S2 E7: How Benetton snatched Schumacher from Jordan

Olen Shannon Maldonado, käsintehtyjä artesaanitua teitä myyvän jauji-lahjakaupan perustaja. Valit sinu Shopify, koska alustoja testa testani totesin sen ehdottomasti yhdeksi helpokäyttöisimmistä alustoista. Minulla oli tärkeää pohtia kehittymistämme tulevaisuudessa. Kaikki myyntiin tarvittavat työkalut, kuten varaston suunnittelu ovat kätivästi dashboardissä. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu Shopify piste komsi vustolla. Käsintehtyjä on tärkeää, että järjestelmä on tärkeää, että järjestelmä on tärkeää, mutta Michael Schumacheryysymäkäyntiin 1991, järjestelmä on tärkeää. Sitten järjestelmä on tärkeää, että järjestelmä on tärkeää. Järjestelmä on tärkeää, että järjestelmä on tärkeää, mutta järjestelmä on tärkeää, että järjestelmä on tärkeää, että järjestelmä on tärkeää. Today on Bring Back v10s, - - we will explain exactly how Shumacher slipped through Jordan's fingers - - over the course of less than a fortnight. Before we get into that detail, - - remember to get your questions in to ask us anything about F1 - - from 1989 to 2005 - - for our series Finale using the #BringBackV10s on Twitter. If you'd like to show your support for the show - - why not join the likes of Ronster 84, and Stuart of the Jets - - in leaving us a 5-star review - - and submitting a question there, too? Let's crack on with Michael Schumacher's arrival in F1 for now - - and joining me for this one are Edströ - - and the man who designed Schumacher's first F1 car, Gary Anderson. Gary, your status as the designer of the Jordan 191 - - certainly trumps anything Ed can bring to the table here. So you can have the first swing at a opening question, - - which quite simply is when you think of Michael Schumacher's arrival in Formula 1 - - what's the first thing that comes to mind? Well really he was very competent. We did a few laps of Silverstone size circuit - - before we went to Spa in the car and you know he got on the car - - it was where he should have been. He, as I say, was very competent. We had to brought him in after about three laps - - as I'm telling you, taking a little bit easier. I mean he sort of said, "Well, I am." But you know, into this you came at the pits at Silverstone size - - where you know you could park the truck and stuff. He was definitely in control of the car and the car was well truly out of shape - - on every occasion. So he was ready to push it to the limit all the time. So confidence was very, very high. I think that's what sort of made me aware that this guy is actually - - he's going to go places because he just does have that in her confidence. That was a theme, I think, through the research we were doing actually - - that whether it was when he turned up at the Belgian Grand Prix - - with you guys or when he gets his first test with Beneton - - very similar impressions. I think Beneton even told him to maybe calm down as well. Ed, you haven't designed any F1 cars - - raised by Michael Schumacher, but Rory Bern wasn't available - - so you'll have to do as our second guest. What stands out for you about this story? - I should say in my defence I've designed less non-winning F1 cars than Gary has. So if you look at it that way, I'm doing okay. But yeah, Spawn 91 and Schumacher, it was just the extraordinary impact - - made by the arrival of an extraordinary driver. It's oversimplifying it to say he came from nowhere because he didn't - - but that's what it seemed to most of those watching - - and that's why I think it sticks in the memory. You don't need that benefit of hindsight for this to mean something. It was a big deal at the time. And regardless of the circumstances of how we got the seat - - and what happened after that we're going to get into - - it was that qualifying performance and what happened in just a few seconds of racing - - that really mattered. It was the start of a legend. We couldn't know quite how big a legend. But what a splash he made. So let's get going with the man without whom none of this would have taken place. And his name is Eric Corte. If you're wondering who he is, he's the taxi driver that got into an - - altercation with Bertron Gassho in London in December 1990 - - which resulted in Gassho spraying him with CS gas - - sometimes also known as tear gas. In August 1991, Gassho received an 18-month prison sentence - - for the incident and possession of a prohibited weapon - - as CS gas was illegal in the UK. He said at the time of the court case that he was using it for one reason - - and that was to defend myself. Gassho had been on his way to a sponsor event where he was meant to be appearing - - with Eddie Jordan when he had the accident. And it was only afterwards that Eddie found out why his driver never turned up. But interestingly, in Eddie's book, he writes, "The stupid thing was that we could have sorted things out - - had we known about the extent of the problem." Bertron was not the sort of guy to go around attacking people - - far from it, but rather than trying to make amends - - apologising to the taxi driver and making a donation to charity - - Bertron dismissed the incident from his mind - - and failed to realise the possible repercussions. To Gary, you