And so everyone headed to Adelaide for local motorsport's de facto Christmas party, the Australian Grand Prix weekend. As was now tradition it would be a weekend of controversy, hurt feelings and shattered carbon fibre, but for once the tourers were able to keep their noses clean. This time it would be Formula 1 that wore all the bruises.
Rise of the Machines
The talk around the water cooler in Adelaide (after they chiselled the quartz off it, at least) was all about World Champion-elect Nigel Mansell, and his imminent defection to IndyCar for 1993.
The seeds of this seismic announcement had been planted before the Formula 1 season even began. If the Nissan GT-R had a kindred spirit anywhere in the world, it was the Williams FW14B – another showcase of cutting-edge automotive technology, and if possible, even more dominant. Among the onboard toys were traction control (albeit a simple system, "one line of code" to cut cylinders and reduce torque, according to one team insider), a semi-automatic gearbox activated by paddle shifters (bog-standard today, but a real advantage at a time when most cars still had manual H-pattern shifters), and the real party piece, a computer-controlled active suspension system. Instead of dangling the car from springs and shock absorbers, the FW14B rode on a series of hydraulic rams that responded to the forces acting on the car, rather like a skier's legs on a rough slope. Instead of scraping the ground at the start of a fuel run then rising as the fuel burned off (to say nothing of pitching and rolling as the driver braked hard for a corner, rolled through the apex and then accelerated away again), the hydraulics would prop the car up to keep the aero package flying straight and level at all times, maximising the available downforce.
The idea had first been tried by Lotus back in 1987, but computers in '87 weren't really capable of reacting quickly enough to make the idea work, and the aero on the Lotus 99T hadn't been too special anyway. Their driver Ayrton Senna had won the two slowest races of the year, on the bumpy, slippery streets of Monaco and Detroit, but failed to really stand out anywhere faster. Fast-forward to 1992, however, and computers were getting faster and cheaper (home PCs had advanced from MS-DOS to Windows 3.1). And since the aerodynamics at Williams were being handled by future Red Bull star designer Adrian Newey, there was a lot of downforce to maintain, so the active suspension system on the FW14B was worth seconds a lap.
As a result, 1992 saw Nigel Mansell dominate in F1 as completely as Richards and Skaife had in Australia, secure in the knowledge that as long as his car held together, victory was all but certain.
But trouble was brewing for Mansell, and the root of it lay just behind his shoulders. Power for the Williams came from a 3.5-litre V10 capable of some 550 kW by season's end, more power than anything else on the grid, even the Honda V12 aboard the rival McLarens. It was called the Renault RS4, and Renault, being French, were very keen for the next World Champion to be a Frenchman, not a rosbif. Team boss Frank Williams had to bow to Renault's stipulation to that three-time World Champion Alain Prost be one of his drivers for the 1993 season, a contract that was signed off before the 1992 season even began. Nigel was not informed, and so had won the 1992 championship blissfully unaware that he would not have the team all to himself to defend his title in 1993. Instead, he had his eye on finally making some real money that year: he and his wife Rosanne had got into motorsport by mortgaging their house, after all, and what was the point of being World Champion if you couldn't raise your fee?
Not this time. Despite their engineering prowess, Williams was not an especially wealthy team, and out of a budget of only £32.5 million some £6 million had been spent paying Mansell. The contract with Prost had added another $10 million to the wage bill, so Frank simply didn't have the money to pay Prost and Mansell and still build a car worthy of succeeding the FW14B.
Then, throwing fuel on the fire, Ayrton Senna stepped in and publicly offered to drive for Williams for free. It would've been a tempting offer for the penny-pinching Frank, but it was never on: keen to avoid a repeat of his experience at McLaren, Prost had been careful to insert a "no Senna" clause in his contract. Although he didn't know it yet, if Mansell wanted to race a Williams in 1993, he'd have to accept Alain Prost as his teammate – and take a pay cut.
Mansell's personality had always been an iron-and-clay mix of bullish self-confidence and paranoid persecution complex, and both sides were triggered when the expected '93 contract failed to arrive. Nowadays we know the delay was because Frank was trying to find enough sponsorship to pay for his two superstars, but Mansell was still upset. Like most men who found success, he was now surrounded by sycophants who flattered his ego and egged him on, and he was very miffed at apparently being third choice.
