The Peter Attia Drive - #86 - Damon Hill： Overcoming loss, achieving success, and finding one's identity

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome to the Peter Atiyah drive. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah. The drive

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00:04:08.480 supporting us directly by signing up for a monthly subscription. My guest this week is Damon Hill.

00:04:13.880 Damon is the 1996 Formula One world champion. And even by the standards of Formula One world champions,

00:04:20.380 Damon's career was incredibly interesting and took place during a brief, but intense, tumultuous period

00:04:26.980 in Formula One. He was Ayrton Senna's teammate during the tragic year in which Senna's life was

00:04:33.740 lost. And he went on to have legendary battles with Michael Schumacher. Now you might be thinking,

00:04:38.360 if you're not a Formula One fan or a racing fan, why would you listen to this episode? Well,

00:04:42.480 I want to address that up front and say that this is really not an episode about driving. Basically

00:04:48.540 the driving, the racing, all of that is really a substrate or a vehicle through which we discuss

00:04:55.920 the journey of Damon's life, which was given a tragic jolt when he was 15 years old and his

00:05:02.240 father, the legendary Graham Hill, two-time Formula One world champion died in a plane crash that he was

00:05:09.080 flying. And I think it becomes very clear when you read Damon's incredible autobiography,

00:05:15.480 Watching the Wheels, which I can't recommend highly enough, how much of an impact that had on Damon,

00:05:21.140 something that to this day, it's clear has still shaped and forged so much of who he is.

00:05:27.440 He's very open in this biography about his depression. And it was when I read his book for

00:05:32.640 the first time about a year ago that I realized I just had to interview Damon. And this interview did

00:05:38.180 not disappoint. He was incredibly open, incredibly forthright about the struggles that he has had,

00:05:43.720 the inadequacies that he has felt and the journey that he's been on to basically break the cycle

00:05:50.560 that he felt he would have passed on to his kids had he not figured this out. Of course,

00:05:55.720 we do talk quite a bit about racing and we go into great detail. And I think that in many ways,

00:06:00.260 Damon's account of what happened that tragic day on May 1st, 1994, when Ayrton Senna died at Imola

00:06:06.420 is probably the best account you will ever read. In fact, I make the point to Damon that

00:06:11.600 it's really his book and his account of it that probably changed my mind about the events of that

00:06:17.260 day. I could go on much longer about what we discuss in this episode, but I think this is one

00:06:21.760 of those ones where you just have to sort of take my word for it and listen to it. Again, if you're

00:06:25.840 not a racing fan, I don't think it matters. This is really not a racing story. It's a human story

00:06:30.600 that's cloaked in a racing story. And of course, if you have any interest in motorsport, especially F1,

00:06:37.100 I think the nuance and detail of his career will be illuminating. So without further delay,

00:06:44.680 please enjoy my conversation with Damon Hill.

00:06:50.300 Damon, thank you so much for making time on what is obviously a very busy weekend for you.

00:06:56.360 It's not as busy. I'm not actually working for Sky, which is my usual job. So I would have to be

00:07:01.380 normally in quite early, but I'm working for F1 on a promotional basis. So I get a little bit of extra

00:07:06.800 leeway. But even so, you hit the ground running when you're in Formula One. I've just come from a

00:07:12.920 promotional event for Formula One. And then journalists want to talk to me because there's

00:07:17.600 Lewis is probably going to stitch up his sixth world title. So they want to know what other world

00:07:24.880 champions think of Lewis's performance. So you have quite a few other various things you get involved

00:07:30.420 with. Well, I'm going to resist every urge to go down that path, which I would love to go down and

00:07:36.120 talk about all the nuances of the current day, the grid versus your air and stuff. But we'll get to

00:07:41.880 that in time. I honestly just want to start by saying something, which is your book is incredible

00:07:46.360 and I can't recommend it highly enough to everyone. So your autobiography, Watching Wheels, which came

00:07:51.360 out three years ago, is kind of one of these books that's sort of about racing, but sort of not.

00:07:57.240 First of all, thank you very much for saying that about the book. I'm very pleased I wrote it and

00:08:01.500 I'm pleased because it's reached people who have experienced, maybe they've been experiencing

00:08:09.380 depression in some way, or they've had some difficulty in their life. And I just wanted to make

00:08:15.320 it clear that, you know, it's never plain sailing. If you achieve success in sport or achieve success

00:08:23.400 in the world, a lot of people like to gloss over the difficult bits. And I just, and I didn't want to

00:08:29.040 make it sound like it was harder than it was to race, but I couldn't ignore the fact that I'd been

00:08:34.840 through an experience and part and parcel of my experience as a racing driver was wrapped up with

00:08:41.000 my emotional life and having to dealt with the fact that my dad was a racing driver and then he died

00:08:49.220 when I was 15 and then I became a racing driver. And it seemed to me very muddled up. So I couldn't just

00:08:55.020 sit down and write a book about how I became a world champion because actually where does the

00:08:58.360 motivation for that come from and how do you differentiate that between my motivation and my

00:09:04.860 dad's motivation and how much of it was to do with wanting to do something for the family name and how

00:09:10.200 much of it is purely yourself. So how the hell do you untangle this stuff? And I think a lot of people

00:09:16.060 also go through these questions. It's a normal thing to do.

00:09:20.860 It is really not so much that you're a formula one world champion. In fact,

00:09:26.380 that is a very small chapter of a book of a long book. It's about a 360 page book.

00:09:32.000 And there is literally one chapter devoted to the 1996 season. What's amazing to me is the sort of

00:09:39.100 the degree of introspection that comes into this level of examination and the things that you tie back

00:09:45.620 and forth and back and forth, which hopefully as we get into this discussion, I'll remember some of

00:09:49.920 those things, but it would be hard for people listening to this who don't know much about you

00:09:55.100 to go anywhere to begin other than to start with November, 1975. I'll give a little bit of

00:10:02.800 background just for folks, but only for the sake of time. But I'd like you to spend as much time as

00:10:07.260 possible explaining your father's a legend. I remember when I was watching old formula one videos

00:10:13.360 with my wife and the first time she saw Graham Hill, she was sort of like, wow, that's like a

00:10:21.480 really good looking movie star. And I said, yeah, yeah, he looks like a movie star, but you realize

00:10:26.880 like he's a formula one driver. In fact, he's the only person to have won the triple crown of motor

00:10:32.620 racing, which of course prompts the, what is that? You know, then I get to explain there's two ways you

00:10:37.740 could technically win this and he won it both ways. Maybe just tell people a little bit about who your

00:10:42.400 dad was and why he was so significant to the sport of motor racing. Well, he was, as you say, in the

00:10:48.320 sport, a legend achievements wise, but I think also charismatically and also in terms of being playing up

00:10:57.260 to the role of how the public expected him to be and reveling also in being that person. I think he

00:11:04.880 got to know himself because curiously, when my mom first met him, she said he was very quiet and very

00:11:11.960 shy and not the person that we got, we got to know eventually as a star of the sport. And also someone

00:11:18.660 who was very well known as a great raconteur, a great after dinner speaker, someone who dressed

00:11:25.460 impeccably, he had all his shirts made in Savile Row and his ties. And he was like, not a hair out of

00:11:31.340 place, the mustache, the side, I mean, just. I'm the mustache, right? The mustache or mustache,

00:11:37.920 various ways of pronouncing it, depending where you come from. But he would, yeah, trim it in the,

00:11:43.540 you know, to, you know, millimeter perfect. And that was his trademark because in the, in the early

00:11:49.520 days they didn't have a closed face crash helmet. So you could see the guy's face and there, there it

00:11:53.820 was this guy with a, you know, the wacky races, you got Dick Darsidly and you got, you know, all the

00:11:59.620 stereotypes of that type, you know, you have David Niven was very suave with a pencil mustache

00:12:06.600 and they'll say you got Errol Flynn. And so he was kind of in this mold, if you like. I don't know

00:12:12.140 whether he was trying to be that person, but he certainly, he didn't have to pretend to be anyone

00:12:18.560 else. He, he had the attributes to be that person. And I think he loved, he loved being that person.

00:12:23.800 And so he created interest in himself as a person out of the track. And I think he was

00:12:30.080 a lover of life. He loved meeting people. He loved communicating and he loved finding out about

00:12:36.120 everything, every aspect of life in every different strata society. And yeah, he went at it in 100%.

00:12:43.720 What is your earliest memory of him? So you were born in 61, 60, September 60.

00:12:51.080 He won his first formula one title in 62. If I'm not mistaken, there are lots of pictures of you as a

00:12:57.020 kid around. I don't remember that. Yeah, of course. Like, but the legends of the sport, right? I mean,

00:13:02.620 so that if you go on Google and you go Damon Hill and there's a photograph up there at my christening

00:13:08.700 with Bruce McLaren, Sterling Moss, my godfather, Joe Bonnier, Taffy Von Tripps is there. My dad's

00:13:16.540 there. Tony Brooks is there. It all came to my christening. So I grew up, I grew up in that,

00:13:22.220 that was his world. And when do I remember that? What was the first thing I remember? It's very,

00:13:27.680 very difficult to pinpoint it. I can't because I would have been taken as a very young child to race

00:13:33.120 events. And I probably didn't even, didn't even know what was going on. I probably heard the noise and

00:13:37.520 that's about it. But I think it becomes apparent when you go to school, when you go for the first

00:13:43.680 time, you, you meet kids who have heard of your dad and you haven't in a way, you know, you kind

00:13:51.020 of, it's just dad who you're talking about. And then you become, yeah. And actually the teachers

00:13:56.940 are very conscious. So I think you pick that up, that there's something unusual about your dad.

00:14:01.620 And then you start to look at the world for a different prison.

00:14:06.060 By the way, it was Jim Clark in that photo.

00:14:08.780 Oh, was it? Yes.

00:14:09.540 Yes. How could we have forgotten Jim Clark?

00:14:11.560 I don't know how I did.

00:14:12.840 Shame on us.

00:14:13.600 He was me.

00:14:14.080 Yeah. Which speaks to another interesting point of your dad's era, which is how many of those guys

00:14:20.780 died in a car? And I think I've talked about this before on the podcast, probably my favorite

00:14:25.680 documentary on all of F1 is called One. I think it was, came out about five or six years ago.

00:14:31.720 Yeah. I remember that one.

00:14:32.740 It is just such a beautiful depiction of those transitions in that era that your father lived

00:14:41.360 through, that Jackie Stewart lived through, that these guys lived through. It is kind of a miracle

00:14:45.280 that they came out alive.

00:14:46.820 It is. Statistically, I think they knew that they had, there were 26 drivers in those days on the grid.

00:14:52.860 Some years it wasn't unusual for them to lose two, and that's like 12 to one chance of surviving.

00:14:59.680 And then you start stacking that year on year.

00:15:01.660 Year on year. I mean, when my dad did Indianapolis in 1966, two years before that, two guys were

00:15:08.740 killed in the race and they carried on racing. It was in 1964. It's just terrific. And he just,

00:15:14.280 you know, so two years later, he's doing the race. I mean, so he would have known the history of

00:15:18.640 the race and he had got that. He wasn't going to be cowed attitude. I think that they had,

00:15:26.140 I sort of put forward the theory and I don't think it's anything, it's not my personal theory,

00:15:31.140 but I think it's quite well understood that if you were born during the war era and you grew up

00:15:37.000 during the war era, my dad would have just missed active service. He'd had to do national service

00:15:41.340 after you left school. But you would have grown up knowing that guys just a bit older than you

00:15:46.260 would have been flying Spitfires or bombers or going, going, fighting the Germans and risking

00:15:50.120 their lives for everything. And you wouldn't, people were not expected to make a big deal of that.

00:15:56.100 So driving a racing car was seen as jolly japes, you know, seen as a, in a lot of fun and you got

00:16:02.240 paid and you could get killed, but you know, it's better than having to go and get shot at with

00:16:07.880 ACAC guns. It was such a different era. And I was actually for totally unrelated reasons talking

00:16:13.840 with my driving coach today about something. And I mentioned that I was going to be speaking with

00:16:17.760 you today. And he said, you know, I wonder what his thoughts are on the following. So he was telling

00:16:23.860 me about how, when he was doing 24 hours at Daytona a few years ago, during the race prep,

00:16:29.580 one of the organizers said to all the drivers, he said, look guys, you all are young enough that you

00:16:34.580 don't know what it was like when your probability of dying here was very high, but I want you to

00:16:40.880 pretend for a moment that it is that dangerous and act accordingly to the other drivers. And,

00:16:46.060 and what he was really getting at was in the era that your father raced in,

00:16:51.160 there was a bit more of a gentlemanly approach to racing.

00:16:54.740 Well, I think it was, you could describe it as, I think there was a respect for the other

00:17:00.200 competitor because you knew that person was prepared to take the chance of being a racing

00:17:05.800 driver and accept the risks that ensued, but I didn't mean they liked it at all. It was awful

00:17:11.780 for them. It was, it was dreadful. And I think Jackie Stewart made it very clear in his book that

00:17:16.960 going to a guy's funeral and seeing the family every other week or whatever, twice a year, or,

00:17:23.160 you know, guys you race against, they must've felt slightly responsible themselves. So I think

00:17:29.200 the gentleman thing was, is more appreciation that they didn't want to be the guy responsible for

00:17:35.440 losing someone else's life. And I think that is, that was quite strong in their, in their day.

00:17:40.080 It's interesting. You bring up Jackie Stewart, of course, who retired after 99, not 100 Grand Prixs,

00:17:46.160 even though he had one more in a season. And he sat that out after severe died, his teammate.

00:17:52.220 That's interesting. Cause it'll kind of come back to your retirement in a way, which was drawing a

00:17:57.080 line in the sand and saying at this moment, I don't have the desire to do this anymore.

00:18:01.540 Even though you guys were separated by, by decades, it's still interesting to me.

00:18:05.260 It still was dangerous when I was doing it. Don't forget, you know, it was only a few years

00:18:08.740 after Ayrton was killed that I was still racing. So I think the risk factor, you are rolling the dice.

00:18:17.280 You know that the more times you do this, the chances of something going wrong increase. And

00:18:23.000 the comparison has often been drawn to, to gamblers. But of course, when you're gambling,

00:18:29.580 you lose money. You don't necessarily get paralyzed or killed or burned to death.

00:18:35.460 I am interested in this issue of humans being able to put danger to the back of their mind.

00:18:43.840 And we recently watched the amazing El Capitan film Free Solo. I mean, it's uncomfortable to watch

00:18:51.740 in the documentary that anyone hasn't seen it. They have to see it because it's, and I forget the

00:18:57.920 guy's name, terrible remembering names, but this very interesting character who pulls it off. He

00:19:04.460 is described and just sort of described himself as a bit of an oddball. They go into his background,

00:19:10.300 his family upbringing and reasons why he might have had a difficult upbringing. And maybe was,

00:19:17.120 was that a reason for him taking these risks in an, in an effort to identify himself or impress his

00:19:25.400 mother or show off in some way? Or what is it? What was the motivation for doing this incredibly

00:19:32.960 dangerous thing? But whatever way you cut it, he managed to put fear in the back of his mind. You

00:19:38.300 could not have done what he did without being able to go, okay, I'm going to put the palpable,

00:19:44.300 tangible, tangible fear. We, we all could identify watching this documentary, this guy clinging to

00:19:51.160 the side of a rock with nothing to help me. It's just terrifying to watch it, but he managed to do

00:19:55.820 it. But sort of you and sort of all the drivers of your, but let's think about this. Let's think

00:19:59.560 about Imola in 94 and let's not even think about Imola. Let's think about Monaco, the next race.

00:20:05.640 I mean, it had been 12 years since Phil Neve died. And then in one weekend, you see three of the most

00:20:13.640 devastating things. It's only a miracle Ruben didn't die, right? But Ratzenberger dies, Senna dies

00:20:19.800 in your car. And then Monaco and Wendlinger. Yeah, exactly. So it's impossible to say that you

00:20:26.480 were getting in a car thinking you're, I mean, you're immune to that. I mean, this is about as

00:20:29.880 dangerous a time as ever to be an F1. Yeah, it was, there was a frequently high incidence of

00:20:37.060 accidents that meant the driver got hurt. So it suddenly was raining. I think Nicky Lauder

00:20:43.800 described it perfectly. He said, you know, that God had had his hand on F1 for all this time and

00:20:47.880 now he just took it off, you know? And that seemed to be what it was. It was like, okay, brakes are off

00:20:51.860 guys. You know, you've had a good run and now we need to rebalance the odds. And it was just

00:20:56.940 happening one weekend after the other, even in testing as well. And, you know, you had people

00:21:02.120 like Pedro Lamy's accident and actually before that, even Johnny Herbert was really killed and

00:21:07.500 Martin Donnelly, who was my teammate in former three, and then he got killed at, you know, in

00:21:12.500 Jerez. And so. So did you, I mean, when you were in that car, were you, what were you blocking out of

00:21:17.940 your mind? The possibility that it would be me, I guess. I don't know. You just, you know,

00:21:24.060 it's there, but it makes you concentrate better. So if something goes wrong with the car, there's

00:21:30.080 nothing you can do about that. But if you make an error, then you pay the price and that's

00:21:36.200 your fault. So, you know, you do concentrate a lot harder when you know that the risk of injury is

00:21:44.200 great. Well, before we come back to that, let's go and finish the story again for folks who aren't

00:21:48.540 familiar with, with your father, it all changes November of 1975, November 29th. If I recall the

00:21:56.880 date, I think the way you describe it in the book is really, really difficult to read truthfully

00:22:02.880 because you don't gloss over the little details of the night. You're watching TV with your sister.

