Allan McNish: winning ‘the Audi way’

27:35But yeah, I've still got the dog ring from it as well because as a reminder, you need to heel and toe. So after that test, I then through that winter learned to heel and toe in a road car. So I'd done Formula Ford, Vauxhall Lotus and F3. With huge success, I might add. Yeah, yeah. Without heel and toeing. Without heel and toe. So I used to brake. And what, just lock the rears every time? And just crash it down through the box. I wondered why I'd always a lot of front brake balance. Maybe I know now. But it was a skill set that, I have to be honest with you, wasn't my forte. It was heeling and towing.

28:09And so I found another way around it. Now, it didn't hamper me too much. Only when I got into very high-powered cars, like Formula 3000 at the time, and also an F1 car, that actually it was a negative. And so then I had to sort of learn how to do it. And as I said, through the winter, on the roads of southern Scotland, I was learning to heel and toe. And while we're talking driving style, you've already said you had Ayrton Senna in the next door garage. What did you make of his blipping of the throttle? Did you try it? Yeah, it was a bit of a needy thing. You know, it's not needed now because you've got instant response.

28:44But at that time... Did you need it with the V10? I can see you need it with a turbo. You still needed it because it also kept the car alive. You know, cars had a lot less grip than today. And so you had to make them move around a little bit. and that was his way of doing it. There was a lot of corners as well where you probably, and a lot of drivers would do it without necessarily thinking. Estoril, for example, at the end of the back straight, there was a second gear accelerating faster exit, but you couldn't plant the throttle. So you needed to sort of stab into the throttle at different points to get the car to move and to also pull out of the corner.

29:21So I don't think it was just him. I know there's a lot made about it. I don't think it was just him, but he definitely accentuated it. And his style came from the turbo from basically 88, more than necessarily the normally aspirated in 89 or 90. But it was something that I think he had attuned to make work for him. And others were doing it, but not necessarily in the same sort of scope. And how interested was Ayrton in your testing? Like I said, you just jump in and you go and you do it. You don't think too much about it. But looking back, he was interested in what the feelings were. I remember, though, because then the first test of the V12 was at Silverstone the following year at the pre-Grand Prix test.

30:07And I drove and then Ayrton was very interested in what the V12 was going to be like. So it was clearly coming for the following season for 91. And so, you know, doing the test, super interested in what was going on there. but then when he got into the car and this was a bit of a mind shift for me when he drove he was talking about friction and various different things and I was thinking this is bloody quick but he was actually going into a lot more detail and that was where I realised actually if you want to be in this sport and at the level then you've got to put in so much more effort and work that's off the circuit, on the circuit engineering, everything else And it came from just his level of feedback and his ability to remember a race run and deliver it back on lap five, this, on lap seven, this happened, that corner here, everywhere else.

31:03Again, because there was such limited data. So the driver was downloading the data and repeating it back to the engineers. And what did he mean by friction? Engine friction. So like piston friction. Yeah, just basically the piston going up and down the cylinder. It didn't feel like it was running free. You know, it felt like... He could feel that. Well, I couldn't. He could. I could feel 650 horsepower and going down the straight like hell. But yeah, he could feel it because he was much more attuned to it than I was. And so, you know, that side of it was an area that you see experience. That was the point of experience.

31:38Clearly, the guy was super good, but it was a point of experience as well. Tell us about your journey with McLaren then from that first test at Estoril. When did Ron Dennis sign you up properly? Before the first test. So it was before the British Grand Prix F3 support race. So I think we signed on the Tuesday prior to the British Grand Prix in 1989. As a what? As test reserve. And so then I was doing the test at the end of the year. And it was subject to good test, which was the Formula 1 test in Estadil. and then really it kicked off in 1990. And how much mileage were you doing? I was in Suzuka for three days every month through predominantly 1991.

32:26Doing what? V12. Pounding round Suzuka. Pounding round Suzuka. So you do two days of testing and then race run on the third day. So, you know, the last thing you did was a blooming 52 lap race run. It's like brilliant. Suzuka, one of the hardest circuits at the time as well. But, you know, a lot of running there. there was running an esteril through the winter there's a lot in the winter of esteril which was a test circuit that pretty much everybody went to barcelona wasn't open at this point we've got to remember and then as well other ones dotted around about europe but predominantly the same sort of circuit so the trips to japan were for honda they were all for the v12 yeah tell us how different was the engine from one test to the next what was the rate of development there was two rates of development really at that time.

