Latest / Rusty's Garage / Inside McLaren F1 - Bob McMurray (Part 2)

Transcript

Inside McLaren F1 - Bob McMurray (Part 2) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:20
  G'day, it's Rusty here, all set for part two of my podcast with long-time respected McLaren F1 team member Bob McMurray.
• 0:28
  Now, if you haven't heard part one, jump back to the library and enjoy.
• 0:32
  From his early years in a mini and a bit of rallying, to life on the road for the team driving trucks from GP to GP.
• 0:40
  His diverse roles within the famous squad meant he became a trusted figure, someone who could keep the media at bay and who could take valued corporate guests into the heart of the pit garage to help them really understand its workings.
• 0:56
  We begin part two with his insights on working with the late, great Ayrton Senna.
• 1:03
  Once again, Ayrton became quite close with Ayrton.
• 1:09
  The era with Prost and Senna in the team was an exciting era.
• 1:16
  They became such bitter enemies that one would go into the bathroom of the motorhome longer than necessary before the race so the other one couldn't get in there and all that sort of thing.
• 1:26
  But Ayrton played the emotional game with everybody, whereas Alain played the political game with everybody.
• 1:33
  Ayrton used to come here to New Zealand and stay with us on his way back to Brazil after the Adelaide Grand Prix, which was the best Grand Prix ever.
• 1:44
  And yeah, we used to take him out in a helicopter or take him around the place and all that sort of thing.
• 1:50
  There were some lovely pictures of him at home.
• 1:53
  My mother-in-law at the time hated him, never did like him, and she died not liking him.
• 1:57
  So I don't know why we can't figure that out.
• 2:00
  Yeah, Ayrton was great.
• 2:03
  And my wife was looking after the motorhome at the time, which was a kind of a big plush American thing, and it was for Ron and the drivers only.
• 2:10
  And he used to sit at the front of the motorhome and read a passage of the Bible with only Sean there, then kiss her on the forehead, and then go to the garage to race every single time.
• 2:20
  He was a really nice guy.
• 2:23
  I mean, other people knew him closely as well.
• 2:24
  Joe Ramirez in the team and some others, obviously Ron.
• 2:28
  Um, but he, he was one of those guys as actually a lot of them.
• 2:33
  If you are, if you are part of their little circle, if they trust you, they trust you implicitly.
• 2:40
  And that's where I come back to loyalty because if you cross those guys or you, you, you're disloyal in any way, you never speak to them again.
• 2:47
  Um, because they, they don't seem to have too many people they can trust.
• 2:52
  And it's, um, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm,
• 2:55
  Yeah, I'm trying not to make out my own importance here.
• 3:00
  I'm not important at all, but it's just the way they are.
• 3:03
  I think underscoring that loyalty in their world, I can appreciate why –
• 3:10
  that is so valuable to them all because they must end up surrounded by all sorts of different people and you can't trust all of them.
• 3:17
  No, no, no.
• 3:18
  I mean, there are so many sycophants that just are attracted to them.
• 3:23
  And, you know, myself and two other guys, we used to almost act as bodyguards for it because in Japan especially, he couldn't walk 10 metres without being physically abused by people grabbing him and all that sort of stuff.
• 3:35
  So we...
• 3:36
  It was a bit like a boxer, you know, going through a crowd.
• 3:39
  He'd put his hands on my shoulders and we'd barge our way through with two other guys.
• 3:44
  Cruel and all sorts of things, but you just couldn't stop and say hello to everybody.
• 3:47
  And then there were the sycophants that did have paddock passes and always, you know, slap them on the back.
• 3:52
  Hey, how are you going?
• 3:54
  I had no idea who they were.
• 3:56
  So, yeah, but it was a little bit like Alan Pross, but Alan was better at handling that sort of thing.
• 4:03
  That's all, so.
• 4:04
  What was the key difference?
• 4:05
  I mean, you talk about politics versus passion, I guess, before.
• 4:09
  As drivers, what set them apart?
• 4:12
  What was the, you know, in your observation, in your observation?
• 4:16
  That would take more time than we've got, I think.
• 4:19
  But if you can put it in a nutshell, Ayrton, Alan Prost always used to reckon that you should win the race at the slowest possible speed.
• 4:27
  Ayrton always used to drive as if he wanted to win the race yesterday and go as fast as possible.
• 4:34
  And I think that was the greatest difference in their driving.
• 4:37
  Ayrton was a pole position master.
• 4:41
  Just look at YouTube and look at the laps of Monaco and other places where he's changing gear and driving, just absolutely a master of it.
• 4:48
  He used to sit in the garage and watch all the times go up and he'd put a time up and you'd wait and you'd wait and you'd wait until it was maybe 30 seconds before pedal lane was going to close and he'd go out and he'd blow pole position straight away.
• 5:03
  He was intense, I suppose, much more intense.
• 5:05
  Alan was intense, but in a different way.
• 5:08
  I suppose the difference is Alan was French and Ethan was Brazilian.
• 5:11
  I mean, you know, it's the whole nationalistic attitude between the two of them.
• 5:15
  Yeah.
• 5:16
  I don't know if it's true.
• 5:17
  There was a story of legend about an incident in a helicopter and a briefcase being turfed out.
• 5:22
  Yeah, Gerd Huttberger at Monza.
• 5:23
  Is this true?
• 5:24
  Absolutely.
• 5:25
  Tell us that, Jan.
• 5:26
  Well, they used to fly from the Villa d'Este up on Lake Como to Monza.
