Latest / Rusty's Garage / James Allen (Part 1)

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James Allen (Part 1) · Rusty's Garage

• 0:02
  A listener production.
• 0:11
  I'm automotive commentator and journalist Greg Rust, and this is Rusty's Garage.
• 0:27
  For this episode, my guest and I are sadly some 18,000 kilometres apart.
• 0:32
  I'm at home.
• 0:33
  It's evening time, early morning for him in the UK.
• 0:37
  James Allen and I worked together for many years on Network 10's F1 coverage.
• 0:42
  His voice was a part of what fans could immediately connect with in the 90s and much of the past two decades as well.
• 0:50
  Part of that soundtrack of Formula One, if you like.
• 0:54
  James, because he studied it, has a beautiful way with words.
• 0:56
  And the rapport that he has even now in the paddock and pit lane means that just about every door is always open to him.
• 1:11
  He's worked for American broadcasters and significantly for ITV and the BBC in Britain as a pit reporter, a correspondent and a lead or play-by-play caller.
• 1:23
  Among the many journalistic credits are yarns he broke for major papers on the advent of the all-electric Formula E series, for example.
• 1:32
  and books on big names like Michael Schumacher and Nigel Mansell.
• 1:37
  You'll enjoy the backstories on those two and a few other drivers as well.
• 1:41
  That's later.
• 1:42
  He was an early adopter of digital coverage.
• 1:44
  His own website became a trusted source of information and news, the kind of F1 tech analysis that diehard fans have this huge thirst for and much more.
• 1:56
  And he engaged with fan comments, but advocated strongly for quality discussion, not the kind of baseless hate that we see at times now, sadly.
• 2:06
  Importantly, he saw ways for partners to benefit through content and quality storytelling.
• 2:12
  His is quite a journey.
• 2:14
  It's little wonder that he has ended up on this path.
• 2:17
  Lots of hard work, a pure love for it.
• 2:21
  I want a father who was pretty handy behind the wheel too.
• 2:25
  I was very fortunate in that a little bit like my great colleague, Murray Walker, you know, I was fortunate to grow up with a racing father.
• 2:33
  You know, Murray's dad was a bike racer, as you well know.
• 2:37
  My dad was a car racer.
• 2:39
  Before I was born, he had some success.
• 2:42
  He was a works Lotus driver.
• 2:44
  in the late 1950s and early 60s.
• 2:46
  He raced the Lotus Elites, which was kind of the GT level, if you want, of today's Le Mans 24 hours or WEC.
• 2:53
  So that's what he was doing.
• 2:55
  And he won that class in the 1961 Le Mans 24 hours.
• 3:00
  So last year was the 60th anniversary of it.
• 3:02
  And I was really hoping I could take him to Le Mans.
• 3:06
  But obviously with all the restrictions, it was really difficult.
• 3:08
  He's still with us.
• 3:09
  He's 89 years old.
• 3:10
  He's fit as a fiddle as a lot of these old racers are.
• 3:13
  He's a small guy.
• 3:14
  He's always looked after himself.
• 3:15
  He's mentally very sharp.
• 3:17
  So I do hope to get him back to Le Mans.
• 3:20
  But yeah, so I grew up with that.
• 3:21
  And then when I was a kid,
• 3:23
  he wasn't racing sort of full time anymore, but he was, he was organizing the first historic racing championship.
• 3:30
  So this whole scene, which has become so huge now, you know, with all these very, very valuable Ferraris and, you know, Jaguars and, and, and,
• 3:38
  Maseratis and things around the world, you know, the Goodwood Revival and all those type of events.
• 3:43
  You know, my dad, together with a couple of colleagues, was basically in the early 1970s.
• 3:48
  He kind of started that whole historic racing scene.
• 3:52
  And he was doing that really throughout the 80s.
• 3:55
  So that took me to races with him.
• 3:58
  Often they were on the support bill with the Grand Prix or other things.
• 4:01
  And I just gradually got to know some people.
• 4:03
  And when it came to that kind of moment, you know, when
• 4:05
  Everybody that goes to university or gets to that age of sort of 19, 20, what am I going to do with my life?
• 4:10
  I had sort of a kind of fork in the road.
• 4:13
  There was a kind of sensible route that a lot of my friends were going down to get a kind of professional job, you know, in the law or finance or whatever it may be, advertising, whatever.
• 4:23
  And I was just like, no, I don't want to do that.
• 4:25
  I want to spend my time in this world that I love.
• 4:27
  I had a very clear idea that I wanted to, like you, Rusty, I wanted to be a broadcaster and announcer.
• 4:32
  I wanted to be putting the soundtrack onto these moments of action.
• 4:35
  And, you know, at the end of the day, I'm a storyteller.
• 4:37
  And I think that the world has really moved towards that now.
