From the point of view of a race, itâs not a major psychological advantage over your rival to get pole position. Anybody can get pole position if they have an exceptional lap in the right equipment. The key is to prove that you have the ability to do it time and again. Itâs not one thing that gets you pole position, itâs a package of things, but you do have to put together the perfect lap and to show that you can do it more than anyone else. I am very competitive and I approach qualifying and racing at the same level.
Some top drivers believe that the race is the most important thing and that their position on the grid does not matter too much. Double IndyCar champion Al Unser Jr is like this, as to some extent was Alain Prost. They would concentrate on getting the set-up of the car absolutely perfect for the race and not over-extend themselves in qualifying. On one level you can see their point and I have done that a couple of times myself, notably at Hungary in 1989. It is the race after all which carries the points, but I have always believed that it is important to be quick and to show that you are strong throughout the weekend. Of course on certain tracks, like Monaco, there is a benefit to being at the front because it is hard to pass in the race.
Sometimes, as happened to me a great deal in the early part of my career, if your car is not up to scratch you are forced to make up the difference yourself. You do not want to be blown off in a bigger way than you have to be. So you delve deep into your reserves of commitment. You have to squeeze the maximum out of your car and out of yourself and whatever that yields is the absolute fastest that it is possible to go with the equipment. You can then go away satisfied in the knowledge that youâve done the best job you can possibly do. Hopefully, if you are working your way up the ladder despite struggling with inferior equipment, the people who run the top teams will pay attention to you and maybe give you an opportunity in a good car.
It is also very important to be on the limit when testing a car because if you donât know what a car is going to do when you are on the limit, then youâll be in trouble when you race it. Anyone can drive at nine-tenths all day, but unless you understand what the car will do at ten-tenths and even occasionally eleven-tenths, then you are not being true to yourself, your car or your team.
When you are testing a car and you are not on the limit, you can make a change which might feel better to you, but which does not show on the stopwatch. If you then say, âNo, it feels better like that, itâs only slow because I wasnât pushing it,â then you might subsequently find that the car wonât work on the limit and in fact youâve made it go slower by making the change. If you find that out during a race, youâre in big trouble.
Sometimes making a car feel better doesnât make it quicker, and the name of the game in motor racing is to shave as many fractions of seconds off your lap time as possible and then to be able to lap consistently at your optimum speed. Itâs an uncomfortable truth for some, but the only thing that tells you that is the stopwatch.
Motor racing is in general, I think, the art of balancing risk against the instinct of self-preservation, while keeping everything under control. People can only aspire to great endeavours if they believe in their hearts that they can achieve their goals â and to my mind thatâs the difference between courage and stupidity.
Courage is calculating risks; when someone sets an objective, realises how dangerous it is, but then does it anyway, fully in control. They have to fight with their feelings and hopefully are honest with themselves when facing up to the dangers inherent in what they are doing. Then there are others who arenât really in control.
STARTING A RACE
The start of a Grand Prix is a very dramatic moment and there is a lot of chaos and confusion going on around you. But the most important thing you have to think about is your own start and making sure that you get away as well as you can. The first couple of corners in a Grand Prix can make a huge difference to the result. If you have pole position and you get a good clean start, you can open out a lead over the field, because they are jockeying for position behind you. Also it goes without saying that if itâs wet and the cars are kicking up huge plumes of spray, there is only one place to be!
Itâs very important at the start to have mental profiles of each of the drivers around you, to know whoâs fired up that weekend and whoâs depressed, whoâs trying to be a hero and who is desperate for a result. If thereâs someone who has qualified way beyond expectations, then they will probably want to show that their position is justified so they are probably going to be dangerous. You need to know who is brainless, who is a cautious starter, and so on. You have to put all of this into your brain and let your instinct take you through. Itâs like reading the greens on a golf course, or knowing about the going on a race course. Itâs the finer points that matter.
Psychologically, the start is vital. In 1992 I had 14 pole positions and at the starts I went off like a rocket. I wasnât holding anything back. I would open out as big a gap as I could as fast as I could. Sometimes I was two or three seconds clear at the end of the first lap. It was vital to dominate everybody, to intimidate everyone to the point where they knew who was going to win before the race even started. And it worked.
I was on a mission that year. No-one was going to beat me. I had psyched myself up throughout the winter and I was incensed when before the season started Patrick Head said when referring to the Williams drivers, âWeâll see who comes out better in 1992.â
That was an insult. My team-mate Riccardo Patrese was a great driver, but my credentials up to that point were a lot better and I had won three or four times as many races as him. Whatâs more, having spent years as the number two driver, I was finally number one. I was determined to crush everybody. I had to dominate the Williams team and I wanted everybody to know that I was number one. I also wanted Ayrton Senna, the only person whom I perceived as being a threat, to know that I was going to win the World Championship at the earliest possible time. The relentless pressure I applied through qualifying and then at the start helped to cement that idea in peopleâs minds.
Sometimes it can all go wrong at the start, as it did in Canada in 1982 when Didier Pironi stalled on the front row of the grid and Riccardo Paletti didnât see him, hit him and was killed. I was one of the cars who had to dodge Pironi and there was no time to think about it, you just had to act. Itâs the instinct of self-preservation. We all have this instinct because we donât want to die. You know when you race a car that if you donât do the right things at certain times, you could get killed or badly hurt. The start of a race is one of those times.
STRATEGY AND READING THE RACE
Peter Collins played a major role in helping me reach Formula 1 and he was my team manager for a few years at Lotus and Williams. I always used to laugh at him because he used to like to plan the race in minute detail beforehand and sometimes we would have ten different strategies in front of us. It was complete nonsense because usually something would happen that we hadnât even considered. Before the start we used to study the grid and he would say, âWhat happens if he gets a good start and what if he gets a bad one?â But whatever you tried to plan, it all used to change.
Niki Lauda was always a great planner, but what he thought about never occurred either, so he gave up wasting his brain power, relaxed and was ready for anything that came up.
Thatâs one of the strengths of my driving now. I donât think about things too much. Iâve had so much experience and so many things programmed into my brain