• 5:33
  And as they were approaching the landing space, they were, I suppose, 200, 300 feet high.
• 5:42
  Gerhard Berger put his hand down and grabbed Ayrton's beautiful pigskin briefcase and slung it out the window.
• 5:49
  And all these papers came shedding down.
• 5:51
  There's people picking them up.
• 5:53
  It was hilarious, really.
• 5:55
  And then Gerhard Berger also put on Ayrton's passport photo, a rather rude photo, a completely rude photo.
• 6:03
  Changed Ayrton's picture out.
• 6:05
  Ayrton was stuck at the customs age.
• 6:08
  Please explain.
• 6:08
  Please explain.
• 6:09
  Yeah.
• 6:10
  But then...
• 6:11
  So then once at the factory, this briefcase thing was going on between him and Ron Dennis and Gerhard Berger quite a long time.
• 6:21
  And Gerhard Ayrton wouldn't let his briefcase out of his hands.
• 6:25
  So he got to the factory one day and it was Ron's turn to play a trick on Ayrton.
• 6:30
  And at the factory, he got the boys to make up a little cage.
• 6:34
  and somehow he secreted Etten's briefcase away and made sure that Ron hadn't damaged the briefcase.
• 6:40
  No, no, no, your briefcase is safe in my office.
• 6:42
  So he gave it back to him in a metal cage that they welded together with no locks on it.
• 6:47
  It just welded up.
• 6:48
  So he gave him his briefcase back like this.
• 6:50
  Yeah, there were lots of stories like that, especially between Gerhard and Ayrton.
• 6:54
  Gerhard was a breath of fresh air for Ayrton.
• 6:57
  It lightened him up completely.
• 7:00
  It really did bring a different perspective to Ayrton Senna's seriousness.
• 7:05
  He could see funny sides of things all of a sudden.
• 7:08
  The footnote to the briefcase helicopter story, I think, was, it's in you're too serious.
• 7:12
  Like, that's the whole reason he threw the briefcase out of the helicopter, wasn't it?
• 7:15
  Like, let go and enjoy life.
• 7:18
  I think it was the end of the year we got to Estoril and we'd won the championship and there was a team party and Gerhard bet Ron and Ayrton that he could drink more whiskey, dimple whiskey or whatever it is.
• 7:32
  than they could, which was fine.
• 7:34
  But Gerhard had got to the place before that in the afternoon and changed one bottle out for cold tea, effectively, or something else.
• 7:43
  So he gave everybody else a sip.
• 7:44
  But Ron's on to this, so he swapped.
• 7:46
  But he believed Gerhard would do this.
• 7:48
  So he went there after this and swapped the bottles around just to make sure.
• 7:52
  But Gerhard had paid the guy in the restaurant to tap the bottle of New Orleans.
• 7:55
  Be on his side.
• 7:56
  Yeah.
• 7:56
  So anyway, it came back to Gerhard that he was drinking the tea.
• 8:02
  He knew he was.
• 8:02
  And Ron and Etten couldn't cope with anything else.
• 8:05
  I've never seen Etten centre drunk, but I saw him drunk that night.
• 8:08
  I love it.
• 8:09
  Yeah.
• 8:09
  I mean, he wasn't.
• 8:11
  Michael won seven.
• 8:13
  Lewis has won seven so far as you and I talk.
• 8:17
  you know, Ayrton only chalked up the three, but he was, for me and for many listening, an enormously special driver.
• 8:24
  And there are aspects, very sadly, because he passed, that we would love to have seen a real ongoing head-to-head with Michael Schumacher battle between he and Ayrton.
• 8:34
  That would have been something to savour, wouldn't it?
• 8:36
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:37
  There's no denying that whatsoever.
• 8:40
  We did get a battle between Micah Hackinen and Schumacher.
• 8:44
  later on with the famous, you know, going up Spa Hill with Ricardo Zonta in the middle and one guy going either side of him, which spoke to Ricardo Zonta after that.
• 8:52
  And he said, closed his eyes and went straight.
• 8:55
  He didn't know what was going to happen.
• 8:57
  But yeah, the battle between...
• 8:59
  Senna and Schumacher would have been a spectacular one, I think, because they were similarly intense drivers, but with different styles.
• 9:09
  So, you know, if that had happened, who knows?
• 9:13
  Who knows?
• 9:13
  This has been fascinating.
• 9:15
  I want to keep bouncing through some names if we can.
• 9:17
  It sounds like we're name dropping here, but I love it.
• 9:19
  You mentioned Micah Hackanen.
• 9:20
  Yeah.
• 9:21
  What was he like?
• 9:22
  Once again, Mick used to come and stay with us here in New Zealand a couple of times.
• 9:26
  He's been here, or was here.
• 9:31
  He started off as a test driver and was a test driver for a long time.
• 9:35
  And he started off his racing career in Estoril when young Andretti was- Michael.
• 9:43
  Yeah.
• 9:45
  and the next race was Estoril, and they said to Mika, you know, you've got the drive this weekend, and he up-qualified in the centre.
• 9:52
  So we figured then that he was pretty good.
• 9:55
  Now, he had to wait quite some time to get a first race win because of the way things were.
• 10:00
  The car wasn't that good at the time and all that sort of stuff.
• 10:04
  But when he did, and once again, Mika has a very, had a very, very tight bunch of people around him.
• 10:13
  It was basically his manager, Didier Cotton, his wife at the time.
• 10:18
  And one guy who is...
• 10:23
  let's see, Raikkonen's trainer right up until he left Alpha, Mark Arnold.