00:22:10.160 your mom is in the other room and you hear something on the TV. Yeah. And I think what

00:22:19.380 it, what it tells me and what I'm hopefully I'm telling also connecting with other people

00:22:25.020 who've had similar experiences, you know, we don't get over things like that. It's the worst

00:22:30.260 thing that you can imagine happening. I'd like to think that, you know, I think a lot of therapy

00:22:34.100 is about people getting over those experiences, but I don't think you can possibly ever unremember

00:22:40.980 the emotions. What you can do is you can recognize that those emotions had a relevance there and then

00:22:50.180 at that time. And if you've locked them away and haven't revisited them and kind of exercised them,

00:22:57.840 then they come back to you in other situations when you're not conscious of why you're feeling

00:23:05.000 those, those emotions at that time. So they can be reduced in that way. But if I want to go back

00:23:12.960 to that moment right now, I will get the same sensations that I had back then. And I don't

00:23:18.340 want to put you through that. I can feel it in reading the words, let alone hearing you say them.

00:23:23.040 But for folks listening, I mean, you know, your father was in a plane crash and one of the things

00:23:28.920 that stood out in reading it was how vividly you remember your mom screaming. That strikes me as

00:23:34.620 like incredibly palpable. Everything that you just said a moment ago about the challenge in processing

00:23:40.600 that and all those things, how old were you when you finally realized that was the case?

00:23:45.600 That those are unresolved issues that can't just be forgotten.

00:23:49.120 Yeah. I think not until I stopped a couple of years after I stopped racing, I think.

00:23:54.960 But it's one of the issues, as I just mentioned before, is that your mind, you know, who am I?

00:24:01.520 Am I different to my dad? Because if I'm different to my dad, I have to live longer than him.

00:24:06.240 And I was 42 and he died when he was 46.

00:24:09.600 Yeah.

00:24:10.040 So there's anxiety, creeping anxiety that comes with this, you know, you're following a pattern

00:24:18.340 and you don't want to follow a pattern because it's a bad pattern to get into. So you have to

00:24:22.460 differentiate that. You have to change course somewhere. That was one of the big pressures

00:24:27.220 for me as a driver was I had a family. I didn't want to put them through what our family had gone

00:24:32.860 through.

00:24:33.320 You talk about that on a couple of occasions in the book, which was, and I don't know if it was

00:24:38.240 deliberate, but you keep making the point. You weren't afraid of dying for the sake of

00:24:42.740 your life, but you were very afraid of it for what they would go through because obviously

00:24:47.840 you'd experienced it.

00:24:49.060 Yeah. I think I would, I mean, if it would be at all possible to be angry with oneself,

00:24:53.740 if one had died, you know, you don't want to be, yeah, you don't want to do that. But at the same

00:25:01.920 time in humans, in all kinds of situations, whether they're in the military or they are in

00:25:08.400 the emergency services or they do some other job that we as adults put ourselves in the firing line

00:25:15.740 somewhere at some point and our children that maybe are too young to appreciate that. But when

00:25:20.440 they become older, they'll, they will also see that. Um, there is a, we can't go through life

00:25:27.580 in cotton wool. You know, we, we have things we have to do as humans to fulfill ourselves.

00:25:34.020 I would hope that by taking chances, I mean, when I say taking chances, I mean, calculated chances that,

00:25:40.880 that have a benefit somewhere, somehow that my children would also not be afraid of doing those

00:25:47.580 things.

00:25:48.680 So speaking of fear, I can't imagine what it's like for your mom to lose her husband when she

00:25:53.760 has three young kids, teenagers, I guess. Yeah. Your sisters would have been teenagers as well at

00:25:58.520 the time, right?

00:25:59.540 Yeah. My eldest sister was 16, but my younger sister was only about 11.

00:26:05.240 And you're already at this point into motorcycles.

00:26:08.060 Yep. For fun riding in, in, in the fields and in the woods on, on small motorbikes and off road

00:26:14.460 bikes. I hadn't got a road license then. So it's kind of amazing to me that you didn't have a

00:26:21.120 karting background. You were by your own admission, very late to auto racing that you could be as

00:26:29.120 successful as you've gone on to be. I think just to sort of move the story along a little bit,

00:26:35.420 let's go to when you decide you want to be an auto racer.

00:26:40.200 Well, I wanted to race bikes from quite a young age. I was impressed, but a friend of mine, when

00:26:47.200 my dad died, a friend of my dad's who was, um, Peter Gethin actually was a, he was a, he actually

00:26:54.580 raced for my dad, but he was a Formula One driver. And he took me and a friend of mine down to

00:27:00.920 Brands Hatch not long after my dad had died, just because he knew I liked motorcycle racing. He said,

00:27:05.660 why don't you come and have a look at these bikes going around Brands Hatch? And I'd never seen

00:27:08.860 anything like it in my life, you know, and I've been to so many Formula One races, literally sitting

00:27:13.220 there yawning as, you know, Jim, the Jackers, Jackie Stewart goes and wins another race. You

00:27:18.980 know, it was like, he used to go past, he used to go and spend our, any of our summer holidays,

00:27:23.820 we'd go to Monza and we'd be parked up in some grandstand somewhere. My dad went and raced and,

00:27:30.260 uh, we'd literally sit there and Jackie Stewart would go past. And then about half a minute later,

00:27:34.720 everyone else would go past and it would go on for two hours and you were going, you know,

00:27:40.560 it wasn't, didn't do it for me. Is that because the driver isn't using his body in a car the way

00:27:46.920 he's using his body on a motorcycle? I really, I think that's a big part of it. I think I,

00:27:52.080 as I mentioned before, I kind of like sports where I, you're the projectile. I'm the projectile,

00:27:57.500 but I'm also the, the acrobat, you know, and I think that it's very difficult to see that in car

00:28:01.680 racing. And I think that's one of our big problems with, with why, you know, with people

00:28:06.460 appreciating the current crop of Formula One drivers, they might appreciate it when they're

00:28:10.720 watching the race in the wet. And, you know, sometimes you can see the speed and sometimes

00:28:14.780 you can see their reactions, but not nearly as clearly as you can when you watch a skier or you

00:28:19.340 watch a surfer or you watch a guy on a MotoGP bike, it's abundantly clear that they are controlling

00:28:25.640 the vehicle. And I think that happened to me. So I went to bike race and I saw these bikes go past

00:28:31.420 and I just couldn't believe there was a guy sitting on the bike doing that sort of speed

00:28:34.960 into, and having ridden a bike myself, I just thought, Ooh, me do that. You know, it was one

00:28:39.460 of those dumb moments. You just, you can't think straight, but you just, you just like the smell

00:28:44.460 of the bikes, you like the noise of the engines, you like the whole thing. So that was my ambition

00:28:48.540 to go bike racing. And my mom, I was just about to say, what was your mom's reaction? Well, can you

00:28:54.460 imagine? I mean, to me, it seemed like a long time ago, but actually it was only three years

00:28:58.900 or four years ago since my dad died, which is nothing in terms of those things. So I

00:29:04.660 go, mom, do you mind if I, you know, race bikes and to her eternal credit and bless her, you

00:29:11.640 know, she recognized the situation, which was that my dad had raced. How could she deny me

00:29:18.060 her own son, the opportunity of doing something that, and she had admired my dad for his bravery

00:29:25.900 and skill as a racing driver as well. So here was her son only a few years after the tragedy

00:29:31.660 coming and saying, do you mind if I have a go out racing bikes? And she said, I don't

00:29:35.200 mind. I think she took a deep breath, but she said, I don't mind you doing it, but as long

00:29:40.020 as you do it properly, I don't know what that means. I mean, what does it mean? Go as fast

00:29:45.020 as you can. I would just interpret it as don't get hurt, but yeah, I think that's, but she knew

00:29:51.760 there was no way you can stop guys and girls from doing these things. So she let me do it. And I mean,

00:29:58.820 she never said, no, you're not doing it, which is not the case with some drivers and Jackie Stewart

00:30:03.400 being one, his mother never spoke to him because he raced behind her back. She, she told him you're not

00:30:09.080 to go racing and he did. And then when he retired, he phoned her and said, I'm for retired. And she

00:30:14.000 said, you're best off out of it. That was the end of that. She didn't actually ever say a well done

00:30:18.120 on winning three world championships. As far as I know, she just was a bit still cross with him for

00:30:23.920 Wow. So how did you make the transition from racing motorcycles to racing cars? And given the fact

00:30:30.120 that you didn't have this long lineage of carding that most of your peers had, do you still think

00:30:36.020 there's something about the motorcycle that gave you an advantage that they were missing?

00:30:39.080 No, I would have been much better if I'd done karting. I mean, that would be the right

00:30:43.120 route to take. I had to unlearn stuff and then had to, I think particularly you learn stuff in

00:30:49.620 karting about racing, which I had not learned cart before we were racing and the tactics they

00:30:55.860 employ. And I'm thinking clearly that someone like Michael Schumacher and people like Johnny

00:31:01.200 Herbert, they were used to these guys putting their cart inside the inside and, you know, chopping

00:31:07.220 you up and all that stuff in bike racing. You don't, they don't do that. They do it a bit

00:31:10.860 more now, but in my day, they didn't do that sort of thing because you'd go down, both go

00:31:16.020 down, you know? So it wasn't quite the same argy bargy in, in bike racing. It was more of

00:31:21.200 a clean pass each time, but.

00:31:23.320 So why did you decide to make that transition?

00:31:24.920 Well, um, I enjoyed bike racing. I'd done okay, but I'd had a bit of a, I didn't really

00:31:32.140 pick it up properly. And then I, then I had to go back to the beginning and start racing

00:31:37.600 at club racing. And I thought, well, I still love doing it. So I was basically failing.

00:31:41.520 I'd bitten off more than I could chew and I wasn't making any progress. So I had to decide

00:31:47.080 whether I stopped or whether I carried on. And I thought, well, I'm going to do it because

00:31:49.760 I enjoy it. So I literally bought a bike, ran it myself on my own budget and went to

00:31:54.460 Browns Hatch and I started winning things. And about the same time that this is happening.

00:31:58.700 So this is about 1980 or early?

00:32:00.480 84.

00:32:01.540 Okay.

00:32:02.240 I started winning these bike races and then somebody at about the same time had said,

00:32:06.700 cause they knew I'd race bikes and I don't think my mom, my mom must have said, well,

00:32:10.700 he's not doing very well and it's not, it's not really happening. And they said, well, you

00:32:14.120 should get him to have a go in a car. So she says to me one day, a friend of mine

00:32:18.880 said, you can have a go at his car. He runs a race school in France. It's called

00:32:22.360 the Winfield school and his name was Mike Knight and he'd offered you a go. And I

00:32:29.160 said, well, I'm not, I haven't got the money to do it and I'm not spending any

00:32:32.760 money I spend on my bikes to do it. She says, don't worry, they'll, they'll, you

00:32:36.500 know, let you have a go for nothing. So I thought, well, if someone's going to let

00:32:39.280 me drive their car for nothing and I'm going to go for a weekend in France for just

00:32:43.120 for a bit of laugh, then I'll do it. So I turned up absolutely no idea, no real

00:32:48.860 interest or plan to do it. I just did it for the, for the crack as the Irish say.

00:32:53.880 And, um, I did quite well.

00:32:56.420 What kind of car?

00:32:57.220 It was a Formula Renault.

00:32:58.420 2000?

00:32:59.140 Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And a school car, it's the same school that

00:33:03.520 Prast and Tambay and all the French drivers Lafitte had been to. And one of the

00:33:07.920 things they had, which was well sort of attractive to me was fully paid. If you

00:33:13.100 did well, if you won the school scholarship, you get sponsored to, to compete in

00:33:17.260 France in a championship and they'd pay for it. Renault Elf would pay for it. And

00:33:21.780 I was absolutely rubbish. I'm not a commercial person. I was absolutely

00:33:24.880 hopeless at getting sponsorships. So I was always short of cash. And, um, so I

00:33:29.040 want to talk about Sega later on 10 years.

00:33:31.880 Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

00:33:32.760 We'll come back.

00:33:33.360 We'll get there. So I literally, it was a pragmatic decision. I just thought, well,

00:33:37.600 this is, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The car racing, the bike racing

00:33:40.960 thing is struggling. But just at that time, I started winning everything on bikes. I

00:33:45.260 started to, I found the knack and just recently a friend of mine gave me some DVD that someone

00:33:51.480 had put together of some sad person that stood by the side of the track at Brands Hatch and

00:33:56.020 videotaped everything. In those days, it was a video camera and they put together a DVD

00:34:01.540 and I was watching myself before I came out here, actually, of my bike racing. I'd never

00:34:05.740 even seen it before. And I look quite good on a bike and I was, and I won everything.

00:34:11.020 I literally won everything I did that season, but it happened just at the time that the car

00:34:16.400 racing thing was starting to take off. So I had to make a decision at the end. Okay. Okay. Am I

00:34:20.300 going to really seriously be able to do this as a career for bike racing or what am I going to?

00:34:25.360 What were the economics of motorcycle racing at that time?

00:34:28.220 I could do a season, you know, for a couple of grand on my bike.

00:34:31.640 What could you make? Could you support yourself?

00:34:33.880 No, I wouldn't win anything. No, I mean, if I went to national level, you could, you know,

00:34:37.740 I think some of the races that had 10,000 pounds prize money or something, but it was that or Grand

00:34:42.940 Prix racing. And the only real guy who made any money was Barry Sheen. You know, there was just

00:34:46.900 very few people really earning a living. If you wanted to go and do the Isle of Man and risk your

00:34:51.540 life and you could earn a bit more money, but it seemed to be a poor equation. I'm just going to

00:34:56.920 pause for a moment for the listener in the show notes. We are absolutely at this moment going to

00:35:02.000 link to the Isle of Man TT. If you have any interest in understanding what we're talking about,

00:35:06.640 you must watch this, or you can just go to YouTube and search Isle of Man TT, as in time trial.

00:35:14.200 And you're going to watch something that you will think is being played in fast forward.

00:35:19.940 It is not. And Damon, I still don't know who has it more dangerous there, the spectator or the guy

00:35:27.020 on the motorcycle. It is the craziest thing I've ever seen yet. I can't stop watching it.

00:35:32.480 Yeah, I think a lot of people feel that about it. I think they feel they have mixed emotions. I've

00:35:37.140 been there to watch. I haven't been to the main event, but I've been to the classic TV TT and they

00:35:41.740 have guys going just as fast and you have mixed emotions about it. You're watching these people.

00:35:46.260 Oh no, please don't do that. You know, because it looks so dangerous, but it also is awesomely

00:35:51.800 impressive. And I've been around the Isle of Man on a bike myself and I've gone, Ooh, this is,

00:35:55.960 this is kind of, there's a kind of spooky thing drawing you on to go faster. It's very seductive

00:36:02.860 racetrack.

00:36:04.440 Was there any point in here, Damon, as you're wrestling with this, to be the motorcycle guy,

00:36:09.940 to be the car guy, was anything in the back of your mind coming through the lens of your father

00:36:15.060 and wanting to either emulate him or go in an orthogonal direction to him? Was that at all

00:36:21.360 part of your conscious mind, at least?

00:36:22.860 I think there's something fundamentally genetically, there must be something in the genes to make you

00:36:29.240 want to do this thing, which he must have had because he talks about the first time he ever

00:36:34.360 drove a racing car and he knew immediately, he calls it a light bulb moment, you know,

00:36:38.040 it was just, he knew immediately he wanted to do that. And that was the first time I got on a

00:36:41.080 motorbike. I turned the twist grip and it was like a part of my brain just lit up. And my grandma

00:36:47.160 rode a motorbike. My granddad never even drove a car. So my dad's dad never even drove a car.

00:36:54.100 So where did he get it from? Well, he must've got it from his, from his mom, from his mom. And

00:36:59.880 they now with epigenetics and so forth, they can kind of show that patterns of experiences seem to

00:37:07.580 be passed through the genes. So it's quite possible that something came through that side.

00:37:11.160 But for whatever reason, I had instinctively got what it took clearly to drive a car or race a bike.

00:37:20.900 But the motivation to do it, I think was also to get to know my dad in the way, in the sense I was

00:37:26.680 doing something that he did. And then you have some way of relating to him, even though he wasn't

00:37:32.360 there, but was he ever not there? Is he still here now? I mean, we started off talking about my dad,

00:37:39.160 you know, you're evoking his image, you're evoking his character. He's not, even when I just went like

00:37:45.960 that, just then that sounded like my dad. That was really, you know, it's a, it's a very hard thing

00:37:51.280 to differentiate yourself from your parents. And I don't necessarily believe that it's possible to be

00:37:59.600 a completely an individual. I think consciously you can say, okay, this is what I want to do.

00:38:05.160 So I'm doing something different to the way my parents, I know they would disapprove of that,

00:38:10.600 or that's not their thing, but I like it. So that's a differentiation. That's a, that's a

00:38:16.580 genuine thing, but they're still there, aren't they? Influencing somehow, somewhere.

00:38:21.640 It's interesting that you say that. I still think this idea that driving to get to know him

00:38:26.920 is kind of a, it's one thing to reflect on that. I just wonder if at the time you could have even

00:38:31.980 consciously articulated that, or if that's just part of this incredible journey of introspection

00:38:37.740 that you've been on through your career, but especially afterwards.

