Gilles has been sorely missed in Grand Prix racing ever since that terrible day. He brought a magic to it, a sparkle, which is what endeared him to Ferrari and the passionate Italian fans.
I was very happy when Gillesâs son, Jacques landed a drive for Williams having moved over from IndyCar, where I raced against him in 1994, straight into one of the two top Formula 1 teams. Itâs a real piece of history and Iâm happy for Jacques. I was slightly amused when I heard he signed because I remembered Patrick Head, Williams technical director saying something about IndyCar drivers being fat and slow ⦠then all of a sudden heâs signed one up!
Another driver for whom I have great respect â and I believe the feeling is mutual â is Niki Lauda. He is a total professional, very analytical, with tremendous courage. He was a superb racing driver who won many races through his intelligent handling of the car.
Niki was very good at getting himself positioned within a team and he was one of the few drivers to get the best out of Ferrari. He told me that if I had used my head differently I would have won more championships and heâs right. If I had been more political I would probably have won two or three more championships, but thatâs just not the way I am. Iâm not the sort of political manoeuvrer that some of my rivals were. Iâm more romantic than that. I like to think that I am what a racing driver should be. I like to win by having a fair race and a fair fight with someone. If there has been some skulduggery in the background which means that a fair fight isnât on the cards then that isnât my scene and I donât think itâs worth as much. Iâve gained more satisfaction from what I have won and the things I have achieved. I do try to look after my interests a bit more these days. But when it comes to politics, Iâll never be on the level of Alain Prost.
Alain Prost is the expert political manoeuvrer. He has won 51 Grands Prix, more than any other driver in the history of the sport, and he has four World titles, one less than Juan Manuel Fangio. You have to respect Prostâs record, but at least one of his titles was won more by skilful manoeuvring away from the circuit than actually out on the track.
Prost almost always had the best equipment available at the time: he drove for Renault in the early turbo days, then switched to McLaren, who dominated the mid-eighties with their Porsche-engined cars and the late eighties with the support of the Honda engine.
Heâs a bit of a magpie. He uses his influence to pinch the most competitive drives. At Ferrari in 1990, Prost worked behind the scenes pulling strings and getting the management of Ferrari and its parent company FIAT on his side. At the end of 1989, Ferrari was my team and I was looking forward to a crack at the world title. Prost came along and tried to ease me out. The ironic thing is that Prost himself was fired by the management of Ferrari at the end of 1991.
When we did race on a level playing field he would rarely beat me. Thatâs why he didnât want to compete with me on equal terms. Getting himself into a position where he doesnât have to compete on equal terms is part of his strength. Thatâs part of the game, but itâs more romantic and far more satisfying for everyone if you have equal equipment and say âLet the best man winâ. You have to be clever to get the car in shape, but to use political cleverness away from the circuit to get an advantage is not good for the sport.
It was disappointing not to be able to take him on in a fair fight either at Ferrari in 1990 or at Williams when he took my seat at the end of 1992. But itâs not the end of the world because I know how good I am. I raced alongside him in 1990 and knew that the only way he could be quicker than me was when the equipment wasnât the same. Iâm not interested in political manoeuvring or in working to disadvantage my team-mate. Naturally, I want success for myself and to win, this is positive, but I donât want to do it at the expense of the person with whom I am supposed to be collaborating. I am simply not motivated like that. Itâs so negative.
In my early Formula 1 days we got on reasonably well and played golf together occasionally, but as soon as I began to beat him on the track and to pose a serious threat to him, he didnât want anything to do with me, which was a shame.
Ayrton Senna was one of the best drivers in Grand Prix history. I was probably the only driver consistently to race wheel to wheel with him and there is no question that he was the hardest competitor in a straight fight; I wouldnât say the fairest, but certainly the hardest. You knew that if you beat Ayrton you had beaten the best.
He was often described as being the benchmark for all Formula 1 drivers. I believe that whoever is quickest on the day is the benchmark and it can move from race to race. Admittedly, because of his qualifying record Ayrton was more often the benchmark than I was. But it tended to move between Lauda, Prost, Piquet, Senna and me.
Ayrton tried many times to intimidate me both on and off the circuit. Once, at Spa in 1987 I told him to his face that if he was going to put me off he had better do it properly. We even had conversations where we started to respect each otherâs skill and competitiveness and agree not to have each other off. But he would then forget about the conversation or make a slip and have me off or hit me up the back. It must have been premeditated, because he was too good a driver to do it by accident.
It was unnecessary for Ayrton to act in this way, but I always took it that the fact he did it to me meant that I intimidated him. Nevertheless we did respect each other. We werenât bosom pals and we didnât run each otherâs fan clubs, but when both of us had anything like a decent car he knew that he would have to beat me if he was going to win and I knew that he was the one driver I would have to beat.
Ayrton was a natural racer and was willing to push the limits. Something terrible happened at Imola. There was no question that he was right on the limit when he went off. Perhaps something let him down on the car. He certainly pushed the limits and enjoyed it. We had that in common, we both enjoyed working on the ragged edge. That was where we would set our cars up and where we would drive when the need arose. If you are an honest professional racing driver that is what you have to do.
On my victory lap at Silverstone in 1991, I picked him up after his car had broken down at Stowe. I could see that he was getting a hard time from the crowd and I know what thatâs like from my own experiences in Brazil. So I thought I would help him get out of a tricky situation. It was amazing the criticism I received after that show of support. One magazine said that I was stupid to do it because I allowed him to see the Williams cockpit and to see what was on the dashboard display. It was so small-minded of them. There are some people who are going to criticise you no matter what you do.
When he won his third World Championship at Suzuka in 1991, I hung around after retiring from the race to congratulate him. Later we had a chat and it was probably the closest we ever got. There was a deep mutual respect between us and thatâs how Iâd like to remember him.
Nelson Piquet was the other big name in Formula 1 during the late eighties. He was my team-mate at Williams in 1986/87, but it was an unhappy relationship. Nelson is a big practical joker with an annoying sense of humour; he also worked at splitting the teamâs loyalties and getting people to side with him.
When he joined Williams in 1986 he obviously thought that he was going to win everything, but I showed him up over the next two years and took a lot of wins away from him. Williams has the capability of running two cars close together because of the very high standard of their engineering and the way that Frank Williams and Patrick Head run things. You still have a number one and a number two driver in the sense that the team leader has priority on the spare car and so on, but the number two at Williams always has a good chance of winning races, as I did over those two years.
Nelson didnât like this and he tried to get Frank to give team orders, something which Frank refused to do. Nelson claimed that Williams was displaying favouritism towards its British driver, which wasnât true at all. To be fair, Nelson was a