• 10:32
  And Mark Arnold was Mika's trainer all that way through as well.
• 10:36
  So, yeah, he had a very tight bunch of people around him, but Mika was, once again, just a loyal, wonderful guy.
• 10:42
  I mean, coming here, we used to put a lamb on a spit, and he and his wife, Eria, had never seen anything like this, and he refused to touch it.
• 10:52
  And this big lamb going round and round and round, he thought it was disgusting.
• 10:55
  And I got a wonderful photograph of him tasting a bit of meat.
• 10:58
  And he picked it up and tasted it.
• 11:00
  And I went away and came back to carve a bit more off.
• 11:04
  And he's in there with his fingers and hands doing chunks of the meat off.
• 11:07
  So, yeah, it was good.
• 11:09
  But we had dieticians all the way through.
• 11:11
  And one of the funniest, Nicky Lauda, for instance, was our driver for a long time.
• 11:16
  He had Willie Dungle as his trainer after the big fire and the accidents and all sorts of things.
• 11:21
  And Willie had a training place and he used to feed Nicky a piece of dried black bread and a glass of water before he went out.
• 11:32
  And Nicky said, yeah, I eat it like this.
• 11:36
  So Willie used to go away to do something else.
• 11:38
  The first thing that had to happen was Sean, the wife, he'd come upstairs with a ham sandwich, two, a double shot black coffee and a cheese sandwich.
• 11:48
  And he'd scuffle this down and he'd see Willie Dungle outside before he went rest.
• 11:52
  You finished that?
• 11:52
  Yeah, yeah.
• 11:53
  It was good, Willie.
• 11:54
  Thank you very much.
• 11:55
  We miss him, don't we?
• 11:57
  I mean, he was in a – the few interviews that I did with him, just an enormously straight shooting guy, yeah.
• 12:05
  Clearly, did the Rush movie, was it an accurate portrayal of him?
• 12:09
  I saw the Rush movie with five, six McLaren mechanics of the time, at the time.
• 12:18
  Mark Scott, Harold, anyway, the guys, we watched it together.
• 12:22
  And everybody thought, what a bunch of bollocks.
• 12:25
  And I'm sorry, it was just a rubbish film.
• 12:28
  But then we sat back and thought, hang on a second, it's not a documentary.
• 12:32
  It's been made into a film.
• 12:34
  So we watched it again two nights later as a film, not as a documentary.
• 12:38
  Yeah.
• 12:39
  And we thought it was fantastic.
• 12:40
  Okay.
• 12:41
  Simply because James Hunt never raced against Nicky Lauda in a Formula 3 car in Crystal Palace.
• 12:47
  Never together.
• 12:48
  But there was that there.
• 12:50
  James never punched out any...
• 12:53
  press people never it didn't happen so all that sort of thing was introduced to making a movie so if you look at it as a documentary um it ain't but if you look at it as a movie that publicized the the excitement between the two the the differences between the two the friendship and the racing okay fine it was okay one thing i've got to say is that the remarkable actress who played nikki louder's wife um
• 13:18
  was a dead ringer.
• 13:19
  We thought it was the same girl.
• 13:20
  Wow.
• 13:21
  But this is 30 years later.
• 13:23
  It's an absolute dead ringer.
• 13:24
  And the two actors were, after you'd seen them for half an hour on movie, you could accept the fact they were who they were.
• 13:32
  So from that point of view, it was good.
• 13:35
  But the first viewing with all the guys that were there in 1976 when the championship was decided in Japan, it was rubbish, absolute rubbish, because we were looking at it as a documentary, say.
• 13:48
  I actually think you make a very good point for people to distinguish in that way when they're watching any kind of motor racing documentary or movie.
• 13:57
  You cannot make an exciting movie of motor racing, which is the most exciting sport in the world.
• 14:02
  You can't do it.
• 14:02
  It's like that thing in Le Mans where they're going down the back straight together and the two guys are looking at each other and they're like this.
• 14:09
  And suddenly one changes another gear and goes ahead.
• 14:11
  You think, well, thank you.
• 14:12
  You don't do that.
• 14:14
  You can't do that.
• 14:16
  I have a quick little fun story.
• 14:18
  The actor who played Nicky Lauder in the movie, I got to interview at one stage, and he'd been trying to get hold of Nicky to spend some time with him to get into character to really understand the nuances of Nicky Lauder.
• 14:31
  And eventually his phone rings.
• 14:33
  It's like six in the morning and it's Nicky on the other end.
• 14:36
  And Nicky goes, okay, I suppose we have to meet now.
• 14:40
  Just bring hand luggage to Vienna.
• 14:42
  That way, if we don't like each other, you can just piss back off to where you came from.
• 14:48
  That could be a quote direct from the man.
• 14:51
  A couple more to bounce through driver-wise.
• 14:53
  David Coulthard, who's still a part of the Channel 4 coverage and so on.
• 14:56
  Yeah, I...
• 14:57
  David Kultauer was a bit misunderstood.
• 14:59
  I think he was more dramatic than he should have been.
• 15:03
  He was more poor me than he should have been.
• 15:07
  I liked him, but I never really got that close to him.
• 15:10
  He was never easily get closeable to, from my point of view.
• 15:14
  Anyway, I always felt he was...
• 15:18
  How can I say?
• 15:19
  A bit Andy Murray-ish in tennis, shall we say.
• 15:21
  A bit melodramatic sometimes.
• 15:24
  Okay, he had a plane crash and all that sort of stuff, I know, and climbed out quite well.
• 15:27
  The story about the dog was quite good as well.