00:38:41.960 Yeah. There were some parallels that have been drawn. I think I might've drawn them in the book,

00:38:45.900 which is that when my dad was racing, he lost his teammate, Jim Clark, and then he went on to

00:38:51.980 become world champion in the 68. And so in some senses, you know, my experience with being teammates

00:38:58.100 to Ayrton, and then you lose your teammate. And then the team is kind of looking for a new direction

00:39:04.900 and you kind of carry the banner. You, you pick up the banner and try and try and get back to what

00:39:10.380 we were there to do in the first place, which was win. I feel like I've been through similar

00:39:15.860 experiences, but my dad was, you know, had extraordinary ability to cope with tragedy. He,

00:39:21.080 he actually organized the race team when they were at Hockenheim with Jim Clark, when he died and

00:39:27.440 the guys didn't really know what to do. And he got it all together and helped them. And I heard

00:39:32.800 recently, um, Emerson Vittipaldi talking about how he had an accident once. And my dad was there with

00:39:37.400 Joe Ramirez organizing his extraction from the car. And my dad was a very practical and, you know,

00:39:46.040 in that way, courageous person. I'm exposed in some ways, I'm glad I didn't have to go through

00:39:50.880 some of the things he went through, but to be an adult, you, you ultimately have to be able to cope

00:39:56.020 with the experiences that adults deal with. You know, and that's, um, that's not always the nice stuff.

00:40:02.120 So how do you manage to get into the Williams car? I know you've, I've heard the story before.

00:40:07.940 It's pretty funny how I think Martin Brundle was probably ahead of you in line to at least get the

00:40:14.600 test spot, right? Yeah. And then did, did he go and take the spot at McLaren or what?

00:40:18.900 There's two drivers, very similar names, Mark Blundell, who was the test driver.

00:40:22.520 Oh, Blundell. That's right. That's right. And there's Martin Brundle, who was current,

00:40:25.600 he was actually actively racing, but Mark was the test driver at Williams. Then he went to McLaren.

00:40:30.060 So there was a slot available at Williams. And so I went to Williams.

00:40:34.080 And this is 92? 91, actually. So end of 90, I went, became the Williams test driver in 91.

00:40:40.640 92, I was still a test driver. Mark had moved on to McLaren and they eventually became a McLaren

00:40:46.680 driver. But when the end of 92 arrived and Nigel had left. That's right. So Nigel won in 92 and then

00:40:54.160 promptly retired to go to IndyCar. But yeah, but not till very late in the day. So Frank had let

00:41:00.200 Ricciardo Petrezzi go because he thought that he'd keep Nigel and he'd already signed Alan Prost. And when

00:41:05.560 Nigel found out that he signed Alan Prost, he said, I think he decided he was going to do IndyCar.

00:41:12.960 Was the implication that Nigel would be number two to Prost being one?

00:41:15.980 I don't think he was that. I think he'd already been with Alain in Ferrari. And I think he didn't

00:41:21.000 want to be sharing a team with Alain. So it may have been that he'd got an attractive deal from

00:41:27.080 India. I don't know. But then whichever way it happened, there was a space left at Williams that

00:41:31.080 Frank had really kind of not managed to fill because everyone else had been signed up. So

00:41:35.020 Ricciardo wanted to come back from Benetton, but they wouldn't let him go. And so I was the guy

00:41:41.200 there who knew how to drive. So this is for the 93 season. For the 93 season. And you had spent much

00:41:47.740 of the 92 season basically learning the ropes on this active suspension car. Let's pause for a moment

00:41:53.360 for people who aren't steeped in Formula One to explain what a technical step forward the active

00:42:00.660 suspension car of 93 was. Some people describe that car, the FW15, as the most advanced car in the

00:42:07.300 history of Formula One for its time. Being the Senna fan that I am, I still favor the MP44 as the greatest

00:42:13.860 car of all Formula One. But the case could be made for the FW15. What does active suspension mean?

00:42:20.440 How would you explain that to somebody? Okay, so it's a ride height control. So why is ride height

00:42:28.380 important? So it's the distance the car is held off the ground. Lower center gravity is a good thing.

00:42:34.560 If you're very high off the ground, then you get a lot of roll moment on the suspension, which the

00:42:39.420 drivers don't like. You can't change direction that quickly. But the main reason is aerodynamic.

00:42:44.520 So they found, just after they banned tunnels and ground effect cars, they went to flat bottom

00:42:50.280 cars which they thought would eradicate the dangers of having too much downforce on the car. But what

00:42:56.640 the engineers did eventually was, sure enough, they found a way of making the flat bottom of the car

00:43:01.560 work to create more suck. Venturi effect. Yeah, suck onto the ground. And the closer you can get it,

00:43:09.460 and the more you can control the gap, the more effective it is. So active suspension is a clear

00:43:15.120 advantage over passive suspension for the very simple reason that when a car is loaded, it squashes

00:43:22.300 the springs and it gets closer to the ground. So it means a lot of the time the car is not at the

00:43:26.580 optimum ride height. It rides back up again on the springs when the car slows down. So you get this

00:43:32.120 variance in ride height. If you can keep the car at the optimum, fast or slow, then you've got a huge

00:43:39.080 advantage. That's what active suspension was there to do. But it had a lot of other interesting side

00:43:44.340 effects in that you can change the attitude of the car all the time. So you could even stall the

00:43:50.900 diffuser on the straight, so you could lower the back above a certain speed. I just love it. I love

00:43:56.860 hearing you talk about this. So you could play with it a lot. We tried all sorts of things like making

00:44:00.820 it roll into a corner so it would have stagger on it, which they use in Indy cars. So if the corner

00:44:06.120 goes right, you'd make the left side of the car pop up a bit and the car would lean into the corner

00:44:09.640 like a motorbike. Yeah, it's just unbelievable. So do you remember in 92 when you were testing

00:44:15.740 these features out in anticipation of the 93 season, not actually knowing that you would be

00:44:20.300 the driver? Yeah, I didn't know I'd be the driver. I knew that Nigel was making a good job of making it

00:44:25.980 work. And I knew that if I was in that car, I would also be up the sharp end of grumpy racing. But it was

00:44:31.760 never more than a pipe dream. You know, I honestly thought I was 32 by then, you know.

00:44:37.240 Yeah, let's reflect on that for a moment. Today, a 32-year-old rookie, it's an impossible concept.

00:44:44.260 They wouldn't get you in, you wouldn't get in the car. I just don't think that any team would put

00:44:48.500 someone of that age in the car. I think a lot of people look at it from the point of view of what's

00:44:52.660 his long-term future like? You know, they're even looking at drivers now who are, I think it's the

00:44:58.360 youngest average age of a grid in any year of Formula One at the moment. But they're looking at drivers

00:45:04.520 who are 28 and thinking they're old now. I mean, Sebastian is 32. It's hard to imagine

00:45:09.640 Sebastian as a rookie now. I mean, he is 12 years into his Formula One career at the age and four

00:45:16.820 times a world champion at the time that you were entering your rookie season. And to your point

00:45:22.620 earlier, not coming from a carding background. So you could say... I shouldn't have been there,

00:45:27.540 Pete. You know, honestly, it was just pure... I was down and out. When I was 29, we'd had Oli. We

00:45:33.640 were talking about my first child and he got Down syndrome and I'd lost my drive in Formula

00:45:38.480 Three. And I had to literally... I'd just bought a house. We had a mortgage. Interest rates had

00:45:44.320 gone up to 17%. Can you imagine that? I mean, if you imagine Wall Street now, 17% interest

00:45:52.560 on a mortgage. And I just had my first child and it turns out it's got Down syndrome. So we're

00:45:57.640 Georgie and I are just working out, well, what's that mean for the rest of our life? What do we...

00:46:01.480 And I still wanted to race cars. I mean, I was mad. You know, what madness was this that

00:46:08.260 made me press on? Because it turned out okay in the end.

00:46:13.120 There's a line here, which it's a quote I'm sure I'm bastardizing. And it's basically like

00:46:17.720 chance favors the prepared mind. The context of the quote, and I can't even remember if it

00:46:22.280 was Einstein or Louis Pasteur, but there was a scientist who made this point. And the idea

00:46:27.240 was you look at scientific breakthroughs and you think it's an inspiration or a flash of

00:46:32.840 genius. And the point is, no, it's not. It's a lot of hard work. It's toiling. It's failing.

00:46:38.760 It's doing the experiment over and over again. It's failing. It's failing. It's failing. And

00:46:43.860 if you pay enough attention, you're going to see the right thing. Great scientists always talk about

00:46:49.760 this idea that what separates the good ones from the great ones is the great ones are able to see the

00:46:55.980 right thing at the right time. They're able to extract from the data that which others don't

00:47:01.400 see, but that requires being there. That requires being in the trenches. And in many ways, I think

00:47:07.340 that that's what that 92 year was. You put your head down, you were in the trenches, you showed up

00:47:12.240 every day, you test drove that car. You basically helped Patrick and Adrian make what would, like I

00:47:20.520 said, probably be the greatest technologically most advanced F1 car ever. And you sort of did it

00:47:27.240 without an agenda of, well, I'm doing this because it's going to get me here. I mean, that's, that's

00:47:31.780 sort of my reading of it as a distance, which was, it was just being in the moment and putting your head

00:47:36.760 down and doing this amazing job. And so when the situation arose with Nigel going to IndyCar, I mean,

00:47:44.880 I think Williams was incredibly lucky that you were there. Well, I'd like to think they felt that,

00:47:50.880 you know, but I think that I did do a lot of hard work, but I didn't design the car. I worked with

00:47:55.120 the engineers. I worked with Paddy Lowe, who was a computer guy who worked on, on the suspension. And

00:48:00.540 we did play with lots of stuff that we eventually used and, and I helped kind of shape a little bit

00:48:06.240 traction control and stuff like that. And, you know, but they have to get feedback from a driver.

00:48:10.760 That's the point, right? Yeah. But that's the point. Actually, it was starting to get to the

00:48:15.460 point where they don't need as much feedback as they used to because they can see it on the

00:48:19.340 computer. So they, they actually were going, well, okay, we know what the gear change is doing.

00:48:22.920 We're in control of that. We know we can give you a throttle that can do this. And if you've got

00:48:27.140 electric, you know, a potentiometer on the throttle instead of a cable, we can make it do this and

00:48:31.920 the other. And we can see, they can see all the things. What they can't do is put their bum in the

00:48:38.700 seat and go, that's a scary feeling. It's not scary. The driver can't override the negative

00:48:47.160 things that we're giving to him. You know, the driver still played a part in that, in

00:48:51.680 that sense. But what I did do was, I think I was a known quantity and, and I think I worked

00:48:58.540 well with the, with the guys, with the engineers and they had Alan Prost. So it's not like they

00:49:03.300 didn't have anyone. They had someone in the bank, but they took a huge risk putting a guy

00:49:07.540 and he's never done a couple of races with Brabham, but they had never run at the front

00:49:10.580 in Formula One. And they clearly thought, well, he doesn't have to run at the front. We've

00:49:14.920 got Alan Prost who just needs to back him up.

00:49:17.640 Were you intimidated by Prost? He strikes me as sort of a pleasant guy. I mean.

00:49:22.460 No, he would never, not to any of my knowledge, I've ever been, felt like Alan would do anything

00:49:28.540 underhand to, you know, I think he was a very decent chap and I think he was clearly very

00:49:35.420 fast and I could learn a lot from him. So I, and I thought if I could beat him, then

00:49:38.780 it's very much to my credit. And sometimes I did.

00:49:42.060 What did you learn from him technically in terms of like technical driving ability? And

00:49:47.400 what did you learn from him at the meta level in terms of philosophy?

00:49:52.460 He is a very quiet guy and it was quite interesting. The things that I remember were him speaking

00:49:59.320 to his wife on the phone before a race and he'd make a little phone call and he's clearly

00:50:06.620 a very affectionate person. And he was quite happy for me to see that he didn't do that

00:50:12.620 in private. And when I spoke to him about the car or something like that, he, I mean,

00:50:17.560 I never, I would never have gone up to him and gone, Alan, how do you do this? Or how do

00:50:23.240 you do that? You learn by watching the results of what he's been doing. I speak to the engineers

00:50:28.580 that running his car and they, they say the amazing thing about Alan Prost is, you know,

00:50:32.580 he doesn't use any brakes, you know, he's very, very light on the brakes, but he's incredibly

00:50:36.280 quick.

00:50:36.960 Right. Very light on the brakes and very little hand movement, right?

00:50:40.220 Yeah.

00:50:40.520 Was never fighting the car.

00:50:41.900 No, he minimum, minimal movements. So obviously micro movements that, so he's very clearly

00:50:47.600 ahead of the car and able to anticipate it. And what he didn't do was throw loads of things

00:50:55.180 at the car. He just fine tuned it and he fine tuned himself. I think he knew he was quick

00:50:59.940 and I think he knew how to make a car go quick and he knew how to race. And when you look

00:51:04.000 at some of those very early races, the Kyle Army race with him and Senna, Senna was brutal

00:51:09.540 with him. And, you know, Alan was just equally tough back in that active car. He wasn't intimidated

00:51:17.140 either. He was a hell of a fighter, but he'd never show you that. He wouldn't, out of the

00:51:22.200 car, you'd never know that the guy was such a formidable competitor.

00:51:26.660 What do you remember about Donington in 93?

00:51:30.080 Ah, well, what do I remember of that? I remember my brain was fried because I was thinking, why

00:51:36.720 every time I put a set of tires on, does it do the opposite of what I want it to do? And

00:51:40.800 at the same time, Senna would just stick on his tires for a bit longer and, oh God, that

00:51:45.720 was just so embarrassing. We lost count completely of how many pit stops we'd done. I mean, I have

00:51:50.380 no idea what was going on. It was, and half the way through the race, you just go, this

00:51:54.540 has gone so horribly wrong. It's a farce. But you suddenly find out you're second. You're

00:52:00.780 running second and you go, how the hell did I get there? I stopped six times, you know.

00:52:05.380 So for a guy in his first full season with a top team, it was a bit of an eye opener.

00:52:11.040 But I look back at that race and I just think, why did I let Ayrton through so easily?

00:52:15.180 Yeah, because on the first lap, again, it's the stuff of legends, right? How he drove in

00:52:19.520 the rain and that he could pass you and Prost on that first lap in an inferior car.

00:52:25.800 He had a lot more experience than me.

00:52:27.800 Yeah. Yeah. And truthfully, I just think there was nobody on the grid that was as comfortable

00:52:32.380 in the rain as though, although he was clear to say he didn't like the rain. You know, I

00:52:35.940 remember in an interview once where someone made this point, which is, you know, Ayrton,

00:52:40.140 you're so great in the rain. And he's like, I don't like this. I just practiced in it,

00:52:44.180 you know. But there's a funny picture of the three of you on the podium, the two of you

00:52:48.400 guys in your blue fire suits sort of like, couldn't believe, you know.

00:52:52.360 Well, it was particularly hard for Alain, I think, because it was a humiliating experience.

00:52:57.120 You know, I think, oh God, it all went horribly wrong for Alain in that race. And I remember

00:53:02.640 the press conference as well. Ayrton kind of, he sort of made the point.

00:53:07.860 Ah, he was just brutal. And it was, it was a tough one for Alain because, yeah, Ayrton

00:53:14.920 could be very, very harsh and humiliated Alain after that race. It was not one of our finest

00:53:20.980 weekends as a team or for Alain, but it was a great, they talk about it as Ayrton's greatest

00:53:26.660 race.

00:53:27.600 You were third that season, correct?

00:53:29.940 I was third that season. I was second to Alain, I think.

00:53:33.160 You were second. Okay.

00:53:34.320 Yeah.

00:53:34.680 Which is amazing.

00:53:35.820 Do you know what? You better check that because I don't know. I honestly don't, I don't know.

00:53:39.340 But where did I finish? No? Third? I think maybe I was third. You're right. Yeah, I think

00:53:44.380 I was third.

00:53:44.720 Yeah. You were third.

00:53:45.480 Yeah.

00:53:46.260 So at the end of the 93 season, was there any doubt that Prost was going to retire? Was

00:53:51.380 there a chance he was going to stick around until 94? Or was he very clear that it was

00:53:54.820 one and done?

00:53:55.320 I'm sure it was clear that with Frank that, that he knew he was only there for one, for one

00:53:59.320 year to get one more world championship.

00:54:00.800 Okay. So he's one and done. And then all of a sudden, Senna gets what he's wanted for

00:54:06.480 several years now, which is he has wanted to come to Williams, certainly in 92 and 93.

00:54:13.100 Of course, people know the backstory. Prost had an anti-Senna clause. You don't get to

00:54:18.060 have us both. But there's interviews where Williams talks about how he wanted Senna in

00:54:23.420 the 80s. He wanted Senna in 84, 85.

00:54:26.060 Yeah. But he, you know, Frank, he gave him his first Formula One test. He could, I don't

00:54:30.720 know why he didn't sign in then.

00:54:31.740 Yeah. I want to, I feel like I need to go back and sort of watch some of those old interviews

00:54:36.240 because he said his first team was horrible. And then he spent three years with Lotus before

00:54:41.020 he went to McLaren. So you must've been pretty excited, right? I mean, you're thinking to

00:54:46.700 yourself, my first season in Formula One, I'm third overall. I've just been partnered with

00:54:52.840 one world champion and I, now I get another.

00:54:54.800 Yeah. And before that it was Nigel as well.

00:54:56.820 That's right. So you had three.

00:54:58.260 Yeah, completely. I was completely spoiled from that point of view. I mean, I had a chance

00:55:01.920 to see close up how these guys worked, which is something money can't buy. I mean, it was,

00:55:07.000 it was just great for me. I, you know, I really liked the idea of having-

00:55:10.920 So where were you in, so going into the 94 season, is Josh your second or third?

00:55:17.200 Second child.

00:55:18.160 Second child. Was Josh born yet?

00:55:20.060 Josh was born in 92. Yeah.

00:55:22.460 Okay.

00:55:22.620 91. Okay. So Oliver, Josh, but Tabitha, not yet.

00:55:26.620 Not yet. Okay. So you have two little boys. The interest rate I hopefully has been refinanced

00:55:31.840 at this point, the 17%.

00:55:33.700 I think when I got the test drive, I was able to cope with the interest a little bit. And

00:55:39.300 then I got signed up and I was actually a full-time driver in 93. I think I was, I didn't, didn't

00:55:44.240 have to sweat quite so much, but it wasn't.