• 4:42
  If you look at the success of Netflix and all these other things, you know, the value of storytelling now is so high.
• 4:49
  And so it's a really exciting time.
• 4:51
  Couldn't agree with you more.
• 4:52
  I'm trying to remember over some dinners that we've enjoyed over the years, whether you ever shared with me if you drove or raced.
• 4:59
  And I can't recall, mate, did you ever race at some point at all?
• 5:03
  I have raced for fun.
• 5:04
  So when I was a kid, I never really had that strong a desire to.
• 5:08
  You know, I was quite good at sports at school, you know, like field hockey particularly, but never really had the opportunity.
• 5:16
  My dad didn't really push me to do it.
• 5:18
  I think he was waiting for me to push him.
• 5:21
  And I didn't, but I enjoyed, I always really wanted to be the person putting the soundtrack on the racing rather than in the thick of the action.
• 5:28
  But I have, the only things I've really raced is classic motorbikes.
• 5:32
  So I raced with our much-loved, dear departed friend, Barry Sheen, a number of times at Goodwood on the old Grand Prix Nortons from the early 60s.
• 5:41
  So I enjoyed that very much and some sort of classic motocross events here in the UK, but very low-level stuff and just for fun.
• 5:49
  That two-wheel stuff's rubbed off on the boys, hasn't it?
• 5:52
  I seem to recall you telling me your sons, who have automotive or motor racing names, Enzo and Emerson, did they not do a bit of two-wheel stuff as well?
• 6:01
  Yeah, they did, yeah.
• 6:02
  Both of them were given bikes much, much earlier than any sane parent would give them.
• 6:08
  Enzo was about three of them.
• 6:10
  three and a half four when I bought him a Kiwi 50 Yammer.
• 6:13
  And then his younger brother Emerson inherited that as soon as he could walk, basically.
• 6:17
  And he's the one who enjoys it the most.
• 6:19
  And he actually...
• 6:21
  He does compete in classic motocross events here in the UK.
• 6:25
  He's not particularly looking to take it to a high level.
• 6:28
  He just really, really enjoys.
• 6:29
  He's quite quick, actually.
• 6:31
  And he's got a 250cc 1979 Honda Red Rocket.
• 6:36
  That's what he rides.
• 6:37
  And so he has a good time.
• 6:39
  But I'm glad to say that my wallet is glad to say that neither of them wanted me to take them into European karting or any of those kind of enterprises.
• 6:48
  Thank goodness.
• 6:49
  They say if you work at something that you're passionate about, you never really work a proper day in your life.
• 6:56
  In terms of your adult working life, James, has it only ever been motorsport for you?
• 7:00
  And what was the first proper job then?
• 7:03
  Because you've had this wonderful command of the English language.
• 7:05
  You studied that, as you alluded to before.
• 7:08
  But did you move more or less straight into motorsport in some capacity?
• 7:11
  And what was that?
• 7:12
  Yeah, I left university at, what was I, 22.
• 7:17
  I did quite a long degree because I did an English and modern languages degree.
• 7:21
  And I also had to spend a year abroad within that mix.
• 7:24
  I actually spent a very happy year in Aussie, actually, before I started at uni.
• 7:27
  I had a kind of gap year, as a lot of kids do, and got the Aussie work visa and came over and did all that.
• 7:33
  Yeah, but when I left university, I started working for a company that did the marketing and PR for the Williams Formula One team.
• 7:41
  There's an agency in London, and I managed to get a job there simply because I was the only person in the whole company out of 45 people who could speak a foreign language.
• 7:50
  So my French and my Italian got me that job, as well as obviously knowing racing quite well.
• 7:55
  And quite soon after that, I was kind of helping to man the press office, the media center at the Birmingham Super Prix, which is a street race in the UK that was Formula 3000, if you remember.
• 8:07
  John Lacey was racing in that, Eric Comas, JJ Leto, Eddie Irvine, Alan McNish, you know, those are the people I was dealing with right around that time.
• 8:16
  Same sort of age as them.
• 8:18
  And then I got a bit of good fortune that the company I was working with there in London, they got the contract to do the PR and communications for Brabham.
• 8:28
  which had been bought by a Japanese company, and they needed someone to do it, so they threw me in.
• 8:33
  So in literally having been working there for about, I think, eight, nine months, I found myself on my way to covering, to being in the Grand Prix, manning basically the communications for the Brabham Formula One team.
• 8:46
  I did that for a couple of years.
• 8:49
  But all the while I was doing that, I sort of was wanting to get into television and taking any kind of freelance opportunities I could.
• 8:56
  you know, as a side hustle.
• 8:57
  And that really developed its own momentum.
• 9:00
  Am I right in saying that that was kind of an early connection?
• 9:04
  Life moves in circles, as you and I know.
• 9:06
  Was that a connection with Mark Blundell and Martin Brundle at around that time when you were at Brabham?
