didn't turn.
• 1:03:19
  I mean, I mean, going testing, just overshooting the corner all the time.
• 1:03:23
  They just couldn't do it.
• 1:03:25
  And I went to BMW just as they were changing teams.
• 1:03:29
  So, Schnitzer were always doing British touring cars.
• 1:03:33
  Schnitzer went to Germany.
• 1:03:35
  The German team, Warthoffer, team Warthoffer with Johnny Cicotto, who was really at that time their number one driver.
• 1:03:42
  And he'd won the German championship the year before.
• 1:03:45
  They wanted them to go to England.
• 1:03:49
  And I was going to be Johnny's teammate.
• 1:03:51
  So I had a great teacher in that sense, a great guy and fantastic driver.
• 1:03:57
  And very much the heartbeat of BMW as far as the drivers are concerned.
• 1:04:02
  But it wasn't a particularly competitive year.
• 1:04:05
  It was their worst year that ever had in British touring cars.
• 1:04:10
  So they had their works team, their works driver and me.
• 1:04:14
  I think Johnny finished something like 16th in the championship and I was 17th.
• 1:04:21
  He was only one point ahead of me.
• 1:04:23
  Which was unheard of because Steve Soper, Joachim Winklehock, they had dominated, hadn't they?
• 1:04:26
  Totally, yeah.
• 1:04:28
  I mean, it was very uncharacteristic of BMW and, of course, I hit them right at that point.
• 1:04:35
  And, you know, to get your head round those cars, it was difficult.
• 1:04:38
  The slower you went, the faster you went, basically, which was against my upbringing in a sense because in Formula One you've just got to go for it and you've got to really commit into the corner and you feel that grip and it helps you get round the corner.
• 1:04:52
  Every time I did that in the BMW, the thing went slower.
• 1:04:57
  you know so it's a great story of John Cleland who won the championship in a Vauxhall there went and did a test betting in the brakes finished betting in the brakes did a lap time and then could never beat it after that you know what I mean it was just kind of a strange kind of way and having so used to being driving bigger cars it took me a while to get my head around it
• 1:05:17
  But I had some really good races.
• 1:05:18
  You know, we qualified not great, but in the racing was just so good.
• 1:05:22
  And with the rear-wheel drive against a lot of the front-wheel drives, in the races, you know, we could have a bit of a go.
• 1:05:30
  I went to Knock Hill.
• 1:05:34
  We were there all week testing.
• 1:05:36
  Took my family up there with Sam, and he was 11 months old.
• 1:05:40
  And race morning, we get up, and we always had this routine journey.
• 1:05:45
  So barricade where the kettle is, boil the kettle, warm up his milk for his milk and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:05:53
  I jump in the shower.
• 1:05:54
  I'm getting ready for the race morning and the next thing I hear is screams.
• 1:05:58
  And I jump out of the shower to find out what's going on.
• 1:06:01
  I look at Lisa.
• 1:06:02
  Lisa's looking down the corridor.
• 1:06:05
  And there's Sam in a pool of boiling water with steam coming off his body.
• 1:06:11
  And it's like, you've got to be good.
• 1:06:12
  And he was screaming.
• 1:06:14
  Lisa's screaming.
• 1:06:14
  And, you know, you just think, what the hell is going on?
• 1:06:17
  So I picked him up and put him into the bath, just poured cold water in there.
• 1:06:25
  And luckily, normally when you're in England or Scotland, it dribbles out back then.
• 1:06:29
  There was no pressure.
• 1:06:30
  But this thing had loads of pressure.
• 1:06:31
  It was filled up the bath really quickly, and it was cold water.
• 1:06:34
  And I'm holding him in the water.
• 1:06:38
  trying to assess what the hell has just happened and what damage has done to him.
• 1:06:44
  You know, he's screaming.
• 1:06:46
  Lisa's still screaming.
• 1:06:48
  And I said, well, you've got to, you know, bring the bloody ambulance.
• 1:06:52
  You know, we've got to...
• 1:06:54
  So she's gone out the door.
• 1:06:55
  She started screaming help.
• 1:06:59
  The doctor for BMW, Dr. Vincenzo Toto, was actually not far away from us.
• 1:07:04
  No, it was Johnny Cachocco.
• 1:07:05
  Sorry, Johnny Jacotto.
• 1:07:06
  That's right.
• 1:07:07
  Johnny Jacotto was not that far in his girlfriend at the time.
• 1:07:11
  So they've come in.
• 1:07:13
  I've got nothing on.
• 1:07:14
  I'm sitting there with my son in the water.
• 1:07:17
  Because I'm looking at him, I'm looking at his feet, and his skin is just peeling off his feet, just coming off in the water like this.
• 1:07:25
  And anyway, so the ambulance came and off we went.
• 1:07:29
  And this is race morning, you know.
• 1:07:32
  We get to the hospital in Glasgow.
• 1:07:35
  So we had to go to the other side of Scotland.
• 1:07:37
  And they went to the Burns unit.
• 1:07:40
  Now, that Burns unit happened to be the best Burns unit in the country.
• 1:07:44
  Wow.
• 1:07:45
  Which was good.
• 1:07:47
  You go in there and you just don't know what's going on.
• 1:07:51
  And so they've got him and they've wrapped him up and done all sorts of stuff.
• 1:07:55
  And he was like a mummy, you know.
• 1:07:57
  He was just wrapped up like a mummy.
• 1:07:58
  Wow.
• 1:08:00
  And then all of a sudden the doctors turn around and say, well, there's not much you can do.
• 1:08:04
  You might as well go back to the race.
• 1:08:05
  It's like, what?
• 1:08:08
  And because your brain's all over the place, you don't know what to think.
• 1:08:11
  And it's like, okay, okay, okay.
• 1:08:14
  So we managed to make contact with BMW and BMW then got hold of the series.
• 1:08:23
  The series sent a helicopter over to pick me up and I missed the first race on the Sunday.
• 1:08:28
  So I actually joined for the second race.
• 1:08:30
  Wow.
• 1:08:32
  Whilst Sam and Lisa were at the hospital.
• 1:08:34
  Yeah.
• 1:08:36
  Not really knowing if I should be there or not or whatever.
• 1:08:39
  Anyway, I got in the car and it's always been something I've been able to do.
• 1:08:43
  If there's been this distraction in the past, like leading up to a race, I've been able to kind of focus on the race and actually had my best result that year, which I finished fourth.
• 1:08:54
  And again, I had that same adrenaline pump with my leg where I'm flat on the straights and my leg is just literally doing this.
• 1:09:02
  I'm just shaking, just shaking.
• 1:09:04
  And I'm trying to...
• 1:09:06
  quiet my leg down and focus and, you know, you get into the race.
• 1:09:11
  And the car was fairly competitive that weekend.
• 1:09:14
  And, you know, I ended up finished fourth, but I missed the first race.
• 1:09:20
  And I was back to the hospital and we were there for two weeks with him.
• 1:09:24
  Amazing.
• 1:09:25
  Yeah.
• 1:09:26
  one of the most successful sports car races ever.
• 1:09:30
  You look at your name and it's linked to Aston Martin, to Bentley, to all these very impressive names.
• 1:09:37
  What's been the secret to your longevity there?
• 1:09:39
  What was it?
• 1:09:39
  You just clearly enjoyed that endurance form of racing and getting the good team of people around you and off you went, basically.
• 1:09:46
  Yeah, I think obviously up until that point, I'd had quite a lot of experience obviously going through Formula One in and out of sports cars.
• 1:09:52
  And then obviously once I settled into sports cars for the long term, I was very happy in the environment.
• 1:09:59
  I loved the long races, the challenge of it, the challenge of getting the team.
• 1:10:04
  around you and with you and with your teammates because you've got two teammates you've got to work together in in getting a setup and making sure the seat's comfortable you know you really do work as a team more than you did in Formula One it was all very much about you and all that sort of stuff and then when you get in the sports cars you can't think like that and then I just you know
• 1:10:29
  You know, I just always, always trying to critique and get better at anything that I was doing.
• 1:10:36
  I was consistent.
• 1:10:38
  I could turn on a quick lap if I needed to for qualifying, and I could be consistent in the race.
• 1:10:43
  And I was consistent every time I got on the car.
• 1:10:46
  So I had very few off days as such.
• 1:10:48
  I had them, you know.
• 1:10:49
  I'm not saying you never had them, but...
• 1:10:52
  I had very few of them.
• 1:10:53
  So I was reliable.
• 1:10:55
  Um, and of course, you know, I was very, always very much into the development of the car, making the car work for you in the race, not you having to work it, you know, uh, particularly at Le Mans or any 24 hour race.