00:55:46.200 So when the active gets undone for 94, when you're in pre-season testing for 94,

00:55:51.100 you are probably the only person in the world that can appreciate the difference between

00:55:58.360 the FW 15 and the 16. What are your first thoughts on that transition?

00:56:04.600 I thought it was going to be different, but it was very, I found the car quite hard to

00:56:09.320 drive, get a time out of and be consistent.

00:56:11.980 What was the clearance on that car? The ground clearance?

00:56:15.400 Oh, wait.

00:56:16.000 It's, I mean, incredibly low.

00:56:17.300 On the active car, it was not as low as the, sorry, on the passive car, it wasn't as low

00:56:24.140 as the active car, as much higher. They had to make it quite high up. So, but they were

00:56:28.120 generating a lot of downforce. And I think they, they had, I think it could have been more

00:56:36.080 difficult for them to get used again to controlling the downforce without the active. So it's a little

00:56:41.720 bit of relearning stuff they'd forgotten, I think.

00:56:43.800 Now, were you at all worried? Did you feel that the car in any way was unsafe as you embarked on

00:56:48.940 the first race that year?

00:56:50.540 No, I didn't, never felt it was unsafe. I thought it was hard to drive and, you know,

00:56:55.160 but I thought that's just because I'm Damon Hill and that's it in center. So I couldn't

00:57:00.060 quite match his lap times. You know, I just thought this is, for me, it was new, a new

00:57:04.800 comparison, a new benchmark. So I drove that car knowing that there was, you know, we had work

00:57:12.960 to do on setup because it wasn't quite as good as, it wasn't in the optimal range that you wanted

00:57:18.960 it to be in. And so I think everyone at Williams and Ayrton was, were trying to work out how he got

00:57:24.100 there. But then we were also distracted by, I think, a little bit by the performance of the

00:57:28.400 Benetton, which had suddenly come up on the, on the rails and was winning races.

00:57:32.780 So it was the first race that year, was it Australia?

00:57:36.280 Um, Brazil was it? Brazil was second, I thought. Second. Um, we had this race in Aida, didn't

00:57:43.280 we? Which was in Japan as well. You're right. It was Brazil. Asia was second. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

00:57:50.860 So Senna's on pole, loses control of the car, doesn't finish. Yeah. Second race. Senna's on pole,

00:57:58.280 loses control of the car, doesn't finish. Well, he got knocked off, didn't he? Oh,

00:58:02.220 that's right. Yeah. And, and then, so he's had non-finishes. He's had two non-finishes. You're

00:58:07.040 second. I'm second, but a long way behind Michael. And Michael's won both. Yep. So you're heading

00:58:11.980 into Imola and you're on your heels. The team is on its heels. Yeah. A lot of disquiet. I think,

00:58:18.580 I mean, I think Ayrton was having doubts about, you know, he was quite surprised at the way the team

00:58:23.740 worked and the performance of the car. He was a bit baffled by that. And then there was, he was worried

00:58:29.620 that maybe Benetton were doing something with their traction control that they shouldn't have

00:58:34.000 been doing and stuff. So there was, it was a definitely off balance situation, but I was

00:58:40.480 not the lead man in that situation. Did you, did you share Senna's belief? Cause he had talked about

00:58:47.300 how after he got knocked out of the Pacific Grand Prix, he was listening to, he could hear Schumacher

00:58:55.160 going by and he could, he claimed he could hear the traction control. Yeah. Did you share that view

00:59:00.460 that there was something in that car, either software or hardware wise? I never heard that

00:59:04.880 myself. And I, all I had to go on was that Ayrton believed that there was something fishy going on,

00:59:12.080 but it was not something that I could control and not something I had any influence over. So I,

00:59:17.000 you know, pretty much stuck to back, got back to work and on the car we had, which was in testing,

00:59:25.120 you, you do what you could to try and get a balance on it and feel comfortable with it,

00:59:29.080 confident. In the same way that you probably remember exquisite detail about the circumstances

00:59:37.340 in the days around your father's tragedy. Do you have that same sort of recollection of Imola?

00:59:44.000 Aspects of it. Yeah. But I think it was different because I was also racing myself and I was,

00:59:53.040 you had to focus on what you had to do. Yeah. I think you don't feel shocked when you're racing.

00:59:57.800 I think you have the protective wall around you a little bit. I think you managed to remove yourself

01:00:05.340 from overfeeling things. Obviously when you're sitting at home watching TV, you're pretty,

01:00:10.560 you're unprepared for something. So, but when you go to racetrack, you're kind of more prepared.

01:00:16.120 You're heightened. Yeah. And also you'll, you know, something happens, you kind of know how to just

01:00:20.780 pour cold water on it and, uh, and not let it affect you too much.

01:00:25.940 So were you shaken at all by the crash on the Friday?

01:00:28.620 Yeah, I was surprised at that, but you just thought, it looked horrific, but he got out. Okay.

01:00:33.860 He was concussed and you just thought, well, that hurt. You know, that was.

01:00:37.880 Were you of the view that the car is still safe enough that, you know, the crash is the crash,

01:00:43.960 but you're protected in the car. Was that kind of your view?

01:00:46.380 Yeah, I think so. I feel, I think I believed in carbon fiber and that, you know, that it was

01:00:51.200 incredibly strong and it's going to hurt you like hell if you have a big shunt, but you should be okay.

01:00:55.580 Yeah. I think we, we did think that the worst was over a little bit, you know, what certainly wasn't

01:01:01.180 anything like it was with aluminum cars that rupture the fuel tank or something like that. So

01:01:06.360 you. So what did you think on Saturday when Roland died? It was horrible. You know, it was,

01:01:11.720 it's a horrible thing. I drove because they stopped the session, but I still was on the circuit. So I

01:01:17.020 drove past and saw them attending to him. And was your first assumption to another horrible shunt,

01:01:22.920 but he's probably okay. Or did you know this? No, I didn't. I knew that that was not a good

01:01:28.520 one. There was something about it. I don't know what it just, I just looked like there was a much

01:01:34.200 more sick, you know, you know, also the location, it's not going to be a small impact or a place

01:01:38.880 like that. It's going to be pretty high speed. And I know it was just something about it. And then

01:01:43.260 the fact that they stopped the session and more time goes by, then eventually you start to

01:01:46.940 fear the worst. And it's so eerie to see. I think I was telling you, I was in MLO this year and

01:01:52.760 spent the entire day there and went to obviously where, where Santa crashed and went to where

01:01:57.920 Ratzenberger crashed. I mean, we saw all the crash sites and it looks like the margin for error is so

01:02:05.520 much smaller than it appears on television. And Roland's crash, you don't really see well on

01:02:09.740 television. When you got back to the pit, did you go back out to qualify again or did it,

01:02:14.520 was the session completely ended? Do you not? I don't know. I don't think we didn't run the car

01:02:17.860 after that. No, on the Friday we pulled. On Saturday. On Saturday. No, we didn't. I don't

01:02:23.820 think we did. Because Ayrton was, he was really shaken by this. I mean, he seemed to be. He was,

01:02:29.500 he seemed almost angry actually. Yeah. I think it was derailed a little bit by, or upset by

01:02:35.140 Rubens' accident. I think he was in a very high emotional state. I think he'd had a lot on his

01:02:41.780 plate. And I think I talk about that in the book. I think people have wondered about his

01:02:46.840 condition. And I know that he'd spoken to my wife because she was in the motorhome and he was speaking

01:02:55.400 to her about having a family. And he said, what's it like having a family, you know? And, and because

01:03:02.500 she said, do you want me to, to leave while you get changed? And he said, no, I just want to, you know,

01:03:07.420 talk. And that was on race day. So I think he internalized a lot. I think he took a lot upon

01:03:14.320 himself. I think he felt enormous responsibility for people in Brazil and the projects he had to do

01:03:21.300 with helping young people. And, and I think he really felt that he had a job to do, which he

01:03:29.360 couldn't somehow racing enabled him to do through his racing. He was able to be at and center. Then he

01:03:36.460 could do these great works that he had. Did you know, he took an Austrian flag in the car that

01:03:43.540 day? No, I didn't know that on the day. No, I only read about that later. Yeah. I have always believed

01:03:49.660 that Senna's crash occurred because of a technical problem in the car. I always thought the steering

01:03:54.900 column broke. It's really your book that has probably changed my view on that. I think the way

01:04:01.660 you describe the accident coupled with your experience in that car that has probably not

01:04:11.720 probably it has, it has changed my mind. And it, and it's also made me come to accept something that

01:04:16.000 I think had always been a blind spot to me. You see, when you idolize somebody, it's very hard to

01:04:21.080 believe that they can make a technical error. You just can't believe it. Right? So I think if you idolize

01:04:26.940 Senna, you can't really believe that he lost control of the car. It's easier to believe that

01:04:35.000 the steering column broke. And there are lots of good, you know, I mean, we, we create narratives.

01:04:39.620 That's sort of what we do. And you could go through all of the stories about how that cockpit was built

01:04:43.740 and how the steering wheel was in the wrong position, but they had to add an extra couple of

01:04:46.840 inches to send a steering wheel. And of course that if you look at the sheer forces on that, that's

01:04:51.080 going to be the thing. And you can watch the onboard camera and, and yet in a very unemotional

01:04:55.940 way, you sort of dismantle a lot of that logic.

01:04:58.680 You're right. I mean, I went through it in quite a lot of detail. Well, that's because

01:05:00.920 I had to, after the event, to go back through stuff with the engineers to, to, to see if

01:05:06.360 I could shed any light on what had happened. The data I was able to see showed me what concurred

01:05:13.640 with the onboard footage was that, you know, he was putting opposite lock on, on the car and

01:05:19.100 controlling the car. And my argument has always been that if the steering wheel column broke,

01:05:25.640 you'd put more lock on to make it work. And I mean, if you imagine you're...

01:05:30.100 So let's explain this to people, because I think for people who don't drive a race car,

01:05:34.400 they won't know the difference between lock, opposite lock, understeer, oversteer, et cetera.

01:05:38.780 I mean, I, I, I think you do a masterful job explaining this, but let's go back to set the

01:05:43.440 stage a little bit. Temberello is a sweeping left hand. It's a very fast left hand corner that

01:05:49.880 is taken basically flat out, assuming your tires are up to snuff. Now you also mentioned something

01:05:55.820 really interesting, which was the line that he took. You were surprised at the line he took

01:06:00.500 on the first flying lap after the safety car left.

01:06:03.600 There was about a couple of bumps and a couple of indents, like it subsided. The road had slightly

01:06:08.620 subsided close to the curb on the inside line, which is the racing line. But I didn't like going

01:06:13.760 on that line because I, it upset the car for me, it upset the car. So I stayed wide a bit

01:06:20.080 and it was, uh, it seemed to miss the bumps, but, um, yeah, the reason I did that, cause

01:06:24.600 I didn't want to go where he went, you know, not, not because of what he, you know, what

01:06:27.560 happened to him, but because for me, it was, uh, in a harder ride, but I'm not at and center

01:06:33.620 and he was at and center and he drove the car. He rung everything out of every car he raced,

01:06:40.560 you know? And I think that you mentioned that the only real flying lap he had, which would

01:06:47.100 have been what lap six, he had the third fastest time of the day. And that's with 65 kilos of fuel

01:06:56.260 and cold tires. Yeah. They were cold, not as pumped up as they should have been because they

01:07:02.720 had to go around in the safety car. It wasn't called the safe. Was it called the safety car

01:07:05.940 then? I can't remember anyway. So it wasn't a quick, super slow, super slow, slow safety

01:07:09.680 car. So there are, I, my argument is that there are really what I say. And what I believe is

01:07:15.800 that I don't believe the steering column broke for two reasons. One is if the steering column

01:07:21.220 broke, then your instinct is to keep steering. And that means your hands would have, he would

01:07:26.920 have just. Right. So that's so for the listener, what that means is you're describing that as

01:07:31.040 lock. So if you're steering column breaks and you're doing a left-handed turn, you're going

01:07:35.580 to be turning left as far as is humanly possible. Yeah. Cause you, your brain will not, it's

01:07:40.440 disconnected. So you're, you know, you're a passenger. So you, you just instinctively put

01:07:45.400 more on. And even if it's, even if you don't put it on you, if the steering column broke that

01:07:49.960 broke, then there'd be suddenly less resistance to the lock that he's putting on. And his hands

01:07:54.600 would put more lock on because it's suddenly released. But instead you saw the opposite.

01:08:01.080 So explain what opposite lock is and how it's used to correct for a rear, rear loss of traction.

01:08:07.860 So it's the attitude of the car changes in relation to the direction of travel. So the

01:08:13.500 nose, the car, when it's oversteering, the nose of the car is pointing more to the inside of the

01:08:18.140 corner than, or let's say the, the back of the car or the middle of the car is, is actually at an

01:08:23.380 angle to the line of travel. So what happens? Is it safe if I describe that to people as when

01:08:28.480 you're oversteering, the rear of the car is turning faster than the front of the car into

01:08:33.120 the direction you want to go?

01:08:34.260 It's more like a compass. Imagine a compass, right? A compass spins from the middle. So

01:08:37.820 if you want it to point dead north, that's good. If it starts to point slightly west of where you

01:08:44.940 want it to go, which is north, then in order to get the whole thing to keep going north,

01:08:49.580 you have to turn the wheel to the right. So the direction of the point of the car is to the left.

01:08:55.140 You put the steering lock on slightly to the right. And that means the back of the car would

01:08:59.980 act as more like a dart, you know, it'll actually start to straighten up. And as the car straightens

01:09:04.800 up, you put lock back on. So you point north. Understeer is, well, maybe we weren't going to

01:09:10.540 understeer, but anyway.

01:09:11.300 No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think initially he was understeering because he reduced throttle.

01:09:16.280 Yeah. I don't think it was ever understeering. I think it was, he only ever got oversteered because

01:09:20.280 he was turning into the corner. So he's putting lock on to make the car go around the corner.

01:09:25.500 Oh, so you don't think he ever understeered? You think this was immediate loss of rear traction?

01:09:29.740 I think it was a change of attitude because you can see from Schumacher's onboard camera that he

01:09:36.040 bought the car bottoms. And when the car hit the bumps, the car lost downforce and starts to slew

01:09:43.540 slightly to the, the back of the car comes out to the right. So he puts a little bit of right lock

01:09:49.220 on to compensate. And then he puts more back lock up when it, when that settled down, he's put lock

01:09:54.340 back on to go left again. So the first one he recovered. Yeah. Well recovered. He just did what,

01:10:00.840 you know, he expected it to do. The next one, it was even greater and you get more of an opposite

01:10:08.360 lock on. And it suddenly snaps to the, to the right. And I just think at the speed he was going,

01:10:15.400 the loads he was going for, I think it's entirely plausible that tank slapper don't, you know,

01:10:20.140 we call it a tank slapper in bike racing. It was just a massive sideways. And, uh, with low tire

01:10:26.240 pressures, you would have got a lot of lateral movement on the tire and then it springs back.

01:10:31.040 And at that speed, it can throw you off the track. I mean, I don't see that, you know,

01:10:36.900 not detracting anything. I think he was so motivated to win this race that I think he was

01:10:42.640 putting himself right out there at the, you know, the end of the branch and maybe even a guy like

01:10:51.880 Ayrton couldn't drive that car beyond a certain point without something giving somewhere.

01:10:58.300 And I think the way you describe it and you go into more detail in the book, we won't have to,

01:11:01.860 we don't have to go through it here now because I want people to read this book. It's so great. But

01:11:05.360 the way you talk about even being able to see like one of the radio lights or something on the

01:11:09.280 wheel, the yellow light and it, so you actually have this frame of reference to actually see when

01:11:15.100 he goes from lock to opposite lock. And I think there was just something about reading your account

01:11:20.840 that along with, with reading Adrian Newey's account several years ago, that really sort of

01:11:26.500 changed my view a bit and made me realize like even your heroes can make mistakes and can lose

01:11:31.460 control of the car. I mean, Ayrton lost control of the car in Brazil and we push the cars to their

01:11:39.640 limits and ourselves to our limits. And I, my argument really in the, in the book is that if

01:11:45.060 you put someone under, even someone as brilliant as Ayrton under a lot of stress with lots of

01:11:53.560 different doubts, lots of different questions, lots of different problems, and then you put them

01:11:58.140 in a very competitive situation and you expect them to perform with a clear head in the same

01:12:04.020 way that they have done in the past. I think something's got to give somewhere, you know,

01:12:09.040 you add in the fatality of the previous day, the emotional state, the guy, the determination

01:12:14.620 to win, the fact that he's in a different team. It's not going the way he wanted it to in the

01:12:20.040 championship. If you say, if you put someone like Ayrton in that situation, is he going to back

01:12:25.200 down? No, he's not going to back down. He's going to be Ayrton Senna. He's going to go and go further

01:12:30.040 beyond where he's ever been before. Cause that's what Ayrton Senna was. He's not going to go,

01:12:38.280 okay, I'll, I'll feather the throttle through Tamburello. He wouldn't be Ayrton Senna.