• 9:10
  Who was there then?
• 9:11
  Exactly, yeah.
• 9:12
  So David Brabham in the first year.
• 9:14
  who I'm still friends with to this day, see him around a lot of events, and Lisa, of course.
• 9:20
  David Brabham and Stefano Modner in my first year, which was 1990.
• 9:24
  And then the second year with the Yamaha engines, we had Martin Brundle and Mark Plundell, who years later I would have as colleagues on the ITV Formula One team, of course, and would appear on the broadcasts in Down Under for many, many years.
• 9:36
  So that was where that connection with them first was forged.
• 9:41
  Obviously, I have a fantastic relationship with Martin that started there and carried on right the way through our ITV years.
• 9:46
  You talked before about the business side and the learning to hustle, which is an important thing.
• 9:54
  You also, James, got to work for some unbelievable mastheads and still do now, some great organisations.
• 10:00
  The first one that sort of comes to mind in a significant sense is autosport.
• 10:05
  How did that start?
• 10:06
  What did you do for them early on?
• 10:09
  So towards the end of 1991, Brabham and Yamaha weren't in particularly great shape.
• 10:15
  And I was thinking that this probably wasn't going to last much longer.
• 10:18
  I needed to think about what I was going to do next.
• 10:21
  And at that time, I sort of learned that Autosport was looking for someone to come in and kind of reinvigorate a little bit the sport.
• 10:29
  editorial side of things.
• 10:31
  And as journalism and broadcast was really what I wanted to do, you know, the comms thing had been interesting.
• 10:37
  I've got to know a lot of people in Formula One.
• 10:39
  It takes about two years to really get your feet under the table in Formula One and figure out who's who and how it works and all that sort of thing.
• 10:46
  So I'd done that.
• 10:47
  So I thought, okay, now's the time to go and work for Autosport, which is a bit like going to sort of a university or a finishing school of journalism, right?
• 10:54
  So I spent two years there and I very much viewed that as being
• 10:58
  kind of like a training, if you want, for the high standards of journalism and storytelling and news.
• 11:05
  In those days, the magazine used to sell 80,000 plus copies a week.
• 11:09
  Because there was, this is, for younger listeners and viewers, you know, this is pre-internet.
• 11:15
  The internet started to come in around about 94, 95.
• 11:20
  And so, yeah, it was great.
• 11:21
  And obviously I really enjoyed it.
• 11:22
  It was extremely hard work.
• 11:24
  That's the closest I think I came to your thinking
• 11:26
  earlier on about you never work a day in your life there were days when that felt like pretty hard work i have to say long hours but um but yeah um and uh and obviously that was a great springboard you know having that on in the background as a training was really really good but i was pushing pretty hard on the tv thing by that point and then obviously i got the opportunity to go and work with nigel mansell when he was in america racing with indy cars and that was a whole other exciting chapter
• 11:51
  And that led to when ITV, I think, then moved into Formula One.
• 11:55
  They, correct me if I'm wrong here in joining the dots, but they won the broadcast rights.
• 11:59
  And you worked significantly behind the scenes with the production arm or the people that ultimately won that production contract, didn't you?
• 12:06
  Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 12:07
  Yeah.
• 12:07
  So I'd worked with that group of people on the Nigel Mansell show, which was on British TV, obviously, when he went to IndyCar.
• 12:14
  I don't think a lot of people in the UK knew too much about it, you know, but when the Formula One world champion makes that very dramatic switch, which he did literally as Formula One champion, he walked away from Williams and went over there.
• 12:25
  There was a lot of attention on it and it was a really, really big deal.
• 12:29
  There was a lot of great drivers in IndyCar at the time.
• 12:32
  Mario Andretti, Alan Cedunia, Bobby Rayhorse, some fantastic drivers.
• 12:38
  And it was a very competitive situation, very competitive season, two seasons, and really, really enjoyed that.
• 12:49
  BBC basically lost the rights in the UK to ITV after many, many years.
• 12:54
  And there were two production companies bidding for the contract to basically run it for them because ITV had never done anything like this before.
• 13:03
  And reputationally, it had to be right because this was a big deal.
• 13:06
  There was a lot of attention on it.
• 13:08
  not least because the season they started, 1997, again, we had a British world champion, Damon Hill, who was the reigning champion going into that season.
• 13:17
  But yeah, I worked with the team at North One and we won the production contract and had 12 very, very happy years doing that.
• 13:25
  And yeah, very full on.
• 13:27
  I never missed the Grand Prix during that time.
• 13:29
  So that was a 12-year contract
• 13:32
  element of a 16-year stretch where I went to every single Grand Prix.
• 13:36
  Didn't miss a single one.
• 13:37
  My children were born during that time.
• 13:39
  So it was extremely intense, but really good fun.
• 13:43
  I really enjoyed it.