33:12One of them was on fuel and the other one was on the engine. So the engine was stepping forward. A lot of it was on revs because you were trying to, with a V12, you needed to have a higher rev basically to get the power out. And so there was a lot of development onto that. Pneumatic valves were coming in, that sort of thing. And the other one was on fuels because I don't know if you remember, Tom, because you're quite young, but there was quite exotic fuel brews going around at the time. I remember Avgas. I remember walking into one of the garage. You met five stars, don't you? And not the group.

33:44I'm not going to say which team, but I remember walking into a garage at that time and my eyes were watering. So there was a lot of development in that and trying to, you know, get the right power fuel that didn't melt the engines, basically. It's funny, isn't it, how history repeats itself? Because here we are next year. One of the big changes in 26 is the sustainable fuels. It is. at the end of the day, it's where technology allows you to go. And so you break down a barrier in one section and it suddenly opens up a new avenue to explore and to develop. Back then, it was a very different type of fuel, I've got to be honest with you.

34:23But I think we all remember those days. So you're doing a lot of mileage, but a lot of it is in Japan, out of the limelight. Yeah, so predominantly... So in a funny kind of way, did it stall your career? being McLaren's test driver? No, I would say not. It was not in the limelight, but there was no test drivers in the limelight because there was not really very many test drivers because race drivers did all the testing. And so in that respect, it wasn't as like it was laterally, where you've got development reserve drivers for each team, et cetera. And it's a profile point. It was gaining experience without question with one of the best teams, with some of the best engineering brains of the era around and about.

35:08But at the same time, I was racing in Formula 3000, which was from my point of view, the main point, what I was doing was racing, not testing. And so through 1991, 92, I was racing in Formula 3000. And that was the current Formula 2. And so, you know, my point was to deliver on that. And the Formula 1 side of things was maybe a distraction at times, if I'm honest with you, because you were jumping from one thing and they're very different beasts. One thing on one side of the world back into something over here, but it was something at the time you get the opportunity. You're not going to say no.

35:47You're not going to turn it down, are you? Well, Alan, except, except, except Dario Franchitti was on the show earlier this year and Ron Dennis, same person, offered him, I think, a very lucrative seven-year test contract in which he could still race an IndyCar and then he would get Concord back to Europe and do tests for three days and then go back to do an IndyCar race. And Dario turned that down because I think the word distraction is probably quite a good one. Well, Dario I've known since I was 13 years old, 14 and around there, very, very well. So he actually saw, I would say, up close and personal my whole career and very much so he was there not necessarily on the front line if you like but he was there through all of that era so he knew the pitfalls of it by then and he also remember saw michael andretti doing that concord back and forward and you know how difficult it was you know and on a piece of paper i think all these things work out but in practicality they are sometimes got a few difficulties so the trips to japan and the subsequent jet lag did that affect your performances in f3000 yes it did i have to be honest it did um so i remember coming back from a japanese test straight to le mans and over the date line going tokyo to alaska alaska paris paris to le mans straight into the car and there is no question i was not at my best still running second in the race but i could have been winning the race so what is the delta you could never really say but it wasn't the ideal preparation every time i'm not saying that anyone's fault now you know i've got to put my hand up at different points as well but um again i come back though when that's sitting there on the table yeah i don't think you turn them down very easily back to school starts now get long-lasting battery life on the dell XPS laptop powered by Series 3 Intel Core so you can work from anywhere.

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40:19when do you think you were at your peak as a racing driver in what category i don't think it's category specific but i think it is i feel because we're going to talk about toyota in due course when you got your break in formula one but i think that came too late for you yeah definitely 100 so when were you at your peak in the mid 90s i would say at my peak with pure experience of life and everything else was probably when I was maybe 33, 34, which was because I had seen so much and worked with so many people. You know, I had a very, very wide overview of all areas. But probably at my peak to jump into Formula One, when you're talking about that, without, you know, other things going on, I would say when I was maybe 21.

41:08As young as that. Yeah. and unfortunately when I was 21 I was ill and I had a virus which went to see Sid Watkins remember Prof I went to see Prof and he basically said look six months it'll go but that's what it is and I really had a difficult year and that knocked a lot of the momentum out of my career and there was a few sort of knocks on the road but that one really did I would say take the momentum out of it. So you're 21, what's that, 1990, 1991? End of 91, beginning of 92. And that was when you were doing this ridiculous amount of travelling. Do you think the virus was brought on by the travel?