• 15:29
  They had a little dog with him at the time.
• 15:32
  It's his girlfriend at the time's dog.
• 15:34
  And once the plane crashed and all sorts of things, they were scrambling aside trying to get out, and the dog was going the wrong way.
• 15:40
  So David picked him up by the scruff of the neck and actually kicked him like a rugby ball out of the plane to get him out in a hurry.
• 15:46
  But...
• 15:48
  Yeah, I think he was a bit over-melodramatic at the time, that's all.
• 15:53
  Good drivers, no doubt about it.
• 15:55
  And he was overshadowed by Ron's desire for Mikko Hackinen to win a race and to continue winning races.
• 16:02
  So David always got the impression and gave the impression that he was a number two.
• 16:07
  Well, you get to be a number one by winning more races, simple as that.
• 16:21
  Why did the Formula One drivers stop and have a nap?
• 16:24
  They were getting tired.
• 16:26
  Sorry.
• 16:26
  A couple closer to home, your home as in New Zealand.
• 16:31
  Scott Dixon.
• 16:33
  Scott Dixie, what can I say?
• 16:35
  I've been to indie, making TV shows and all sorts of things with Scott, and he's never been anything nicer, anything more than a nice guy to deal with and a practical guy and a friendly guy.
• 16:48
  And what a superb driver.
• 16:50
  It's somebody I wish that his chance in Formula One driving that BMW Williams
• 16:55
  I wish that hadn't have happened.
• 16:56
  I wish he'd have got a better chance with a better team, and I think he would have been a better driver in Formula 1.
• 17:01
  I really do think he had a future in Formula 1.
• 17:03
  But the future he's carved in IndyCar racing, I mean, one of the best sportsmen in America in terms of pay, I'd settle for that as well.
• 17:12
  But I think the Formula 1 spur might still be there, might still have been there, and I wish he had a better chance to get into it.
• 17:19
  Shane Van Gisbergen.
• 17:21
  SVG.
• 17:23
  It was here that I first really saw him drive.
• 17:25
  He was driving a Toyota Racing Series car in the first or second season, I can't remember.
• 17:30
  And it was pretty obvious then he was going to be a bit of a star.
• 17:33
  Now, he is a misunderstood guy.
• 17:36
  I agree.
• 17:36
  He is, I believe, quite shy.
• 17:39
  At the time when he was driving Toyota Racing Series cars, he was –
• 17:45
  He wasn't outgoing at all, not in the least.
• 17:50
  But you could see he had talent and you could see he was going to be too big for a single-seater car as he was growing.
• 17:56
  And ever since I've had a radio show with a guy called Darcy Waldergrave and we phoned him, yep, no problem, he'll talk and be quite happy to do so.
• 18:05
  And he tells the truth.
• 18:06
  Now, I don't mean telling the truth by not lying, but he tells it how it is.
• 18:10
  Well, you must know, Rusty, you've spoken to him.
• 18:12
  He tells what he thinks is it.
• 18:14
  and people can see that on television.
• 18:16
  That's Shane.
• 18:17
  He's no advert for another Shane.
• 18:20
  That's the Shane you're seeing.
• 18:21
  It's the Shane you're getting.
• 18:22
  It's the Shane that there is.
• 18:23
  I have massive respect for him in that regard, and I actually feel like sometimes colleagues of yours and mine on the media side don't do themselves any favours because if they actually went in, connected with the bloke, asked good motor racing questions, which appeals to him, you'll get a different conversation.
• 18:40
  Yeah, completely.
• 18:41
  Yeah.
• 18:42
  Yeah.
• 18:42
  Don't try and look for an angle with him.
• 18:43
  No.
• 18:44
  Just ask a question.
• 18:45
  Yeah.
• 18:45
  He'll tell you to go away or he'll tell you the truth or whatever.
• 18:48
  Yeah.
• 18:48
  No, it's honest.
• 18:49
  Final one.
• 18:51
  Before your time ended with the McLaren squad in Formula One, you got to witness and look after a young guy in karting who has now gone on to win seven world championships in Lewis Hamilton.
• 19:03
  Tell us about that.
• 19:05
  Well, he was taken under the wing of McLaren Mercedes, as everybody knows, when he told Ron, I'm going to drive for you one day, that famous story.
• 19:13
  And when he started driving carts, then he was helped out, which annoys me a little bit because he keeps telling people that he's, you know, came up from nothing and he didn't have any money and all the rest of it.
• 19:23
  He was pretty well funded through that carting period by Mercedes or McLaren.
• 19:28
  He was kind of looked after.
• 19:30
  Okay, not rich or not royally, but there was a backstop.
• 19:37
  And he was great.
• 19:37
  I mean, he was clear, obvious that he was going to be a champion driver somehow, somewhere.
• 19:44
  And going to karting meetings and watching him operate and his father operate, they were a tight couple.
• 19:50
  And they used to really, what can I say about him?
• 19:52
  He was clearly quick.
• 19:55
  We weren't there to try and deviate from what he was doing and introduce him big time or anything just to keep an eye and just to see how he was doing and making sure that he was doing what Ron thought was the right thing to do.
• 20:05
  And that's what happened.
• 20:06
  Yep.
• 20:06
  He's not everyone's cup of tea.
• 20:08
  I mean, I think, you know, he's achieved some unbelievable things because clearly of the talent you've just described.
• 20:14
  And he does take, whether we like it or not, he does take Formula One into a different space in an audience sense, doesn't he, with his...
• 20:20
  You know, his connection with music, his love of fashion and things like that away from the track and more.