• 13:44
  And with different roles too, James, initially sort of in pit lane and then ultimately as the lead or play-by-play caller.
• 13:51
  Did you enjoy the pit lane stuff?
• 13:53
  Because in later life, when you and I got to work together at 10, I could always sense how you and your colleague Tom Clarkson thrived in that paddock environment being around it.
• 14:04
  You enjoyed that, didn't you?
• 14:06
  Yeah, definitely.
• 14:06
  I mean, I think there's a tremendous energy about the pit lane and where the decision makers are, where the mechanics are that are making the pit stops and doing the quick changes.
• 14:16
  I mean, those guys are heroes when they change an engine in under an hour or something.
• 14:20
  And it's just unbelievable what they're doing.
• 14:22
  They're as good at what they do as anybody else in the sport.
• 14:26
  And all that energy is that those are all stories.
• 14:28
  Those are all things to be brought to life.
• 14:31
  And I was very fortunate in that when I was doing all the other things we've talked about, I was also kind of, again, having a side hustle, working for ESPN in Formula One.
• 14:41
  And I managed to do the 93 season.
• 14:45
  I then had 94, you know, in America doing the IndyCar.
• 14:48
  95 and 96, I was working for ESPN, covering the Grand Prix for them.
• 14:53
  So that was an American approach to broadcasting.
• 14:55
  Yeah.
• 14:56
  where, you know, it's really all about having something really meaningful to say, offering it up to the editor, getting on the air, you know, reporting from the pit lane, bringing that energy, trying to tell the stories that were not obvious, the things that the viewers can't see from what they see on the TV pictures on the racetrack and what the commentators are telling them.
• 15:13
  So always to try and add something, you know, there's no point in coming on in that role if you're not going to add value to the audience and to your colleagues in the commentary box, you know, who can then, you've got another talking point, something else they can bite on.
• 15:25
  and you sort of introduce all these narratives.
• 15:27
  And I really, really enjoyed that.
• 15:39
  Ox box.
• 15:40
  Ox box.
• 15:42
  One day you'll be hearing me on drive to survive.
• 15:45
  And yes, Kimmy, we will fix the drink.
• 15:48
  You got to work with in the pit lane some unbelievable people in the history of motorsport.
• 15:56
  Did it ever daunt you?
• 15:57
  Because, you know, you're talking about the very pinnacle of motor racing.
• 16:00
  You're talking about, you know, vastly different and also incredibly competitive human beings.
• 16:08
  Were there ever moments where that was a bit daunting or you were just like, no, this is just another person I'm going to talk to and launch into it?
• 16:15
  That's a very good question.
• 16:17
  Not really.
• 16:17
  I mean, obviously I had followed Senna very closely when he was racing in Formula Ford here in the UK.
• 16:25
  I went to quite a few races.
• 16:26
  It's not something I had done a lot of with my dad.
• 16:29
  There was something about him that just seemed very special.
• 16:33
  I sort of said to my dad, you know, I'd have been, what, I'd be 16, something like that.
• 16:37
  There's something here.
• 16:37
  We should go and watch this guy a bit.
• 16:39
  And so we were at races, you know, a few races anyway, but we went to more than we normally would.
• 16:44
  And we went to quite a few of that season when he raced in Formula 3 with Martin Brundle.
• 16:48
  It was a fantastic championship that Senna ultimately won and then went straight into Formula 1.
• 16:53
  So I think having seen him come up through the ranks, when I actually found myself sitting in a room with him,
• 16:59
  with maybe one or two other broadcasters or journalists or whatever, you know, interviewing him or interviewing him one-on-one for the television.
• 17:07
  I think that that was special and that meant a lot to me.
• 17:10
  It meant a lot to me then and it means a lot to me now that I had quite a lot of experiences with Senna and Senna.
• 17:18
  But I don't think you ever feel kind of daunted.
• 17:20
  I mean, Bernie Eccleston always liked to be kind of scary, but at the same time, I always got on well with him and he was always good to me.
• 17:29
  And then other people, sort of, you know, Ron Dennis, Max Mosley, Flavio Briatore, the sort of big beast, Jean-Torpe of the sport, you know, again, I always managed to have a good relationship with.
• 17:39
  You know, as long as you're not trying to be something you're not and as long as you're straight with people, then, you know, they won't give you their respect.
• 17:47
  You have to earn it and it takes time.
• 17:50
  But I think that was the approach that I always took and, you know, worked for me.
• 17:54
  Great words, James.
• 17:55
  You've mentioned some names there.
• 17:56
  Can we bounce through a couple of them?
• 17:57
  Because they also, some of them feature in books that you've done.
• 18:01
  as well.
• 18:02
  Am I right in saying that you ghost wrote the one for Nigel Mansell?
• 18:06
  And if so, tell me more about him, what he was like in that period where you covered the IndyCar and so on.