41:48No, I think the virus was brought on by a mouthful of rice in Thailand, believe it or not. I was ill from that moment afterwards and I just didn't recover. I just had no energy. My joints were swollen up. I couldn't put pressure onto the pedal to be lifted out of the car in hockenheim uh after finishing second in 3000 because they're my right and left the ball of my foot was like a big balloon blister but so sensitive and sore that i couldn't put the pressure on the brake pedal so you know there was there's a whole load of things going on there and you just kind of get on and do them because what else are you going to do we're not talking about the medical treatment and support mechanisms that you have today we're talking about a very different era there and so you know you just get on and muscle on with it but i think looking back the spotlight because you said coming man everything else the spotlight and the momentum went in that era in that point because how long does a driver get in that spotlight where you're the coming guy and if you don't take advantage of that you're gone i think a year i think then naturally because you know we're goldfish we swim around and by the time we get back around to the end of the lap we're forgotten again well isn't it interesting because actually a guy you raced with a lot in the junior formulas you were both on the philip morris young driver program i suppose we could refer to it as mika haken and i'm talking about he kind of inherited your position yeah so as the coming guy right so in 89 we're both doing formula three and he had a really difficult year he struggled and the spotlight went from mika because mika was always has been brilliant you know super quick very very natural very quick to get up to speed and not always completely understanding why he was quick but it didn't matter because he was always quick and in f3 he had a really difficult year had to repeat the season i went on to formula 3000 and then he got an option to run in the lotus which was back of the grid team but did a stunning job in it And once he was in Formula One, then he accelerated on from there.

43:56And he actually inherited your McLaren test role. He did. So basically in 93, he then was testing at McLaren and jumped in and raced. And then in Estrell, did the stunning job by qualifying centre. In his first race? In his first race. How nuts is that? My God. But Mika would do that, come in and not think very much about it, you know, because he just did, as opposed to think he just did it. and so yes you're right but I think you've got a year roughly where the spotlight's on you and then after that then it you know you need to pretty work pretty hard at it can we just talk about two more drivers before we move on to you going to Toyota at McLaren Alain Prost you were his test driver as well as Ayrton Senna's test driver not 100 % I kind of was because the first overall i had was actually one of cross believe it or not and the seat so when you're the same yeah i did that test in esteril and the the it wasn't a time when you then got measured and laser scanned for overalls and things like that and so it's a case of well cross overalls there so i'd cross overall believe it or not well and then he then went to ferrari and then he went to ferrari yeah but did you were you ever alongside him at a test you weren't no i was never alongside him at a test but without doubt he he had such a i would say an influence of that era where i saw alan was before when you were saying about the marlborough world championship team the young driver project you know we went to various events and he was at mclaren it's i know also when he was at ferrari afterwards because they were still involved and so we got to sort of as a young driver see them understand them a little bit and got to know him but never actually in the same car did you ever have a technical conversation with him you know i'm sure it was technical for me i'm sure it wasn't technical for him well what about gerhard burger then because you really were working with yes yeah with gerhard yes i've always felt that gerhard hasn't always had the respect he deserves because he was a bloody good racing driver but because he was alongside senna he didn't always come out smelling of roses.

46:12Was he better than his reputation in the 10 Grand Prix wins? Yeah, Gerhard was very, very good. It's funny, a picture came up on Instagram from his win at Benetton in Hockenheim. 97. 97. And it just reminded me, actually, he had a long career where he was winning a lot of the way through it. And I remember the first time really seeing Gerhard and thinking about, Christ, he's quick, I'm going to have to work here, was Stowe, when they re-profiled Silverstone and we were testing there, and Stowe was different to what it is today. You would go in, and it was still a bit bumpy going in, but then it tightened and had a kind of fastest chicane on the exit.

46:56And coming through there, it was fourth gear, and he chucked it through there. Really was quick in that high-speed stuff, and that was one where I thought, ooh, you know, he's got something about him. Brave as a lion. Yeah, he definitely stuck it in. And Gerhard, I think, was in the right car, but unfortunately with a teammate that was pretty exceptional. But I remember a bit like Hacken and coming in and showing Senna the way at Esterel in 93. I remember Berger out-qualifying Senna in Phoenix that first year in 90. As he said to me once, he said, I never saw him again, but I did out-qualify him the first time.

47:34Yeah, but where Gerhard, you know, you look at Gerhard's career and it's not all about 10 Grand Prix wins. If you think about it, he was very clever in the way that he structured his career. He's very clever in the way that he's done his post-racing career as well, as in driving career. And I think there was a lot of things going on there. And he was quite strategic in the way that he planned things. Maybe not necessarily always with the sort of thought process at the time of X, Y, Z, these steps. But actually looking back, it was a very strategic career. He was a party boy, though. I think that doesn't help his reputation either.