01:12:43.280 So you write about something, which is that in the days that followed, the last thing that was on your

01:12:50.020 mind was to go to, go to Brazil for this funeral, not out of any lack of respect for Senna, but probably out

01:12:54.780 of the need to be with your family, frankly. And also I didn't want to go to, I know I'm like,

01:12:59.220 it's not, it's also, yeah, it's, it's, it's bringing back memories that the last time you

01:13:03.420 were at a funeral was, you know, obviously a very traumatic experience for you, but Jackie

01:13:08.360 Stewart nudged you to go. Yep. Jackie rang me and said, are you going to Ayrton's funeral? I said,

01:13:14.860 oh, I don't know, Jackie, I can't, you know, and he said, you will regret it for your,

01:13:18.440 you know, to your dying day. If you don't go, he basically didn't set me straight, but he made a

01:13:25.280 very important point to me, which is that you, you have to do this in a way because you want to

01:13:30.540 be a racing driver. You can't, you can't just sidestep the nasty bits. He's about the most

01:13:37.040 capable person to say that there's no one that could say that to you with more credibility that

01:13:41.560 was still alive at that point. And, you know, in the absence of my, my dad being around,

01:13:46.460 he was a kind of surrogate father figure to me, giving me the right advice and impressing on me

01:13:54.860 the importance of, of being there. And he was absolutely right. So eternal gratitude to Jackie

01:14:00.580 for that. Not something you want to do, you know, you don't want to get on an airplane and go to

01:14:04.120 Brazil and go to some, to be confronted with the box they put someone in when they're alive anymore.

01:14:13.020 You know, it's, it's horrible. But when, you know, Enten's funeral was the most extraordinary event,

01:14:21.520 you saw how he affected people. And that's what he'd lived with. That's what he'd been carrying that

01:14:27.040 nobody in F1 really saw. They didn't really see him in that. They thought he was a racing driver.

01:14:32.040 He was a bit, a bit nuts at times, you know, and a bit over emotional, or maybe that's what they saw,

01:14:36.800 but they didn't see. They didn't see the weight of a nation. They didn't see the weight of the

01:14:41.000 nation. They didn't see what he represented and he, and the hope he had given people in Brazil.

01:14:46.600 It's really amazing to this day. I mean, I talk about this elsewhere. I can't meet someone from

01:14:53.140 Brazil who, if, when I start talking to them about Senna, even if they weren't alive,

01:14:57.940 right? Like, or even if they were five years old, our nanny, for example, is Brazilian and she was

01:15:04.860 four, maybe five the day he died. It's her earliest memory of life because that's every Sunday. That's

01:15:13.820 all you did was you watched Senna race and the country stopped for three days and more than a

01:15:21.900 million people line the streets for this funeral. And to this day, I mean, it's like, I, if I'm in an

01:15:26.940 Uber and the driver happens to be from Brazil and we get talking about Senna, it doesn't matter if

01:15:31.980 they're 20 or if they're 60, this is the single most important person they'll talk about.

01:15:38.100 But yeah, they're emotionally, you know, very strong nation. They, they're so passionate about

01:15:44.500 everything and, and they, and they loved what Ayrton had done and given them. He, um, they'd been

01:15:50.900 through some tough times and then the football is one of their, also one of the things that

01:15:56.200 lifts the nation. And, but, but Ayrton had, had taken them to another place as well. And,

01:16:02.400 and was proud to be Brazilian. And, and it was a very, very cool, cruel blow to all those

01:16:09.500 people in Brazil. You know, they couldn't really understand what had happened. I don't think for

01:16:14.800 a long time it was too shocking.

01:16:16.820 My daughter wanted me to ask you this question when she knew I would be speaking with you,

01:16:20.340 which was, first of all, she was like, Oh my God, he's on TV. When I told her I was even talking

01:16:26.780 to you because of course every Sunday we get up to watch formula one. So she gets, she, she knows

01:16:30.760 you as the guy on TV. She, she, she's less, I had to remind her of like all you've done. But her

01:16:37.040 question is, were you afraid to get back in the car for the next race? Well, cause now you've got two

01:16:43.000 weeks for the dust to settle. Yeah. You fully processed that two drivers have now been killed

01:16:50.480 in the span of two days. Another one lucky to be alive. So you could have easily lost three drivers

01:16:56.040 in three days. Well, I'll put it, I'll put it like this. The enjoyment of driving had

01:17:01.860 evaporated from that point on. It was a task I had to do. So for how long did that feeling

01:17:10.300 persist? I think, I think for a good, maybe a couple more races or something, or maybe

01:17:15.620 certainly Monaco was a tough one. I wasn't sure whether I could cope with carrying all

01:17:21.260 the hopes of the entire team. You know, I was not at in Senna. It was, it was abundantly

01:17:25.140 clear, you know, I was okay, but I wasn't going to be able to do the things that they wanted

01:17:30.340 from Senna. So that was a wobbly one. How much fear did you have of physical harm versus

01:17:38.920 the pressure you're describing of, wait a minute, like two years ago I was a test driver

01:17:45.300 and now I'm the potentially the guy who's carrying the hopes of one of the most storied teams

01:17:51.820 in formula one. Cause those are two sort of different things. I mean, they can, they can

01:17:56.220 overlap a little bit, but one of them comes back to this real visceral concern of I can't

01:18:01.720 let happen to my family. What happened to me? Yeah. I think I did have the brakes on

01:18:08.280 being pushed into taking unnecessary risks. So you might say, okay, well, you're not a proper

01:18:15.920 racing driver. If you, that's what Ayrton would say, you know, if you, if you stop taking risks

01:18:20.840 and you're not a proper racing driver, well, listen, did Georgie talk with you about this

01:18:24.780 at all? Well, I mean, when you say talk,

01:18:26.620 I mean, was your wife in this moment of at this point, it's back to being gladiators,

01:18:31.960 right? I don't think so. Cause I mean, if you're a gladiator, I don't know what it's

01:18:36.040 like being gladiator. I think basically you're trying to hurt someone else. And I'm not that

01:18:41.160 sort of person. Well, in terms of the risk, I guess. Yeah. You're showing your skills and

01:18:46.580 you're also competing. And I think that's the key thing is to actually, you want to be the

01:18:50.780 first guy. You don't want to be the second guy. So getting out there and, and racing is partly

01:18:56.420 what you love doing. But then when you've just had an experience like that, it, it sort

01:19:01.760 of sours it a bit. And I think there was just too much pressure on everyone.

01:19:05.320 Did you talk with Jackie about this more? Because again, in the absence of your father,

01:19:09.020 who would have been the perfect person to have talked this through with you, did you feel

01:19:14.760 like, I want to understand from someone who's lived through this losing teammates, for example,

01:19:20.420 this was all tight upper lip? I have to say I was affected with the thought that, because

01:19:27.320 Ayrton's accident was incredibly public, you know, and shocking and so forth. So definitely

01:19:34.120 my wife did not want her children to see anything like that happen to me. So protecting the kids

01:19:43.180 from any potential shocking incident was also part of our lives then, I think, after that. And was,

01:19:52.700 was, I think, increasingly part of my modus of going racing. You know, my dad raced with three

01:20:01.060 children. A lot of racing drivers in those days had kids, including Jackie. Enzo Ferrari used to say

01:20:06.720 that a driver with children was a second lap slower. Well, there was a lot of world champions with

01:20:11.960 children. And I think that some, in some senses, the goal is to survive. So if the goal is to

01:20:18.780 survive, then you're doing the responsible thing by performing to the very highest level you can

01:20:24.680 possibly can without going over that, that threshold. And, you know, Ayrton didn't have

01:20:30.020 children. You know, I think it's very easy to, to think of as racing drivers will, could get to the

01:20:37.620 position where they think, well, if I get hurt, then that's my own stupid thought. And, you know,

01:20:41.380 but when you've got a family, you think, well, if I get hurt, someone else is going to get hurt as

01:20:45.460 well. That's a slightly different thought. And the last point I want to say about the,

01:20:50.640 that weekend is something else you wrote about in the book, which again, I think just speaks to the,

01:20:55.440 the beautiful level of detail you bring to these, all of these little stories that just don't get

01:21:00.740 told was when you show up for Monaco in the Williams truck. And sure enough,

01:21:04.280 there's Senna's clothing. Hmm. Well, it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't expected. Yeah. It's one of those

01:21:10.980 things where you talk about it, like, and it's so obvious when you talk about it, which is every day

01:21:16.920 a driver goes, takes off his street clothes, puts on his racing kit, gets in a car, but invariably

01:21:24.660 sometimes that driver doesn't come back. Yeah. That was something that a detail, which is a really

01:21:31.920 hard thing to consider, but of course gets lost in the sensational stories is that, you know,

01:21:38.880 that happened a lot with people in my dad's era and they, someone would have to go and clear out

01:21:43.660 their room. They'd have to go back to their room, get all their stuff, pack it up and take it and make

01:21:49.220 sure it got back to their family or their loved ones. Imagine that. Yeah. Imagine how many times that

01:21:54.500 took place. They're very poignant experiences. And also even just to think about that, you know,

01:22:00.200 we, we have all this stuff around us, you know, and we're suddenly not there. The stuff somehow

01:22:05.840 we linger in the stuff we have and we leave other people with that responsibility to deal with it.

01:22:14.820 Do you remember any of that from your father? Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean,

01:22:18.580 like, do you remember actively helping your mom with, I've never actually thought of it until I read

01:22:23.820 you writing about it. Right. Which is this idea of like, well, there's still a drawer full of socks

01:22:28.380 and shirts and pants. Yeah. You know, so what does one do with these? Well, you know,

01:22:33.000 and of course, then you have to decide whether you're going to throw it away. So for a long time,

01:22:37.920 I think my mom, my mom kept a lot of my dad's ties for me. These were ties that were about 10

01:22:45.740 centimeters across the 1970s ties with like bright colors, but they were my dad's ties. So, you know,

01:22:52.060 she kept them quite sweetly. She kept them because she thought maybe I'd like them not as,

01:22:55.880 not to wear myself perhaps, but you know, as mementos and things, but what, what, what do you

01:23:00.500 do with the incinerator? You have to let go of this stuff. I mean, if you look at it, you just think,

01:23:05.520 well, I could wear it, but it's a bit odd wearing your dad's clothes. You're still attached to it

01:23:12.240 because of, it brings you close. It's a relic, but can you let go of it? Can you kind of go, okay,

01:23:18.220 we're going to throw this stuff away, put it on eBay. I mean, there's all sorts of fans out there.

01:23:23.740 They love all that stuff, wouldn't they? But is it disrespectful? You go through all those thoughts.

01:23:28.300 You go through that. You just go through all these little questions and you can't find the answers

01:23:32.980 to them. You know, what is the right way forward? The other thing that's sort of interesting about

01:23:37.880 this story, at least to me thinking about it through these lenses is I don't get the sense from the book

01:23:43.360 and you didn't, you're never explicit about this, but I don't get the sense that Frank or Patrick sat

01:23:49.120 down to have long discussions about this either. Is that, am I correct in assuming that? Or were

01:23:54.300 there times when they wanted to know how you were doing and they wanted to talk about your head

01:23:59.360 outside of the car? No, but then they had their own stuff to deal with as well. So it's not all about

01:24:05.560 me. They also are going through, imagine what it's like for Frank. He signed Ayrton to come to race

01:24:11.300 15. Imagine what it's like for Patrick. I can't imagine. It's his car and people are saying it's

01:24:15.220 failed. He's having to go to. Yeah. What is Adrian? I mean, how do these guys all feel?

01:24:19.100 You know, it's the, everyone had a lot of stress to do with the engineers. The guy works in the car,

01:24:24.580 not an easy time for, for any of them, you know? So that's one of the contradictions with us board is,

01:24:32.380 you know, we focus a lot on the driver and some ways that the public see the driver as the,

01:24:36.920 the public facing person, the person of most interest, you know, but it's not all about the driver

01:24:44.180 as well. You work with these, rely on the team. You work with the team. They went through a lot.

01:24:49.700 They were really battered after that experience. And some of them still today don't want to talk

01:24:54.600 about it. As you head into the second half of the 94 season, all of a sudden the gap between you and

01:25:02.020 Schumacher is narrowing. And as you head into Suzuka, I think you're separated by a point.

01:25:07.040 Right. What was the situation in Suzuka? I had to, he, yeah.

01:25:12.400 Well, if he finished ahead of you, he would win.

01:25:15.060 Yes, exactly. Yeah.

01:25:16.280 But then he crashed. Hmm.

01:25:18.220 Trying to cut you off.

01:25:19.520 That was in Adelaide.

01:25:20.560 Oh, that was in Adelaide.

01:25:21.380 So in Suzuka, he-

01:25:22.780 Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry. I misspoke.

01:25:24.120 Suzuka was the second to last race.

01:25:25.480 Yes, it was.

01:25:26.060 Which you won.

01:25:26.920 I had to beat him to keep the championship.

01:25:28.960 And you did. Yes. Okay. So Suzuka is the race that you-

01:25:33.040 It came down to match play, basically.

01:25:34.960 Yes.

01:25:35.320 It was hole by hole.

01:25:36.920 And that, you wrote something very interesting about this, which was, you have this moment

01:25:42.440 where you feel like you can't do anymore. And you, in the book, you actually describe this

01:25:48.200 as you call out to Ayrton. And you say, like, if you're up there watching me, like, I need

01:25:54.100 your help right now. And then you describe the next lap as an out-of-body experience. And

01:25:59.860 I'm reading that. And what you're describing sounds exactly like the way Senna described his

01:26:05.140 88 qualifying session in Monaco, which was, he wasn't driving the car. Like, he was part of the

01:26:11.980 car. The car was being driven. And I don't know if that was just a coincidence that, because you

01:26:16.700 didn't reference anything about Monaco, but it was just interesting that you talked about having

01:26:20.280 this thought of calling out to him for help as your former teammate, and then driving. I think

01:26:27.060 the word you used is you were possessed. Yeah. That's the only way I can describe it. I mean,

01:26:31.060 it was, I'm sure that there's a perfectly logical explanation, or one that can be described or

01:26:38.240 explained. In scientific terms.

01:26:39.800 Yeah, biologically. You know, I think that we, we all know that every now and then we do some,

01:26:46.760 we hear people say things like, I don't know how I managed to lift the car up or something like

01:26:51.500 that to get it off some kid or something. You know, we, we have more potential than we are aware

01:26:57.100 of. And sometimes it, to release that potential, we have to play tricks with our mind. And we have

01:27:02.820 to say, imagine that pain isn't there. And, you know, I've had stories of people who've, you know,

01:27:08.620 got dreadful pain, but they can manage to cope with it by, so meditating, meditating and,

01:27:14.800 and all these things to do with fully exploring what the mind is capable of doing have got lots

01:27:22.760 of very strange stories attached to it. And I think people are right to be skeptical of them and,

01:27:27.960 and, and question them. But if I had tricked myself into through not deliberately, but just simply,

01:27:35.540 I wanted to win that race. I knew I had to win that race. And I also wanted us to win for Ayrton as

01:27:42.560 well. There was an element of wanting to beat the Benetton team because of this story, this,

01:27:47.980 not story, but it's this experience we'd had in 94. So I was massively motivated to win that race.

01:27:55.200 And I'd run out of steam. I couldn't go any faster. And he's catching me. And I knew he was going to,

01:28:01.020 he was going to get me on the line. And I just, I just thought, okay, I need some help from somewhere.

01:28:07.620 Yeah. And so I just said, in my mind, it was a kind of like, eh, and if you're there, I need,

01:28:12.800 I can need a bit of a hand. And I swear to God, it was like someone had got my foot and planted it

01:28:20.620 flat on the floor. And I couldn't lift it off. I couldn't lift off. I'm going through the S's. I'm

01:28:27.060 going, Oh my God. And my hands are like, my hands are just correcting the car. And I literally was

01:28:34.880 disconnected from what my body was doing. And it was just like, I was willing it to win,

01:28:41.540 you know, willing it just purely through thought, through some sort of telepathic kind of way I was

01:28:48.720 controlling things. And eventually I got halfway around. I just said, Oh no, I'm sorry. I'm going

01:28:53.680 to have to come back here. This is all going to go horribly wrong. And I sort of, I can remember

01:28:59.400 literally feeling like I was coming back into the car and in the hairpin and going, well, I'll take it from

01:29:04.100 here. You know, I'm sure we can finish this off. And now people listening to this will go,

01:29:10.920 you're nuts. You're making this up, you know, but that's what happened. And I can't explain it in any

01:29:16.500 other way than I just did. It's a, it was, you know, and I beat Michael in the wet. So let's be

01:29:22.820 honest, little old me beating Michael Schumacher. Someone must've helped me.

01:29:27.940 Well, it's funny. I'll pause for a moment only to say something for the person who's listening to this,

01:29:32.720 who isn't a diehard F1 fan. Many a pundit has actually, with the benefit of the retrospective

01:29:39.440 said, you're arguably one of the most underrated world champs ever. I mean, you're incredibly modest.

01:29:46.080 You're so uncomfortable. Sometimes I, do you remember when they did the, this is your life

01:29:51.180 special about 20 years ago? I found a clip of this on YouTube. Right. Have you ever watched it? No.

01:29:59.220 I don't even know what you're talking about. You know that TV show? This is your, this is life.

01:30:02.620 Yeah. I did. I did. Yeah. They had, they got me on that one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have to go

01:30:07.040 back and watch this because I'll tell you what I can't get over on that show is how uncomfortable you

01:30:13.520 are being commended. Hmm. Yeah. Think about it. The whole show is singing the praise of the person

01:30:20.240 who's, this is your life. They're bringing all these people out. Everybody's talking about you and

01:30:26.160 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're making me feel uncomfortable even now just talking about it.

01:30:30.500 Sorry. But, but the level of discomfort in watching you be praised by people is it's palpable to watch.

01:30:39.300 Now, maybe, maybe I'm just a bit more tuned into that now because I've, you know, I've, I've read

01:30:44.920 everything you've written. I've, you know, but that was my reading of that. Now I could be wrong. I'd be

01:30:49.560 curious to know what your wife or someone who knows you well would think, or what your children would

01:30:53.760 think if they saw that. Is that, is that just dad's, you know, countenance or is that actually

01:30:58.800 dad being uncomfortable being praised in this way? I am uncomfortable being praised. I mean,

01:31:06.300 there were times when, when I was in therapy, which I talk about in the book, you know, where my

01:31:11.840 therapist is going, well, I think you did really well. And I'd be going, oh no, don't say that. I want,

01:31:16.240 I want you to criticize me. I want to know, you know, how I can be better and what I've done wrong.