• 1:11:07
  If you haven't got a fast race car that's comfortable to drive your, your toast basically.
• 1:11:12
  Um, so for me as a, as a driver, when I think back, you know,
• 1:11:17
  I can think back, being on the farm as a kid, not thinking about racing, but just picking up one of my dad's trophies.
• 1:11:24
  And I used to climb everything.
• 1:11:25
  So I used to climb up on the roof.
• 1:11:27
  My mum was doing the gardening and I'd start doing a speech.
• 1:11:31
  Thank you.
• 1:11:32
  Thank you, fans.
• 1:11:32
  Thank you.
• 1:11:33
  You know, I got one of what trophy I had, but it was probably one of dad's Grand Prix winning trophies or something.
• 1:11:38
  And I had it up in the air and I'm, you know, just being an idiot, you know.
• 1:11:41
  So...
• 1:11:42
  um you know to think from there to to the career and and you know racing for for Bentley racing for Jaguar racing for Aston Martin at Le Mans you know winning with Peugeot winning with Aston Martin standing on the podium at Le Mans which is one of the most incredible feelings for any driver um yeah pretty pretty cool actually very special
• 1:12:06
  Is there, I can remember walking with your late dad around the house on the Gold Coast and stopping at various bits of memorabilia and having wonderful chats with him about things that sparked his memory.
• 1:12:17
  And we looked at this photo, it was a painting actually, of a race that he'd done at Reims in France and he recounted various things about it and it really had stuck in his mind, you know.
• 1:12:28
  Is there a race for you in sports car terms?
• 1:12:30
  Clearly Le Mans is a highlight.
• 1:12:32
  Is there a race and a car that is, you know, that you have a soft spot for in your heart, the one that sort of stands out the most?
• 1:12:43
  That's a good question.
• 1:12:44
  I've driven a lot of cars, a lot of really great cars, and each had a different character about them.
• 1:12:52
  When I think back...
• 1:12:54
  if somebody says to me, what's, what's, what car was impressed you the most when you got in it?
• 1:12:59
  I guess it was the XJR 14 in 91.
• 1:13:02
  That was, that was impressive.
• 1:13:04
  Um, but I've, you know, I've been in situations, um, which I think I thrive on more than being a works team.
• 1:13:09
  I always, I did drive for works teams, which was great, but I, my enjoyment really came from driving with teams that weren't,
• 1:13:17
  meant to win but we won okay that that was that's what i loved uh because that was the greater challenge and um
• 1:13:26
  Like, George, well, Panos days, you know, when we were beating Audi.
• 1:13:31
  I mean, there's no way a Panos, a front-engine Panos, should be beating the works Audi team in sports cars.
• 1:13:36
  You know, when we went to the Nürburgring 1000, we were racing against BMW, works teams, and an Audi, and we beat them in a front-engine American monster on German soil.
• 1:13:50
  Could you imagine the conversations the next day in Germany...
• 1:13:54
  What is going on?
• 1:13:56
  What is this shitbox beating us for?
• 1:13:58
  You know, it's like...
• 1:13:59
  It's like...
• 1:13:59
  Right satisfaction.
• 1:14:00
  Oh, mate, yeah.
• 1:14:02
  And that's what it was.
• 1:14:03
  I mean, you know, like I said, I loved...
• 1:14:08
  being in the sort of underdog situation where the challenge is greater to win and you really need to work your butt off to do that.
• 1:14:17
  And when I think back of some of those moments where driving the Zytec 675 cars like a P2 at Le Mans,
• 1:14:30
  in qualifying.
• 1:14:31
  And this thing was probably one of the best little cars I've ever driven in terms of around a corner.
• 1:14:38
  Dead slow on the straight because it was a 675 car, but I –
• 1:14:44
  I actually, if I go back a bit and I think of Bentley, when I went to Bentley and raced at Bentley, I looked back and I think, didn't do a great job there.
• 1:14:54
  Why?
• 1:14:55
  Because I put myself under too much pressure.
• 1:14:57
  I'd been with Panos for a while and it was all starting to get a bit, you know, all starting to dive down a bit.
• 1:15:05
  And they got a lawyer to come in and bloody run the team, and it ended up being a complete disaster, you know.
• 1:15:11
  And then what happened was I got the Bentley deal, and...
• 1:15:18
  And I just put myself under too much pressure.
• 1:15:21
  I just wanted to impress them, obviously.
• 1:15:27
  And, you know, I was getting caught in traffic and I was putting pressure on myself and it just got worse and worse and worse.
• 1:15:32
  And I learned a lot.
• 1:15:35
  um, there in terms of when my mindset was focused on traffic, I got traffic.
• 1:15:41
  Really?
• 1:15:42
  Yeah.
• 1:15:43
  And when my mind was focused on clear laps, blah, blah, blah, I got clear laps.
• 1:15:47
  So once the race kind of got into a rhythm, I just let go.
• 1:15:52
  And that was another thing.
• 1:15:53
  Just let go, just let go and just be the driver and just go with the flow.
• 1:15:59
  and, um, yeah, all of a sudden my times were better and I was doing a better job and wasn't getting so much traffic.
• 1:16:05
  Okay.
• 1:16:06
  Later the race, you have a little bit less traffic, but I wasn't getting caught up like I was before and getting frustrated with, I just allowed too much frustration and stuff.
• 1:16:13
  So I went to the next year with this little six 75 car and I had a completely different mindset.
• 1:16:19
  Uh, my preparation was different.
• 1:16:21
  Um, I really, that's when I really started to really, um,
• 1:16:27
  whatever it is I wanted to achieve in the race coming up, I would just go through the events in my mind.
• 1:16:33
  I'd have clarity.
• 1:16:34
  I wouldn't put any negatives in.
• 1:16:36
  It was always very positive.
• 1:16:38
  I'd see myself go through this qualifying lap where I absolutely was perfection and no traffic, which is rare in Le Mans to get a lap here.
• 1:16:48
  There's no one in front of you and you have to wait or something like that.
• 1:16:51
  So...
• 1:16:54
  I got there and was ready for qualifying.
• 1:16:56
  The car was good.
• 1:16:58
  Did the first run on a set of soft race tyres, and we were P11, which was fine.
• 1:17:06
  And that was because we had qualifying tyres back then.
• 1:17:08
  So put on a set of qualifying tyres, and I went off.
• 1:17:12
  And...
• 1:17:13
  It was time for my lap.
• 1:17:15
  Now, I'd already pre-planned this is going to be a clear lap.
• 1:17:18
  I come out, I come down the start-finish line, I see this car drive out of the pits in front of me going into turn one, and he just got right in my way.
• 1:17:29
  And I'm steaming.
• 1:17:31
  You know, man, you, what are you doing in my way?
• 1:17:34
  You know, and I'm shouting and I'm right up next to him because he didn't look in his mirrors, didn't get out of the way.
• 1:17:41
  And my fists going up in the air at him like this, swearing at him.
• 1:17:44
  And I'm going down the Mulsanne straight because I couldn't go fast because we had a qualifying title.
• 1:17:49
  So luckily I had fuel enough to do a few laps.
• 1:17:52
  And.
• 1:17:53
  all of a sudden I go, hang on a minute, mindset, mindset, mindset.
• 1:17:56
  What mindset are you in?
• 1:17:57
  No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:17:59
  You're pissed off, you're frustrated.
• 1:18:01
  Frustration's not gonna give you a clear lap.
• 1:18:03
  So I let go.
• 1:18:06
  And then just got back to where I was before and I went, you know what?
• 1:18:10
  I asked for a clear lap.
• 1:18:12
  That guy got my way.
• 1:18:14
  That meant that my next lap is the lap that's clear, not this one.
• 1:18:19
  And I went off and I did that next lap and I saw one car on the straight went past him.
• 1:18:24
  I saw no one else.
• 1:18:26
  And I went from P11 to P1 overall, ahead of all the P1 cars, ahead of the works, Audis and everyone who'd been out there on qualifying tires.
• 1:18:37
  And I was probably 20K slower on the straight, 15, 20K slower on the straights.
• 1:18:42
  So I taught myself to, I was able to control and balance the emotions and what was going through my mind.
• 1:18:51
  And then just having that, going back to that sense of, no, it's going to be fine because...
• 1:18:56
  I'd already pre-programmed it, put it in my mind.
• 1:19:00
  That's what it's going to be.
• 1:19:01
  That was a gift because, you know, all of a sudden I was seeing it completely different.
• 1:19:04
  To being angry, it was like, no, I'm grateful because you've got me in the wake.
• 1:19:08
  That means my next lap's going to be clear.