48:12Yeah, I don't know. In the era, I think it probably, with some teams, probably did. Remember, we're talking, James Hunt was still commentating there. You talk about the ultimate party boy. Lord Hesketh was the chairman of the BRDC or the president of the BRDC. So there was a few party boys in the paddock. Actually, Alan, you mentioned James Hunt. He was part of the Marlborough World Championship team selection process, wasn't he? He was also advisor. James was there through the majority of mine. Did he advise you? Yeah, yeah. And a lot of times I had lovely conversations with James at his house or circuits and things.

48:47But the one that stands out was we were going to Nürburgring. And I phoned him up and said, James, going to Nürburgring. And it was when the new circuit had just been done. He went, yes, McHaggis. He always called me McHaggis. not sure if he remembered my real name, but he called me McHaggis, and he said, McHaggis, he says, yeah, yeah, rubbish, it's a rubbish circuit. The old track, and he gave me chapter and verse, I said, yeah, but James, I'm racing on the new one, and he went, yeah, but it's complete rubbish, and he just kept telling me about the old circuit. It was fantastic, but there was a few things, I used to, when I was younger, one thing, I would lead a race, and I would go off into the lead, and then I would make a little mistake, a stupid little mistake, because I would look at the pit board, and see plus three seconds, or whatever, 10 laps to go and outbrake myself and lose a second or whatever it was.

49:31And I said this to him, he said, well, why'd you look at the pit board? Just stop looking at the pit board, which was so obvious, but I hadn't ever thought of it because what do you do every lap when the pit board's there? You look at it. That then started making me think, how does my brain work? And how can I then make sure that I don't make stupid mistakes like that by just creating the atmosphere where I lose concentration. And so James, you know, was there for a lot of my junior career. And there was a few nuggets, absolute beautiful nuggets that he delivered that I used all the way through my career.

50:07I never looked at bitboards very often after that. Well, isn't it? And we've got 50 years of his world championship coming up next season. Let's bring it on to Toyota now you get your big break in 2002 but the formula one bit of your toyota relationship starts a year earlier a huge testing program how different was the testing work with toyota to what you'd been doing with mclaren the actual toyota started before that a year before so i was racing with porsche at le mans and we won le mans 98 and porsche then at the end of the year announced that they were pulling out of the project. And so I was sitting there thinking, ooh, what am I going to do now?

50:49And I had a meeting at Toyota with Ovi Anderson at the time. And Ovi said, yep, we want to put you in the car. You'll be with Thierry Butson and Ralph Kelliners. And Thierry will qualify. He will start the race. You'll be second. Ralph will be there. And that was it. It was like super clear from the December, the year before, how the race was going to progress. and the Toyota was quick that year because we were battling out in 98 between Porsche and Toyota for winning the 24 hours and so I thought yep pretty good place to go but at that time I didn't even know they were looking at Formula One and so at the end of it one week after the race my contract with Toyota finished I continued with Porsche developing a car for the 2000 season which ultimately was a stillborn car they tested it once and never raced and uh at the end of the year ov is fact it was in 2000 january 2000 ov phoned up and said are you interested in formula one and so i flew to cologne sat down with him and he explained about the formula one project and how they wanted to do some testing preliminary testing in 2000 at the end of the year with the GT1 which was a sports car hydraulics and things like that uh just a couple of tests and then a full testing program with a complete F1 mule car in 2001 and racing in 2002 and I sort of sat there and thought biggest car manufacturer in the world they're clearly going to attack it and you know they definitely had the money to do it and so that was where I would say the first conversation was was in his office.