• 18:12
  Yeah, I mean, that was a very interesting year.
• 18:14
  So that was 1994.
• 18:16
  And I was living in America covering his championship in IndyCar for the television and at the same time writing his autobiography with him.
• 18:24
  And that rolled over into 1995.
• 18:26
  And the book actually came out in October, 1995.
• 18:29
  Um, and at that time, you know, he was quite a tricky individual.
• 18:34
  Um, if you remember him, those who followed him, you know, he could be quite difficult and that sort of thing.
• 18:40
  He had a bit of a, bit of a chip on his shoulder about, he certainly had a chip on his shoulder about how he exited formula one from Williams and didn't get the chance to defend his championship and various things like that.
• 18:49
  So he was driven by a kind of internal rage.
• 18:52
  Uh, and, uh, although he could be very, um, calm, uh, outside the racing car, he could also be, you know, he could be, he could change his mood could change quite a lot and that sort of thing.
• 19:02
  But again, I was, I found a way to, to get on with him and we never had any problems.
• 19:06
  And, um, and we did, we produced a really nice book and I, he, he appreciated that I'd tried really hard to get across his character in that book and what, and his motivation.
• 19:17
  I mean, the key to, uh,
• 19:19
  understanding a lot of these guys is to understand what drives them, you know?
• 19:24
  And they all, I mean, you could say they're all the same, they all just want to win, but that it really isn't that.
• 19:29
  There's always many layers more to why someone like Nigel Mansell puts himself through what he put himself through, broke his neck, mortgaged his house, you know, all kinds of stuff.
• 19:38
  And a reasonable person would have given up years before Nigel ever got anywhere.
• 19:43
  And so there was far more to his motivation than just the sort of desire to win.
• 19:50
  And so drilling down into that and getting that story told, that was kind of what I was always about.
• 19:56
  And yeah, I mean, the amazing thing is I hosted an event at the FIA in Paris.
• 20:01
  I think it was three Christmases ago.
• 20:03
  And it was the FIA Hall of Fame evening.
• 20:06
  and they had most of the living world champions and family members of the ones who are no longer with us and mansa was there and prost was sitting in the front row and in the autobiography i mean we had to the lawyers had a lot to say about that section and they wanted to take a lot of it out about what prost had done to him when they were at ferrari and and then again when he took his seat at williams and and nigel had a lot to say about that back in the 90s and i'm standing on stage with nigel and he goes oh well it's fantastic to be here you know i'm
• 20:32
  you know, really honored to be in Munster's company.
• 20:35
  And Alain, sitting there, he said, it was an honor to be a number two driver to you.
• 20:38
  I'm like, what?
• 20:44
  All those years later.
• 20:46
  If I told you, if I told you back in 1994, you'd stand on a stage at the FIA in Paris and say that in sort of 2019, you'd have decked me.
• 20:55
  it just shows you how people change right i mean the thing the thing i think that unites all proper racing drivers
• 21:05
  is this internal rage.
• 21:06
  My father had it, I recognize it.
• 21:09
  And it's also the thing that when it's not there anymore, that's the time to stop racing.
• 21:16
  And so when you get to people, there's two types of racing drivers at the end of their careers.
• 21:20
  There's the ones who stop because they want to, and they're in control of the situation.
• 21:24
  There's the ones who stop because the circumstances force them to.
• 21:27
  And they're not necessarily in control of the situation.
• 21:29
  And they carry on racing for quite a long time.
• 21:31
  There's nothing wrong with that.
• 21:32
  I mean, some people still enjoy going out at Goodwood in their 70s.
• 21:35
  You know, nothing wrong with that at all.
• 21:37
  John Sertes and Sterling Moss was still, it wasn't racing particularly, but he was still enjoying driving things.
• 21:42
  Sertes was racing.
• 21:44
  And so that's the thing.
• 21:45
  You know, my dad was one of the ones he never really wanted to stop.
• 21:47
  The circumstances kind of forced him.
• 21:50
  And Nigel was another one.
• 21:51
  Hmm.
• 21:52
  You fondly recounted as a teenager seeing Ayrton Senna.
• 21:56
  Is there a little yarn about him from your time and working in the paddock there that you cherish perhaps?
• 22:01
  I mean, he only won three world titles, but we knew he had much more in him.
• 22:07
  He was held in such high regard.
• 22:09
  We would love...
• 22:10
  circumstantially for the battle with he and Schumacher to have played out much longer than it sadly did.
• 22:17
  Is there one that sort of comes to mind with Ethan?
• 22:19
  I can do better than that for you, Rusty.
• 22:20
  There's two, actually, that's coming to mind.
• 22:23
  The first one was in 1993, at the beginning of 1993, when, if you remember, he'd been beaten by Mansell.
• 22:31
  and the active Williams in 92 and properly hammered them in that car.
• 22:35
  The difference in performance in the car was enormous.