• 1:19:10
  So I was in a really good state of mind.
• 1:19:11
  And that lap, I just watched myself.
• 1:19:13
  I was, you know, when drivers or competitors talk about being outside the body and just kind of watching, that was one of those moments.
• 1:19:21
  Wow.
• 1:19:22
  So did that happen often or just in that moment?
• 1:19:25
  I think I was able to replicate that more later in my career, but it was just getting to that point where I was able to let go, and that's half the issue these days.
• 1:19:35
  I mean, just letting go, let life do its thing.
• 1:19:38
  Yeah, just let go.
• 1:19:41
  And once I let go, all of a sudden it was like I was just watching myself and the car was so on the edge and I went past the start-finish line
• 1:19:52
  And it was funny because my wife was in the pit garage with everyone else and they're watching P11 and all of a sudden my name disappears and she said, there was just this, no one knew where you'd went because no one was looking at the top.
• 1:20:07
  And then someone yelled out, he's first, you know, and the whole team has just erupted because, you know, obviously it wasn't expected that I would be...
• 1:20:15
  P1 in the little 675 car beating everybody that should have been, I should have been like 10th, you know what I mean?
• 1:20:24
  And so that from the year before with Bentley to that was just a quantum leap and again just evolving mentally to get yourself into a place that you can create that kind of magic.
• 1:20:36
  I just want to touch back on the Bentley aspect of your career for a second, because there have been times, I guess, where it's been a little bit of a tug of war in terms of national ownership, shall we say.
• 1:20:46
  So born in England, raised in Aussie.
• 1:20:49
  We're proud of you as an Aussie for what you've done, and no doubt they are in the UK too.
• 1:20:54
  But Bentley, the year you raced for them, put the Union Jack on your race suit, and eagle-eyed fans will remember it against your name on the car and stuff, was...
• 1:21:04
  That's something that you were okay with?
• 1:21:06
  Were you miffed about it?
• 1:21:07
  How did you feel about all that?
• 1:21:11
  Good question.
• 1:21:11
  It was quite important for Bentley that that car had British people in it, obviously.
• 1:21:20
  I would say...
• 1:21:24
  I would have probably liked to have the Aussie one on there.
• 1:21:27
  Okay.
• 1:21:28
  Because that's kind of what I had up until then.
• 1:21:31
  But it's been an interesting one because for me, you know, are you British?
• 1:21:37
  Are you Australian?
• 1:21:38
  You know, there's a conversation.
• 1:21:40
  If I'm here in Auss, you know, they say, are you British?
• 1:21:42
  And if I'm in England, they say, are you Auss?
• 1:21:44
  You know what I mean?
• 1:21:46
  So I could never really sit anywhere.
• 1:21:48
  Yeah.
• 1:21:51
  And in later years, I got rid of the flag and I just put a globe, you know, an earth.
• 1:21:58
  Planet Earth.
• 1:21:58
  Planet Earth on there.
• 1:21:59
  Because when people said, well, where are you from?
• 1:22:01
  I said, I'm from Earth.
• 1:22:01
  Where are you from?
• 1:22:03
  Well, we're from the same place then.
• 1:22:04
  Shut up.
• 1:22:05
  You know, so.
• 1:22:07
  But, yeah, I mean, that whole Bentley experience was obviously very cool, driving for Bentley as a Bentley boy.
• 1:22:15
  Not many of them in the world.
• 1:22:17
  And to finish on the podium in a 1-2, although I was gutted after that race.
• 1:22:23
  I was so distraught.
• 1:22:26
  I felt like having been with Panos, which, you know, for seven years and six years, you're never going to win a Le Mans race with that car.
• 1:22:34
  So when the Bentley thing came up, it was like, this is my chance.
• 1:22:37
  This is finally my chance to win Le Mans.
• 1:22:40
  I had a 50-50 chance of winning Le Mans, and I got the wrong side of the 50.
• 1:22:46
  And I drove across the line at the finish.
• 1:22:48
  I'd just finished second on Le Mans, and I felt nothing.
• 1:22:51
  Really?
• 1:22:51
  Felt nothing.
• 1:22:52
  Some of that was because I didn't feel I did myself justice or the team justice, although my pace was not many people probably noticed, but I knew, you know.
• 1:23:03
  And the fact that we were fast.
• 1:23:05
  I mean, if we hadn't had the issues, the other car had no issues all the way through the race in one.
• 1:23:10
  They did a brilliant job.
• 1:23:12
  The whole team, and it was split.
• 1:23:13
  The actual Bentley team was split in two.
• 1:23:16
  The Brits and the Germans.
• 1:23:19
  So you had the Audi influence because we had their engines.
• 1:23:23
  The other car was run by top Audi people.
• 1:23:27
  And we had the Brits on our side.
• 1:23:30
  And in qualifying, I was against Tom Christensen.
• 1:23:34
  And up until the Porsche Curves, I was...
• 1:23:38
  I was about four or five tenths quicker than him.
• 1:23:40
  And I just hit traffic.
• 1:23:41
  I couldn't get a lap in.
• 1:23:42
  So that really peed me off.
• 1:23:44
  The engineer actually gave me the sheet afterwards.
• 1:23:46
  Oh, you should keep that.
• 1:23:46
  He was like, yeah, great.
• 1:23:47
  I didn't finish the lap, did I?
• 1:23:49
  And came in the pits because, you know, I just didn't get a chance.
• 1:23:52
  But we had a quick car.
• 1:23:56
  And we had a couple of battery changes.
• 1:24:00
  We lost ten minutes, but we only lost by two laps or something.
• 1:24:06
  So we actually, if we'd had a straight fight, we would have won.
• 1:24:09
  We had a quicker go.
• 1:24:10
  We just had a better setup.
• 1:24:12
  But that doesn't always win Le Mans.
• 1:24:13
  You know, you've got to have that perfect scenario, which was a great lesson for me later on to help me win Le Mans in the future because it's not just about being the quickest.
• 1:24:24
  It's about that whole team environment and the way you operate and watching that other side, how they did it.
• 1:24:31
  And there was a few things that I was uncomfortable with the way
• 1:24:35
  our side of the team was operating and I knew you know you can tie that you kind of can predict your future a bit if you kind of watch what's going on now and yeah we got the problems and um the other guys just uh the whole team over on that side they worked well together as a team as a unit you know Tom Tom was kind of leader and
• 1:24:56
  um the other two drivers you know dindo and and uh guy smith they they kind of fell in behind tom and and kind of steered it on um and it was it was just i learned a lot from it you know a lot watching tom who's won blamond nine times or eight times whatever it is um you know it's just really really good to watch uh and learn
• 1:25:19
  And it's served you.
• 1:25:19
  I mean, for the three class wins that you had, the outright victory in 2009, that's got a rank.
• 1:25:25
  I've been to that race as a spectator in 2015, and it's just mighty Le Mans.
• 1:25:29
  It's just such a special thing.
• 1:25:30
  And if you can, you have to go and stay awake for the full 24-plus hours and soak it all up.
• 1:25:36
  I mean, to win it is a massive thing for a driver, isn't it?
• 1:25:41
  It is.
• 1:25:41
  I mean...
• 1:25:42
  What was, I think for me, 2007 was the first time I won in a class there.
• 1:25:49
  Standing up on that podium, like I said, you see this sea of people in front of you with all these flags, all the different nationalities and your car.
• 1:25:57
  Well, no, the winners overall, winner cars at the bottom.
• 1:26:00
  But, you know, you've just won your class.
• 1:26:03
  And it's such an amazing feeling.
• 1:26:05
  And then we'd get off and then the guys who'd win overall would stand up on the page and go, geez, what does it feel like when you're up there winning overall?
• 1:26:14
  You know, 2008, again with Aston Martin, the GT1 class, and we win again.
• 1:26:21
  And at that point, that's when I was really working harder in my team environment to make sure that we had perfect races.
• 1:26:31
  So that means everyone had a perfect mind leading into that race and during that race.
• 1:26:38
  whether it was my teammates, the mechanics, someone making the tea.
• 1:26:42
  It didn't matter who it was.
• 1:26:43
  They had to have that positive environment, that mindset that bought into what we're trying to achieve.
• 1:26:50
  And we had 2007, 2008, two absolute perfect races, our cars, our cars.
• 1:26:57
  had the least amount of time in the pits out of everybody.
• 1:27:00
  That's how you win Le Mans, you know.
• 1:27:03
  And then 2009, unexpected, racing in America for Honda with the Acura program.
• 1:27:10
  And I'm at a test.
• 1:27:12
  Financial markets crashing around us, obviously.