52:35I think it was middle of January in 2000. And then when did you first test the F1 car? The first test of the F1 car was actually, of the mule car, was at Paul Ricard after the launch. You remember the launch where they took over Ricard Circuit and Ricard was re-profiled at that time. And then that was the first test. The great and the good of Formula One were there. I remember Bernie Eccleston being at the launch. it was his track we were borrowing but i remember max mosley being there as well all all the big guns from formula one at the time were there and then in 2001 just describe the scale of what was only a test program you were going all over the world weren't you yeah we did we didn't go to all the circuits but we went to the majority of circuits there's 16 grand prix at the time you know we traveled far and wide to did european races and at certain ones like we did a full simulation in austria from arriving on the thursday to where your meetings would be track walk uh friday fp1 fp2 qualifying exactly at the times as it would go through and then the race, simulated race as well with two cars, Mika and I Mika Salo that is, so we did that there but we also went to Malaysia, did two, three days of testing, Imola quite a few Grand Prix circuits with a complete team and it was to try and build a team up as much as anything else and also to get a bit of reliability onto some of the, you know, power units one part of it but also hydraulics gearboxes and that sort of thing and then we had the first test of the actual race car very very early and that was in november of 2001 at rickhard in a very very cold 15 day i think it was test at rickhard it was insane amount of testing testing was unlimited so you just could run as much as you wanted and we were very prepared by the time we got to the first race for reliability which was probably the one asset that they had was that actually that the car was reliable from the beginning of the season i was going to say how ready were you and i remember salo that first race of 2002 mika was dicing with mark webber in the minardi yeah um how ready were we as a team not very in reality as a wider team not very when i say that being able to race a car develop that car again because you could develop it through the season in any way whatsoever and also then prepare and design a new car for the following season that was where i think the team struggled quite a bit was taking that you know three parallel workloads on as a group as well there was a lot of inexperience in it on my side of the garage we had no one that really had experience on the engineering side or myself of racing in an f1 car and on mika's side there was mika and humphrey corbett you remember humphrey and humph and you know so therefore I would say across the board there was a lot of inexperience there and learning but actually a team that stuck together pretty well and learned and I think you know if I look back now they were a fantastic university for a lot of very good people that went on to other things in motorsport just unfortunately for Toyota it didn't work out for them you know in terms of the success that they had hoped for certainly the first year.

56:05Why didn't it work for Toyota. They had the money, they had the facilities. The wind tunnel that they built in Cologne is the one being used by the Cadillac Formula One team now. It felt like they had everything. There's a big difference between having everything and having a team. It's not an easy world, this is it. We've seen a lot of teams come and go that haven't quite had the success, but Toyota probably in terms of investment, it was the one thing that they missed off their trophy cabinet and a very tough one but they threw everything at it and probably pulled out due to the global financial crisis we have to remember when I think a lot of manufacturers had to stop their racing programs but probably stopped a little bit too early.

56:51Kamui Kobayashi came on the show a couple of years back and he said that that car at the end of 08 was actually a decent one and the car they had in the wind tunnel for 09 yeah of course was going to be mega but of course we never yeah you know was it going to beat the brawn you never know but coming back i think one thing was that you know you need to have a racing team mentality and uh that was part of the growing process i think of the team was that uh it was very structured and maybe ovi had that racing team mentality but when he um stepped aside slowed down retired then uh it became quite formal I think there which then lost a little bit of that sort of drive that it had I think it came back a little bit later on in the process but certainly in the first two or three years 2002 three four it didn't have that how do you reflect on your season 2002 frustrated yeah I can imagine frustrating frustrated you know in terms of that I look at it you know the First race, Ralph had the big flying incident at the first corner in Melbourne.

58:01So, you know, seven or eight cars out. I was in the middle of that running sixth and there was points only to sixth in Malaysia. Came in and there was a mess up at the pit stop. They took my old tires off and put them back on again. And so did the last stint with already 20 lap tires in Malaysia. But you still finished seventh, which with today's scoring system, you would have actually had four points finishes that year. with today's scoring system. Yeah, so in that respect, I think the biggest frustration for me was probably Monza, where we were running sixth or seventh at the time and the front suspension failed because of an engineering issue.

58:39And I was sitting right behind Eddie Irvine in the Jag, actually, and Eddie went on to finish third. I'm not saying I'd have finished fourth, but that one was probably the most frustrating because I knew by then that was our last real chance of points before the end of the season. And that one bit a little bit, if I'm very honest with you, because it was we're running really well around there. The car was a tricky car. It didn't really develop through the course of the season with as everybody else did, which was part of what I said to you, that one of the hurdles they found difficult was actually developing the current car whilst racing it, whilst developing the 2003 car as well.

59:23and you know that that triple line of work was an area that on the race team side of things you know was a bit frustrating as well but again i come back i learned a hell of a lot really did when i came out of it i was a much better driver much stronger in my mentally mentally because you know you get beaten around a little bit there honestly and also in terms of understanding what you needed to do what i needed to do how i needed to control my environment more and then and everything I did from there, I used all of the experience of that in and out of the car, without question. And so I think as much as it was a rough ride at times, it was actually a very important ride for my career in other ways.

