Aussie Grit (16 page)

Flavio’s greatest gift when he came into F1 was the ability to spot emerging talent. He realised immediately the potential that Michael Schumacher had and signed him for Benetton after just one race with Jordan. It was also Flavio who pushed through the strategic alliance between Benetton and Renault that led to enormous success with world titles in 1994 and 1995. He set up his own management company in 1993, bought and sold F1 teams like Ligier (which became Prost GP) and Minardi, lived the billionaire lifestyle after which his modern business is named and later became involved in one of the biggest scandals in recent Grand Prix history in Singapore in 2008.

My first personal contact with Flav was when I did that Estoril test, after which I went to see him with our lawyer,
Simon Taylor. To start with we were negotiating a test driver contract with some options in the future, obviously totally in their favour. Simon was asking some other questions and I was thinking, ‘Don’t ask anything that’s going to piss him off, for Christ’s sake!’

There were some points that did need to be addressed, but we left very happy because I was going to be paid to be a test and reserve driver. I remember Simon saying, ‘I think they’ve got a soft spot for you and they really do want you.’ The other thing both Simon and I remember is that Flavio did two very disconcerting things while we were sitting with him: one was to massage his belly most of the time, the other was to take constant calls from Naomi Campbell.

I was back in Australia while we were trying to close the contract and Simon said, ‘Look, just ring him up and ask him about those two points and see how you go.’

I rang Flavio’s PA and she said he would ring me back. He always does.

When he came back on the line and I said, ‘Oh Flavio, just two points …’, he uttered those immortal words: ‘Look Webber, I fucking talking now! You want the deal or no?’

Mum’s asking me, ‘How d’you go, mate?’ and while I’m figuring out how to explain Flavio to Disey, Dad’s chipping in: ‘What do you think’s going to happen, mate, do you think you’re going to lose it?’

None of us slept a wink that night, thinking, ‘Oh bloody hell, what have we done now?’ So we got back to Simon and said, ‘Quick, get it all done!’ The deal was signed the following morning.

I couldn’t believe I had landed a full-on test and reserve driver deal, although the only part of it I wasn’t particularly
keen on was that Flavio wanted me to do another season in F3000. I thought mixing the two together was going to be quite difficult, but he said I had to keep racing, because I had to stay sharp. I wanted to focus on the testing, but he was right. I needed the racing edge.

So I was in a good place early in 2001. It got better in May when I signed with Flavio again, this time to be my manager. It was a huge call on my career. I never imagined anything like that happening, but he was prepared to back me. I had done enough on the track to show that there might be something in it for him because he is a businessman, but what also helped me was that he had a couple of other drivers like Antônio Pizzonia and Giorgio Pantano, who had very good records in the junior categories. They were testing for Benetton at the time; an absolute piece of luck for me was that the team (and, I suspect, Flavio in particular) called for some driver fitness tests. I was committed to fitness by that stage and totally confident I had reached the right levels. Flavio was big on that side of driver preparation after his time with Michael at Benetton, so they really did put their drivers through the mill at the Human Performance Centre at Benetton HQ, a phenomenal facility which was ahead of its time.

When I went down there and met an Englishman called Bernie Shrosbree they certainly put me through the wringer, and my fitness went to a new level again. Bernie’s an ex-SBS marine. He’s also a good judge of character: it’s not about what scores you pull on the rowing machine or the bike, Bernie is much more interested in what’s between the ears and the fire within. Bernie’s dealt with the biggest egos in the world.

‘Purely looking for the character of the individual and, most importantly, the commitment on the physical and mental side,’ is how he explains his approach.

Already at that stage Flavio was aware of a simple fact about me that might work against me in F1: my physical size, especially my height, and the weight that came with it.

‘Webber,’ Flavio had said to Bernie, ‘maybe a bit big, a bit old?’

I think it was the drive Flavio saw in me, so to speak, and Bernie’s assessment that got me the contract. Looking at things from my side, by mid-2001 I had become a regular in the Benetton F1 cockpit as I dovetailed F3000 and my F1 testing role, but the focus was firmly on what lay ahead – and that meant a seat in a Grand Prix car as a fully fledged race driver.