• 1:27:16
  And I'm at Sebring with Honda for our very first test.
• 1:27:21
  I get up in the morning of the test, and I look at my emails, and there's an email from Peugeot.
• 1:27:28
  What the hell is that?
• 1:27:30
  Open it up and I'd like to understand your contractual arrangements with Honda and we'd like to know if you'd be interested in racing for us at Spa at Le Mans.
• 1:27:40
  What?
• 1:27:41
  You know, it's like, right, right, okay.
• 1:27:47
  Shall I call them out?
• 1:27:48
  Shall I call them out?
• 1:27:49
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:27:49
  Hang on.
• 1:27:51
  They should be up.
• 1:27:51
  Yeah.
• 1:27:55
  So I ended up obviously doing the deal with Peugeot and I'd say...
• 1:28:07
  All the experience that I had, I needed to draw upon for that win.
• 1:28:13
  And I say that because the court case that I was involved in during this period, so 2006, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, in Germany for fighting for the Brabham name, 2009 was the peak stress for me.
• 1:28:34
  I'm driving to Le Mans.
• 1:28:37
  for the week and I'm on the phone to the lawyers screaming, you know, just raging about what was going on and stuff like that.
• 1:28:45
  And so my mindset, again, was not one of those races where I look back and go, my mindset wasn't in the place that it should have been.
• 1:28:54
  I was too distracted with all the court stuff and it was tiring, you know.
• 1:29:00
  And I was doing a lot of racing.
• 1:29:02
  I was...
• 1:29:04
  racing in america and then i'd fly back to europe and do a 30-hour test for perjot then back to another race then i'd be back for another 30-hour test and then i'd be back for another race you know we did three 30-hour tests from february till june with perjot and i was racing in america and traveling and stuff like that and and and and the court case all going on in the background um my wife had started up a shop in 2005 and obviously with the
• 1:29:32
  financial meltdown, everything slowed down there.
• 1:29:34
  So the pressure of that, and it was just, just got to me.
• 1:29:37
  And so I really had to draw on everything that I'd learned about teamwork, about who's going to lead this team.
• 1:29:46
  Normally I would have led the team that was always around me, but I walked into Persia and realized straight away, that's not me, that's Alex Vertz.
• 1:29:54
  He's the guy, I got to support him.
• 1:29:56
  So you've got to drop your ego and go, anyway, we're going to make this work is if I support him.
• 1:30:01
  Mark Jene, pretty easy kind of going guy, just happy to fit in and do what he has to do, you know.
• 1:30:09
  And so we really had to work as a team because you could see...
• 1:30:15
  The other two cars, it was a nightmare.
• 1:30:19
  Political, favoritism, driver's egos out of control, all they were focusing on.
• 1:30:27
  Before the races even started, they're in big trouble.
• 1:30:29
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:30:30
  Like I said, you can start to predict the future when you start to see what goes on now.
• 1:30:36
  And I could see that they were going to run into problems just by the mindset of what was going on there.
• 1:30:41
  And my mindset wasn't...
• 1:30:43
  that great as far as my own personal side of it but in terms of making sure all the other elements are there you make good choices exactly so they were just making so many mistakes on the other side it was just you know just incredible um and the pressure to win for them you know they spent a lot of money and they hadn't won um
• 1:31:04
  And a bit like the Bentley situation, they were a little bit like that as well, but worse so with Peugeot.
• 1:31:11
  I think just the pressure of winning was really too much for them in a sense.
• 1:31:16
  And it was all about who was the quickest and the drivers had to be the quickest.
• 1:31:19
  And they wouldn't think about the bigger pitch.
• 1:31:22
  It was always, well, I've done that lap time.
• 1:31:24
  That means if I've done that lap time, I'm going to please my paymasters.
• 1:31:27
  I'm going to continue with my job.
• 1:31:29
  And it's like you're focusing on the wrong things.
• 1:31:33
  you know so little we we were actually car three we were there just to be there more than anything um our our engineer that we were given was a rally engineer had never done the mom he had chicken pox that week so we never saw him leading up to the race he came on the friday with spots all over him um
• 1:31:58
  And so we, as a collective experience group of drivers,
• 1:32:04
  did our own stuff to get to the race in, in the shape that we really wanted it.
• 1:32:10
  We'd noticed that, um, uh, that people were running over curbs in certain places and damaging the front splitter.
• 1:32:17
  You could see that the sides of the front splitters were, were breaking and we made a decision.
• 1:32:23
  We're not going to do that.
• 1:32:25
  Yes.
• 1:32:25
  It's slower off the curbs.
• 1:32:27
  Yeah.
• 1:32:27
  Just there's some curves you can, but there were, there was curbs that were damaging.
• 1:32:31
  Um,
• 1:32:33
  And, of course, the other cars were fast.
• 1:32:35
  And we ended up in a situation where, you know, normally at Le Mans you're racing and you've got a fuel light that comes on.
• 1:32:41
  So that either tells you you've got to come in or you've got another lap, depending on where you've got that light coming on with the amount of fuel you have.
• 1:32:48
  And in the race, we did the first couple of stints.
• 1:32:54
  I can remember my first stint going along.
• 1:32:56
  And the light comes on, yep, right, come in.
• 1:32:59
  And then all of a sudden we were told to come in a lap earlier.
• 1:33:04
  hang on, if we're going to get in our lap earlier, we're going to be screwed further down the road.
• 1:33:08
  We're going to have to do another pit stop.
• 1:33:11
  Then it was a problem with the brakes, or you're going to have to make it be easier on the brakes.
• 1:33:16
  And what was happening was we were leading, and then the other guys would catch us after changing front splitters, because they were breaking them.
• 1:33:24
  They'd get ahead of us, and then they'd break them again, and they'd come back again.
• 1:33:28
  So it was like as if we were being held back to make sure Car 8 was going to win, which was the French team, the drivers.
• 1:33:37
  So it was all this politics going on and everyone in our society, the mechanics, the drivers, could see what was going on.
• 1:33:44
  It was just pretty blatantly obvious to us.
• 1:33:48
  But they were producing bad karma, you know what I mean?
• 1:33:51
  And they just kept tripping up, making the wrong decisions, tripping up, and we just made the right decisions, the right call.
• 1:33:56
  We had a perfect race.
• 1:33:57
  We never touched the car.
• 1:33:59
  We had the least amount of time in the pits.
• 1:34:01
  So that was three races in a row.
• 1:34:03
  I had perfect races.
• 1:34:06
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:09
  5.5 litre, mid-mounted.
• 1:34:11
  I think it only weighed 930 kilos, that car, the 908.
• 1:34:14
  What was it like to drive?
• 1:34:18
  I think the most impressive thing was the engine, the diesel.
• 1:34:21
  Yep.
• 1:34:23
  Yeah.
• 1:34:23
  Torquy?
• 1:34:24
  Oh, pfft, Torquy.
• 1:34:25
  Oh, dear.
• 1:34:27
  I drove out of the pits my first test at Barcelona, and I just gunned it out of the pits, and I went, holy shit.
• 1:34:35
  The force it was giving you behind your back.
• 1:34:38
  By the time I got into the first corner for my outlet, the smile on my face, I thought, I can win Willemann with this thing.
• 1:34:47
  Wow.
• 1:34:47
  Straight away.
• 1:34:48
  Straight away, absolutely.
• 1:34:49
  And I'd been – I mean, it was a bold thing for Peugeot to do because they just brought in a competitor.
• 1:34:57
  I was racing against them in America in the Honda program.
• 1:35:02
  So, like at Sebring, we were competitors.
• 1:35:04
  Yeah.
• 1:35:05
  Um, and actually when I went to have the meeting, uh, with the guys first time after I got the call, I'm sitting in, in the, uh, the office, um, and the head engineer, Bruno looks at me and he goes, tell us why you think you should be here.
• 1:35:27
  One more question.
• 1:35:28
  Yeah.
• 1:35:29
  It was literally like, you're a competitor.
• 1:35:33
  Why do you think you should be here?
• 1:35:35
  And I said, well, and I just kind of went back and I said, I'll tell you what, why don't you go and ask the teams and ask them how professional I am?
• 1:35:44
  Because I said, what goes on here stays here and what goes on stays there.
• 1:35:49
  And I just looked him straight in the eye when I said it.
• 1:35:53
  And he just looked at me and he looked over to Sergei and went, okay.
• 1:35:58
  That was it.
• 1:35:58
  Yeah.
• 1:35:59
  So I got enough of that.
• 1:36:02
  And it worked out fine because, you know, the Peugeot was a different beast to what we had in America.
• 1:36:07
  We just didn't have the engine power.