• 22:37
  And Honda had pulled out.
• 22:39
  So McLaren were looking at having a customer Ford engine to take on the active Williams Renaults in 1993.
• 22:50
  And Prost was in, which is even worse, Prost was going to be driving one of those cars, who's his ultimate enemy.
• 22:55
  So he wasn't sure if he fancied this.
• 22:57
  And if you remember, they'd signed Michael Andretti and they had Mika Hakan as a test driver.
• 23:01
  And they'd been testing in February at Silverstone in conditions like we have today, a bit drizzly, a bit cold, typical English.
• 23:08
  And Senna came over to drive the car for two days to see if he was going to carry on racing in Formula One.
• 23:14
  A situation not unlike what we've had over the winter with Lewis Hamilton, right?
• 23:18
  Had a lot of success.
• 23:19
  Does he really want this anymore?
• 23:21
  Does he really want to do this?
• 23:22
  You know, there's been a few people I never really doubted Hamilton would come back.
• 23:26
  But, you know, I can imagine he went through the same things that Senna was going through at that time.
• 23:30
  It's like, do I want to do this?
• 23:32
  Am I going to be competitive?
• 23:34
  So he came back.
• 23:35
  And anyway, I can tell this story over a long time, but I'll tell it short, which is basically Santa was unbelievably fast, as you would expect on the second day.
• 23:43
  And then the opportunity was that I was sitting then in the media center.
• 23:48
  He was wearing a jacket and two hats because he was so cold.
• 23:51
  And it was me and two other people, three other people, I think.
• 23:54
  And he gave us an hour of his time.
• 23:56
  And in that hour, he basically talked about his motivation over the winter and how it was like a candle that had almost kind of burned out.
• 24:03
  It was almost like getting to that point where it just goes out and it just glows for a bit and then it's done.
• 24:09
  And he said, I wanted to know whether the candle can still burn, you know, and that's why I came.
• 24:13
  And he also described how...
• 24:15
  for the first time in a long, long time, driving a Formula One car, instead of as he approached Copps Corner, for example, the very fast right that then has maggots and beckets at Silverstone, you know, he said, normally, I'd be going along there.
• 24:25
  And then it's kind of pretty much flat and top gear into Copps.
• 24:28
  And you're already thinking about your exit and the maggot and beckets before you go into Copps.
• 24:32
  Here, because my brain was trying to catch up, I'm having to think about Copps before I can then even think about maggots and beckets.
• 24:38
  So he found the whole psychological exercise utterly fascinating, and took the time to talk about it.
• 24:44
  And it was all
• 24:45
  like a kind of, I don't know if it was just being generous or whether it was a kind of therapy for him that he was thinking all these things through.
• 24:51
  And that's what made Santa so amazing, you know, apart from the fact he was mind-blowingly good, was just how generous he would be, was sharing what he was going through and what he was thinking.
• 25:01
  And that was absolutely fantastic.
• 25:03
  And then the other one, which I'll never forget, is when I think it was 92, Hockenheim,
• 25:08
  and he'd had a testing accident.
• 25:12
  You know, you remember the old days, it used to be very long circuit, it was punctuated with chicanes before they messed around with it.
• 25:18
  And so it was a very fast circuit, and he crashed at one of the chicanes.
• 25:22
  He went off over the curb, and the car went on its side and was sliding down the road.
• 25:27
  And he was describing this to me in a TV interview, so it was just me and him, and he was describing how his head was banging on the asphalt.
• 25:35
  Can you imagine?
• 25:36
  170, 180 miles an hour.
• 25:38
  And his helmet, he can feel it hitting the tarmac as he slides like that with the air box on there.
• 25:43
  And he's laughing.
• 25:44
  He's laughing as he tells the story.
• 25:46
  And he says, I don't know why I'm laughing.
• 25:49
  Maybe because he's just lucky to be alive.
• 25:50
  But he said, and he was describing the story.
• 25:53
  And I'll never forget it because he was laughing as he told the story.
• 25:55
  It was like, wow, these guys are different animals.
• 25:59
  Different animal, and that was an unbelievable circuit back in the day.
• 26:02
  Our good mutual friend, Darrell Beatty, won a race there on a 500cc bike back in the day.
• 26:07
  Hey, Murray Walker, you got to work with him.
• 26:10
  Sadly, he's gone now.
• 26:14
  What was it like working with him?
• 26:17
  You know, have you got a good Murray story?
• 26:20
  Have I got a good Murray story?
• 26:21
  I've got thousands of good Murray stories.
• 26:23
  Have a nice...
• 26:23
  I spent an awful lot of time with Murray.
• 26:25
  And I mean, what was it like working with him?
• 26:28
  It was great fun.
• 26:30
  He was a very, very funny guy to spend time with, you know, and he had the most incredible rich life.