01:31:21.520 And now I'm much better with that. I mean, I honestly, if someone says that was a great

01:31:26.160 shot, even if it's rubbish, I go, okay, well, that was, that's very nice of you to say. So

01:31:30.040 I really appreciate it. And, but I don't know. Yeah. It was, it does make me feel really queasy

01:31:36.840 about, yeah, getting compliments. I don't know why. I'm sure that's an awful failing in a human

01:31:43.000 being.

01:31:43.840 I don't know. I don't, I don't know if that's true actually.

01:31:45.880 What I do think is I think we make, we celebrate far too much people's achievements that perhaps

01:31:55.380 they don't warrant so much celebration as we give them. I mean, what does it mean? You know,

01:32:00.900 racing driver, they want to, you know, everyone wants to race and they want to win. They don't

01:32:04.720 want to win for everyone else. They want to win for themselves. So it's a kind of selfish

01:32:08.620 activity. Yeah. Every now and then you want to win for someone else and you, yeah, it's nice

01:32:13.960 to do that. But is it so praiseworthy?

01:32:18.000 I don't know. I mean, I think it depends, right? I think it depends on, I mean, I understand

01:32:21.740 your point of course, right? You know, compared to a missionary doctor or someone who's, you

01:32:27.020 know, out there saving a life or something like that. Maybe not, but it's still a metaphor

01:32:32.560 for life, right? It's still the substrate by which we can take lessons and expand. And it

01:32:38.180 still pushes the boundaries of what it is that we're capable of. And I think there's something

01:32:44.380 about that, that Senna is a most extreme example of that, that we've probably ever seen in all

01:32:49.240 of sport where one individual's passion and pursuit is, first of all, it's a tool by which

01:32:57.020 he was able to help millions of people in his own country directly and financially. But

01:33:02.880 I think more importantly, it's, it's sort of a hope that people cling to. And, you know,

01:33:09.040 in the words of David Foster Wallace, you know, we all worship something. There's no such thing

01:33:13.040 as atheism. So we're all in the pursuit and worship of something.

01:33:17.180 I think also there's something it's just, maybe it just occurred to me, but I think also that

01:33:21.200 I've, I've learned to appreciate that opportunity doesn't come to everyone. And some people look at

01:33:29.080 somebody who's got, had an opportunity and they've done something with it and they've done the right

01:33:33.200 thing with it and they've gone, Oh, thank God you did that. I didn't get the opportunity to do that,

01:33:37.840 but I'm glad you did because that's what I would like to done. And so when they get praised, if you

01:33:43.120 get praised for something, it's not you they're praising, it's celebrating the fact that somebody

01:33:48.420 has had an opportunity and they've triumphed over the something. And you're right. That's what gives us

01:33:54.880 all hope that, you know, maybe if we got the opportunity, we do the same or it's a generosity

01:34:00.680 when you're celebrated celebrity. I think you people say congratulations because it's that we're

01:34:08.320 celebrating something for all of us. I think that's something which I perhaps never really

01:34:12.240 properly understood. I felt, you know, a bit like a kid getting too many Christmas presents or

01:34:16.940 something. I don't know. Well, you almost got the Christmas present in 94 because as we head into

01:34:22.760 Adelaide, of course, now you're down by a point. If Schumacher finishes ahead of you, he wins the

01:34:28.040 championship. If you finish ahead of him, you finish the championship and he crashes and all

01:34:36.440 you'd have to do at this point is finish the race and you win. And then something is wrong with your

01:34:40.720 car. If I recall, it was suspension. Yeah. So what happened is we were racing hammer and tongs and a

01:34:48.340 long way ahead of everyone else. Yeah. Cause Nigel was on pole. Nigel's on pole, but had a horrible

01:34:52.940 start. It was basically a two man race, two man race. And it was sort of Suzuka part two. We went

01:34:58.800 straight back into the battle we'd had at the previous race. I did put him under a lot of

01:35:03.060 pressure, but then he started to creep away from me and he got so far away. I couldn't see around.

01:35:08.580 It was like a street track that went around blocks. So it was 90 degree corners. And he'd just gone

01:35:12.980 around the 90 degree corner. I couldn't see that he'd gone off and hit the wall and come back on.

01:35:17.680 So when I come around the corner, I'm right on his tail and he's coming back on the track and

01:35:21.680 obviously not up to speed. And I thought this is my chance. I'm never going to get this again

01:35:28.600 because he, he always, he already managed to pull away from me. So I thought he slipped up. He's got

01:35:33.180 managed to get back on the track and I'll have a go at passing him on this corner here. So I went

01:35:38.340 down the inside, but he closed the door on me and touched my car and damaged the suspension. He

01:35:44.200 crashed out. So his race was run, but unfortunately my car was also damaged and I couldn't carry on

01:35:50.920 either. So he'd won the championship. And a lot of people were very cross about that.

01:35:55.560 I'm going to have to say, I, I look back, I, at the time I thought, Oh, what have I done?

01:36:00.000 That was a stupid clumsy move. I just did. But actually British of you.

01:36:05.200 Jeez. Well, when I look at it again, it still looks like that to me. But anyway,

01:36:10.560 what I didn't know was his car was probably terminally damaged anyway. So if he knew that

01:36:17.040 his car was damaged, then he knew he had to do what he did. And if he didn't know,

01:36:22.620 then it was just a defensive move that worked for him. Luckily, I suppose, because my car got broken.

01:36:27.660 I think the hardest part of that story for me sort of cheering you on is

01:36:31.120 like, you're just thinking, come on guys, he, you don't need the suspension to be perfect.

01:36:37.060 It just needs to be good enough for you to limp to the finish line.

01:36:41.660 There ain't no, you don't limp in a form of one car. They pair things down to the bare minimum.

01:36:47.320 If one part of the suspension is buckled, it's going to just snap the moment you hit the brakes

01:36:52.020 or put any load on it. It's going to collapse. So how does that race put the exclamation mark at

01:36:58.820 the end of the most emotionally draining season of your life, which is the lowest low. And it almost,

01:37:06.840 you come within literally one foot, you're 30 centimeters of width, and you could have had the

01:37:13.620 highest high in that season.

01:37:14.960 Yeah, but I, you know, I, I could also have been, had the same fate as Edna.

01:37:18.200 I mean, is that basically why, because I've heard you in interviews in the last 20 years,

01:37:22.900 you've never sort of complained about that race. You've, you've always had a very, and maybe this

01:37:28.960 is, I don't know how much of this is, is just, you know, you're being polite and it's not your

01:37:33.960 nature to, versus like you really had a sanguine view of, you know what, look, it, I gave it the

01:37:39.220 best I could. It's amazing that I was the second, you know, I had the second most points that season,

01:37:43.900 but I don't have hard feelings about it is sort of the way I feel you, you describe it.

01:37:47.820 I think in 94, I was, I gave it everything I had and wanted so badly to, to win. I, I, I want to

01:37:57.220 ask you a question. Do you, did you see, did Michael set himself up as somehow the villain

01:38:04.780 was in some way, what happened to Ayrton was not his fault? But I mean, I think a lot of people

01:38:10.420 This is complicated. Here's the thing. I mean, I'm going to just put my bias on the, on the table,

01:38:14.560 right? You can see my laptop over there. It's got a MP4. I mean, you've got, I'm a Santa fan like no

01:38:20.100 other. I've never liked Schumacher. I have to be honest with you. I never, I always felt he played

01:38:24.720 in a gray area of the sport. Let's look at 94. Well, I'm the same piece. I asked you that question

01:38:29.840 because I sort of knew that that was the situation, not with you personally, but there was definitely

01:38:35.020 some animosity towards the way Michael went about racing. Yeah. And part of that's not fair to

01:38:40.440 Michael, right? So part of it is, I think if Michael had not raced at Imola, I don't think

01:38:47.040 Senna would have died. That's not Michael's fault, by the way. No, it's not. It's not his fault.

01:38:51.980 But that's sort of the view that I carry, right? Was Senna was convinced that Schumacher was riding

01:38:58.500 traction control. I probably think that's true. Remember, Benetton refused to submit their data

01:39:03.380 to F1 after that race, incurred a huge fine. Several races later, they get busted for using

01:39:09.900 an illegal fueling filter. I mean, they were always sort of doing something a little bit gray.

01:39:15.640 So I think there are some fans that just immediately fell into a Schumacher is not the good guy.

01:39:22.880 But you can also look at Ayrton and say Ayrton was someone who's very volatile.

01:39:27.360 Mm-hmm. And if he felt that someone had treated him badly, he would almost never forgive them.

01:39:33.600 I don't think he ever forgave Prost for Monaco of 88. I think that was the beginning of the end of

01:39:39.720 that animosity. And I think maybe that was a weakness.

01:39:43.000 It is. And, you know, my wife asked me about this. She goes, you sort of have a double standard

01:39:46.860 with Senna. Like, you know, you're very quick to overlook his flaws. I don't know that that's true.

01:39:52.300 I think what it is. I think, I think it's how open a book he was and how volatile he was that

01:39:59.040 I actually see as appealing. It's the, there's no ambiguity of where you stood with him.

01:40:04.120 It's kind of Greek theater, isn't it? With, with Ayrton.

01:40:07.640 Yes.

01:40:08.260 He's kind of destined. He hadn't got any choice in the matter. His life, his personality,

01:40:14.500 the things that made him who he was, these forces were driving him.

01:40:19.720 And you look back at some of the earlier interviews. I mean, there was an amazing

01:40:22.980 interview with Prost in nine, 90 maybe when he was so upset at Senna, but he made this point,

01:40:30.540 which was like, God, Senna acts like he can't die in a car. You know, he drives like someone

01:40:36.760 who's immune from death, but he said, but he's not, you know, of course, never would anybody

01:40:42.540 imagine what that would foreshadow four years later. So yes, going back to your final race in 94,

01:40:48.060 I thought Schumacher was out to lunch. I mean, I thought that was completely unfair.

01:40:54.420 But what should have happened was that the people who run the sport should have said,

01:40:59.820 you can't do that. And they didn't, they didn't do that with Ayrton when he crashed into Prost in

01:41:05.700 Suzuka.

01:41:06.540 Although I always thought that was sort of payback for...

01:41:08.640 It's not, it's not.

01:41:09.780 I know, I know, I know.

01:41:10.880 You can't run, you can't let drivers have...

01:41:12.840 Yeah, you can't be mercenaries.

01:41:14.400 No, it's not, it's not Death Wish or whatever that film was with Charles, but you're too young

01:41:19.020 to remember that.

01:41:19.400 No, no, I totally remember it.

01:41:20.540 But, you know, so you can't take the law into your own hands. That's what they're there for.

01:41:24.040 They're there to stop things getting out of hand. And they just abdicated their responsibility

01:41:30.180 to running things properly. And, you know, that meant that opened the door for everyone in all

01:41:36.460 branches of the sport to go about the sport in the way they saw it being executed in Formula

01:41:43.220 One. Because everyone looks down, sees Formula One as the pinnacle of everything. That's the

01:41:47.920 way they work it. So in American racing, they're a lot tougher. It's incredible. You know, they

01:41:53.380 can be quite tough on drivers who are bad driving and stuff like that in the States, particularly

01:41:59.300 on ovals as well, because it is very dangerous.

01:42:01.580 So we're going to skip the 95 season just for the sake of time, because there's still so much

01:42:04.680 I want to talk about post-retirement, but into the 96 season, you're racing very well.

01:42:10.660 You've now got this new upstart, another son of, as you describe him, right, from my home

01:42:16.660 country. At what point, even though it came down to the last race, so it's sort of a nail

01:42:22.820 biting season all over again, your form looked incredible that season, right? I mean, was

01:42:29.360 there a part of you that was starting to accept halfway through that season that this is your

01:42:33.720 season? Yeah, I think before the season started. It was always a one-year contract. I didn't

01:42:39.120 know it was going to be my last season with Williams, but, you know, I knew when we got

01:42:44.660 to Monza, by Monza, which was a bit later in the day, but I mean, at the start of the season,

01:42:48.460 I thought, this has got to be perfect this season. I've got to, you know, not be distracted

01:42:54.260 and I've got to polish the job. I knew I had a chance. The car was brilliant. And I knew

01:42:59.500 I had a guy who'd never done a lot of the tracks that he was going to go to. So no matter

01:43:04.360 how fast he was or motivated, you know, he, he was at a disadvantage to me. You know, I

01:43:10.040 had no excuse not to beat it really. And he was a good teammate. You know, he was cocky

01:43:15.540 and a bit irritating at times, but, but charming with it as well.

01:43:20.220 What track was it? Estoril when he claimed he could take the non-racing line?

01:43:23.500 He did that at the start of the season.

01:43:25.780 Like in pre-season testing, right?

01:43:27.000 In pre-season testing, he's sort of sat down and was, I think he did it as a way of getting

01:43:35.500 noticed by the team and the engineers by saying, you know, do you think anyone could overtake

01:43:40.120 round the last corner and boasting really and catching everyone's attention in the process.

01:43:45.780 And we'd sit there and go, guy, guy's completely mad. What was he thinking? What's he talking

01:43:50.840 about? Anyway, did it.

01:43:53.660 That's the amazing thing. And he couldn't have passed a better person.

01:43:56.080 No. And he did it. And also I was, I was in the post-race cool down room with him as

01:44:01.380 well. And Mike was very cross with him because he claimed it was dangerous.

01:44:05.760 Yeah. The irony of that is unbelievable.

01:44:07.800 But that's, that's the extraordinary thing about these guys is they are never wrong in

01:44:12.040 any situation. Their mind, they've tricked their mind to believe they have to be right

01:44:17.100 in every situation. And there's only one rule and it's their rule. That's their, their way

01:44:22.000 they approach. And someone told me this story about Jack Nicklaus being asked in an interview

01:44:25.860 once by someone, um, some get together with the public and meet the fan type thing. And

01:44:31.680 the guy asked him, Jack, when you three putted in the masters in whatever, he said, I never

01:44:36.200 three putted in the masters. He said, yeah, no, you did. I saw you. I was there. He said,

01:44:39.560 no, I said, I never three putted in the, I never three putted my whole career. You know,

01:44:44.520 he just basically explained that people who are that competitive and train their mind,

01:44:52.980 they, they don't see themselves as making mistakes.

01:44:55.940 Well, and you could almost argue that's a trait. Like that's a feature of their greatness

01:45:00.640 is the ability to completely suppress anything that could be negative or that could reflect

01:45:06.580 on them having made an error. Now I've always found that interesting because you take the

01:45:11.080 opposite, like you're someone that comes in with a totally different personality, which

01:45:14.260 is highly willing to accept, oh my God, what did I, did I make a mistake here? How can I

01:45:19.120 learn from this?

01:45:19.740 Which tactically may be a mistake.

01:45:21.480 Well, that's the point I'm going to make is the evidence would suggest both phenotypes

01:45:26.020 can produce success. So I don't know that it's necessary that one has to be blind to

01:45:32.760 their mistakes to be successful. In fact, I would argue that that's a harder way to live

01:45:38.300 your life, isn't it?

01:45:39.300 I would say that Alain Prost was self-critical, openly self-critical and willing to accept a little

01:45:47.000 bit of his fallibilities maybe. And I think that in studies with sports psychologists, they have

01:45:55.040 identified the people who are the best people are more self-critical of themselves. So they're

01:46:02.620 actually, they see themselves as a work in progress and they're always trying to improve.

01:46:07.640 Whereas the ones that have a problem are the ones that feel they've got it all and they don't need

01:46:11.440 it. They've got nothing else to learn. And it's a kind of harder position and it's easier to

01:46:16.300 fracture. And you have to say in some cases when Michael was racing and things weren't going well,

01:46:21.020 he fell apart. It didn't compute, I think, in some cases. And I think he showed a certain

01:46:26.400 fragility, but most of the time he was so strong as a competitor that, you know, his confidence

01:46:33.020 was what gave him also some power over when everyone else.

01:46:38.780 When that season ends, you take a Concord over to New York, you end up on Letterman.

01:46:43.740 Well, they put a, they said, do you want me on the show? And they put off, yeah. I didn't choose

01:46:48.840 to go Concord, but he was there. Yeah. Well, it's kind of amazing. It would be only a few years,

01:46:53.460 three years later, four years later, that plane would be grounded, never fly again. So

01:46:56.640 you kind of got this surprise from Letterman when you were on your sort of victory lap,

01:47:01.300 so to speak, right? Because he pulled out a picture of your dad, which again was done in good

01:47:05.620 spirits. It wasn't, it was, you know, done as a way to basically make a point, which was you were

01:47:09.960 the first person to ever win a formula one championship as the son of another formula

01:47:14.920 one champion. And I don't think at that point in your career, by the way, anybody would say,

01:47:20.540 well, of course, you know, once you're the son of a champion, it's easier for you. I mean,

01:47:23.840 if anything, by that point you had established, you didn't have a single break your way in terms of

01:47:29.700 being the son of Graham Hill. In fact, I think even Letterman riffed you about it a little bit that

01:47:35.280 you, you still got, you lost your seat. It didn't help me keep my Williams drive. No,

01:47:39.960 I don't think Frank saw any benefit in that, just having a son of around the place. So

01:47:44.720 no, I don't know. I don't know whether I, I, nobody can answer that one. I mean,

01:47:48.940 is it easier? Is it less easy? I don't know. A lot of the guys whose dad didn't have successful

01:47:55.580 careers, they went on to be successful racing drivers. There's lots of sons of out there.

01:48:00.180 Did you think about it when Josh was racing?