• 20:29
  He takes Formula One and Formula One people away from the accepted idea of a racing driver, you know, like some… The perception of them.
• 20:36
  Yeah, fashion icon with, you know, flowing locks and all that sort of thing.
• 20:41
  What I appreciate about him, apart from his driving, and I think he's, if not the, he's certainly one of the best drivers…
• 20:50
  ever.
• 20:51
  And that's clear and obvious.
• 20:55
  If he wants to live his life by being a golfer, by being a fashion singer, fashion artist, by being a singer, by whatever, I don't care.
• 21:04
  He doesn't criticize my way of life.
• 21:07
  And I don't care what he does.
• 21:08
  When he gets in a car and he does the business, I'm in the business of motor racing.
• 21:13
  He's a motor racer and he's a racer.
• 21:15
  And that's the best thing.
• 21:16
  Really, all these people that say, look at these checkered trousers, look at this, that, and the other.
• 21:20
  Mate, I don't know, if you're 50, 60 years of age, what did you dress like when you were 20?
• 21:24
  Exactly.
• 21:24
  Drain pipes, bell bottoms, teddy boys.
• 21:29
  Come on.
• 21:30
  The guy's got his own...
• 21:34
  aura that he wants to, what's the word, expose and commercialize, I suppose.
• 21:42
  But that's his aura.
• 21:44
  I don't understand all the criticism.
• 21:46
  Everybody can laugh at him and do whatever they like, but he's living his life.
• 21:50
  Not yours.
• 21:51
  You're not living his life.
• 21:53
  Give it up.
• 21:55
  much has been made of the final round of the 2021 championship as you and i talk here he's been silent on social media lots of people have question marked will he come back we're in a new era of of cars for for 2022 firstly what do you think about the new cars and and i can't see him i can't see him leaving can you
• 22:18
  Well, first of all, what I think about the new cars, I don't know yet.
• 22:22
  I've talked to various people who are into designing them, and they think everybody will converge on a similar design after one year.
• 22:28
  Okay.
• 22:31
  They need to do things that they haven't done.
• 22:33
  They need, first of all, to get rid of the stupid front wings with all the business on them and the stupid things that are hanging off.
• 22:38
  Go backwards.
• 22:39
  to go forwards.
• 22:40
  To the kind of cars you reminisced about before or some of those elements of those cars, huh?
• 22:46
  Yeah, yeah.
• 22:46
  I mean, if they're worried about overtaking, then give them one front wing and one rear wing and you've got a choice of maybe three.
• 22:52
  But take all those stupid stuff off.
• 22:54
  I don't care for that sort of thing.
• 22:56
  It's ruining motor racing.
• 22:58
  So if the 20, 22, 3 cars are better for racing, then I'll like them.
• 23:05
  But I suspect not.
• 23:10
  Sorry, what was your next question?
• 23:12
  My next question was, will Lewis come back?
• 23:17
  I think he would have done, and I think he still will.
• 23:21
  But do you know the bigger mistake?
• 23:23
  First of all, what happened at the end of that race?
• 23:28
  If that had been a race, this will take a few minutes to explain, if that had been a race in the middle of the season, that would have been under normal practice, in which case it would have finished under a yellow flag.
• 23:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:37
  or a safety car um by by making it the last race and then changing accepted practice that has been accepted practice for years and having the cars go around and all that sort of stuff it still should have finished under safety car because the safety car needs to do a clear lap with those guys catching up okay point two so
• 23:58
  So by changing it all completely, the race director went away from accepted practice, which was accepted practice up and down the pit lane.
• 24:06
  It's not something reinvented.
• 24:08
  And therefore, by him doing that, the race was manipulated.
• 24:11
  By the race being manipulated, Lewis Hamilton did not win a race he should have won.
• 24:16
  Now, I really quite wanted Verstappen to win because it needed to shake up a little bit.
• 24:23
  But by interference in normal practice, it disadvantaged one driver who him and his team could have accepted and expected that the normal practice would be carrying on as if it was any other race in the season.
• 24:39
  The mere fact that somebody wanted it to finish as a race instead of under a safety car because it was a championship, in my opinion, is...
• 24:47
  changing the whole ethos of motor racing, because that's what you've done all the way up to now.
• 24:52
  Just because you want to make a show, why should you ruin other people's show?
• 24:55
  I'm very uncomfortable with the fact that it happened, but I don't think Lewis Hamilton, and I'm sure he's very uncomfortable, I don't think he would not come back because of that.
• 25:04
  I think he might not come back because the new FIA president, within a day of being elected, said there will be severe penalties on Lewis Hamilton for not appearing at the FIA prize-giving, which is compulsory.
• 25:16
  There will be severe penalties.
• 25:18
  Well, if I was Lewis Hamilton, I'd say, stick your penalties, pal.
• 25:21
  I ain't coming back.
• 25:22
  You know, that was a mistake for him to say that.
• 25:25
  So adding all those things together, I think it's still 50-50 whether he comes back at all.
• 25:29
  It doesn't need to, does it?
• 25:31
  Aussies listening to the podcast would counterbalance – I mean, you've said it a bit in your answer, but –
• 25:38
  The intent, I think, was to race to the finish of a championship, wasn't it?
• 25:41
  But why should you finish?
• 25:44
  Why should you change accepted practice just to finish?
• 25:47
  It was obvious what was going to happen at the finish.
• 25:50
  It was obvious.
• 25:51
  I mean, there was no alternative for Lewis Hamilton to do what Max Verstappen did.