1:00:08Do you think you and Mika were made scapegoats for what was a disappointing season? Because Toyota took the unusual step of replacing both of you at the end of the year. Yeah, they did. scapegoats it's their prerogative teams they hire who they want to hire that's the reality I don't you know think of it in that way I put it a different way I think with what we had we did a pretty reasonable job yeah I'm sure there's areas where we could have done better but the circumstances everything else I think we did a you know pretty reasonable job and at the end they wanted to have a change and they had a change they had a change of a lot of personnel through the course of it as well.

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1:01:53you came back to formula one the following year with renault oh yeah as their what do we call were you the third driver the reserve driver well it was a different time because that was the first time when you had a third car running on fridays so it was like a friday world championship i remember seeing you and anthony davidson alex burts all the it was it was brilliant it made Friday is more interesting. I definitely tell you that. It was. That was actually a very critical point in my career because the first test I did in the Renault was in Barcelona. And my first flying lap in a new car, new team was quicker than my qualifying lap in the Toyota the year before.

1:02:32So I had 60 kilos of fuel out the pits, first line lap quicker than zero fuel qualifying laps the year before, which showed me the difference between a team that was fighting at the front and a team that was fighting, if you like. And it just reminded me, why are you here? What is the principle that you are racing? Are you racing to be competitive, to be successful and win? Or are you just racing to be in the game? And for me, it was a very clear point that if you're going to be in it, you've got to be in it with the right people and the right group to actually be successful. Otherwise, you're going to be frustrated.

1:03:06And that was a very personal thing. So I ran every Friday. and also there was a limit of 20 test days as well so we'd go testing i did all the 20 test days fernando and jarno jarno truly and fernando alonso were the two race drivers and i was reserve driver and that was the job so it was quite interesting because i did all the tire development and then on the friday at lunchtime or friday afternoon sit down pat simmons and then decide which tire we would then use for the saturday and sunday because you then had options and it was a tyre or bridged the michelin so you had options of going for different specs even on the friday for use on the saturday and so all of this it was brilliant time i've got to be honest with you and you felt properly involved i was in the race weekend completely involved in the race weekend from start to finish in a way that um i think would be very difficult now because you were actively involved on the friday you were there live making strategic decisions on some changes and developments that, you know, had a direct impact on the Saturday morning.

1:04:12So you were working with a very young Fernando Alonso and it was 2003 that he won his first race. Budapest. In Budapest, exactly. Same breath as Senna. How good is Fernando? Fernando is pretty sensational. And the thing that impressed me about Fernando was he was sitting in the Formula One car, he was in the race seat, but he was as interested what I was talking about from the Friday morning than if it had been him driving it. So he was absorbing every bit of information from everybody. It didn't matter who they were. And it was without doubt he was going to win that race in Budapest. It was pretty clear.

1:04:48The fuel load he had on, everything else, I don't think there was any question of anyone coming close to him that particular day. And ultimately, he won his first race, and it wasn't to be his last. And if there's one quality that stood out and probably still stands out today about Fernando Alonso, what would that be? For me, it's his ability just to drive a result out of something. You know, he had a very different driving technique. We talked about Senna and pumping the throttle. Fernando as well, because it was groove tyres at that time. And you had to try to balance the slip angle of the front tyre on the edge of where the grip was.

1:05:22And he would just shoot straight over the top of it. he would turn in as if he was turning 20 % more locked than anyone else and go over the edge of the tire but he had a way of understanding what the tire was delivering back to him and to keep the grip and he could just metronomically keep pushing at such a high level for such a long period of time and that sort of that ability I think was one and still is one of his strengths didn't he just have endless understeer no I did when I tried but he didn't he was able to make that style work for him other people tried it didn't quite work out for them but he was able to do it just overslipped the front quite a lot it worked very much it was a maybe a michelin thing as well if he had put on a bridgestone maybe it didn't work with that but certainly with the michelins he could get that dynamic to work and for you the renault third driver was just that one season was there talk of doing more with them yeah there was but i you know i didn't race that year and uh i wanted to get back to racing i said to you there it reminded me why are you in the sport are you in it just to be in it or are you in it to do something and i wanted to get back to racing and there was an opportunity of maybe something in f1 but it was not really going to happen in all honesty and uh dr ulrich the handshake we always kept in touch and uh he said look we've got this project coming along which was going to originally start in 2005 it was pushed to 2006 we'd like you to be involved and then I went back to Ingolstadt and my term at Audi so this is actually we've gone full circle it's gone full circle but it's 25 years since I first agreed to drive for Audi I'm back in you know for the 2000 season we're now in 2025 and so it's full circle.