obviously embedded inside Jordan - - in the team's first F1 season at this point. When did you guys find out about this incident - - and did Gassho sort of play it down at the time? - Well, I think everybody played it down. And everybody realised how serious it was - - that it was Eddie's lawyers, whenever they took it out - - they were saying that it's when they were going there - - and we'll pay about the fine or whatever - - get wrapped knuckles. But it wasn't going to be like that. So we never really, as a team, - - we didn't really know enough about it - - and we didn't really take it seriously. I mean, Eddie may have done - - because obviously Eddie was a bit more involved than me - - I was working on the car, basically. But it was one of those sort of situations - - where, as I say, awareness might have made us think differently - - but that wasn't to be. And Bertram went to the Hungarian Grand Prix - - which was just before the case came up, basically. And he was doing his job, he was driving, he was focused. A lot of people you would expect to fall apart a little bit - - if they were just going to be going to court - - and thought it was serious. So I don't think even Bertram thought it was actually - - going to go anywhere to like it did. Bertram went to the Hungarian Grand Prix - - where he set fast his lap and finished ninth. And that was the only fast his lap of his F1 career. He wasn't expecting anything serious to happen - - as Gary explained there and even made plans to head to a test - - at Monza straight after the court appearance. Eddie Jordan calls the sentence "proposterous". And he said that everyone was confident - - and a appeal would be successful. But Gashot lost the appeal as well. But he did get the sentence reduced to nine months - - which still left Jordan scrambling to find a replacement for Gashot - - at his home Grand Prix in Belgium, which was the next race. Even the taxi drivers reported to call the sentence "a tragedy". Although supposedly in the British press, he also said - - "there comes a time when you have to grow up and realise that you can't - - go around spraying people with CS gas". Which is an incredible quote and I'd love to know if that's real. Ed, I think that sums up, they want an utterly bizarre story this was. Did you have any sympathy for Gashot over the severity of the sentence? Yeah, certainly some sympathy. Looking into it, the detail a bit more now from what I understand - the custodial sentence. It was specifically a use of CS gas, which was really considered a weapon. I know that's kind of stating the obvious - - but it really elevated the nature of the offense. Looking at the details, there's no doubt that the taxi driver - - was being confrontational at best. So he did initiate something, you know, Gashot acted in self-defense. And it was using the CS gas as a weapon that led to this harsh sentence. I don't know enough about UK law, but I know there was great sensitivity - - as well about the use of this sort of thing at that time. I think there was some relationship with football, - who licking in some of that kind of thing that meant it was one of those - - times when there's certain forms of crying that become particularly - - unpopular so that they get tough on them. So in that regard, I think it was decided that it wasn't a proportion - - at response from Gashot to the level of aggression that was showing towards him. I don't think it was quite the grand miscarriage of justice - - that it was portrayed as, because it was well within the way the UK law - - went and some precedents, etc, from what I understand anyway. But I understand what Gashot did, what he did. As Eddie Jordan said, himself had it all been taken a little bit more seriously - - initially. Perhaps it could have been made to go away before it ever got that far - - but then just the momentum built it and it happened. I mean, I know legal expert, I'm sure there might - - there's probably a listener with specific skills in that area - - who can get in touch with me, who has familiarity with the case - - who can correct me. So I had to drive on on Twitter. But yeah, some sympathy, but it didn't come from nowhere - - and he probably was a little bit in judicious, although - - we weren't part of that, so who knows? So Jordan's hunt for a new driver begins - - and Stephanie Hanson was top of Eddie's list. But he was brought out because he wanted paying for the drive. Other names in the running were reported to be Derek Warwick - - and bizarrely Keki Rosberg. I say bizarrely because this was five years after Keki had retired - - from F1. Gary, would you have liked to get any of those drivers - - into your car for the spa weekend? They weren't really that high on my list. No, I never really heard about Keki Rosberg - - getting the offer of the drive, but Damon Hill was in there - - with potential as well. He was driving for the team, 3,000 team basically - - Eddie was slightly involved with at the time. So his name was mentioned as well. So again, it was one of those sort of things, you know, there was a test - - at the Monsa and Bertram was going to become into that test. So we never really knew about it until the last minute - - until he wasn't going