The bottom line was that Nigel was annoyed that Frank had signed Prost. The only way he was going to stay was if he got twice the amount of money Prost was getting. I don't think Nigel was in the mood to spend three months negotiating. He was World Champion; he was king of the castle and wanted an instant response from Frank. He wasn't going to get it because Frank never gave in that quickly. He wasn't being mean. He was trying to do the best job for himself and his company. There were a lot of people around who were fanning the flames. To me, it was simple: Nigel wanted the money and Frank was either going to pay it or he wasn't. – Peter Windsor, Williams: In Their Own Words
In the end, Frank did give in. On the morning of the Italian Grand Prix, Mansell held an impromptu press conference to declare his intentions for 1993, and just as it was beginning, a runner from Williams' commercial department came sprinting over to say, "Stop this, we agree to everything." But it was too late. Nigel turned his back on Williams and began reading his prepared statement: he would retire from Formula 1 at the end of the year and seek opportunities elsewhere, perhaps in the CART series in the U.S.
By the next round, in Portugal, it was all official: Prost would be driving for Williams in 1993, while McLaren, unable to come to terms with Senna (who wanted to remain a free agent in case a seat opened up at Williams), signed the reigning CART champion, Michael Andretti. That had opened up a seat with Andretti's team, Newman/Haas Racing, one of the power teams of CART, and it was into that seat that Nigel slotted – for a $5 million fee. That was less than he would've earned at Williams, even alongside Prost, but Paul Newman and Carl Haas were enthusiastic about having him in their team, and that made all the difference. Even better, former F1 stars Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti had offered to help Nigel come to grips with the unfamiliar oval tracks.
That's very refreshing. It shows you the difference between Formula 1 and IndyCars. I can honestly say that, in my whole Formula 1 career, in 12 years, other than the late great Gilles Villeneuve and Colin Chapman, I've had no assistance at all. – Nigel Mansell
In the meantime, he'd won the Portuguese Grand Prix to take a record-equalling ninth victory for the season, then gifted the Japanese Grand Prix to teammate Riccardo Patrese as thanks for his support this year. That just left Adelaide, set to be his final F1 race and a chance to set a new record of ten victories in a single season.
Watching it now, knowing how all this turned out, it's remarkable that so few people believed Nigel was really going to America. In an interview, Barry Sheene even makes a bet with Nigel that his next race would be the South African Grand Prix at Kyalami, not the CART race at Surfers Paradise, which comes across as pure F1 hauteur: CART wasn't a real series, therefore Nigel couldn't really be going to it. But in the video above it's F1 that fails to deliver the goods: the latter half of the video is taken up by the second qualifying session, which – since the track was much slower than it had been for the first session on Friday – was an utter waste of time, not altering the grid at all.
So the unexpected highlight is the Yamaha Superkart Trophy Race, which started just after midday on Saturday. Superkarts might have looked like a Fisher Price My First Open-Wheeler, with their silly bodywork and toy rear wing, but they were capable of speeds of up to 230km/h on the Brabham Straight, which... Well, if Yours Truly had ever gone that fast on the open road – purely hypothetically, you understand – one imagines it would've been pretty damn alarming. Doing that sort of speed an inch and a half off the ground, with no protection around you, between the concrete walls of a street circuit, must be quite an experience. And as for the racing... well, remember that "greatest F1 pass ever", when Schumacher and Häkkinen split around Ricardo Zonta at Spa in 2000? Imagine that, but literally at the finish line.
Clarks Shoes Group A Finale: Race 1
As usual, state money behind the Grand Prix drew a sizeable entry list for the supporting touring car race, including teams from as far off as Perth (Alf Barbagallo) and Brisbane (Dick Johnson). Johnson in particular had reason to be there, having just finished bolting together a brand-new Falcon – chassis DJR EB2. No $300,000 mistake this time: EB2 would be racing for the championship in 1993, but the team only had time for a handful of laps at Lakeside before they loaded it into the transporter to bring it to Adelaide for what would effectively be a very public shakedown.
That wasn't ideal, but when they arrived in Adelaide it got worse. All '93-spec cars were supposed to be homologated by 1 September, with the configuration then frozen and no further changes possible until the next round of parity adjustments (probably between the end of the '93 ATCC and Sandown). Even at this late stage, however, the rules were still a bit vague, and the Holden Racing Team noticed that further development of both the Johnson and Glenn Seton Falcons had in fact taken place (specifically, around the rear bumper and aero package). On Friday night the spearhead Holden team lodged an official protest, which was upheld, the officials deleting both Seton and Johnson's qualifying times and sending them to the back of the grid.