• 25:56
  If he had come in, he would have been behind Verstappen anyway.
• 25:59
  There was no alternative.
• 26:00
  So I just think the race should have been either stopped dead
• 26:04
  So they have two laps of racing.
• 26:06
  Everybody comes in, changes tyres if they want to, like they could, and then have a race.
• 26:10
  Get all the… Get it ironed out.
• 26:12
  Get it ironed out.
• 26:13
  Put all the car, if you want to, change the regulations so that everybody comes in, they can change tyres, and everybody goes out in the order they should be.
• 26:21
  In other words, first, second, third, fourth, and the back markers go out last.
• 26:24
  That would be a good way to do it, but somebody would have to make that rule as well.
• 26:27
  So I'm just uncomfortable the way it finished.
• 26:30
  I can appreciate Max Verstappen being world champion, fine, but I just don't think it finished properly in my opinion.
• 26:36
  Okay, that's your view and you're absolutely entitled to it.
• 26:40
  Quickly, McLaren-Benz.
• 26:42
  Now, world's changed.
• 26:45
  Ron's not there.
• 26:46
  You're not there.
• 26:46
  What do you think of the McLaren that we have now and their chances of getting back to the greatness that we know them for that you went through?
• 26:57
  Well, Ron isn't there, so it's a different kettle of fish.
• 27:00
  McLaren, obviously, when Zac Brown went in there, he faced lots of challenges because there were deficits all over the place of McLaren financially.
• 27:09
  I mean, the payout to Ron Dennis alone was quite a lot of money, about half as much as he was fined by Max Moseley some years before.
• 27:19
  So, Zach Brown has done an amazing job to get those ducks in a row because the Honda engine was a disaster.
• 27:26
  But if they'd have kept it, it would have been successful, one assumes.
• 27:30
  But they couldn't keep it because they'd already been a disaster for too long.
• 27:34
  So, I think he's done an amazing job.
• 27:36
  I didn't think he would.
• 27:37
  I knew Zach Brown before and he was a good marketer and he was a good sponsor finder and he used to work with McLaren quite a lot, finding sponsors.
• 27:44
  Yeah.
• 27:46
  So I'm really pleased to see them improve and I'm pleased to see them improve with the Mercedes engine.
• 27:52
  Still a customer, so the winning a championship is going to be difficult.
• 27:57
  But when you think what they did last year without any possible tokens of improving the car, because all their tokens to improve the car were spent on just changing the engine.
• 28:07
  So they weren't able to develop a car.
• 28:09
  So you look forward to the fact that now with everybody on a clean sheet of paper, they can develop a car that is worthy of winning a race.
• 28:17
  They've got the drivers once Danny Ricciardo gets A into G because he's more than capable of winning races.
• 28:22
  Well, he's won a race, obviously.
• 28:24
  He's more than capable of being there and winning races.
• 28:26
  Lando Norris clearly is because he nearly did in Russia.
• 28:31
  So, yeah, what other elements do they need?
• 28:34
  They're financially, you would assume, stable.
• 28:36
  They've got damn good designers.
• 28:39
  Got a perfect engine, was last year, and they've got fantastic drivers.
• 28:43
  So all the elements are there.
• 28:44
  Whether you can put it all together, it's like the old jigsaw that you missed one piece missing.
• 28:48
  You've got to get that last piece in there and hopefully they've got that.
• 28:51
  Yeah, I agree on the ingredient side of it.
• 28:53
  Very true.
• 28:54
  Netflix, do you like Drive to Survive?
• 28:56
  Are you an avid watcher?
• 28:57
  Is it over-dramatized as some people say?
• 28:59
  What do you think?
• 29:00
  I didn't watch it the first year at all.
• 29:03
  I thought, no, this is ridiculous.
• 29:05
  Because my kids are addicted to it.
• 29:07
  I know.
• 29:07
  And then the second year, somebody said, you've got to see it.
• 29:10
  And I said, oh, I don't want to see it.
• 29:11
  And I watched the first year and I thought, actually, it's quite funny because you could see that people –
• 29:15
  playing it i've been in those offices and you can see that people were playing it up and yeah i'll watch it as soon as it comes out this year i really will whatever it is it's made formula one into um into an entertainment more so now whether the entertainment is aspect overrides the sporting aspect that's another thing but this is the way people are you've got to have entertainment and it is it's good a couple of questions from your your colleague my friend dave turner
• 29:43
  Going to Indy, what did you guys get up to?
• 29:47
  Oh, yeah, right.
• 29:49
  Yeah, quite a lot of stuff.
• 29:51
  The Indy trips, I forget how many.
• 29:53
  I think I've been to Indy about 20 times now, many times with David Turner making TV shows.
• 29:59
  What did we get up to?
• 30:01
  I think we better probably get back to the James Hunt days.
• 30:04
  Okay.
• 30:05
  No, no, it was great fun with David Turner.
• 30:08
  He was a superb television producer.
• 30:10
  He is a director.
• 30:13
  I still do podcasts or vidcasts with him now.
• 30:17
  Yeah, what did we get up to?
• 30:18
  We had fun.
• 30:19
  But we worked hard.
• 30:20
  I mean, yeah, we worked hard.
• 30:22
  That naturally leads me to the transition to media.
• 30:25
  I mean, you do regularly comment on all sorts of things motorsport-wise on radio.
• 30:29
  You just talked about the stuff with Dave.
• 30:31
  What got you into the media and have you enjoyed that?
• 30:34
  Clearly you have.
• 30:35
  Oh, yeah, well, I'm clearly in love with my own voice.
