Gerhard Berger: Nigel Roebuck's LegendsFrom the archiveGerhard Berger: 'The risks were a turn-on for me. I was always looking for the edge'From the archiveDouble trouble: Berger on Alesi

カートのアイテムが多すぎます

ご購入は五十タイトルがカートに入っている場合のみです。

カートに追加できませんでした。

しばらく経ってから再度お試しください。

ウィッシュリストに追加できませんでした。

しばらく経ってから再度お試しください。

ほしい物リストの削除に失敗しました。

しばらく経ってから再度お試しください。

ポッドキャストのフォローに失敗しました

ポッドキャストのフォロー解除に失敗しました

Gerhard Berger: Nigel Roebuck's LegendsFrom the archiveGerhard Berger: 'The risks were a turn-on for me. I was always looking for the edge'From the archiveDouble trouble: Berger on Alesi

無料で聴く

ポッドキャストの詳細を見る

A couple of days before the Revival Meeting at Goodwood, BMW held a splendid lunch in honour of Gerhard Berger, who – for the moment – has left the world of Formula 1 after 20 years, first as a driver, then as BMW's competitions director. To commemorate the occasion, we were each given a model of the Benetton B186-BMW in which Berger won his first grand prix, in Mexico in 1986.
"Ha! I remember this car. Fantastic horsepower. I really loved the turbo era, particularly with qualifying boost: top of the hill at Monaco, into Casino Square, and you got wheelspin in top gear, even in the dry.
"We had a good season with that car, but it could have been better. They slowed us down the whole time because the new concept of engine — laid on its side in the Brabham — did not work and so they never gave us the power because we would have been far ahead and, politically, they could not have the old engine in front of the new one."
It was that kind of occasion, a time for reminiscing. And it dawned on Gerhard that he was talking about nearly 20 years ago, a worry for one who always claimed to have little or no interest in the past. The following day, he was due to handle a variety of different machines at Goodwood: Nick Mason's 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, Lord March's '63 Ford Galaxie and — undoubtedly closest to his heart — the ex-Sheene Yamaha 500 of '81: Barry, who died earlier this year, was among Gerhard's dearest friends.
"I've never really been into 'old cars'," he grinned, knowing his words would appal us, "but people say this GTO is really special. What's it look like? It's an open car, or what?" To his delight, we rolled our eyes in horror. "What I am really worried about is damaging it," he went on. "Nick's a good guy, and they tell me a GTO is worth millions." Indeed so, we said.
A couple of days later, though, I watched him at Goodwood, getting the hang of the car, drifting it beautifully through St Mary's, and clearly enjoying himself. "It's lovely to drive, I must say. Beautifully balanced. The most difficult thing was getting used to shifting gears again — it's a long time since I had to do that in a racing car."

Berger retired from driving at the end of 1997, a year which contained a great deal of personal trauma. Contracted to Benetton once more, at midseason he missed three races following surgery for a persistent sinus problem, and then his father, to whom he was very close, was killed in a light aircraft accident. Gerhard returned to the cockpit at Hockenheim, awash with emotions of every kind, not least a determination to silence those who murmured he was past it. This was the old Hockenheim, with its long, flat-out stretches and fast chicanes: Berger started from pole and dominated the German Grand Prix. "He may be the oldest guy in F1," Martin Brundle commented admiringly, "but he's still the bravest."
"That was a very special race for me," said Gerhard. "All that weekend I felt I was somewhere else – this speed was just coming, coming, you know, and I didn't know from where. There was so much in my mind – losing my father, and the fact that no-one believed in me any more. Everybody was saying, 'Yeah, he's a nice guy – but why doesn't he stay at home now and let some young guy drive his car?' I was very pissed off: it was time to remind everyone of what I could do.
"By that time, I already knew I was going to stop at the end of the year, and actually what I really wanted to do was go up to the podium and say goodbye. But then I realised how much money I would lose by doing this, and I wasn't a strong character at that moment. On the one hand, I was angry with myself for being weak: I should have said, 'Okay, who cares about three million dollars?' But on the other hand, I said, No, no, no, I'm not giving that up!"
If his first and last F1 wins came at the wheel of a Benetton, the meat of Berger's career was spent with Ferrari, for whom he drove in 1987-89 and '93-95, and McLaren, where he partnered Ayrton Senna in '90-...

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

まだレビューはありません