• 1:36:09
  It was a new car and we were nowhere near as competitive as what the Peugeot was.
• 1:36:15
  But, you know, you're two manufacturers, so could have easily said, hey, they were doing this.
• 1:36:20
  And what was great was no one in my team, no one at Honda asked me a question.
• 1:36:25
  Never asked me a question.
• 1:36:27
  And likewise, you know what I mean?
• 1:36:28
  So it was the perfect environment.
• 1:36:30
  I kept my mouth shut.
• 1:36:31
  I did my job.
• 1:36:32
  Did my job in America.
• 1:36:33
  No one asked me, oh, so tell me what they did.
• 1:36:36
  There was none of that.
• 1:36:37
  So it was very professional above board.
• 1:36:39
  Great success for you too, mate, to win one of the races on the planet.
• 1:36:44
  Just before we move into the fact that you gathered back the family name, you're building the Brabham Road cars are a reality, which I think is just awesome.
• 1:36:53
  I just want to touch on one car for a second because you mentioned it before, and I've spoken to Greg Murphy about this in the podcast, and that is the Panos.
• 1:37:03
  You know, he raced it at the, I think, race of 1,000 years in Adelaide, yeah.
• 1:37:07
  I mean, for people that aren't familiar with it, it's kind of this Batmobile-looking thing, 6-litre V8 power.
• 1:37:14
  I mean, it was a beast.
• 1:37:16
  I can vividly recall, I think, seeing you race it at Laguna Seca in maybe 1998 or something along those lines.
• 1:37:22
  It's just...
• 1:37:23
  It was so different to the other cars, but this infectious look and sound was amazing, wasn't it?
• 1:37:29
  It was.
• 1:37:30
  Great little team, very weird car to drive.
• 1:37:34
  Why?
• 1:37:34
  Well, I think, I mean, you got used to it after a while.
• 1:37:37
  It felt normal.
• 1:37:38
  And then actually when I went back to what I call a normal car with the engine in the back, that felt weird.
• 1:37:43
  So it's what you get used to.
• 1:37:44
  But when the program first started, I was actually going to be a McLaren driver.
• 1:37:49
  leading up to that program.
• 1:37:51
  What happened there?
• 1:37:54
  I was involved with the development of the long-tail McLaren in the end of 1996, beginning of 1997.
• 1:38:06
  And it was like, well, okay, what's the program for this year?
• 1:38:10
  Because I'd won the All Japan GT Championship in a McLaren in 96.
• 1:38:13
  So I was still part of that program.
• 1:38:16
  And the BMW link continued from BTCC because of BMW engines.
• 1:38:22
  So that helped me to become a McLaren driver in that program, work with Gordon Murray and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:38:30
  When it came to kind of negotiating what that deal would look like, I mean, typical at that time was like, well, we don't have any money, mate.
• 1:38:40
  We're not paying you.
• 1:38:41
  It's like, what?
• 1:38:43
  It's like, well, that ain't going to work, is it?
• 1:38:46
  And Dave Price, who's a mate of mine and ran successful race teams, kept bloody ringing me, saying, I want you to come and have a look at this thing called the Panos.
• 1:38:55
  Because I remember reading Autosport.
• 1:38:58
  magazine and they had a little piece about this thing called the panels front engine blah blah blah american v8 and i remember reading it going never seen me in that thing
• 1:39:12
  Well, you did.
• 1:39:14
  And throughout that kind of period of negotiation, I got Dave Price saying, you know, come and have a look at the car.
• 1:39:20
  I went and had a look at the car.
• 1:39:22
  And actually, from a car point of view, okay, it was weird with the front, but all the suspension and everything were racing suspension compared to kind of more road stuff that I was used to.
• 1:39:31
  And I thought, well, okay, well, that's going to be better.
• 1:39:33
  I don't know about the engine.
• 1:39:35
  Pricey said, I'm just not sure about the engine yet, you know.
• 1:39:39
  It was a brand new program, so it's going to have lots of problems anyway.
• 1:39:43
  And then I was on holiday.
• 1:39:47
  I don't know where we were.
• 1:39:47
  I was with Lisa and we were on holiday and Pricey's going, look, you know, I need an answer, I need an answer.
• 1:39:54
  And I was getting nowhere with McLaren.
• 1:39:58
  So I thought, I'm going to do it.
• 1:39:59
  I'm going to go for the panels thing, you know.
• 1:40:01
  So I went, rang up Pricey and said, oh, I'm in, you know.
• 1:40:05
  Great, got, boom, Pricey done, easy, poof.
• 1:40:08
  Then I rang up McLaren and I said, look, just to let you know, I've done a deal somewhere else because, you know, if that's what you're offering, someone else is offering me a better deal, I'm out.
• 1:40:17
  But thank you very much for the journey.
• 1:40:19
  It was great.
• 1:40:19
  You know, really enjoyed it.
• 1:40:21
  See you later.
• 1:40:22
  Next thing I know, the next day I get a message from Lisa's mum that a fax has come through from McLaren, all of a sudden offering me a deal with money.
• 1:40:31
  You know what I mean?
• 1:40:32
  It was just...
• 1:40:34
  And I shook my hands with Dave.
• 1:40:37
  That was it.
• 1:40:37
  So I had to go back and say, too late, done my deal.
• 1:40:41
  Once I've agreed, I don't go back.
• 1:40:42
  So that's it.
• 1:40:43
  So that's how that kind of came about.
• 1:40:45
  Yeah.
• 1:40:46
  So, yes, it was.
• 1:40:47
  And there was six years of last year, like I said, didn't go well.
• 1:40:51
  It all started to go downhill.
• 1:40:52
  But up until that point, like I said, that car just should not have done as well as it did.
• 1:40:59
  And in 99, we turned up Le Mans.
• 1:41:02
  And with the new regulations, and we cut the roof off and turn it into a proper open-top prototype for P1.
• 1:41:12
  Went to pre-qualifying, because you had to pre-qualify in those days at Le Mans.
• 1:41:17
  a few weeks before the main game and um i ended up p2 overall i should have been p1 because the last chicane i took the chicane like a good boy everyone else going straight and i was thinking about my time being disallowed because they said you'll disallow your time but they didn't know everyone was straight through so i lost time there but i was two tenths off martin brundle in the in
• 1:41:42
  So I would have been quickest, which would have caused an absolute outrage out of everyone.
• 1:41:48
  And, you know, Mercedes, that was when Mark Webber was racing Mercedes and he flipped up in the air and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:41:53
  And they were two seconds behind us.
• 1:41:55
  And, you know, everyone's going, what the hell?
• 1:41:58
  This thing just turned up like that and being that quick.
• 1:42:01
  You know, we had Yates engines.
• 1:42:02
  We had stonking qualifying engine.
• 1:42:06
  I think we were doing...
• 1:42:09
  This is down Mulsanne, which is the fame, fame, yeah.
• 1:42:12
  Mulsanne, I think we were doing something like about 340k, 340, 345k down the straight.
• 1:42:28
  Because, you know, when we got to the race, we had to put the race engine in that was just dead slow and thirsty.
• 1:42:34
  So you're never going to wind them on like that.
• 1:42:35
  But yeah, I mean, you know, what a great little experience to go through with a little team and this odd looking car and...
• 1:42:45
  and stirring it right in there with the manufacturers.
• 1:42:47
  Yeah.
• 1:42:48
  Love it.
• 1:42:48
  It was a beast.
• 1:42:49
  I could sense in you before when you touched on it that the whole bid to get back the Brabham Racing name, the Brabham name, was an object of obsession, understandably, but one that I guess really took a toll personally and professionally.
• 1:43:05
  How much so?
• 1:43:09
  Um...
• 1:43:11
  Well, obviously I thought about when I was 40, still in my prime in my career, but I'm thinking 10 years ahead, thinking, okay, what the hell am I going to do?
• 1:43:21
  We've got this name, Brabham.
• 1:43:23
  I thought I did.
• 1:43:24
  Got this name, Brabham.
• 1:43:26
  And I used to go down the pits and look at all the racing names, and I go down the high street and look at the brands, and I'm going, what are we missing?
• 1:43:33
  You know, there's something not right here because, you know, they're –
• 1:43:38
  racing names should be brands as well.
• 1:43:41
  So how do I turn an iconic racing name into a brand?
• 1:43:43
  That was my kind of thinking, uh, something to create like something for the, for the family, a legacy moving forward.
• 1:43:50
  All those things were kind of going through my head.
• 1:43:52
  And then, you know, cut a long story short, sat down with dad.
• 1:43:56
  This is what I want to do.
• 1:43:57
  Yeah, great.