• 30:37
  That's the first thing.
• 30:40
  And I can probably bullshit with the best of them.
• 30:43
  But I would say, well, the media thing started really when I was –
• 30:48
  I was the opposite side of the fence.
• 30:50
  I was doing all the stuff in the garage, explaining to all the guests upstairs, being amongst, you know, explaining slip angles and all that sort of stuff and doing all sorts of talks to people.
• 31:01
  And I was getting carried away.
• 31:02
  We were getting carried away with their own self-importance, understanding racing cars.
• 31:07
  And it was when we were doing a big presentation once and we were explaining all the sorts of stuff, you know,
• 31:13
  slip angles, all that sort of stuff.
• 31:15
  And we said, any questions?
• 31:16
  There were about 400 or 500 people, sponsors there.
• 31:18
  And somebody in the front put her hand up and she said, yeah, can you tell me why are tyres black?
• 31:24
  And suddenly we realised that we were so far up ourselves explaining
• 31:28
  All the intricacies of a racing car, and it was interesting.
• 31:31
  All the blokes are going, yeah, yeah, yeah, we understand.
• 31:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:33
  But the girls had no idea.
• 31:34
  So we simplified everything, and it was a joy to actually get back to basics, you know, showing a picture when they were taking on 80 kilos of fuel of a car stopping.
• 31:43
  We had it animated, car stopping, and a bloke jumping on the back, sitting on the engine cover.
• 31:46
  There's 80 kilos of taking away.
• 31:48
  So things like that.
• 31:50
  And then it was my job to keep the press out of McLaren, completely away.
• 31:55
  We did not want the press all over the place.
• 31:57
  So that was an extremely fun job.
• 32:00
  But when I started to come back here and started to talk and all sorts of stuff, then I immediately, through David Turner, actually started doing the Shell Helix program and doing the commentary on Formula One with a guy called Jeff Bryant.
• 32:14
  And then I got involved in the Toyota racing series and then I just, yeah, once again, I fell in love once again with my own voice and just kept it going.
• 32:22
  You've headed us in the right direction here as we get to the finish here.
• 32:25
  Firstly, was it hard to stop Formula One after more than 30 years?
• 32:30
  How did you cope with that?
• 32:31
  And tell us about that decision, that process.
• 32:33
  I miss it now.
• 32:34
  Do you?
• 32:34
  To be honest, every time I see it, I see, you know, the paddock, which once again, I say again, that was the village.
• 32:39
  That was my main street was down between the transporters and the motorhomes and the garages.
• 32:46
  So, yes, I do miss it.
• 32:47
  But there comes a point where you can't be doing it when you're 90.
• 32:49
  So I had to get out before I was 90.
• 32:51
  I got out a long time before I was 90, incidentally.
• 32:54
  And things were changing.
• 32:56
  We were moving into that big new factory and Micka Hackenham was retiring.
• 33:01
  Joe Ramirez was retiring as well.
• 33:03
  And I thought, I don't want to go into that big factory.
• 33:06
  I just don't want to go there.
• 33:07
  Because Ron had taken me there many times and explained, you know, these people won't be allowed here and they won't be allowed there.
• 33:13
  This is going to be sterile.
• 33:14
  And I thought...
• 33:15
  Nah, it's not racing how I want to go.
• 33:18
  Suddenly we had turned into a corporation that went racing instead of a racing team.
• 33:24
  And it just wasn't what I wanted to do.
• 33:27
  And I wanted to come back home and be in New Zealand again.
• 33:31
  And that was it, really.
• 33:33
  I used to get a bit antsy and the America's Cup was on here.
• 33:36
  I wanted to come and get involved in that a little bit.
• 33:39
  That was it.
• 33:40
  It was time.
• 33:41
  My wife had already given up two years before she started.
• 33:43
  I'm done.
• 33:43
  Enough for me.
• 33:44
  Okay.
• 33:45
  So, yeah, it became time.
• 33:47
  So, go home.
• 33:48
  And you are in an ambassadorial role with Toyota Kazoo Racing, Toyota New Zealand.
• 33:53
  I was with you the other day for an interview and you rattled off a couple of, I think, really impressive stats because the summer series of racing here, certainly pre-COVID,
• 34:05
  has had some great young talent come through it.
• 34:07
  Drivers from this part of the world and other internationals that have come and joined us.
• 34:11
  And I think you said, if I'm right, that there are six former TRS, or Toyota Racing Series drivers, currently in Formula One.
• 34:19
  Is that right?
• 34:20
  Yes, that's right.
• 34:20
  Amazing.
• 34:21
  Rattle off their names.
• 34:22
  I'll never remember it.
• 34:23
  Mazepin, Norris, Stroll, Latifi.
• 34:29
  I can't remember.
• 34:29
  Yeah, there are six.
• 34:31
  Believe me, there are six in there.
• 34:33
  That's a super cool endorsement of this whole program, isn't it?
• 34:36
  I mean, yeah.
• 34:37
  But there have been 20 who have been involved in it.
• 34:40
  If you go to the likes of Danny Kvyat and all the others, there have been 20 names.
• 34:44
  And there are six on the grid this year that are actually – oh, Guan Yu Zhou, the new driver there.
• 34:51
  That makes sense.
• 34:53
  six was it five whatever it was yeah there are six so it the series itself is exceptionally valid as a as a feeder series for um young drivers from around the world to come here nowhere else can you drive on five different tracks five different weekends and get more mileage and then you're doing a formula three season in europe
• 35:12
  Yeah.