1:07:12Alan, why were you such a brilliant sports car driver? Don't be modest. I think I was very lucky in my junior career. I worked with a lot of very good people. When I talk about, you know, you mentioned Ayer Senna there or Gerhard Berg or Michael Schumacher at Benetton in 93 or Fernando and Jarno at Renault later on. But as well, you know, a Ross Brawner, a Pat Simmons and people like that you drain a lot of experience out of them so i understood you had to really push to deliver the second part was i was at an era of change in sports car racing where you weren't necessarily conserving gearboxes we talked about healing and towing thankfully those days were gone of sports car racing but i think i would have got to hour one of leman as opposed to hour 24 but there the cars were much more reliable and you could push them hard for a long period of time but the other thing was I think I was good at overtaking and that comes back to when I started karting you would have like a lottery of grids for your heats and so you'd have one heat at the front one in the middle one at the back and the accumulation result of the three would give you your grid for the final so it wasn't a timed qualifying it was actually a qualifying through race results and if you weren't very good at overtaking your race at the back you would just be nowhere so you learn to overtake and I was pretty good at that and in sports car racing you've got to do a lot more overtaking than any other category and so it was one that fitted for me at the right time of experience at the right time of I would say the technical development and it fitted for my skill set of being able to sort of see through traffic.

1:08:57Alan, this reminds me of 2011. It was the first time I went to Le Mans. Oh, yeah. And I was actually very nervous for a while because you were taken out by a backmark whilst overtaking. I wouldn't say taken out by a backmark on all transparency. It was quite early on in the race and coming through Dunlop chicane down through the S's. and I'd actually just taken the lead of the race. My teammate had ran wide at Dunlop and I'd slipped past him and I was giving him a gap on the left-hand side. As I then looped into the right-hander of the S's, there was a Ferrari came in and touched and I had never seen the Ferrari at all.

1:09:39The Ferrari was completely invisible to me until, to be honest with you, until I was in the hospital and I'd asked our team doctor what had happened because I knew I'd touched something but I didn't know and gone off backwards into the barrier, big barrels roll, all the other bits and pieces, bump my head. And so I can't necessarily attribute it to being taken out. I think two cars didn't see each other and two cars don't go into one very often. But it was a big reminder that anything at Le Mans is quick. And that year we had our other sister car, Mike Rockenfeller, had a huge monster shunt as well in the middle of the night with a Ferrari in a very similar circumstance at the back of the circuit.

1:10:17But thankfully, the third car won. now let's fast forward to 2013 yeah you do a nico rosberg you win the world championship and then cool time on your career why such an abrupt ending i realized i wasn't getting any younger i realized that age was always going to slow me down i never wanted to be the weak link in a chain and i was enjoying it less and less so all of the things sort of combined i remember We raced in Spa as a pre-Lemont race, and we were leading pole position, technical issue with the floor of the car. And just with the post-race briefing, I thought, wow, I'm pushing water uphill a little bit here.

1:11:03Yeah, but don't we all have days like that at work? We do, we do. But then one Le Mans, one in Austin, which then set us up to win the world championship. And on the drive back to Houston, I was actually with a journalist on a media drive, and I was sitting in this RS5 going to a little German town that's quite near Austin for a lunch and then driving down to Houston. And I suddenly thought, no, end of the year, that's it. It was just there and then. The whole thing accumulated in my head that that was going to be it. Didn't tell anybody. Won the championship in China. Flew home. Actually flew to Paris.

1:11:41We made the film for the FIA, which was for the Grand Gala. and then I flew home, told my wife, Kelly, that that was it. She sort of looked to me and said, are you sure? And I said, yep. She said, you're not going to be staying at home, are you? That was her first comment, which was a bit worrying. I then went to Ingolstadt, spoke to Dr. Ulrich and Dieter Gass, who were running the projects at the time, and Dr. Ulrich in his way, because I'd obviously known him for a long time, put his hand on my shoulder and said, are you sure? I said, I'm sure. He said, come back in two weeks and tell me if you're sure.

1:12:17Went home, came back in two weeks, said, no, sure, that's it. And so then we had the end of Gala Awards, announced it there, and that was it, done. Sat in a racing car once since then. Can I just break this decision down? Your results in 2013 would suggest that you hadn't slowed down. You said you didn't want to be the dead weight in the car and things. There was no evidence that that was the case. No, I put so much energy into that year that I think as well, you know, you've got to remember, I'd raced for 32 years. I'd been effectively my life 365 since I was 17. I was 43. You know, my tank had run down a little bit.