• 1:43:57
  What's your trademarks?
• 1:43:58
  Let's have a look, put in an application, got knocked back.
• 1:44:01
  Cause someone in Germany came back and said, I own Brabham and I own Brabham racing.
• 1:44:08
  So that was a bit of a shock.
• 1:44:12
  And it was like, well, okay, what do I do?
• 1:44:15
  So I spoke to Dad about it.
• 1:44:16
  He was pissed off as well.
• 1:44:19
  And he had one option really was to try and get the name back.
• 1:44:23
  So just as we kind of headed into battle, Dad said, look, I can't do this.
• 1:44:31
  What I didn't realise at the time, he did say he was in a court case recently.
• 1:44:35
  at that time in Australia and got nasty, got really nasty, had threats and all sorts of things, which I didn't know at the time.
• 1:44:41
  So at the time I was a bit pissed off that he pulled out.
• 1:44:44
  So it's like, well, okay, if you're going to pull out, I want whatever trademarks you've got.
• 1:44:48
  If I win this case, it's mine and I'm going to take it forward, you know.
• 1:44:53
  And that's what I did.
• 1:44:54
  And it took seven years to go through that process in the court, in Koblenz in Germany,
• 1:45:02
  uh we won the first court case then they appealed and went to the higher court and just kind of went on and on and on and emotionally and financially by the end of it i was done basically my racing had stopped in terms of full time so it was end of 2012 christmas day 2012 email comes through application of your trademarks have now gone through
• 1:45:26
  fantastic you know i mean yeah i got there we went to the auto sports show and um i'm we're going to do a press release to say that we've won won the court case and the name's now back under the family control
• 1:45:41
  And I'm sitting in the car park, my little golf, little red golf, thinking I've got 300 quid left in the bank.
• 1:45:48
  Far out.
• 1:45:49
  I've got no job, but I've got a name.
• 1:45:53
  What the hell do I do now?
• 1:45:55
  So...
• 1:46:00
  It was tough, you know, from a, like I said, emotionally, financially.
• 1:46:06
  Yes, it was great to get the name, but I couldn't, I just couldn't get that excited about it because, you know, I had too many other problems to try and get through.
• 1:46:17
  And then, you know, I picked up a few drives that year.
• 1:46:21
  that helped obviously keep things going, but it was just getting harder and harder to survive and you've got to try and create the next thing without the money and the investment to do that.
• 1:46:33
  So then I had to go and find the money and the investment and the partners.
• 1:46:37
  And up until that point, I'd never been in the outside world.
• 1:46:42
  I've only been in this cocoon, you know, being a racing driver.
• 1:46:46
  I stepped out into the real world.
• 1:46:49
  It was like going back to Formula One.
• 1:46:51
  It was like the lion's den.
• 1:46:52
  It was like, what the hell is all this about, you know?
• 1:46:55
  And then because you don't know...
• 1:46:59
  I didn't understand so much about the outside world in business and finance and, you know, like raising money or talking to partner, you know, all these conversations I'd never had before.
• 1:47:09
  So then you start beating yourself up and say, why don't you know?
• 1:47:12
  You should know that, you know, then your confidence goes.
• 1:47:15
  So all that stuff I'd done in gaining more and more confidence and clarity in my mind and everything leading up to that point just all fell to a massive collapse.
• 1:47:27
  And I just had to try and pick myself up and just persevere.
• 1:47:31
  And, and, um, yeah, it wasn't easy.
• 1:47:35
  Wasn't easy for quite some time.
• 1:47:38
  Uh, we ended up having to move house and just, you know, cutting all our costs down and kind of, you know, trying to, trying to find a way forward, you know, find the right partners.
• 1:47:47
  And of course you may have so many meetings.
• 1:47:48
  Well, they all sound great.
• 1:47:50
  Oh, great name.
• 1:47:50
  Yeah, we could do this, we could do that.
• 1:47:52
  But then,
• 1:47:55
  The only way I could navigate myself through it was, okay, maybe not have the experience, but what's common sense tell me?
• 1:48:01
  What's my gut tell me?
• 1:48:02
  That's the only way I could get through.
• 1:48:04
  And I was learning about all that stuff.
• 1:48:06
  The amount of times I used Google, I'd go, what does that mean?
• 1:48:09
  What'd they say?
• 1:48:10
  What does that mean?
• 1:48:11
  You know what I mean?
• 1:48:12
  It was just a whole new world to me, yeah.
• 1:48:16
  So I had to rebuild everything, my confidence and my finances and find the right partners.
• 1:48:24
  And so there was four years of wilderness, basically.
• 1:48:31
  Depressed, you know, depressed because you'd been a racing driver for a long time and, you know, John Bauer talks about.
• 1:48:37
  Yes, yeah.
• 1:48:38
  you know depression and things like that and and it um that was a reality for you oh yeah definitely yeah definitely um because you you get lost you you're not you're not in that world anymore the adrenaline's not pumping your brain's not filled with all the things that needs to be filled to keep all that in in check that you've had all the all that time um and you get you you naturally go into a massive low never having no money and not no job and you know not knowing how you're
• 1:49:07
  create the next chapter in your life you know and then you've got family issues you know everyone's feeling it and there's arguments and you know you go through that whole spiral that that um don't want to go that way again but you know what i mean but um and it's and it was it was i i hit i hit rock bottom in that sense you know so i've just had to try and find a way of getting through that and yeah yeah
• 1:49:32
  To be credited, mate, because you've done that.
• 1:49:34
  And the BT62 is a reality splashed across, you know, magazines here in Australia.
• 1:49:41
  Australia very proudly has its own supercar again.
• 1:49:44
  There is a hub of industry in Adelaide where, you know, we've had motor vehicle plant closures in this country, but you're embracing local industry.
• 1:49:53
  And this is a fast, sexy-looking car.
• 1:49:58
  It's real.
• 1:49:59
  It's here.
• 1:49:59
  Congratulations.
• 1:50:00
  Yeah, thanks.
• 1:50:01
  I mean, you know, telling the story and then thinking where we are today, even I go, wow, okay, well, that's been quite a journey.
• 1:50:08
  But worth it, you know.
• 1:50:10
  I mean, the perseverance to get to this point.
• 1:50:13
  You know, I knew eventually I would find the right people to do this because it's a great name.
• 1:50:22
  It's known around the world.
• 1:50:23
  It's got such brand advocacy.
• 1:50:27
  There's a love for it, you know, the love for Jack.
• 1:50:30
  You know, it's just, there's something really special about it.
• 1:50:33
  And I knew there was an opportunity if I got with the right people.
• 1:50:37
  And then when I did go to Adelaide and I met up with the guys there, the Fusion Capital and Private Equity Group, and looked at what they were doing and the vision and, you know, with what I wanted to do, it was just like, this makes sense.
• 1:50:51
  Like I said, it feels right and it makes sense.
• 1:50:55
  Let's do it.
• 1:50:56
  You know what I mean?
• 1:50:58
  So to sit here now after that phase of the journey, having built the car, surprised the world with it,
• 1:51:05
  last year in May at Australia House.
• 1:51:09
  Was very emotional standing up there talking, you know, about the journey and Jack and what we've just created and what we've launched.
• 1:51:19
  I mean, half my speech was in tears, you know?
• 1:51:21
  So it was all that baggage that all came out, you know?
• 1:51:27
  And then, you know, we've just continued to grow and get the car out there to get people aware of what we're doing.
• 1:51:34
  Like you said, you know, Adelaide and Australia have healthy manufacturing in there.
• 1:51:41
  And, of course, when the auto manufacturers disappeared...
• 1:51:45
  it left a void, which was the spark for Fusion to do something because they were involved in supplying parts to the manufacturers, so they were going to get hit as well.
• 1:51:54
  As you know, there's a chain reaction all the way through the industry.
• 1:51:59
  And, you know, it was like great story in terms of full circle.
• 1:52:03
  You know, Jack had started here, went overseas, dominated the world, you know.
• 1:52:10
  Myself, my brothers all went overseas and raced, you know, and now come we've done all of that.
• 1:52:16
  We've got the name back and we've come back to Australia.
• 1:52:19
  where it all started and we're starting again.
• 1:52:22
  It's the next chapter.
• 1:52:23
  It's the next part of the Brabham story.
• 1:52:26
  And, you know, to see that Brabham BT62 sitting there or on track, the scene, the reaction and the comments from everybody about one of the brand coming back, the look of the car, the sound of the car, just the project, the amount of people that want to get involved in what we're doing.
• 1:52:46
  because it's such a fascinating and interesting, stimulating story.
• 1:52:51
  And it's about putting Aussie...