• 35:12
  And the talent from this part of the world, right across your time in Formula One, Kiwis and Aussies for the part of the world that we come from typically punch very well, don't they, when they go to Europe?
• 35:26
  Can we just keep this Kiwi orientated here because we're recording this in New Zealand?
• 35:31
  Liam Lawson.
• 35:32
  Well, he has all the talent at the moment.
• 35:36
  He's showing all the talent that is needed.
• 35:38
  But I have to actually blow our own trumpet a little bit here.
• 35:41
  Liam Lawson was in the Toyota Racing Series.
• 35:45
  But he would not have been in the Toyota Racing Series had not he come to us as what's called the Kiwi Driver Fund.
• 35:52
  I'm one of six trustees.
• 35:53
  Yeah.
• 35:54
  and the Kiwi Driver Fund to an all we are in existence for.
• 35:57
  It's totally independent from Toyota, completely and absolutely.
• 36:00
  All we do is try and raise money to help drivers into the Toyota Racing Series, not sponsor them completely.
• 36:06
  We top up their budget.
• 36:09
  If they can't find quite enough budget, we top it up for them and help with an engine lease or a chassis lease.
• 36:16
  Liam freely admits to this day he would not have been in Toyota Racing Series without Kiwi Driver Fund help.
• 36:22
  Had he not been in the Toyota Racing Series, he would not have been seen by Helmut Marko.
• 36:26
  Had he not been seen by Helmut Marko, he wouldn't have graduated Formula 3 with Red Bull, Formula 2, the sports car champ, and possibly Formula 1 driver.
• 36:35
  He's going to be doing some Formula 1 testing, I know.
• 36:39
  So we are intent on getting Kiwi drivers into that arena.
• 36:47
  Marcus Armstrong is another one.
• 36:48
  Chelsea Herbert, who's racing here today, is another one.
• 36:51
  So probably seven, eight, nine drivers we've helped.
• 36:54
  Driving in Indy now, all the Indy lights, all sorts of things.
• 36:58
  So the talent in New Zealand is not only with drivers, the talent is in Australia, very much so.
• 37:04
  is with engineers going over to work for Formula One teams, IndyCar teams.
• 37:07
  You go anywhere in the world and you'll find bloody Kiwis and Aussies head down, bum up, working on race cars or managing the race teams everywhere.
• 37:16
  And I think that is a testament to the entire Australasian mindset about how you go about racing and how you go about things.
• 37:26
  So it's just a testament to the people here.
• 37:29
  Final one.
• 37:29
  You began this podcast chat with a very fond recollection of the Mini.
• 37:36
  Finish for me.
• 37:37
  Have you got a little something in the garage?
• 37:39
  A little, you know, either resto project, something that you bought?
• 37:42
  I've got a resto project at the moment.
• 37:44
  Tell us about it.
• 37:45
  Come on, finish.
• 37:46
  I've actually got a Harley-Davidson 1974 90cc Air Mackey thing, which I've restored twice now.
• 37:52
  because my yeah I bought it brand new in 1974 and I've had it ever since and my nephew's learned to drive uh learned to ride bikes on it in a forest near us and it's been destroyed completely so it took me two years to find all the bits for it but that's finished and then once again my nephew who is now Roger Griffiths who's the son of my um the guy that took me into motorsport he he
• 38:14
  He was, Rodri became chief mechanic of the test team at McLaren.
• 38:20
  After that, it's a completely different story because we wouldn't allow him into McLaren.
• 38:24
  He didn't have enough...
• 38:27
  qualifications can we say so we sent him around the world to learn anyway so he left that he became team manager of an indycar team and now he runs uh his own company that does all the wheel guns for many of the formula one teams five formula one teams he builds the wheel guns for them anyway a friend of his promised him some years ago a fiat 500 bambina when she died
• 38:47
  and she did die and he got the fiat 500 bambina and said can we strip it and fix it and i said yeah all right well we'll do that it's been in my garage now for two and a half years um i stripped it and i'm just waiting for his contribution i'm not touching it until his contribution comes up he's either got to be here to help me with it or pay for some of it so it's not expensive but yeah that's sitting in the garage but no other ones
• 39:09
  That's fantastic to chat with you, mate.
• 39:11
  The book is called, incidentally, Behind the Pit Wall, My Life in Formula One and Beyond with Bob McMurray.
• 39:16
  You can find it if you go looking at places like Amazon and so on.
• 39:19
  There are way more stories than we've covered here, I know.
• 39:22
  Even, you know, it's been described, Formula One, as the Piranha Club.
• 39:26
  I'm sure there are villains and all sorts that we could cover.
• 39:30
  Mate, thank you.
• 39:31
  Well done on the work that you are doing here with the next generation.
• 39:34
  I love the walk down memory lane with some of those absolute legends of Formula One, people that you can very proudly call friends.
• 39:42
  And thank you for giving us a bit of a rare insight into their world.
• 39:46
  Super stuff.
• 39:47
  Thanks, Rusty.
• 39:47
  But it's one of these days we'll have to do a podcast or a vidcast without the microphones on.
• 39:53
  I'll tell you the real stories.
• 40:01
  Rusty's Garage is written and presented by me, Greg Rust.
• 40:05
  Series editor and producer is Ed Gooden.
• 40:08
  Audio production by Darcy Thompson.
• 40:11
  If you've got a guest suggestion, get in touch with me via social media.
• 40:15
  The Garage.
• 40:16
  It's where a journey begins with a tank full of passion-fueled stories.
• 40:30
  Listener.