• 26:36
  I mean, just what he did in motorsport would be enough to fill sort of two people's lives.
• 26:41
  But on top of all of that, he had a whole life in advertising.
• 26:45
  had an amazing career in advertising, made a lot of money and came up with some slogans, which are still kind of like part of English sort of stock phrases.
• 26:55
  And before all of that, because he served in the Second World War and was part of the force, the armored vehicles that actually went into Germany and took the surrender.
• 27:07
  So he, you know, it's like he lived three lives in many ways.
• 27:10
  And he, again, he was another guy who was, he didn't talk too much about the war a little bit, a few stories, but, but he was again, very generous with his time and very generous with his, with his, his knowledge and his stories and that sort of thing.
• 27:23
  And, and,
• 27:24
  Just very, very, you know, very good fun to be with.
• 27:29
  And I've got a million Murray stories.
• 27:32
  But, I mean, one that I always enjoy is when I drove him to a dinner once and there was a whole bunch of kids.
• 27:40
  It was his car.
• 27:40
  He just, for some reason, actually, no, tell a lot.
• 27:43
  I've got the story wrong.
• 27:44
  We went to a dinner in his car in Silverstone, and it was a very smart sort of BMW and what have you.
• 27:50
  And he and I walked into the restaurant together from the car park, and I left something in the car.
• 27:55
  So I came back out about 15, 20 minutes later.
• 27:58
  I asked Murray if I could have the keys, and I came out to my mobile phone or something.
• 28:01
  It dropped out of my pocket.
• 28:03
  And as I walked through this crowd of kids, I heard one of them say, that's Murray Walker's driver.
• 28:09
  Okay, I've made it now.
• 28:12
  And, you know, but that just showed how much reverence he was held in by people who were sort of, you know, they had kids and he was like 78 or something.
• 28:18
  But just, yeah, just a fantastic guy, really, really generous spirit.
• 28:25
  And I used to enjoy it when his wife Elizabeth came as well.
• 28:27
  She was a very strong character.
• 28:29
  And she took a great exception to me removing pieces of pineapple from my rice in Kuala Lumpur.
• 28:35
  Like, what are you doing?
• 28:36
  And I was like, well, I don't like pineapple.
• 28:38
  I can't eat it.
• 28:39
  It makes me feel odd.
• 28:40
  And she said, you're very strange.
• 28:42
  And I was just like...
• 28:44
  I was just thinking, imagine their conversations at home over dinner.
• 28:46
  It's like fantastic.
• 28:48
  We've got lots to get to in terms of what you're doing now.
• 28:50
  Just while we're reminiscing about a couple of people, can we spend a moment on Michael Schumacher?
• 28:55
  Because if people have seen the recent Schumacher doco, they will have seen and they will have heard you as a voice there.
• 29:02
  You've written books on him.
• 29:03
  The Edge of Greatness is just one.
• 29:06
  At the peak of his powers and, you know, when you were in the thick of it,
• 29:11
  back then, what was Michael like as a champion, as a person?
• 29:16
  And when you get to spend that long putting a book together, you must see a side that perhaps not everyone does.
• 29:22
  Yeah, so I had a really good idea for a book after he crashed into Jacques Villeneuve in 1997, and he was like completely in the doghouse, you know.
• 29:30
  And he had to buy back all the goodwill that had been burned in that accident.
• 29:37
  Just everybody just basically cast him out like a pariah.
• 29:40
  So I went to him and his manager and I just said, I just think there's a really good book to be told through the 98 season of how he not only tries to win the world championship for Ferrari, which had eluded them for nearly 20 years, but sort of gets redemption, if you want.
• 29:56
  And they loved the idea.
• 29:57
  And so they said yes.
• 29:58
  And so I wrote this book through that year and he, and I got great access to Ferrari, to Ross Braun, to, to Jean Todd, to Stefano Domenicali, all of those guys.
• 30:08
  And they, you know, they wanted, you know, that storytelling and it was, so I'm very proud of that book.
• 30:13
  It's called the quest for redemption, which is the first of the two Schumacher books that had good cooperation, but they left me to do it.
• 30:18
  They didn't have any editorial control over it.
• 30:20
  They didn't want to see it even before it got published.
• 30:22
  They just said, well, trust you, you tell the story.
• 30:24
  So that was a great experience.
• 30:26
  And what I learned from doing that and researching him and that then went into the edge of greatness, which is much more about him as a person and what, again, back to what we talked about earlier, what motivates him?
• 30:36
  What's his story?
• 30:38
  Schumacher's story is very unusual in that, you know, we watch television, we go to races and we see these racing dads, right?
• 30:45
  I mean, whether it's John Button with Jensen, whether it's Anthony Hamilton with Lewis, whether it's...
• 30:49
  you know, Lando Norris's dad, whether it's, you know, Joe Ricardo, our dear friend, you know, they're always present, right?