to appear at that test - - and had to make some decisions. I'm always and always have been - - a lover of the younger driver coming in. Somebody, somebody that's not seen it all done at all - - and knows it all, they're coming in to a new team - - because we hadn't seen it all done at all or knew it all, but what we did was try - - and that was the main ability. And we wanted a driver in the car that would, I wanted a driver in the car that would just go out there and sort of drive the wheels off it. And we'd try and do the best job we could in a given weekend. I don't think you could do that with a hard and professional that was probably on his way to his retirement fund as opposed to a young guy that was on the way up. And we'll just, as I said, drive the wheels off it. Now Michael Schumacher was sort of on Eddie's radar by this point. In 1990 Eddie had seen him race in F3 when he was in Germany for talks about selling his F3,000 team to Ville Vabre who was looking after Schumacher's career. And Eddie says in his book, the first time I watched Michael Schumacher race I was not particularly impressed. Michael's performance that day in 1990 had not caused the raising of the eyebrows in the same way that Ertten Senna had done when I first saw him race. Having come across good drivers in the past, I instantly realised there was something special about Senna. I did not have that feeling with Schumacher. He was what you might call a normal driver, very good but not exceptional. However, Eddie does admit that he wasn't there specifically to look at Schumacher. He could just sniff a good deal to get rid of his F3,000 team, although in the end the deal with Vabre didn't happen. And when Vabre placed Schumacher in sports cars, even as with the Salber Mercedes team, Eddie says he was amazed. He wrote, "Sports car racing was a dead end, a place for either retired F1 drivers or just those who were never good enough to make the cut in the first place. I couldn't understand why Vabre had done that and I suppose subconsciously it endorsed my feeling that Michael was good but nothing special." Ert, how would you characterize Schumacher's pre-F1 years? Do you think Eddie's maybe doing him a disservice there? I think partly. There wasn't necessarily the evidence to suggest that Schumacher would become quite what he was. But he did have a very fine junior record, one German F3, one Macau-Grawn Pre, one race and Formula Ford Machinery, the Formula Kernig Championship in Germany. So it's clearly very good. He didn't have quite that same level of buzz as someone like Mick Hackenen did, who was kind of his natural rival. And we are seeing this through the prism of British coverage, both from experiencing at the time and looking back. But Hackenen, who had made his name racing in Britain in British Formula 3 and other categories, he was kind of the guy that had the real buzz behind him. And he did turn up at the end of Schumacher's German F3 title winning campaign and blitz everyone on an appearance. So, yeah, no surprise really, and Hackenen, of course, was already in F1 by that time, while as you say Schumacher was off on this sports car, tangent. But I also think perhaps the Schumacher's skill set didn't stand out in the same way in junior categories, because there was so much more to Michael Schumacher than just being a fast racing driver. He was that, but all these other factors, the assuredness, the confidence, the attention to detail, the ability to drive the team, and nothing on the table, ruthlessness, all of those things added up to make him, and maybe the junior categories that are a little bit, to say one dimensionally is exaggerating it, but they're slightly more straightforward. Perhaps meant that that didn't showcase him in the same way. So, he was seen as a very, very good prospect. But I don't think that many people were running around calling him a future seven times world champion, if indeed anyone would be absurd enough to suggest that of anyone. Schumacher did remain on Jordan's radar though, because he was repeatedly being hassled about him by Mercedes commercial manager, Gerde Kramer, who Eddie believes pushed harder for Schumacher than Weber did. Eddie appeared on the F1 Beyond the Grid podcast with Tom Clarkson, and that's a brilliant episode that I'd recommend you listen to. And in that, he said he was bored of hearing about Schumacher from Kramer, and he said to him, "Go away, tell me what his budget is, and I'll think about it. But please don't keep telling me how good he is, tell me how much he's got." And Eddie said that's because Jordan's finances were brutal by this point of its first season. The week before the Belgian Grand Prix, the World Sports Car Championship was in action at the Nürburgring, where Schumacher was driving for Mercedes. And this Nürburgring weekend was where everything would come together. And unsurprisingly, for something that happened nearly 30 years ago, there were lots of different accounts of how it all happened. Eddie recalls today that Schumacher remained in the back of his mind, and he felt he was worth a look, so he did a deal over the phone with Weber for £150,000 per race. Weber claims that he was the one to make the call after a