01:48:02.300 Yeah, I did. I thought it must be difficult for him. You know, it must be difficult because

01:48:06.680 he can't just go racing and, and be treated like, everyone knew that this was someone who

01:48:12.400 could potentially be a third time, you know, third generation world champion, no pressure

01:48:17.660 son. I think that Josh was very mature and could cope with that, but nevertheless, it's

01:48:22.960 a fact and you kind of don't know how to deal with it. I don't know how you, you can't ignore

01:48:27.600 it. You can't, you don't want to keep banging on about it, but it's there all the time. It's

01:48:33.540 just a fact of life. And you're going to go, well, that's it. You know, that's now we've

01:48:37.740 got to get back to the racing. And, and actually the only thing that really makes any difference

01:48:41.620 and only things that thing that people really care about is where do you finish?

01:48:45.940 So the next year, 97, you're in the arrows car and then you spend the last two years in

01:48:50.940 with Eddie Jordan, right?

01:48:52.140 Yeah.

01:48:52.580 Yeah.

01:48:52.780 You managed to win a race in the Jordan car, right?

01:48:56.420 Yeah.

01:48:56.680 Was it Hungary?

01:48:57.560 No, it was Spa.

01:48:58.820 It was Spa. So your last win was at Spa.

01:49:01.260 Yeah.

01:49:01.920 Epic circuit.

01:49:03.380 Yeah. But I knew when I won that, I couldn't do that again. That was a two hour race in

01:49:08.040 the wet. I'm 38 years old and it was exhausting mentally, physically, you know, it was really

01:49:17.420 tough. And I think if I, if I'm finding this difficult now, I just, you know.

01:49:21.820 Yeah. What did you decide at the end of 98 to come back for another year? What, what

01:49:25.860 did you have left to prove at that point?

01:49:27.460 Well, I had a two year contract. So I thought the car was getting better and I, I just, at

01:49:32.500 the end of 89, why would I come back?

01:49:34.480 Yeah. I know you had a two year contract, but, but I mean, contracts aside, did you still

01:49:38.220 have...

01:49:38.500 I want to, I want, you can't, it's very difficult to just give up. It's very difficult to go,

01:49:42.600 okay, well, I'm, you know, I've not had a good weekend, but, or good season. I found

01:49:47.500 it quite hard, but I'm still fittish, youngish, you know, and I still think there's a chance.

01:49:55.260 And so that part of you overrides the, the one that can be utterly, brutally objective

01:50:01.840 and say, you know, you should stop now. And so I got halfway through 99 and thought, I

01:50:09.740 can't, I can't carry on with this. I've got to, I've got to stop, got to get out. And

01:50:13.280 I wanted to stop at the British Grand Prix, but Eddie Jordan had got someone else signed

01:50:17.300 up and made a commitment to someone to get me out of the car. And I just thought, well,

01:50:21.300 I don't want to leave on a, you know, I like at least to go out, you know, saying thank

01:50:26.140 you to everyone and finish my career where I started at Silverstone and British Grand

01:50:30.580 Prix and everything. Can you, can you see your way to just letting me do that? And that

01:50:35.260 was, then suddenly it got all complicated and suddenly I got locked into doing the whole

01:50:39.660 rest of the season.

01:50:40.380 So let's go to the very last race. Your last race as an F1 driver, 1999, Suzuka, right?

01:50:48.500 Yeah. So by that point I'd just gone, I had gone wrong in the race somewhere. And I just

01:50:53.480 thought I'm a lap down. I've had to come in for a front wing. We got no chance. We're

01:50:57.520 in a way out of the points. It's just, I just thought right now in a, a wheel could fall

01:51:03.100 off. I could hit a barrier and kill myself. And then it would all been stupid, wouldn't

01:51:06.760 it? Why risk it? So I came in.

01:51:08.280 And what did you say?

01:51:10.080 That's it. I'm finished.

01:51:11.120 What did they say?

01:51:12.200 They were, what's wrong with the car? Nothing.

01:51:15.360 I mean, it's a lot like Niki Lauda in 75, 76, right?

01:51:19.200 Yeah. They're not happy with you if you retire a car, but screw them. Sorry. They don't understand

01:51:25.440 you are putting your life at risk and affecting potentially, you know, your family and all that

01:51:32.260 stuff. And there are times when it doesn't matter.

01:51:35.680 This was really a crescendo for you, right? This was, it's your last race, but it was the

01:51:42.180 moment when you finally sort of said, wait a minute, like I am now secure enough in my

01:51:47.420 skin. I'm a Formula One world champion. And on my terms today, this is enough.

01:51:53.420 No, exactly. I'd done it their way my whole career. I had always given everything I had

01:51:58.500 for the team and I gave everything I had for Williams and I got the sack. And after a bit,

01:52:04.620 you just go, Hey, listen, there is a deal. They're doing a deal. You've done a deal with

01:52:09.360 them. Okay. It says in the contract, you will always give the best of your performance.

01:52:13.200 I gave the best. I had nothing left, you know?

01:52:16.560 Do you remember that evening or the next night you were, I guess it would have been probably

01:52:20.620 a, were your, was your family at that race?

01:52:22.900 No.

01:52:23.480 So how long before you got home? Do you remember?

01:52:25.880 Say two days maybe?

01:52:26.960 Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

01:52:27.900 What was it like that first time you came home knowing you were retired? Was it the greatest

01:52:32.220 feeling? Was it a sad feeling?

01:52:34.040 It's a very good question. I don't, I don't actually remember. I think I was very relieved

01:52:38.960 and happy. I thought I was home and dry. I thought I'd escaped. That's what I thought.

01:52:43.440 But I actually, all of those things came home to roost. You know, the things you put back

01:52:49.160 behind you, those fears and whatever worries that you, imaginings that you have, you kind

01:52:56.480 of go, well, you know, you can, you can stay there for a bit. And then when you step out

01:53:02.280 of the car, you just think, I made it. I made it out. I made it through in one piece. It's

01:53:07.240 like getting to the top of the mountain El Capitan. And actually the worrying thing is whether

01:53:12.940 you come back and do something dangerous again, you know, you have to kind of, so I did, I

01:53:17.580 didn't start, I stopped racing. I thought, right, that's it. I'm not going anywhere near

01:53:20.700 anything dangerous for, it's not like I'm, you know, I'm still relatively sane about things

01:53:26.200 like that. I did do karting when, uh, when Josh was karting, I got back in a, got pumped

01:53:31.720 up again and started racing a few guys, but took a few risks there. But generally I've been

01:53:38.020 to quite good.

01:53:38.820 But this is kind of interesting, right? I mean, there are a lot of people when they

01:53:42.060 leave the peak of their profession, their identity is so wrapped up in that thing. And

01:53:48.360 again, this could be being the F1 driver. This could be being the big shot lawyer, the

01:53:52.660 big shot doctor. But I, you know, I see this pattern all the time, which is people that have

01:53:59.020 this inability to go from being at the apex to living quote unquote, the normal life.

01:54:08.000 You never really seem to, I mean, you went through something different, which we're going

01:54:12.960 to talk about, which was now that you had more stillness around you. I think you were able

01:54:17.260 to appreciate the depression. You were able to go back and confront some of the tragedy

01:54:22.780 of your life that I don't think had been fully processed, but you also didn't have as much

01:54:28.580 of this struggle. It seems with your identity being first and foremost, a driver.

01:54:33.780 I think I felt like I denied my, my identity by being shoehorned into being a racing driver.

01:54:41.780 I mean, I think I, I did the racing. I don't think I ever thought that that's who I was.

01:54:49.480 You know, I knew I could do it and I liked doing it. And I felt strongly that I was a

01:54:55.440 very good driver and I could beat people and I gave it a hundred percent. But I just thought

01:55:00.200 that's, that's only a small, your formula one wants people to be a certain way. You know,

01:55:07.660 they want particular types of heroes. And, and I just thought, well, I'm maybe I'm not that

01:55:13.700 person and I don't want to be what you want me to be. So I've got to be me and I want to

01:55:19.380 go racing the way I go racing. And I gave a little bit, but I also perhaps was not cut

01:55:27.520 out for that role. I don't know. I don't, I, have any of the younger drivers ever come

01:55:32.760 to you as they're ending the, they're entering the twilight of their career and asked for

01:55:38.320 advice or just wanted to talk about that transition?

01:55:41.520 Not one, not one driver has come to me and go on. I want to be a formal driver. What do you do?

01:55:51.380 It's amazing. I mean, it is, it's almost not a conversation that never happens with racing

01:55:57.320 drivers. They hardly ever speak to anyone else, any other racing driver about getting advice.

01:56:03.380 It's, it's not like tennis or golf or something like that where they have coaches. It's really

01:56:08.680 peculiar. I was lucky I had my dad, you know, I had my dad when I was younger. So I kind of

01:56:14.240 gleaned quite a lot of knowledge from him, but maybe it wasn't clarified because I was only very

01:56:20.980 young, but I did ask drivers occasionally for a bit of advice, got some help from James Hunt once.

01:56:27.580 He just said, I think you're doing a good job. And that was really helpful. I, that made me feel

01:56:33.740 great. Cause I thought here's a guy who's, uh, you know, respected actually giving me some thoughts

01:56:39.800 on what I, what he thought I was doing. I'm trying to rack my brains to see if I've got, I also didn't

01:56:44.440 get advice as such, but I'd used to speak a little bit to Nicky louder. And were you close to Nicky at

01:56:50.260 all?

01:56:50.520 Only a little tiny bit, not that close, but because he raced against my dad, I kind of felt

01:56:55.460 like he was cognizant of that side of my life, if you like. So a bit of a connection there. Jackie,

01:57:00.980 of course, Jackie would give advice. But as far as other people coming to me and going, how do you

01:57:07.040 do it? I think, I think probably people looked at my career and thought they don't want to do it

01:57:10.980 like the way I did it. So they don't ask for my advice.

01:57:15.140 You wrote about how you weren't specific as to when this occurred after retirement. So I can't

01:57:21.180 tell if it was two years after or 10 years after, but you wrote about how you were on a family vacation

01:57:27.100 somewhere and you were, you were sort of sitting there, I think just with Oliver and you, you,

01:57:31.380 you wrote that you were frustrated, confused, and angry. And then you had this moment of sort of

01:57:36.600 clarity. And I don't know if you intended it to sound like a turning point, but it sounds like it was,

01:57:42.500 I believe you were already in therapy at this point. You were already speaking with

01:57:48.340 a therapist and you were already confronting your own depression. But what is it about that moment?

01:57:56.240 I mean, depression is such a depressing word. People, you talk about depression, you can sense

01:58:01.680 people go, Oh, please don't talk about depression. And I, my comment on depression is that depression is

01:58:07.620 a way of telling us we're going the wrong direction. So it's a profound signaling, a running out of

01:58:16.860 energy, an energy that is, is depleting. And it's actually starting to go the other way. It's actually

01:58:24.020 starting to drag you down. And it's because it's trying to tell you something. You are sort of doing

01:58:31.240 this to yourself. You actually need to reorientate your perspective on things. How do you do that?

01:58:38.660 And that's, that's easy to say. And as everyone, anyone who's had depression knows, someone can't

01:58:43.520 say to you, just cheer up. It's the most useless advice one could give. Do not understand the meaning

01:58:48.560 of depression. If anybody thinks that that's what it's about, it's almost like you've run out of ideas

01:58:53.460 completely. And it's not even the buffers. It's, it's the black hole, isn't it? So the abyss,

01:59:01.160 I remember I did actually go and see Rothko exhibition tape modern, I think it was. And, um,

01:59:07.380 I was looking at one of his paintings and there's usual thing. There's, there's horizons. So they are

01:59:14.140 literally horizons, aren't they? There's, and one of them was a very sunny looking painting. So it had

01:59:20.820 sort of like the sun above. And then as you went down, it went darker and darker until it went down.

01:59:26.240 And I remember looking at this painting and just going, I don't want to go down there.

01:59:31.300 And you felt like you were on a path to there or that there was some sort of pull, like if you

01:59:36.540 didn't make a change, that's where you were going. I think you mentioned identity. And I think that is

01:59:42.100 fundamentally important. And I think that people who have had an overwhelmingly powerful parent,

01:59:49.460 let's say they haven't fully evolved their own identity. They haven't had the chance for

01:59:57.100 some things, you know, your dad's famous and then he dies. Who are you? Are you your dad's son? Are you,

02:00:04.360 who are you? He wasn't around long enough to kind of, it didn't manage to get to that point where

02:00:08.960 I was confirmed as me. My mom and my dad were distracted. They had this career going on, his,

02:00:14.680 his career going on. I think I didn't fully develop an identity. I knew I had somebody that

02:00:21.780 people responded to and my friends when I went to school, but it wasn't a fully developed

02:00:28.100 personality. It wasn't a real rounded thing. It was, it was sort of half cooked.

02:00:34.320 And when I stopped racing, I just expressed something that I had, maybe I was just, you

02:00:44.640 know, play acting my dad. Those are the sort of questions you, you, I didn't really achieve

02:00:49.200 it. So to be 40 years old and to be thinking those things has got to be somewhat jarring,

02:00:56.120 right? Because you're sort of saying, wait a minute, who am I? Like, I haven't figured this

02:01:00.100 out right now. And what if I've spent the last 20 years pursuing something that wasn't really about

02:01:08.760 me? No, exactly. And there was, there was definitely an agenda. Part of it was to

02:01:14.040 reconstitute the life that we had before he got killed. So I managed to get us back. I used the

02:01:22.100 word us, but of course my mum had lost her husband and my sister's lost their dad, but I had a family.

02:01:32.920 But in a way, in partly my mind, I was, it was, if I restructured my family, then we'd restructured

02:01:40.520 the family that was shattered, that was destroyed. So I'd rebuilt this thing. So there was this,

02:01:46.000 is a misplaced concept. It doesn't apply because it's not, you can't put back together the family

02:01:52.780 that died. My dad's not going to come back. And so my kids were growing up. I was thinking all the

02:02:00.300 time, well, I would have done anything to have had my dad back, but they had their dad. They didn't

02:02:05.760 know what that was all about. Did you ever feel at some point that you had an obligation to them to

02:02:11.080 figure this out? Because the irony of it was you lost your dad because he actually died. But if

02:02:17.800 you didn't figure this out, your kids were going to lose their dad, not because he's physically dead,

02:02:22.920 but because he's emotionally absent or emotionally dead. And for lack, you know, at the risk of sounding

02:02:28.000 too dramatic. Well, and I think the more, the more you dig in there, the more you realize that your

02:02:33.300 parents' relationship was, was not as ideal as it should have been. And when you're younger,

02:02:39.460 you idealize them and everything's wonderful when clearly it wasn't. And what you don't want

02:02:45.500 to do. Did you ever talk to your mom about this? Yeah, I had, I did actually go and start to talk

02:02:49.820 to my mom about her relationship with her husband, but she was quite defensive, not defensive, but she

02:02:57.160 was, she had created explanations for her relationship with her husband. And he clearly had,

02:03:07.900 they'd had difficulties. But then if I started to criticize him, then she would suddenly come to

02:03:13.620 his defense. And do you think part of that is just her stoic nature? You know, you write stories about

02:03:18.540 her upbringing. I mean, you know, she almost died during the war. And then on top of that, she's

02:03:23.660 standing there as one of the wives during the most dangerous era in the history of this sport, where

02:03:29.140 about a one in three chance your spouse is going to die over the course of their career.

02:03:34.500 And they're saying all the time, this is a noble thing to be doing. Well, was it? Really? You know,

02:03:40.800 was it that noble when you've got family and stuff to, is it really that admirable that you're putting

02:03:46.520 all that at risk? And of course the irony is because he retired, he was home and dry.

02:03:52.520 Yeah. He retired about six months before this crash.

02:03:55.260 Yeah. He was 46. He stopped. He had this team that he was developing. So everybody thought,

02:04:01.400 everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Oh, he's in the clear. He dodged the bullet. He dodged the bullet

02:04:04.940 and bang, six months later, it got even worse than anyone could have imagined. It wasn't just him. It

02:04:11.820 was his young protege driver, team designer, team principal, the chief mechanic, engineer, all gone

02:04:21.880 and one big catastrophic bomb and makes you go through life slightly. You're never quite sure

02:04:32.200 what's around the corner. That's the horrible thing.

02:04:35.340 If you knew in call it 1985, right? So you're 25 years old. If you knew then what you know today,

02:04:45.440 or if, if you could go back and talk to that guy then, but as yourself now, what would you tell the

02:04:54.100 25 year old version of yourself now?

02:04:56.660 I would try and dispel from him a lot of erroneous notions about how the world works and who really

02:05:08.640 cares about what you think and what you do. And, and, and I would say just don't waste a lot of energy

02:05:16.600 thinking about those things or trying to make an impression on people because you think that would

02:05:22.020 help you. It doesn't work like that. You know, you just don't worry about that. If you've got a job

02:05:28.480 to do, do the job. If you do it well and you do it better than other people, then that will work.

02:05:35.120 That will help you focus on what your things you can do, not on the things you can't do anything

02:05:41.440 about and don't waste a lot of energy worrying about them. I probably would say that. And I'd also

02:05:48.900 say, enjoy it. Just, you know, don't put yourself through torture because you think this is something

02:05:57.820 that means a lot. It does, you know, we're going around in circles, chasing each other and trying

02:06:07.100 to come first. That's all it is.

02:06:11.100 Yeah. It's interesting, right? You talked earlier about the nobility of the sport in the sixties and

02:06:15.800 seventies when it was basically the most, you know, dangerous thing you could have done.

02:06:21.260 It was almost pornographic. Some people actually, I think, looked at Formula One and were put off.