1:13:00I could see the reserve light coming on in my energy levels. You know, I was never going to get any quicker. I was only going to get slower I was only going to then have to work harder and harder to achieve the same and it was never going to achieve a new goal because that year we won the World Championship we won Le Mans and also the other thing is winning the World Championship was a very personal thing because I lost that in 1985 at Le Mans as it turned out in the Karting World Championship to Andrea Gilardi second was Michael Schumacher and I should have won that day And I was so bitterly disappointed with that, that I didn't make the jump into the first corner and lead into the first corner.

1:13:41I was pushed into third at the first corner. That when we won the championship, then that was the final tick in the box. And I think for me personally, then that just was the sort of full circle part of it as well. And you said that you weren't enjoying it as much. yeah what bit of being a racing driver did you enjoy the most i really enjoyed qualifying at the end because that was your ultimate just lifting the car up and getting maximum out of it and the other thing that i very much enjoyed was you hear that podium ceremony maybe in the background you hear the podium music they're practicing here was hearing that and it was all about winning so it wasn't about the competition it i lost the enjoyment for all of the testing i lost the enjoyment for all of the work behind the scenes you know the pushing to the absolute limits of all of those areas i lost the enjoyment of everything apart from that qualifying lap and standing on that podium and everything in between was a means to get to those points and that's where my energy level had just dropped out and it was i needed a refresh and I wasn't going to get it by doing the same thing again.

1:14:55And so I needed a next challenge and you always do that. So it was a change of the chapter of the book. And how do you enjoy being a member of the Audi Formula One team, but not as a driver? Loving it. Absolutely love it. Because as a driver, you see such a narrow view of the sport. You see such a narrow view of a team. You don't see the full structure behind it. You don't see the effort that everybody else puts into it. You don't understand the intricacies of it. Can I interrupt you there? Do you not think the good ones do see that? Not to the extent. I don't think to the extent. Michael Schumacher famously knew everyone's name.

1:15:37Yep. But I don't know if he understood what everybody did to ensure that everything was there, ready for him to deliver. And it's the depth of work behind it. And it's amazing to just see the different departments all coming together and how this machine to end up with two cars to race on a Sunday afternoon. Everything has to be perfect from start to finish. The lead times, the process, all of the people pulling together at the right time. And then to be successful at it is another step again. And that really fascinates me. I really enjoy that aspect of it. And I think as a driver as well, you do learn all of these skill sets, but in different areas.

1:16:19And then you can see how they're put into practice. And for me, it's fantastic. Well, Alan, it's brilliant to still have you around. Thank you for a wonderful, wonderful chat. I've really enjoyed it. Final one. And this is a question I'm asking everyone on the pod this year. Formula One is 75 years old this year. Can you just give us a favourite moment in the 75 year history of the sport? It doesn't have to be your career. It could be anything at all. I think there's a few. I remember standing at Strenraa Cart Circuit when Nicky Lauda won in Esterville, the world championship, and hearing it on the radio in the front of our van because it was the pre-generation of Five Live Sport.

1:17:04And hearing that, it was the first time I really picked onto it. I remember my dad winning a competition to go to the Monaco Grand Prix when Derek Daly did his flying incident at the first corner and I was actually sitting at the swimming pool complex and it was raining and drizzling in there and I just remember the excitement, noise and everything else never believing that I was ever coming back also British Grand Prix, 86, standing at Silverstone on the banking but probably personally there was first laps in the McLaren in Estoril in 1989 and the memory of it is held in the pictures my father took which was all of the grandstand because he never got the car in the shock because it was always going through and so I've got zero pictures of it but I've got beautiful memories of it you were too quick for the old man Alan thank you very much for your time thank you

1:18:09Too quick for the old man and too quick for many of his rivals in his heyday because Alan was a wonderfully fast racing driver and it seems unfair that he didn't have a long and illustrious career in Formula 1. Thanks for your time, Alan, and good luck with all things Audi in the coming years. There are exciting times ahead. Well, that's pretty much it for this episode. Thank you very much for listening. Don't forget to check out F1's other official podcast this week. F1 Nation's preview of the United States Grand Prix is out now. I'm joined by F1 TV commentator Jolian Palmer and former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley to discuss whether the rules of engagement between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris will change now McLaren have secured the Constructors' Championship.

1:18:56And the latest episode of F1 Explains is all about marshals and how they keep the drivers safe. Just search for F1 Nation and F1 Explains on your podcast app. I'll be back next week with another great guest from the world of Formula One. F1 Beyond the Grid is produced by Formula One and Audioboom Studios. Until next time, keep it flat out.

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