• 30:57
  They're fixing the cart or they're paying for someone else to fix the cart.
• 31:00
  You know, the dads are kind of, you always sometimes wonder with some of them, is it the dad who's pushing or is it the kid that's pushing the dad to give them more?
• 31:06
  You know, yeah,
• 31:08
  Schumacher's dad was nowhere to be seen.
• 31:09
  Schumacher's dad was a working class guy.
• 31:11
  He was a bricklayer, basically.
• 31:13
  He ran the kart track in Kirpen.
• 31:15
  Schumacher was very good.
• 31:16
  And because they had the karting track, he got a lot of the 10,000 hours in, right?
• 31:21
  So he was just driving all the time, perfecting his technique, but no money.
• 31:26
  But he managed to persuade other people's dads
• 31:31
  to pay for him to go racing.
• 31:33
  And then he traveled with them all over Germany, and as he became more successful all over Europe, driving cars.
• 31:39
  So you put yourself in the shoes of a 14, 15-year-old kid who's not very sophisticated, who's not very well-educated,
• 31:46
  but who's really smart and he's very good and who wants to win and wants to get to the top, who's traveling around with, you know, men who are in their 40s drinking beer.
• 31:55
  You can imagine and all that sort of stuff.
• 31:56
  You imagine the shell you'd have to build around yourself to protect yourself from all of that, you know, so that you could just get done the things you needed to get done.
• 32:05
  And that was Schumacher.
• 32:07
  So what made him unique was the resilience that he had to show, I think, on the way up and how he did it.
• 32:13
  He really did it the hard way in that sense, in a way that really nobody else I can think of has had to do.
• 32:21
  Maybe a little bit Mansell as well, there's some comparisons there.
• 32:25
  So that when he actually had success, when he finally won that world championship for Ferrari in 2000, do you remember how emotional he was at that time?
• 32:31
  He was crying at times, and the pressure was getting too much for him.
• 32:35
  I cried that time in Monza.
• 32:37
  Micah Hackenden had to put his arm around him in a press conference and all that sort of stuff.
• 32:40
  Yeah.
• 32:42
  It was just the feeling that he owed people.
• 32:43
  He always had this feeling he owed other people for his success.
• 32:47
  And I think when he had that success with Ferrari in 2000, that was kind of paying off the debt, if you want.
• 32:52
  And from that point onwards, he was doing it for himself in a way.
• 32:57
  And everything after that was a bonus.
• 32:59
  And I think what happened was that he then went up a level.
• 33:02
  He'd also coincided with him breaking his leg the year before.
• 33:04
  So he'd had some time off for the first time in his life.
• 33:07
  He'd had like three months off to just think and be still and be with his family.
• 33:13
  And I think the combination of those two things took him up a level psychologically and in his approach.
• 33:18
  And that's what made him so devastating for the years that followed.
• 33:21
  And that's one of the reasons why I admire Lewis Hamilton so much is that...
• 33:26
  He's not had any of those things.
• 33:28
  And yet somehow, year after year after year, he's managed to come back and find a trigger for fresh motivation to go again and push himself to a higher and higher level.
• 33:38
  Sometimes it's a competitive teammate like with Rosberg.
• 33:41
  Bottas was a less competitive teammate.
• 33:43
  So he didn't have that.
• 33:44
  You know, he had then Verstappen starting to breathe down his neck, which is, I think, normally is a good trigger for those guys that gives him that fresh motivation.
• 33:52
  And you can imagine how motivated he's going to be this year.
• 33:55
  Oh!
• 33:55
  Unbelievable!
• 33:56
  I mean, I think Verstappen will go up a level this year because he's now a champion.
• 34:00
  He's got the monkey off his back.
• 34:02
  I think he'll have more confidence about him.
• 34:04
  I think he could be less rash on the racetrack.
• 34:05
  So, you know, things like Silverstone that happened to hit each other, you know.
• 34:10
  Lewis was very aggressive, but Max didn't have to insist there.
• 34:13
  I don't think he would do that again.
• 34:15
  I think he'll go up a level, but I think Lewis's motivation this year is the highest it could possibly be because of the injustice that he suffered at the end of last year.
• 34:30
  Just fascinating, isn't it?
• 34:32
  I could listen to stories like that for hours.
• 34:35
  Now, while that's the end of part one of my chat with award-winning editor, correspondent and commentator James Allen, there is more in store for you.
• 34:44
  Part two is in the garage library and good to go right now.
• 34:49
  from his work as president of the Motorsport Network, a go-to for constituents and fans, to moderating the F1 press conferences and being there, among the first to chat to Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber on the day of the controversial Multi-21 Meltdown, plus tapping into the minds of motorsport industry leaders
• 35:11
  and the future, why James is passionate about connecting with younger generations and ensuring the same love of F1 and motorsport is strong for years to come.