The insult that paired with this injury came in the form of Paul Morris' new BMW 325i. Body-wise it was the current E36-model BMW, which had succeeded the E30 in the showrooms in 1990, all quite straightforward and correct. British fans will probably notice its turquoise base paint and be reminded of Vic Lee Motorsport's Listerine BMWs, as seen in that year's BTCC series. And they would be right: this was indeed the sister to the BMW 318is pair that featured in that phenomenal last-round championship-decider at Silverstone (go and watch it again, you know you want to). Morris was apparently driving what had been Ray Bellm's ride for the first nine rounds, which I can't find a chassis number for but which I'll hazard a guess was VLM E36-003, following on from the 001 and 002 of Steve Soper and Tim Harvey, respectively (or not. BMW supplied three chassis to the team, but it's known the plates were swapped around, so it's now impossible to be sure which car was which).
Where things got complicated was the engine. FIA Class II touring cars (better known as Super Touring) were supposed to be capped at 2.0 litres, and in Britain the 318is had run a race engine based on the road car's 1.9-litre inline-four. In Adelaide, however, the car was presented as a 325i, which not only meant a 2.5-litre engine above the Super Touring limit, but one that should've been the road car's M50 straight-six. Instead, this one came fitted with a four-cylinder S14, taken straight from one of the Longhurst team's old M3s. So if "the Hybrid BMW", as it became known, was supposed to be a Super Touring car, then it had an illegally large engine; if it was supposed to be a Group A car, then it wasn't even slightly homologated, with Alan Jones calling it, "the only E36 M3 in the world with a four-cylinder engine". To let this thing race unmolested while penalising Seton and Johnson for paperwork infringement, the organisers must've been taking... well, let's just leave it there, shall we? Whatever the reason, the car raced this weekend and then vanished into the mists of history: the other two Vic Lee BMWs have since been restored for Historics racing, but the fate of the Bellm/Morris car seems to be a complete mystery.
[As a side note, Lawrie Nelson also brought along his #29 Capri Components Mustang for one last dance, which gave it the unique distinction of competing in both the first and last Group A races in Australia, eight years apart!]
With one of the Gibson team's GT-Rs still in the repair shop, Mark Skaife was relegated to commentary duties, alongside Channel Nine's Darrell Eastlake. It was all up to Gentleman Jim Richards to bring home a last pair of wins for Nissan. From pole he blitzed them off the line, although he would be unable to completely shake John Bowe's Sierra, while Seton drove a very aggressive race to rise from dead last to harass Peter Brock's Mobil Commodore inside the top ten. It was all looking pretty good for Seton to get a good result, until he made a mistake at Turn 13 and planted the nose of the Falcon deep into the tyre barrier lying outside the corner. That was the end of chassis GSR1, which was damaged beyond repair instead of racing into glory in 1993. Instead, the incident triggered a Safety Car, which was pretty astonishing for a short 20-lap sprint (and ironically, said Safety Car was another V8 Falcon!).
The Safety Car meant that, by the restart, HRT's drivers Tomas Mezera and Brad Jones were lying 5th and 6th, respectively. Allan Grice had returned to his seat in the Queensland parliament, while Win Percy had returned to the U.K. (where, among other things, he'd adjudicate on that Silverstone crash between Steve "The Man's An Animal" Soper and John "I'm Going For 1st" Cleland). With one seat at HRT already filled, that left Jones and Mezera racing each other for the other, which almost ended in disaster. Roaring down Dequetteville Straight, they split around Tony Longhurst and found themselves locked in a chicken run into the Hairpin. Inevitably, both outbraked themselves and ended up in a mess, Mezera overshooting and landing in the run-off area, and Jones spinning. And all by itself, that moment basically secured Mezera's employment status for the next twelve months: "We had a shootout as to who they were going to sign for next year," he said. "I out-qualified Bradley and then we both spun into the hairpin side-by-side! I recovered a little bit quicker and I got him, and I ended up getting the job."
Longhurst and Perkins then staged a rematch of their Sandown fight, which ultimately went Tony's way after Larry's Holden started trailing a thin wisp of white smoke – by its origin, probably busted a diff seal.
Despite concerns about tyre life on this warm November day, all three frontrunners crossed the finish line virtually line astern, Richards ahead of Bowe and Longhurst, with Perkins managing to hang on for 4th. Mezera completed the top five, meaning he'd be starting 5th for tomorrow's final 10-lap sprint. It had been a surprisingly eventful race for a mere support category, and an expensive one for some, but that was nothing compared to what the morrow would bring. In the meantime...