• 1:52:54
  made stuff on the map, you know.
• 1:52:56
  So it's very cool.
• 1:53:00
  And, you know, as you say, Aussie ingenuity behind it, but something that looks, you know, globally so sharp in sports car or supercar terms.
• 1:53:12
  What are we talking here?
• 1:53:13
  I think it's 515 kilowatt, about 700 horsepower, and it weighs less than 1,000 kilos.
• 1:53:17
  I mean, it's mighty, isn't it?
• 1:53:18
  Yeah, I mean, that's where the performance comes from is the power to weight.
• 1:53:22
  And we've got 1,200 kilos of downforce as well.
• 1:53:24
  So 5.4 litre Bruben V8.
• 1:53:29
  the fact that the car is under a ton.
• 1:53:31
  There's not many of these cars are under a ton.
• 1:53:33
  In fact, I don't think there is any.
• 1:53:35
  So 972 kilograms dry weight, 1,200 kilos of downforce.
• 1:53:40
  You know, it's a pure track car.
• 1:53:44
  And obviously when we launched, people thought, great, love this, but I'd like to drive it on the road.
• 1:53:50
  Okay, so we'll have to look at that.
• 1:53:52
  So we looked at it and we can, you know, we're going to be doing a road legal version of this vehicle.
• 1:53:57
  Yeah.
• 1:53:57
  for australia and and in europe so um that's created more interest and of course we broke the lap record at bathurst uh says that car's got a bit of fame to it and um yeah it's all it's quite interesting because it kind of for me on my personal journey it was like as if if you imagine yourself going up a mountain with a massive rock
• 1:54:21
  like boulder behind you and you're trying to get yourself over the top, you know, um, um,
• 1:54:28
  And you're halfway up and your legs are shaking because all the shit's happening around you.
• 1:54:34
  And that's how it felt.
• 1:54:35
  And then as soon as this kind of deal happened, it's like the boulder fell the other side and the momentum now is just racing.
• 1:54:44
  You know what I mean?
• 1:54:44
  And there's so much good stuff happening.
• 1:54:46
  So when I think back of that journey and what you put into life is what you get back,
• 1:54:55
  there's a lot coming my way, you know, and the family's way.
• 1:54:59
  And, you know, my partners in Adelaide, they've gone through it.
• 1:55:02
  They've had the vision.
• 1:55:03
  They've stretched themselves.
• 1:55:05
  They've gone into something new.
• 1:55:07
  They've invested.
• 1:55:08
  And, you know, together this whole thing is just skyrocketing now, you know, which not skyrocketing, but, you know, it's just the momentum now is really starting to gain.
• 1:55:18
  Most definitely the aura around it from people just talking in the streets to, you know, you touched before on Bathurst.
• 1:55:23
  You and your brother Jeff have had success at Bathurst.
• 1:55:26
  It's an iconic place to think that you and Luke Yulden were blasting around there early in 2019.
• 1:55:31
  And what was the lap?
• 1:55:32
  The lap was a 158.69, a sub two-minute lap, quickest we've seen around the mountain by a car like that.
• 1:55:37
  Amazing.
• 1:55:38
  Yeah, I mean, we knew when we built it, it was, the goal was to beat the two-minute mark.
• 1:55:45
  And of course, everywhere we've tested, we've broken lap records here in Australia.
• 1:55:50
  It's like, okay.
• 1:55:52
  And we're not, we weren't even trying.
• 1:55:55
  So we thought going to Bathurst, we didn't have many laps at Bathurst.
• 1:55:59
  We had 15 minutes on the Thursday just to kind of really get a feel for it.
• 1:56:03
  And I didn't drive, but, you know, Luke drove because he, you know, he's more up to speed than I am in terms of the track and being a current driver as well.
• 1:56:12
  We really went there to do a demonstration, but secretly it was like, you know what, we could bang in a lap time here.
• 1:56:19
  So we gathered as much information as we could and then obviously went to just 10 minutes on the Saturday to have a crack.
• 1:56:28
  So to see it go under the two minutes like that, which it did before, but it didn't quite break the record of the Audi when they took all the restrictors out, which is fine.
• 1:56:39
  And, you know, to do a 58.6 was, felt really good for, not just for me, but for the whole team who put so much effort into it.
• 1:56:50
  It was a nice reward for everybody.
• 1:56:53
  It means a lot in the automotive industry and the racing industry here.
• 1:56:56
  You can't talk too much about it, I know, but the other thing that is happening at the same time is a movie.
• 1:57:04
  And it is due for, I think some people prior to the Grand Prix here may have been treated to a little special viewing of it.
• 1:57:10
  Tell us what you can about that project.
• 1:57:14
  Well, I've got to be careful what I say because it's not out for release yet.
• 1:57:19
  But, yeah, I got a chance with, you know, let's say investors and people involved in the movie from, you know, obviously financially, emotionally, partners who have been part of Aurora Films' journey.
• 1:57:34
  And, you know, we as a family have supported it.
• 1:57:37
  Once we got to know what they were doing.
• 1:57:41
  And you can imagine, I was talking to Akosh Armand, who's the guy behind it.
• 1:57:48
  And I found out through Mark Webber and Anne that someone was doing something about Jack.
• 1:57:55
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:57:56
  So I managed to kind of, well, okay, who the hell is this?
• 1:57:59
  Because I'd just gone through seven years of bloody trying to get the name under control and someone's doing something.
• 1:58:06
  So I didn't quite understand it.
• 1:58:08
  Um, and so I reached out to them and, you know, oh yeah, no, we're really sorry.
• 1:58:13
  We're going to come to you when we were ready and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:58:16
  And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:58:17
  You know?
• 1:58:18
  Uh, so we had a Skype call, first Skype call.
• 1:58:20
  I've got my arms crossed.
• 1:58:21
  I'm kind of looking at them and with a, with a silent look and, uh, Akosh and, and Anthony Waddington's kind of looking at each other like, oh my God, we're talking to someone of the family and he looks pissed.
• 1:58:38
  All right, who are you and what do you want?
• 1:58:41
  What are you doing?
• 1:58:42
  You know.
• 1:58:44
  But by the time we finish the conversation...
• 1:58:48
  I thought, wow, okay, we've got someone here who's, you know, young, ambitious, and they want to tell the story of Jack.
• 1:58:56
  You know, his story should be told.
• 1:58:58
  It's such an amazing part of our history here in Australia and abroad, you know, because obviously he was successful over there.
• 1:59:06
  And to have somebody like that that could show and demonstrate and carry that legacy forward...
• 1:59:13
  you know, it was like, well, we could do nothing but support it.
• 1:59:17
  So I helped bring in, you know, all my contacts and, you know, I got him in front of Jackie Stewart.
• 1:59:22
  I got him in front of Ron Dennis and Bernie Eccleston and blah, blah, blah.
• 1:59:25
  You know, so.
• 1:59:26
  Your prep was excellent then if that's the case.
• 1:59:29
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:59:33
  So, yeah.
• 1:59:34
  So we saw a preview of it and I don't want to say too much but –
• 1:59:40
  I wait with interest.
• 1:59:40
  I can't wait to see it.
• 1:59:42
  It's a great story.
• 1:59:43
  Your dad was incredible, mate.
• 1:59:46
  Monaco winner, three-time Formula One world champion during a very special era for the sport and a feat that will probably never ever be beaten again to win as a manufacturer.
• 1:59:59
  You've driven some of his old cars.
• 2:00:02
  Tell us a little bit about that.
• 2:00:03
  And they were brave men back then, like the Cooper Climax, for example, and some amazing cars, but very different to now.
• 2:00:11
  Well, they're either brave or stupid.
• 2:00:13
  You know what I mean?
• 2:00:14
  Yeah, I mean, you think sitting in a tubular chassis with fuel tanks strapped to the side of you as the sides of the car with no safety protection or anything like that.
• 2:00:28
  It's no wonder they died back then.
• 2:00:31
  So, you know, driving some of these old cars, you do as a driver who's driving current stuff look at it and go, oh, dear, you know, this doesn't feel very safe.
• 2:00:40
  But back then they were the state-of-the-art stuff, so they never thought about it.
• 2:00:44
  But, you know, you're going back in time.
• 2:00:46
  You know, you just hold the steering wheel.
• 2:00:49
  You just sense, like, you're back then as they felt as drivers, you know, which is a great, great experience.
• 2:00:57
  You know, this weekend at Albert Park at the Grand Prix, Sam and I are going to be driving two of the old cars, the Cooper T51 that he raced.
• 2:01:09
  that Jack won his first world championship in, one of the cars there.