journalist at the Nürburgring told him Gashot had been sent to prison, and he says he spent over £500 that weekend on international phone calls trying to track Eddie down, because Eddie was on holiday with his family in Spain. However, in the coverage at the time, it was reported that Eddie said the deal was done in person at the Nürburgring, so nobody can quite make their minds up. But Gary, how aware were you a week before the spar of what was going on, and what was your reaction when you heard that this guy Michael Schumacher was going to be in your car? Well, my recalls are about different from all of those, really, to be honest, as you would expect. Surprise, surprise. Yeah, I was at Monza testing with Andrea. We were expecting Bertram to come down. Andrea did, I think it was the Wednesday and Thursday, and we were expecting Bertram to come down on the Thursday night to test on the Friday, or maybe a day out there, not quite sure, but anyway. And the phone rang, and it was Eddie, and he said, "Oh, Bertram's got locked up. We need you to find somebody else for the race weekend spar." And I said, "Well, what are you thinking about?" And he said about, you know, we talked about Demon Hill, we talked about Stephanie Hanson. And that was about that, really. And I said, I said, "Terry on the phone." I said, "Look, I watched a race from a Kyrace, a former three race." I got called Michael Schumacher, and he looked pretty handed to me, "Do you know what I'm about to be in the hand?" And Eddie said, "Well, yeah, I've heard of them." And that was really it. That was a conversation for Niste. He said, "I'll get back to you." So we continued testing the next day with Andrea, because we hadn't got a second drive at that point in time. And it was late in the afternoon when I got a phone call from Eddie to say, "Yeah, I've made contact with them, and he's going to be coming to the workshop next week." So I don't know where it happened at, how it happened. But it's a bit different from both of those accounts. But it's sort of, I think it happened on the Friday, it's Thursday that afternoon or Friday afternoon, not quite sure. And Michael was going to come to the factory next on the Monday after the race at the Nuremberg Ring. And do it finalize the deal and get a seat made, whatever. I think we can forgive everyone some sketchy memories about an incident like that. But the ultimate outcome is the same. The phone calls took place. He ended up in the car. We'll stick with this Nuremberg Ring sports car weekend for another moment, because Schumacher got himself into hot water during qualifying for deliberately driving in to Derek Warwick's Jaguar. Warwick was trying to stay out of Schumacher's way as he wound up for a qualifying lap of his own, but Schumacher didn't think he did a good enough job, so he drove into him. A report in Autosport magazine from the time says Warwick storms to the Mercedes garage after the cars return to the pits, by which point Schumacher had fled to the Mercedes truck. But Warwick was having none of that barges in and then what is described as an angry confrontation takes place, which if you're on the receiving end of an angry confrontation with Derek Warwick sounds pretty terrifying to me. Schumacher admits to doing it on purpose, but refuses to apologize and eventually the next day he's forced to say he's sorry. But Warwick persuaded his TWR team not to protest Schumacher, assuming that FISA, the authorities would take strong action anyway. But Schumacher escapes with a reprimand for misbehavior and dangerous practice. Warwick says he should have been fined and banned and says Schumacher was lucky that Jaguar team boss Tom Walkinshaw wasn't there, although of course Walkinshaw will crop up again much later in this story. Ed, I don't know if you've heard that story before, but would you say that's perhaps petulence from a young Schumacher or an early glimpse at his tendency to take matters into his own hands on track? Yeah, you have to look at it within the wider context of Schumacher, don't you? It certainly showed he wasn't going to show any deference to the established names and was going out of his way to make his mark. But driving into someone in those circumstances was clearly going a bit too far. So it does perhaps encapsulate Schumacher's supreme confidence and self-belief and the fact that he was in the right, which usually was a huge positive for him and occasionally perhaps caught him out. Sometimes in these sort of high stress, high pressure situations, he may be tick decisions that he might regret later in the cold light of day. And we had to remember, you know, this incident wasn't completely isolated. He had the crash with Hacken and at McCow in 1990. He parled into Johnny Chicotto and a DTM outing. Obviously Chicotto was driver of a BMW. He was a title rival of Mercedes that the Michael Schumacher was on a effectively a guest outing for. That trait was kind of in that. I think you actually have to quite admire that strength because it helped him far more than it ended him. But yeah, being irritated in the qualifying session and doing that isn't particularly wise move, should we say. So I think it tells you something about Schumacher, but you