Winfield Trophy
At 4:50pm, the touring cars were followed by the Winfield Trophy for Formula Brabham, Australia's premier open-wheel series. Mark Skaife might not have had a ride for the Group A race, but that didn't mean he wasn't driving this weekend: he had a new Lola T91-50 to play with, a superseded Formula 3000 car that was nevertheless the most up-to-date open-wheel racecar in the country (or would be, once the F1 circus left). Like Godzilla, it wore the blood-red of the Winfield tobacco brand and the #1 of the reigning Australian Drivers Champion. He started from pole, but used too many revs getting off the line and so just sat there spinning up his tyres while everyone else made a break. Mark Larkham (driving the #2 Mitre 10 Reynard 90D) led through the first few turns before he got wide coming onto Hutt Street and fishtailed the rear. Chasing hard, Skaife had to throw out the anchors to avoid running into him, allowing 1990 series champion Simon Kane in the #5 Personal Ralt RT21 to capitalise and take the lead. Kane only led for a few laps before Skaife came back and nailed him into Foster's hairpin, but for a man who hadn't spent much time at the wheel this year, and who was driving a badly outdated car, it was a very impressive performance.
Skaife ultimately won the race, with Kane an excellent 2nd and Larko a chastened 3rd. The day then concluded with the L.C.I. Autocolour Dulux Formula Ford race at 5:40pm, which sadly doesn't seem to be on YouTube.
Sunday
The tranquility of Sunday in the City of Churches was shattered at 9:30am, when Formula 1 returned to the track for their morning warm-up session. FOM won't let me embed it, but you can watch the Eurosport broadcast here
Clarks Shoes Group A Finale: Race 2
And so we end back where we started. Ten years ago – god, has it really been that long? – the subject of my first post covered this very race, which was flagged away at 10:35am on Grand Prix Sunday. It might've only been ten laps, but two drivers in particular were determined to make them count.
Starting from 5th, Tomas Mezera managed to get his HRT Commodore ahead of Larry Perkins, but in the cooler, more overcast conditions of Sunday it was soon very clear his was the slower Holden today. And from there it was on for young and old.
After several laps of rubbing, Larry sent it into Wakefield Corner without even licking the stamp, catching Tomas completely by surprise. That put Larry up to 3rd place, but there was no chance of catching Bowe and Richards, running nose-to-tail as they had through yesterday's race. Then late in the race Peter Brock had a horror shunt, breaking something in his steering as he came over the kerbs at the Senna Chicane and hammering into the opposite wall. Far too much stuff broke on Advantage Racing machines, but thankfully he emerged just fine. The race, once again, went to Richards, with Bowey shadowing him, but this time it was Perkins who rounded out the podium.
Telecom MobileNet Holden Nova Celebrity Race
At 11:30, after some filler, came some light entertainment in the form of the traditional celebrity race.
The Holdens they were driving were no such thing: they were badge-engineered E90 Corolla hatchbacks, rekerjiggered as the Holden Nova under the ongoing Button Plan. The drivers today included cricketing legend Max Walker; music legend John Farnham; meme legend Daryl Braithwaite, Olympic gold medallist Kieren Perkins (before the Thorpedo was the Superfish); and Sue-Ellen Underwood, Penthouse Australia's Pet of the Year. Inevitably, though, these amateur races usually end up being dominated by the one or two people who actually know what they're doing, who this year were Tasmanian Holden dealer Kim McInerney, and a certain Bobby Zagame. The only person by that name I've been able to Google up looks like an exotic supercar dealer, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was the same person. Clearly he's found a way to monetise his passion, which... good for him, must be nice.
Fosters Australian Grand Prix
And so, at 2:00pm, they finally gave us what we came for: the main event. It was over depressingly quickly – not because of the weather this time, but because the two drivers everyone had come to see crashed out on lap 19.
(Once again F1 copyright shenanigans won't let me embed the video. But you can watch it on YouTube here.)
When Glen Dix waved the Australian flag, Mansell made a good start but was unable to pull away from Senna, who came in match-fit and ready for a fight. He made his first passing attempt into Dequetteville Hairpin on lap 8 – unsuccessfully, as the way the McLaren wobbled showed he'd left his braking crazy late. While Ayrton gathered the car up, Mansell slipped back through and put him back where he started, but that was only his first attempt: it would not be the last.