02:06:26.820 They thought it's a disgusting thing. And now I can see that, that I can understand why they

02:06:33.480 felt that way. I think that anybody in the sport at the time where even today, we like to embellish

02:06:40.720 it and make it seem like it's such a wonderful thing. And it is, it's impressive. It's incredibly

02:06:46.300 impressive, but let's not get it too far out of, out of context. You know, it's just a,

02:06:52.380 it's a lifestyle choice for a lot of people. And, and it's a show of brilliance in certain fields,

02:06:58.760 but it's not going to really change the world for the better. A few people's weekends get a lot

02:07:06.460 better or a lot worse. But do you think that there are benefits from Formula One, for example,

02:07:11.500 in terms of advancing safety, technical achievements of vehicles? I think what Formula One does

02:07:17.060 brilliantly is that it shows people, if there's an issue or there's a problem, they can solve it.

02:07:23.000 They're absolutely brilliant at not stopping when there is a challenge. They go, what's the challenge?

02:07:29.780 We can't, well, we'll do it. We'll, we'll find a way around it. We'll do it. That's the impressive

02:07:34.400 thing about Formula One. I mean, Max Mosley, do you remember a couple of days after the Senna

02:07:39.660 crash? He was very recently had become the president, but I remember this press conference

02:07:44.780 and he said, you know, I think very aptly, the question isn't why did Senna crash? Although

02:07:51.180 that's all anybody wanted to talk about. The question is why did he die? Because the reality

02:07:57.420 of it is if you took a hundred drivers in the exact same crash, 99 of them probably would

02:08:04.160 have lived. It was a very fluky death. Fluky. And also the thing to consider is that just to

02:08:11.600 explain to people, didn't understand there was a part of the suspension that penetrated his crash

02:08:15.200 helmet. And the force needed to do that wasn't that great. If he'd crashed at a very slow speed

02:08:21.300 and the suspension had happened to come back then, we've all been in crashes like that, you know,

02:08:27.080 guys, we've all crashed, you know, even in Formula Ford, you've got suspension arms and wheels

02:08:32.160 flying all over the place. You don't have to be going that fast. You imagine just throwing a wheel

02:08:36.420 at you at 20 miles. Now it's going to go through your head. Yeah. So that to me was the big step

02:08:46.020 forward in, in Formula One safety, which is, you know, they're probably just as many crashes today

02:08:53.000 as there were in the previous generation, but people aren't supposed to die. There's an amazing

02:09:00.040 place where Formula One really did step up and, and I think made that difference. So I don't know.

02:09:06.540 I think you're. But then we're back into that loop of when you take away the risk, do we appreciate

02:09:15.260 the, the skill and the, and the. Yeah. So do you think the pendulum has swung too far today? Well,

02:09:21.640 you know, I don't know how you want to. I just, I. Cause you don't want to say there should be more

02:09:29.320 risk. No, you don't. Well, there's a guy who constantly reminds me is an engineer that there's

02:09:36.780 a difference between hazard and risk. So the hazard is what can happen. And the risk is the

02:09:41.660 potential of that happening. So the chance of that happening. So, you know, the chances of being hit

02:09:46.600 on the head by a flying wheel are slim because not that many people have been killed despite all the

02:09:52.360 flying wheels in motorsport yet. Well, we, we can name two, three people who've been killed

02:09:59.100 by that adjusting. And now they bought in the halo. So we believe we have eliminated the hazard.

02:10:06.280 The chances produced, I suppose, because it's got to somehow get through the, the halo. So

02:10:13.180 we've taken away one of the hazards to someone being hurt. That's got to be a good thing.

02:10:20.040 Right. So we have to then replace the challenge or if we've taken away some of the challenge of the

02:10:25.800 sport, then we need to find a way to introduce other challenges that will be appreciated.

02:10:31.180 Whether that's, I don't know, giving the cars more power or, you know, more difficult to drive or

02:10:36.340 if it looks easy and it's too easy, then nobody cares. You know, they're not going to,

02:10:40.420 they're not going to be watching. You mentioned how after you retired, you didn't even watch

02:10:45.140 the next decade of racing. I mean, when, when Schumacher was, yeah, you knew what was happening.

02:10:50.140 I knew what the result was going to be. So he was, he just cleaned up, didn't he? For about five years.

02:10:56.780 And I actually, I was at a, a low point with regard to the way the sport was run at that point too.

02:11:04.800 Nothing personal against Michael, but I just thought this is, this is putting on a show for the

02:11:09.840 benefit of just one person and a team. And I just didn't see that's what people wanted. I mean,

02:11:17.040 unless you were German, you know, or Italian, I suppose.

02:11:21.340 Yeah. You also said something that really got my attention. I'm writing a book right now. And

02:11:27.780 in this book, I talk about this practice of going to funerals. And, you know, it's funny because you

02:11:33.980 had talked about how much you did not want to go to Senna's funeral, which makes all the sense in the

02:11:38.200 world. But in the last couple of years, I've come to find funerals to be an amazing grounding

02:11:44.400 experience and a reminder of for any individual, how insignificant we are, you know, like I've never

02:11:52.260 been to a funeral yet where the earth stopped turning on its axis. So that gives me pretty good

02:11:57.620 confidence that there is no one of us who's so special or so relevant that somehow our departure

02:12:03.600 from this planet will change the rotational force of the earth.

02:12:08.060 It'll change it for us.

02:12:09.620 Exactly. Only for us.

02:12:11.580 Yeah.

02:12:12.340 And more importantly, to be a little less glib about it, it focuses you on sort of what matters

02:12:18.420 because it's what people are talking about at the funeral that probably matters more. They tend to

02:12:22.500 talk more about the type of person you were than what your achievements were. It's much more about

02:12:28.560 maybe what kind of a mother you were than what kind of a lawyer you were. And I couldn't help but

02:12:34.220 notice this line in your book that is literally just, it's one sentence and it almost goes unnoticed,

02:12:41.680 which is that you found yourself reading obituaries a lot and not of anyone famous,

02:12:47.960 of people you didn't know. Tell me a little bit more about that.

02:12:51.460 That just comes back a little bit to what I was saying about applauding and celebrating

02:12:55.480 people in public eye who've done stuff. And you read other lives of people I'd never heard of,

02:13:02.640 but maybe in their own career and their own field, they're well known. But you see, yeah,

02:13:06.460 it's just, it's unbelievable the kind of lives people have and the things they do. Modest people

02:13:11.620 do extraordinary things. There was a guy who was a kind of diplomat who managed to stop a revolution

02:13:17.300 just by going up and standing in front of the guy who was leading them. You know, just some

02:13:21.940 insignificant, apparently looking guy would do something extraordinary or woman. And it's those

02:13:29.080 stories which I think are profoundly moving because you don't know who these people are. They're out

02:13:34.800 there now and you might meet them and you don't know what they're capable of doing in an extraordinary

02:13:40.320 situation. They could be the people who suddenly do something really, you might have just passed them

02:13:45.620 by every day of their lives. They've, people have dismissed them as being ineffectual and they'll

02:13:51.940 do something really remarkable. Now, how has that insight helped you in your journey?

02:14:01.760 Um, I think, I think it's made me wonder whether I'm one of those people or not. I, you know,

02:14:11.180 I'd still, I shudder to think that, you know, that something might happen. I might have to kind of

02:14:18.360 make a decision as to whether I go in a burning building or not, you know, but there are people

02:14:23.140 who do that with it. They do that without even batting an eyelid. You know, you just think just

02:14:27.200 being a racing driver, is it that brave? It's like, I'm getting, I'm enjoying what I'm doing as well,

02:14:34.200 you know, and people's capacity as well for work. I mean, some people's, they just don't believe what

02:14:40.420 they can pull off in one lifetime. So human beings are extraordinary creatures, if that's the right

02:14:47.240 word. And I like learning more and more about them. I like more learning more about what we're

02:14:53.240 capable of and what some people are capable of. I'm, I know I have my limitations, but I'm still

02:14:58.960 in awe of people who are skilled or people who are educated in all kinds of ways and are able to

02:15:06.420 make things happen as well. Some people have the amazing ability to get things done. I mean,

02:15:10.680 whether it's Elon Musk or, you know, or that guy who's doing the ocean cleanup thing, you know,

02:15:15.880 it's, it's amazing. Some people just have this ability to, I, I'm absolutely rubbish at making

02:15:23.560 anything happen. I don't know why I try to come up with an idea and I can't seem to get it to take

02:15:29.680 hold. And then maybe probably because I doubt whether it's any worthwhile. Do you think your

02:15:33.940 kids would say that you've been rubbish at, at being a dad? Or do you think your kids would say

02:15:38.740 that? I remember one of the things you talk about, I don't think it was in this book. It might've been

02:15:43.020 in, I don't remember, maybe it was in this book, but you talk about how upon retiring, the thing you

02:15:48.960 look forward to most was taking them to school. You know, this idea, which again, that struck me

02:15:55.320 as a little odd because I have to, you know, we can't help but read the stories of other people

02:16:00.100 and put ourselves in them. That's the nature I think of what we do is we are so self-centered

02:16:05.540 as individuals. We always tend to extrapolate through our own lens. And I just, there's a part

02:16:11.780 of me that feels really sorry for someone to be at the pinnacle of a sport as an example,

02:16:18.160 and then have to retire. And there's a part of me that thinks, God, that must be awful. Like,

02:16:22.020 at least I don't know what it's like to be great, you know? So, so there's, there's joy in mediocrity

02:16:27.880 because I can't imagine what it would be like to be the best in the world at something and then to

02:16:34.400 be off that stage. And I guess I was just sort of pleased for you that even though I knew,

02:16:42.200 because I know how the story unfolds, that there is this huge journey you have to go through.

02:16:47.100 I thought, how much better is it that at least you have this, you have these four kids that mean

02:16:53.940 so much to you? The world can completely change with one generation. And it's all about how we

02:17:00.180 nurture our children in what we advise them in and the opportunities we give to them. You know,

02:17:06.100 it would only take one generation of people who didn't want to kill anything or anyone.

02:17:11.540 Isn't that kind of amazing when you think about that, that your children and your father are

02:17:17.060 separated by only one generation. And yet there's very little in common in their, in their experiences.

02:17:24.420 Hmm. Yeah. Well, it's extraordinary about the amount of change that's been in, in the world

02:17:30.020 in those two lifetimes. I mean,

02:17:31.680 Do your kids ask about their grandfather much?

02:17:33.580 I think a little bit. Yeah. I think they know about him, but I don't think they maybe in time,

02:17:39.780 but I don't, I don't think they let it rule their lives, which is the Graham Hill was a huge thing

02:17:44.720 in our lives. Apart from me and my elder sister, but not so much my younger sister, but his absence

02:17:50.860 was a big thing in her life. But for our lives, it was all about this thing called Graham Hill,

02:17:56.220 you know, which was a kind of concept, which over touched everything you did.

02:18:01.020 You borrow a quote from Lincoln.

02:18:03.260 Really?

02:18:03.980 Yeah. Well, well, so I believe it was Lincoln who originally said,

02:18:09.100 if you have six hours to chop down a tree, you spend four of them sharpening your ax.

02:18:16.480 Yeah. You basically paraphrase that as if you had 10 years to chop down a tree,

02:18:20.360 you spend nine of them sharpening your ax. Yeah.

02:18:22.900 The way I read that is that it took a while for you to put this book together. You had to really,

02:18:27.060 you had to sort a lot of things out before you could write this story.

02:18:29.860 That's right. I couldn't really put pen to paper before that. And so I felt like I knew I had a

02:18:37.500 foundation or something I can, you know, write it on because, you know, I was all over the place

02:18:43.020 with my ideas, my thoughts about things. You know, I used to think, I used to listen to programs on

02:18:50.040 Radio 4 about philosophy and mathematics and stuff that comes into your head like Godel's theory of

02:18:59.940 incompleteness and Wittgenstein's whereof we cannot speak there or we must remain silent. I mean,

02:19:07.040 these things are very profound. You can only have its being or nothingness, which is Sartre's argument.

02:19:14.240 You know, there either is something or there isn't. How do you get something out of nothing?

02:19:20.700 And those sort of thoughts. And it would be, for me, I had to get some sort of bloody answers from

02:19:26.700 somewhere. And, you know, and then you realize that they spent an awful lot of time and energy

02:19:33.740 trying to work them out. And they were probably a lot smarter than me. And they didn't get an answer,

02:19:36.720 did they? They didn't get an answer. You know, nobody got an answer. Tell me who's got the answer.

02:19:43.740 Peter, maybe, maybe you're the man. No, well, I definitely don't have the answers, but I,

02:19:48.520 I think I'm just really impressed with the journey. It's this journey you've been on that is

02:19:55.280 really amazing. It's a journey that is well worn. It's a journey that men and women, I keep saying

02:20:01.560 all of us humans have been making for thousands of years. We've all asked that everybody's gone

02:20:10.120 through or in every epoch, they've been wanting to know these answers. And it's natural to want to

02:20:18.560 know those answers. And I think it's new here. The writings and the philosophies of, of ancient

02:20:26.380 civilizations, they're all fascinating and have some kernel of truth in them that somehow got

02:20:33.440 appreciated by another group of people somewhere else without the influence of Western civilization

02:20:39.380 or something like that. You know, it's, it's something that is eternal and something which is

02:20:44.740 profoundly compelling about being a human being. I mean, I was going to mention something. So here's

02:20:50.760 something when, when I was quite depressed, I had a tree that was given to me, a tree, a tree,

02:20:56.900 which was given to me for my 40th birthday by a famous rock band person who couldn't make it to my

02:21:01.980 party. And it was a tree, a peace tree. It was an olive tree. Okay. So I had this olive tree,

02:21:10.040 which I kind of treasured. And I thought I really must plant this tree and get it watered some point.

02:21:13.980 And it got attacked by aphids or some sort of bug. So I spent ages picking these bugs off the thing.

02:21:21.860 I didn't want it to kill the tree, but I was killing the bugs. So I'm thinking, hang on, what do I do?

02:21:29.620 Do I let them kill the tree? Do I kill the bugs? Do I leave it? Do I leave it be? Do I not have any

02:21:35.780 involvement? What is my purpose here? You know, what, what should I be doing? That's

02:21:42.720 the kind of stuff that stops you in your tracks when you, when you're heavily, you know, in those

02:21:50.260 mindsets, you kind of get caught between those unresolvable questions. Maybe I should just chuck

02:21:58.200 the whole thing in the skip, but you know, I think you're special in the sense that I don't think

02:22:04.000 enough people spend time thinking about these things. I mean, I think these, these are the human

02:22:10.220 questions and it's really easy to just not think about them. It's really easy to live a life that

02:22:18.400 is unexamined. I don't think I examine my life as closely as I can, because quite frankly, it's not,

02:22:24.540 it's not comfortable. I would say Peter, I think I don't do it as much as I used to. I actually now

02:22:30.680 have got to the point where I go, I think that's an unanswerable one. I think we'll just let that one

02:22:34.500 go. And actually that it's liberating in that sense. You know, I don't have to stop everything

02:22:43.020 until I've got an answer to that. When you look at that same painting today, the painting that starts

02:22:48.440 with the sun and it gets darker and darker as you go down, the painting that once made you think,

02:22:54.720 I don't want to go any lower. Where do you see yourself on that painting? I'm in the sunny bit.

02:22:58.820 Yeah. I don't feel like I'm going to slip into that abyss. And I think that it was,

02:23:04.580 the abyss was a complete loss of identity. I think the abyss is no identity. And I think when you have

02:23:10.580 questions about your identity and you have, you don't know who you are. And on that point, I would

02:23:15.000 say what I've also realized is that identity is very much a compound of your relationship to others.

02:23:22.840 And this is where it becomes, I think it becomes a healing thing when you recognize that who you are

02:23:33.500 is what you are to other people as well as who you want to be for yourself.

02:23:40.240 Yeah. Well, that's very well said. I'm not sure I could add anything to that.

02:23:45.520 Damon, I have really enjoyed this discussion. I've wanted to speak with you for such a long time.

02:23:51.540 And I'm, I don't remember what the first thing was that made me reach out to Luke, who was obviously

02:23:56.620 who introduced us and say, Hey, if there's any chance you think, uh, Damon would be willing to

02:24:01.220 speak. I'd love it if you'd make that introduction, but, and I wish I could remember what it was,

02:24:05.600 but I read something that you wrote or saw something you said in an interview. And I thought,

02:24:09.820 this is a person who is going to have a unique perspective on a human condition. I think

02:24:17.800 everything that we've talked about today, I think, I think emphasizes that. And I'm really grateful

02:24:23.060 for it. And I think that I can't stress enough to people listening to this, that you don't have to

02:24:28.080 be a motorsport fan to enjoy your autobiography. I think it's a, it's a great story about overcoming

02:24:34.720 loss. I think it's a great story about struggling with, with one's identity. And I think anybody that

02:24:41.260 reads, it's going to get something out of it special. So I thank you for writing it because I,

02:24:44.980 it doesn't strike me as a book that was easy to write. It was under a lot of pressure,

02:24:49.240 but I think it sort of eventually unfolded it very surprisingly to me. I, you know, I think I'm a

02:24:56.620 believer in, in things coming to fruition and then there's the right time for things. And, um, I do

02:25:02.080 want to say thank you very much indeed for your kind words about the book and compliments and, and

02:25:06.720 I'm not uncomfortable in receiving your praise because it's lovely to actually, uh, recognize

02:25:15.520 that that is communicating, isn't it? And I think that when someone is, is connecting to your

02:25:21.360 communication like that, then that's, uh, that's very satisfying, very fulfilling. So thank you very

02:25:26.440 much.

02:25:26.700 My pleasure. And thank you for everything. Thanks for being here.

02:25:29.740 Thank you.

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The Peter Attia Drive - December 30, 2019

#86 - Damon Hill： Overcoming loss, achieving success, and finding one's identity

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