• 2:01:14
  And he's going to be driving that, and I'm driving the Repco Brabham BT19, which is the car that he won the world championship in 1966.
• 2:01:20
  As you said, the only driver to win a world championship with a car of his own construction.
• 2:01:24
  So that will be a very special moment.
• 2:01:27
  Um, the BT 62 will be on track on Thursday morning doing some hot laps.
• 2:01:31
  Um, so yeah, we've had the, the Bradman movie premiere.
• 2:01:34
  We've got the hot laps.
• 2:01:35
  We're going to be leading the driver's parade.
• 2:01:38
  Uh, so, and of course, you know, it's the, the, the Jack Bradman trophy, you know, for, for the winner of the Formula One.
• 2:01:44
  So it's pretty cool.
• 2:01:45
  Very, very cool.
• 2:01:46
  Awesome to have your son, Sam, out on track there with you.
• 2:01:49
  And I think you may have said your answer there a minute ago, forgive me if I'm doubling up here, but it's the first time those two cars have been on track together.
• 2:01:55
  Is that correct?
• 2:01:56
  I think so, yeah.
• 2:01:58
  I don't remember the two actually ever being side by side because they've been owned by different owners in different countries.
• 2:02:08
  I'm pretty sure they've not been together.
• 2:02:10
  I don't want to be completely, you know, someone, some historian might say, oh, no, but here's a picture.
• 2:02:16
  Great, show us a picture.
• 2:02:16
  But, yeah, I don't remember it.
• 2:02:19
  So it would be, I think, quite a unique moment in time to have two championship-winning cars like that sitting together.
• 2:02:27
  It's power to the finish here.
• 2:02:28
  And you touched on a little something which I think is phenomenal, third-generation names in the Brabham family.
• 2:02:32
  you know, doing some racing.
• 2:02:34
  Jeff's son Matthews raced at the Indy 500.
• 2:02:36
  Your son's done more recently, Carrera Cup in GB there.
• 2:02:40
  Favourite racetrack for you or favourite piece of road that David Brabham enjoys a drive on?
• 2:02:47
  Got to be Le Mans, doesn't it?
• 2:02:50
  Oh, anyway, I've always sort of, not always, but you talk about the mindset.
• 2:02:56
  Okay.
• 2:02:57
  So I ended up,
• 2:03:00
  having certain favorite tracks and not so favorite tracks in my mind.
• 2:03:04
  And I would do better on the ones I liked than the ones I didn't like.
• 2:03:09
  Um, I think most people do.
• 2:03:12
  If you really love something like that, you just find that extra bit.
• 2:03:17
  Um, um,
• 2:03:19
  And so I made a call very early on, no favorites.
• 2:03:24
  A track is a track.
• 2:03:25
  Just go out there and do your job and enjoy every track.
• 2:03:28
  Every track has something different about it.
• 2:03:32
  As far as an event, Le Monde, as you touched on, is the most incredible experience for a driver, for a mechanic, for team personnel, to the fans.
• 2:03:43
  It's something you actually can't describe.
• 2:03:46
  You've got to say, if you want to know what Le Mans is about, just go.
• 2:03:50
  You've got to go.
• 2:03:50
  You've got to go and experience it because the atmosphere is electric.
• 2:03:56
  It really is.
• 2:03:56
  You've got so much history that's attached to that place.
• 2:04:01
  You've got 250,000 people.
• 2:04:04
  around the track who go there because they love the event.
• 2:04:10
  They love the history.
• 2:04:11
  They love watching all the cars.
• 2:04:12
  The manufacturers have been there.
• 2:04:14
  All the drivers have been there.
• 2:04:16
  The movies that have been done at Le Mans and stuff like that, it's quite an experience.
• 2:04:23
  But to know what that experience is like, you've got to have the experience.
• 2:04:27
  So you've got to go there.
• 2:04:28
  Probably not something you're doing at the moment because you have the Grail car in some respects in the beautiful BT62.
• 2:04:35
  But is there a little resto project in time that David Brabham might like to do?
• 2:04:40
  A little something that you've either got in the garage now that you're working on or that you would like to get hold of and restore in the future?
• 2:04:48
  I would say...
• 2:04:51
  In my career, I wasn't really into the historic stuff, just doing what I was doing.
• 2:04:57
  And then over the last sort of...
• 2:05:02
  six to ten years, just started to notice them more.
• 2:05:07
  You know what I mean?
• 2:05:08
  We are getting old.
• 2:05:09
  Yeah, exactly.
• 2:05:11
  And then, you know, going to places like Goodwood.
• 2:05:14
  Amazing.
• 2:05:15
  Yeah, Goodwood Festival of Speed or Goodwood Revival, and you're sitting there, you're watching, or you're even racing in these old cars, and you see so many beautiful old cars with so much history attached to them.
• 2:05:29
  You know, the history is what makes them.
• 2:05:32
  um you know car is a car but what's the history what's the brand what's you know what's that experience like when you look at that vehicle and i have to say you know my interest in these old cars has definitely increased uh so one day
• 2:05:50
  I will start to look and see what I can buy or restore or something like that.
• 2:05:56
  Nice.
• 2:05:56
  One final one that I always ask on Rusty's Garage of any automotive person or race driver, the things that motorists do on our roads that drive you mad, and I can clearly tell from your mindset that in the right frame, good things happen in a racing sense.
• 2:06:13
  Does that apply to the road in some respects about being calm and patient and things like that?
• 2:06:17
  I think it does.
• 2:06:19
  Yeah.
• 2:06:22
  As we talked on or we touched on very early in our conversation, I was a maniac on the roads in Australia.
• 2:06:28
  How I survived, how I kept the licence, I have no idea.
• 2:06:31
  I think it was more about survival than anything else.
• 2:06:34
  And going to England in 1988, I don't know what happened, but as soon as I arrived there, I just was a completely different driver on the road, completely different driver and have been ever since.
• 2:06:47
  So a lot of my racing mates when we were racing is like, don't let Brabs drive because, you know, it's going to take forever to get there.
• 2:06:56
  You know what I mean?
• 2:06:57
  And they'd end up getting in the car and just driving recklessly and scaring the hell out of me because I'm not a very good passenger.
• 2:07:02
  Yeah.
• 2:07:04
  But in terms of me driving, I've had like two speeding tickets in my life and I think the first one came only ten years ago.
• 2:07:17
  you know so i and because then you have kids and you see how people drive on the road what i think if you're asking me that question about what drives you insane it's it's people driving too fast on the roads where you're you're in a built-up area and there's potentially kids in that area you know i mean that there's a parent you you and you've seen them go past quick and they and you know you you look at them go past and you know they've normally got a loud noise coming out out the exhaust or whatever and they're
• 2:07:46
  they think they're a racing driver or something, I don't know.
• 2:07:48
  So anyway, they drive off and, you know, they're obviously getting an experience of what they want in that vehicle.
• 2:07:55
  But you look out and you go, bet they don't have kids.
• 2:07:57
  You know, it's like... Perspective would be different.
• 2:08:00
  Yeah, and I think...
• 2:08:04
  We haven't got it right because the education around driving up until the point you're allowed to go and drive is very limited, very limited.
• 2:08:15
  And if we had a longer program for people that, you know, even if it was like a 10-year program,
• 2:08:25
  where every year they had to go back and just improve on their driving and their awareness and so forth like that.
• 2:08:30
  We'd have so many less accidents out there.
• 2:08:34
  But you'd have to make that program, push them into areas in a safe environment that shows them that...
• 2:08:41
  where the danger comes from.
• 2:08:42
  You know, it's not just what goes on outside, it's what's going on inside, you know.
• 2:08:47
  It's been fantastic to sit and talk to you, mate.
• 2:08:48
  Thank you on a busy Grand Prix week for your time.
• 2:08:52
  One of the few Aussies to win the Le Mans 24-hour.
• 2:08:54
  Your brother, Geoff, did that to success.
• 2:08:57
  I mean, 24 starts in Formula One, success at Bathurst, an incredible record in sports cars.
• 2:09:02
  Congrats and all the best as a constructor.
• 2:09:05
  Lots of Aussies are very excited about this project.
• 2:09:07
  Thank you.
• 2:09:08
  Thank you mate And when we go to Le Mans in Abrabham You come with us mate I'll be there
• 2:09:18
  If any of the issues raised in this episode have affected you, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.
• 2:09:26
  That's 13 11 14.
• 2:09:29
  Lifeline is a national charity providing all Australians experiencing a personal crisis access to 24-hour support and suicide prevention services.
• 2:09:41
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 2:09:46
  Series producer and editor is Alex Mitchell.
• 2:09:49
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 2:09:57
  Listener.