Nigel managed to build a gap through the next few laps, but that all went away when he caught up to the first of the backmarkers – Nicola Larini in the actively-suspended Ferrari, who'd been forced to start from the back of the grid. He held up Nigel's Williams long enough for Senna's McLaren to catch back up, meaning the Brazilian was just inches behind him as they negotiated the fast right-hander just before the pit entrance. And it was here they collided.
From the camera angle provided, I have no idea whose fault it was. Had Senna, the ultra-aggressive driver who was forever causing accidents, caused one more? Or had Nigel had brake-tested him in an unwise attempt to unnerve and create some breathing space? Both stories are plausible, and of course, both parties blamed the other.
People have said I was crazy to try and overtake there – but I wasn't even thinking of it. I never expected him to brake at that point. – Ayrton Senna
Senna has no business on the track. He has a screw loose in his head. All I know is that someone hit me at about 40-50mph up the back as I was turning into the corner. I thought I'd do it honourably and go and see the Stewards. They're totally gutless. They said it was a sporting incident. – Nigel Mansell
With the two megastars out of the way, the race lead was left to the other Williams of Riccardo Patrese, but he was soon coming under immense pressure from Senna's faithful friend and teammate, Gerhard Berger. Patrese switched the Williams' traction control system back on and, because it made the car easier to drive, started to pull away. But it was still a new technology, and because it worked by cutting cylinders, one that put a question mark over the engine's reliability. So on lap 51 – agonisingly, when he was nearly 20 seconds ahead – Patrese coasted to a halt with an engine failure.
That left Berger free to score his second victory of the year, and the fifth for McLaren in a season well below the team's usual stellar expectations. Joining him on the podium were the Benetton teammates, Michael Schumacher and Martin Brundle. The Englishman had successfully rebuilt his reputation, but he'd also been overshadowed by his mercurial German teammate, who'd enjoyed a brilliant first full season in Formula 1. Here at season's end, Schumacher had enough points in the bank to pip Senna for third place – and had already taken the first of a record number of wins at Spa-Francorchamps.
There were no teary goodbyes between Senna and Mansell. "I would have liked to have said farewell to him with a handshake after so many years together in Formula 1" said Senna – and being Senna, he probably meant it. But Mansell was still furious about the shunt, which had robbed him of the chance to take a record tenth victory in a single season, and he left the Adelaide circuit – and Formula 1 – without saying goodbye to anyone. He had his own destiny to follow, and although full of glory, he would never meet Senna again.
The End
And so the end came for Group A touring cars in Australia – with, appropriately, all the attention focused elsewhere. In the grandstands all eyes were on the Formula 1 superstars, while in the garages the teams were already thinking about the final pair of Group A races in the region, which were still to come at Wellington and Pukekohe. No-one much was in a mood to pour libations, so the moment came and went without any acknowledgement, the cars simply crated up and sent on their way once again.
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| GTR4 in Thailand, 1993. |
The lives awaiting them in 1993 and beyond were many and varied. Many would race on into the new era: practically all the VN Commodores, for example, would be upgraded to winged VP status to become the seed crystal of V8 Supercars, backed by a solid lineup of VL Walkinshaws. Similarly, Bob Tweedie's Intercity Business Sierra – an ex-Glenn Seton machine still dressed in Peter Jackson blue – would race on as a Super Touring car well into the mid-'90s. Others, like the Nissans of Gibson Motorsport, found buyers overseas: the GT-R that had won Bathurst in 1991 went to Thai businessman Prutiral Ratanakul Serireongrith, which he raced in regional events including the FIA-sanctioned South East Asian Touring Car Championship. Others became instant museum pieces: DJR5, the Sierra Dick Johnson had driven to victory at Bathurst in 1989, was taken back to the team's workshop at Acacia Ridge and proudly displayed in original, unrestored condition for the next thirteen years. And a few were unsentimentally chopped and modified to become Sports Sedans, arguably the cruellest fate for a potentially historic machine.
But in the end, was it really that bad? Group A might have been expensive, unbalanced and, by its final seasons, outdated, but it also showed the world that Australia could hold its own. We faced the world head-on and, if we came off battered and bruised sometimes, it was because we couldn't match the budgets of Europe or Japan, not their teams. When it came to innovation, racecraft and driving talent, Australia bowed to no-one, and it was that hard-won credibility that would carry us into the new era. V8 Supercars started here.
