Doug Nye: Le Mans – An F1 driver's greatest challenge

They were drivers who had secured their Grand Prix drives through obvious talent, demonstrated weekend after weekend not just in the World Championship single-seaters but also in sportscars, and GT cars, and Formula 2 cars – yes – and maybe in Indycars too on the weekends in between the points-scoring GP rounds.

They were totally professional drivers seeking to maximise their income. No professional worth the name will ignore a decent earning opportunity, and appearance, start, prize and bonus payments earned in non-Formula 1 events built many a star driver’s fortune through the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, and even quite far into the 1980s.

I remember the very quick Dutch sportscar driver Toine Hezemans telling me during practice for a Monza 1,000Kms sportscar race in Italy how his Auodelta Alfa T33 team-mate Piers Courage had been taking the Curve Grande “fladdout”. Toine was a good guy, and would always tell it how it was – and he ended that report by adding “…but then he’s a Formula 1 driver” – which to him explained it all.

Formula 1 drivers you see were, self-evidently, demonstrably, the best in the racing world. Their meritocracy was merciless, but it really worked. Rent-a-drivers, pay-as-you-race drivers certainly existed then. Any serious motor race requires its cannon-fodder extras to make the superstars look good. But real talent of the then luxuriously deep top crust could be assessed before us all on the in-between weekends – say in the Formula 2 EifelRennen on the Nurburgring Sudschleife, and then the Targa Florio sportscar classic around the mountains of northern Sicily, or on the rectangular 2 1/2-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway or – deep breath – in the 24-Hour classic at Le Mans.

Zac Brown at McLaren pulled a splendid stroke last year by encouraging disaffected, itchy-feet star driver Fernando Alonso to follow the familiar old yellow brick road to the Indy ‘500’. The luxuriantly-talented Spaniard rose to the occasion brilliantly – apparently enjoyed the experience greatly – and made an entirely new constituency of probably career-long fans.

This year Fernando is taking another step broadside from Formula 1 by driving in endurance racing classics, such as the recent Daytona 24-Hours, and aiming at Le Mans. He has said publicly that he is interested in attacking the elusive ‘triple crown’ thus far achieved only by Graham Hill, of being a Formula 1 World Champion driver who has also won both the Indianapolis 500-Miles speedway classic and the Le Mans 24-Hour Grand Prix d’Endurance.

There are some writers – mostly American it seems to me – who have tried to manipulate the goal posts here, waffling on about the Triple Crown or, in US college-ese, the magical ‘Trifecta’ comprising the F1 title, Le Mans and the Monaco GP. Blink. Double-take. The daftest piece of revisionism that I have seen claimed the magical ‘Trifecta’ as being the F1 title, Le Mans and the Pocono ‘500’… A much more justifiable ‘Trifecta’ would certainly be the F1 title, Le Mans and the Daytona ‘500’ stock car classic. But never mind revisionism – the great goal quite frequently discussed through the ’60s into the 1970s was the F1 title, Le Mans and the Indy ‘500’, no question. And just about the only reason why that had even become possible had been the advent of the Boeing 707, the Douglas DC8, and high-speed trans-Atlantic air travel.

Graham took some time to achieve his so far unique hat-trick. He won the first of his two Formula 1 World Championship titles with BRM in 1962 – and then Indy in his 'American Red Ball Special’ Lola-Ford T90 in 1966. Six further years would pass before, in 1972, he co-drove with the enigmatic, bearded Frenchman Henri Pescarolo to head a works Matra-Simca 1-2 result in France’s greatest motor race – Matra’s and La France’s first ever – and in the world’s most prestigious single road race.

Writing for ‘Motor Sport’ magazine in 2007, Goodwood’s Rob Widdows related how Pesca had made a reluctant return to Matra Sports – having been dropped by them despite a decent Formula 1 record – and how he was even more reluctant to accept 43-year-old ‘has been’ Graham Hill as his Le Mans co-driver. 

Rob reported how Pesca told him: “ ‘Jabby Crombac came to tell me that Matra wanted me to drive for them at Le Mans. I told him no. But in the end, I agreed to do it. I saw it was the right team and the right car, and that there was a chance to win.’

“But soon there was another sticking point. ‘I was so surprised,” admits Pesca, ‘…when they told me I would be driving with Graham Hill. At first, I said, ‘No, I don’t want him.’ I was concerned about how he would cope with the conditions, the dangers” – the Londoner hadn’t started this enduro event since 1966… 

“I was still a young driver,” Pescarolo continued. “Graham Hill was a legend. I had never even spoken to him. That would have been impossible for me. But eventually, I said, ‘Okay, I will drive with him.’ 

“And so he came to the team, became my team-mate – and in a very short time a real friend too. It was strange. It was as if it had always been like that. It was so easy from the first contact. He was such a fantastic guy. And he was bloody quick of course.

“When I looked at his lap times during the night, and in the rain, I thought, ‘Okay, I can sleep now.’ His speed in the night was one of the reasons we won…

“A lot of teams have had problems because one of the drivers wants to prove he is the faster. This leads to many mistakes. But that never happened with Graham. He was intelligent and had the right approach. We both had: if I was quick he was pleased; if he was quick I was pleased. He knew it was important not to have your team-mate as your enemy. Not all F1 drivers, especially World Champions, have understood that. 

“We beat the other Matras with their F1 drivers – François Cevert, Jean-Pierre Beltoise – because we drove as a team. It was the same with Gérard Larrousse and me in the two years after. But with Graham, it was something very, very special. I was so pleased for him because that was his big target: to win Le Mans.”

I recall that great race vividly as a demonstration that, while top-class sporting form can be transient, sheer class is permanent. There are so many deep truths expressed there in that great piece by Rob and Pesca it would be nice to think that Fernando Alonso really will follow in Graham Hill’s wheel-tracks. He has the talent, but due to Formula 1’s modern isolation, he still lacks the experience. He’s working on that, right now.

It would certainly be nice to see him, and more F1 confreres, come even close to achieving that so-elusive target.

But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Photography courtesy of The GP Library