To move to the next level as a driver I needed someone who really knew the ins and outs of how F1 works. Paul Stoddart had invested £1.1 million in my career through a combination of F3000, the two-seater work and the planned F1 testing – the most expensive component and the one that never actually happened. Paul had converted the total value of that package into a loan. The medium-term arrangement was originally that Paul would take a 20 per cent commission when I started to earn money from my racing; either that or we would pay it back in two lump sums as and when we found ourselves in a position to do so. But it really wasn’t Stoddy’s job to go out and get me to the next level.

I didn’t really have anyone looking out for me, nosing around on my behalf with my interests at heart. Stoddy was being more than fair, but he also had more than enough on his plate – he wasn’t going to make the time to go and pump
my tyres up among the other F1 movers and shakers. So at Annie’s suggestion I went to see Flavio about signing up with him. She was prepared to acknowledge that the time had come for her to step back. My reputation was on the up-and-up, and while she was well known in her own right she didn’t have the clout to keep opening doors for me. Nor did she particularly want to move in the F1 paddock.

I said to Stoddy, ‘I need to go to the next level: you could potentially take a cut of me in the future, but what if I can get you that money back and I can put that commission someone else’s way?’

Stoddy’s immediate response was, ‘The best way would be for Flav to buy out your contract with me: let’s see if we can get him to do that.’

We went to Flavio with that idea at Monaco in May 2001 and he agreed. I put pen to paper on a 10-year deal with his management company. He was combining two roles as team manager and driver manager, but all my business dealings from then on were with his right-hand man Bruno Michel. Paul and Flavio came to an arrangement of their own. Stoddy was genuinely happy for me; he knew I had someone who was on the inside and knew the system very well. I was swimming with the sharks now. I’m little, but I’m in there!

*

Given that Flavio was keen for me to keep racing, I had signed to contest the 2001 FIA International F3000 Championship with the reigning champions and perennial front-runners Super Nova, headed up by the highly respected David Sears, and I was looking forward to going there. If you asked him now, Flavio would freely admit
that we made a rod for our own backs by combining the F3000 race series with a heavy schedule of F1 testing for Benetton and their new engine supplier, Renault. But once I had convinced myself that I had to do F3000, Super Nova represented my best chance of doing well in the category.

David Sears had guided a string of very talented drivers to success: Ricardo Zonta and Juan Pablo Montoya were just two of the names on his list of previous drivers, while Nicolas Minassian had finished 2000 as F3000 runner-up for the team.

It all began well enough. At the major F3000 test session at Silverstone in early March I ended the first day fastest and over the two days I was second quickest. In the end, though, the season turned into an absolute nightmare. I’ve never crashed so many cars as I did that year, just through a total lack of respect for the F3000 machine. I never bent one bit of carbon on the Renault-powered F1 car but I destroyed the F3000 quite regularly. I had been busy all winter with F1 testing, with an additional stint in Estoril when Fisichella discovered a hairline crack in a bone in his right leg and couldn’t drive.

With hindsight, the season-opening Interlagos F3000 race was the shape of things to come. Qualifying on the fifth row wasn’t a big help, but I fought back well to come through for second place and a handy six points – until the stewards handed me a 25-second penalty for overtaking David Saelens before we crossed the timing line after a safety car period. That was a real kick in the guts for me and for the Super Nova team.

There was only one way to bounce back and we did it by taking pole and the race win at Imola next time out – the
famous occasion when I drove with a broken rib sustained under severe G-forces in F1 testing. It was a big breakthrough at that early stage of the season, but F3000 bit back when I crashed in Barcelona qualifying and could do no better than seventh in the race. Austria was worse: I was out on the opening lap when a big shunt ahead of me – I had qualified sixth – left me with nowhere to go and two other cars up my chuff. Once again there was only one way to come back from those disasters, and Monaco was the best possible place to do it.

