I had been qualifying ahead of my team-mate Rubens Barrichello at most races. There had been a time when Rubens was being hailed as the next Ayrton Senna, but now he was being devalued to the extent that there was no point in me beating him. The guy was no longer in anyone’s Top 10. Staying at Jordan was not going to do my reputation any good either; moving to Ferrari had to be right in every respect. If only we could do the deal.
I asked EJ if he could help me go to Ferrari. He said he thought he could – meaning, if the money was right, anything was possible. We flew to the offices of Ferrari’s lawyer in Switzerland and agreement was reached. Ferrari had offered a lot of money to have reigning World Champion Michael Schumacher move from Benetton, so there was not much left in the kitty to pay me. In fact, most of it went towards the buy-out clause and into the Jordan bank account. But the most important thing was, I was joining Ferrari.
As soon as the 1995 season ended, my feet hardly seemed to touch the ground. Jordan were extracting their pound of flesh by keeping me busy with public relations work right up to the end of the contract. Meanwhile, I had begun testing for Ferrari.
It was immediately apparent that this was a different world compared to what I had been used to. Ferrari had the resources to get things done. At Jordan, it had more or less been down to my engineer Andrew Green and I to sort things out. At Ferrari, there were people coming at you from all directions. Of course, having the reigning World Champion on board was a big help! They had employed Michael Schumacher because he was the best. Now they had to give him the support he would expect, and I could only benefit from that.
Everyone had been asking me how I expected to cope with being the number 2 to Schumacher. It was if I had committed suicide – they were convinced that my reputation would be totally destroyed by this man – but I honestly could not see the problem. Being the number 2 in the team was to be expected. Schumacher had won the Championship twice and he had put in some rather good performances along the way! Ferrari were going to give me every-thing they could to enable me to be right behind Michael at the end of each race. Okay, I would not be able to win if I was leading and he was lying second. But that was fair enough. There would be a concentrated effort to win the Championship and Michael had to be a better bet than me. I couldn’t see the difficulty with that point of view. Anyway, as the 1996 season approached, the team began to have far more important problems than that.
The new F310 car was late. The deadlines kept being put back, and back, and then back again. Finally, the launch of the F310 was delayed until 15 February, just over two weeks before the car had to be ready for shipment to Australia for the first Grand Prix of the season in Melbourne.
We couldn’t wait to get going in the F310. Michael began testing – and ran into problems straight away. Oil was leaking from a spacer which is designed to separate the gearbox from the engine. It was not a simple fix because of the very intricate work in the gearbox itself. Time was running out. It was panic stations; quite unbelievable. Everyone was working their backsides off. I had never experienced anything like it.
With one week to go, we reached the stage where there was no longer any point in panicking; it was a case of simply letting it happen. But, having said that, the team was seriously concerned that we would go to Melbourne and be completely humiliated.
All the spacers kept leaking. We had one remade – and that leaked. It was a gorgeous piece of engineering work, but bloody complicated. Ferrari were the only team to have this spacer, the advantage being that it was very light – provided it worked.
In the end the spacer needed to be redesigned and remanu-factured. But that’s where Ferrari excel. Because they are so big they can take a chance and, if necessary, they can get things changed. Jordan, for example, could never try and bring a car out that late, because if something went wrong, they would be finished. That’s not a criticism. It’s just a statement of fact. Jordan could not afford to do something so adventurous, and the very same thing applies to the majority of teams.
Having said that, it seemed very disorganised at Ferrari mainly because we were in so much trouble with so many things. Every time I went to drive the car, something happened. If it wasn’t the spacer, then it was something else. We would fix that and then the fault with the spacer would raise its head again. It was problem after problem; quite unreal.
I felt very sorry for the team because the car was beautifully engineered, and extremely well made. It was just incomprehensible that so many things could go wrong. And, as the deadline for the new season approached, life became absolutely frantic.
Ferrari was receiving sponsorship for the first time from Asprey, the jewellers. Naturally, they wanted to make an impact and a very formal function had been arranged for one evening at their premises in London’s Bond Street. Michael and I both had to be present. Personally I felt like a bit of a puppet standing around in my bright red driving overalls while everyone else was dressed to kill. Anyway, it was all part of the job, although a much more serious duty was waiting for me at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track in Italy.
The original plan (of many!) had been for me to finish final testing at Fiorano, fly to London for the Asprey function and then leave Heathrow the next afternoon for Japan, en route to Australia. Some hope. With everything in such chaos, I was needed in Fiorano the next day.
I got up at 6 am to fly to Milan, and then drove like mad to reach Fiorano because I needed to catch a 2 pm plane from Bologna back to London in order to make the connection with the Tokyo flight. On the way down the autostrada, I rang my engineer to make sure everything was ready. He said, ‘Yep, no problem. We’re just about to take the car over to the circuit.’
I got to Fiorano, only to find that the car had suddenly developed a fuel leak. Yet another new problem had surfaced from nowhere. These things happen, I suppose. I was told there was no longer any point in me waiting. For once, I was quite happy about the setback; at least I would be able to make a quick return to London. So I set off and, just as I pulled up at Bologna Airport, I received a call from Fiorano with the message: ‘Come back’.
The implications were too much to even think about. All week I had been booking flights and changing my plans. My travel agent reached the stage where he did not want to answer the phone because he knew it would be me with another alteration. At one point, I was booked on several flights and I didn’t have a clue which one I was going to be able to catch – British Airways, ANA, JAL, you name the flight to Tokyo, and I was on it.
I returned to Fiorano, hopped into the car, drove 200 yards – and there was yet another problem. I had gone beyond the stage of being either surprised or upset. I was almost past caring. The intention had been to go to Tokyo for some meetings and to do a couple of interviews. I could forget that because now I would be leaving London the next day. I just switched off and relaxed. It was a very pleasant afternoon, so I sat in the sun and waited while they worked on the car.
Everything was ready to roll just before dark. We did a couple of runs which were actually quite useful because we discovered something very interesting in connection with the engine temperatures. Once I had finished, I had to see Montezemolo and tell him what the car was like. Then I had to report to Jean Todt, the team manager, and discuss what we had found.
All the while, I was aware that I really needed to catch the last flight out of Milan. I didn’t want to leave my departure until the first flight the following morning because the risk of being fogged in at Milan was too great. Either that or not being able to land at Heathrow for the same reason. Travelling between two of the foggiest airports in Europe was leaving too much to chance if I wanted to catch the next flight to Tokyo.
I had not driven the Ferrari flat out during the brief test at Fiorano; that was not the point of the exercise. Certainly, I was far safer in the F310 than I would be during a wild drive to Milan. I have to admit, I drove like a lunatic that night. The little Fiat Coupe I had been given was capable of 140 mph. I was doing all of that – most of it on the hard shoulder! I was overtaking on all sides, absolutely flat out. I just had to catch this flight. It was madness. I was watching the traffic, knowing it would only take some guy in a little Fiat to wander into my path and we’d all be history. I’ve never been so scared. I reached