Spanky V Sir Ron

[Zead]

Forgive me if I have missed something blatantly obvious, but was Spanky just gunning for Sir Ron over the Nazi girl exposure? The whole lying affair has thankfully fizzled out, but there was obviously more to it than just misleading stewards. I know they er, don't get on, but can anyone fill me in on other details. Be brief if it's years of sniping.

Cheers Z

[DJC]

Ron, Bernie and Max have grown up together in F1 at essentialyl rival teams. Max is a founder member of March - the M - and you could say that unlike the other 2 never really had too much success and March were...well...they annoyed a lot of ppl put it that way. Max was very high handed, he had a chip on his shoulder and a natural arrogance. Ron and Bernie were and always have been racers, but Bernie was also a good operator and fixer and been pretty much involved in management from the day dot. Ron started out as a mechanic and worked his way up. When he founded Project 4 and took over Macca he totally transformed it, from a rather crumbling organisation as it had become from Teddy into the first ultra modern, ultra professional racing outfit. His outfit were young, they hired young new talent at the engineering level, brought in new technologies and once stabilised, they then went about winning in a totally single minded manner. From the minute they snaffled Prost away from Reggie, then got Lauda, Ron ran Macca in such a way that nothing apart from winning mattered. As Bernie, Ron and Max became the pillars of the F1 Establishment, Bernie and Max found natural allies in each other, i.e. the operator and the politician working on the inside whilst Ron remained very much the mechanic totally loyal to his team and happy to fight everybody else. The other pillars of the establishment during this time were Enzo, Frank Williams and Ken Tyrell. Ken became much more marginalised during the 80s as success went away, Enzo remained Enzo but as he too faded during the 80s so did his team as it lacked proper control and suffered massive infighting but with Enzo to control them properly. Frank had Williams in contention and winning but Frank Williams has spent his professional life having to work every angle he has to get money, so Frank has long been known far and wide by all and sundry, most have lent him money at some point and so he knows how to work people, play the political game and apart from his drivers...how not to piss everybody else off.

And that quickly is a story of a bunch of egos coming from different places.

[rev-erend]

Thanks that was interesting..

Suppose you could add others.. like :

Warkinshaw
Flavio
Others ?

If you know their history ?

[majordad]

That looks like a good summary history of FI in the modern period. I wonder does Max think that it was Ron who put the girls up to it ?

[german tony]

I imagine Max's activities were very well known inside F1. Indeed some people may well have been blackmailing him for years with it to ensure they got what they wanted. Once it was all out in the open the ability to this was gone & thus F1 was fairer.

The question then is, who would want a level playing field in F1?

[aeropilot]

Spanky had also been a racer aswell, briefly.....IIRC he was driving in the F2 race at Hockenheim in which Jim Clark died.....
Their legacy's to motorsport couldn't be more diametriclly opposite now.

[456lbft]

google "Briatore bomb"
as for TW
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-661850987...
All you need to know about the man

[rev-erend]

456lbft said:

google "Briatore bomb"
as for TW
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-661850987...
All you need to know about the man

Yes - remember TWR Jags.. TW and Win Percy .. great in the XJS and the XJR Le Mans Jags.. really his glory days .. sadly he went all crooked in F1.. don't know whether it was desperation or his try crooked character..

[456lbft]

rev-erend said:

456lbft said:

google "Briatore bomb"
as for TW
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-661850987...
All you need to know about the man

Yes - remember TWR Jags.. TW and Win Percy .. great in the XJS and the XJR Le Mans Jags.. really his glory days .. sadly he went all crooked in F1.. don't know whether it was desperation or his try crooked character..

The stories from the "glory days" of TWR would suggest that he has always been a winner, at all costs...and ultimately it didn't pay off in F1, so, getting back on topic, what does that tell you about the winners in F1?

[Derek Smith]

The best quote I heard about Tom Walkinshaw was that, "Patrick Head is frightened of him". A concept too far for my imagination.

I'm told that when he was trying to bet Brundle to drive for him he sent his privatge jet out to Spai where Brundle was on holiday to pick him up and take him to the TWR HQ. Brundle was treated to a fine meal, shown around the complex and then asked to sign on the dotted, which he did. When Brundle asked about the private jet, TW is said to have replied: "You're staff now. Find your own f***ing way back".

I'm told that summed him up adequately.

Loved his Jags though.

[PJS917]

I was told if you ever meet Tom Walkinshaw and shake his hand, count your fingers afterwards!!

[s3fella]

PJS917 said:

I was told if you ever meet Tom Walkinshaw and shake his hand, count your fingers afterwards!!