After the previous year’s fiasco, when dehydration had cost me a strong result, Monaco had haunted me. In 2001 I was determined to show the place who was boss. I had changed my hydration strategy, my fitness levels were very high, and I said, ‘Righto, I’m in charge this year, I’m going to rip this race to pieces.’

Pole position was the first step, though I tried too hard to go even faster and put the car in the barriers; after that I had to pay the guys back for their hard work by winning and I did it despite two safety car periods. Pole, fastest lap, race win: it was one of those days when you wonder, ‘Where’s everyone else?’ That was a taste of things to come as well, but for the time being I was delighted to be Super Nova’s first Monaco winner. It was also my first race as a member of Flavio’s management stable and he was understandably chuffed.

Front row and second place at the Nürburgring kept the momentum going and when I won again at Magny-Cours I was the first driver to stand on the top step of the podium three times that season. Things were looking pretty promising until a fourth in Britain and three straight DNFs put paid to any chances I had of the title in my second year.

When we won, we won easily, but when it didn’t happen we were fighting for second, third, fourth, fifth, so that was positive. Overall, though, the workload between F1 testing and F3000 racing proved too much. My shunt at Spa in the penultimate race was massive, and summed things up rather well. Once again frustration kicked in because both qualifying sessions were wet, I was on provisional pole for the whole session, but it dried out in the last five minutes so I came in and put slicks on, went back out and we ended up fourth and fuming. I was determined to crack the famous ultra-fast corner called Eau Rouge and just blast past the other guys up the hill that follows. We lowered the car’s settings on the grid to try to dial out some of the oversteer, but that made it a touch heavy. Through Eau Rouge, whether the car was now so low that it bottomed out or not I can’t say for sure, but it got out of control and I was gone. I ended my day in hospital, where I spent a few hours under observation before being given the all-clear.

September had started badly. The month would end with another trip to hospital, but this time it was all for the right reasons. The previous year had seen Lance Armstrong publish his book
It’s Not About the Bike
, and it bowled me over. Armstrong had already won the Tour de France three times. It was an event, and he was a rider, that commanded my respect and admiration, particularly as I had started road cycling myself by then. Here was a man who had come through testicular cancer that spread through his brain, lungs and abdomen. As the book’s title suggested, it was about one man who had to fight for his very life before he was able to pick up his professional cycling career again.
His story was very inspirational to me, especially after what I’d seen my grandfather Clive endure.

September 2001 finished with the F1 race at Indianapolis, which was on my schedule as test and reserve driver for Benetton. Armstrong was treated in Indianapolis at the Indiana University Medical Center, so off my own bat I went to the hospital to see if I could meet some of the people who worked with him. I wanted to see if the book, this amazing story, was real. Just how special was this man?

In the book he refers to the nurse he was closest to and says, ‘This is what an angel looks like.’ I found her: she was called Latrice Haney and she was certainly real. She also confirmed how hard Armstrong had fought against the disease. Ann and I stayed in touch with Latrice for years afterwards and she gave me a fascinating insight into what a great athlete had been through, and the people who had helped him come out the other side. I can’t help wondering what people like Latrice think of Lance Armstrong now.

*

I would really have liked to win the 2001 F3000 championship because that was my last chance to win a title in the junior categories. If I’d stayed on for a second year in British Formula Ford maybe I could have done it; if I’d stayed on for a second year in Formula 3, maybe I could have done it there. But even if I had stayed on for a third year in F3000 I probably wouldn’t have done it, it’s just that sort of category. In the end I finished runner-up to Justin Wilson.

Flavio put a lot of pressure on me to win that title as well, but in the end he saw what I was doing in the Benetton. There were some days when I would be very close to regular
drivers Fisichella and Jenson Button despite my limited opportunities in the car, but it was a tough year because I was the first guy to drive with Renault’s 111-degree engine as they prepared to return to the Grand Prix scene. At the December 2000 Silverstone test the thing was popping and banging for two days as we struggled with no power and no down-force, so throughout the following year we had to work pretty hard on it. What impressed me, looking back, is how motivated the team stayed and how hard they kept pushing. Fisi drove an amazing race in Spa on 2 September, 2001 and ended up on the podium.