know, still young up and come and making his name. So you'd rather see a driver with a little bit of fight and a bit of that than he doesn't give it down. I'm sure Gary's running to plenty of those. Gary, did you know about that incident and would it have made any difference to you knowing that he's coming into your car and he's been in trouble for driving into someone on purpose? Well, I didn't know it in about it. No, and it wouldn't have made any difference. Again, I'm on the head side there. There's too many gentlemen out there. And they don't succeed. It's the ruthless guys that get through to be honest at the end of the day. You need a better fight. I'm sure it wasn't all just quite so one side it is. Maybe Derek Warrick makes it out. I'm sure there was a little bit of RG Bard, you're going on between them for a while. So it's never, you need to hear the whole story or see the whole story before you can add to really make judgment on it. I wouldn't condone for being a bit aggressive on the track, no. I think you need to be that way. Before Schumacher turns up at Jordan after that event for his seat fitting and the quick test that Gary referred to at the start, he does stop off in the UK for an already scheduled meeting with Jackie Oliver of arrows. Arrows have been interested in Schumacher for a while, and while he attends the meeting out of courtesy, of course, nothing ever comes from it. But we do have to stop off here for a moment because those of you who listen to our France 1990 episode will recall a sensational period in that summer where arrows approached Nigel Mansoul and Adrian Neuuy for 1991. We joked then about how Mansoul driving a newly designed Porsche powered arrows might have gone. So let's take it one step further. Ed, let's assume arrows did get Mansoul Neuuy for 91 and that they've stuck around for 92. We'd in fact then ended up with Mansoul Schumacher as a super team driving newly designed cars for arrows or footwork or whatever you want to call them. How do you think that would have looked? Well, let's take the question literally. I think it have looked just as red and white as the cars were, but a lot more Williams FW 14 shaped, I would imagine. The ingredients are tantalizing aren't they? Obviously, as you say that I've had to get through 91 and they started with a Porsche engine there which was enormous overweight and underpowered much like myself really. But while the probability of everyone agreeing to join was low, if it had happened and somehow come together and Schumacher had come in, then maybe the ingredients are there. There's probably a few too many weak points for every sort of hell together, but it does make you think about about we often think that everything that happens is almost pre or day not in some deliberate design way, but you kind of think well, of course all these people got together and it led them on this path here. That's kind of logic. But it's not because luck and circumstances and that kind of thing plays a part. There's so many different paths, anything could have taken. You know, who knows? Maybe we didn't get the best version of what happened in the early 90s and somewhere in a parallel universe. There's a podcast being recorded now in which everyone's talking about the ingredients for the rise to dominance of arrows and laughing at the idea of Newian mantle at Williams in 92 and talking about Gary Anderson as the savorio Ferrari. All of these things happen, but there's so much random chance involved. But it's really fun to think what might have happened had they all got together there. And it's amazing how many times people could have gone to arrows based on all the research we're doing I definitely want to find that parallel universe podcast as well. Maybe we can maybe we can hook up and have a crossover with wherever that one's being recorded. Let's get to spa in his F1 podcast interview Eddie joke that he wasn't sure he could spell Schumacher's name before he signed him. And maybe this was true because on the first day before the Belgian Grand Prix he has a sweepstake with the British press about how his new driver will perform and he says to them, where do you think Schneider will qualify? Bunch Schneider wasn't racing anywhere that weekend. So I don't think he did very well. I doubt any of those journalists would have guessed correctly though Schumacher was 11th in Friday morning practice. 8th in first qualifying on Friday afternoon. 5th on Saturday morning in a session where both Jordan spent most of the time at the top of the order before some qualifying simulations happened from some other drivers. And of course if you know this story well, you'll know that Schumacher started his debut from 7th on the grid. But after Saturday afternoon's second qualifying session he was actually 8th in the order and he was bumped up a place when Ricardo betrays his Williams failed screw to nearing for not having a work in reverse gear. Schumacher complained about traffic during the session, which is understandable because back then we had 30 cars trying to get the 26 slots on the grid. And he was upset with none other than Alan Frost for getting in his way, but he still qualifies 7th attempts ahead of teammate André de Chesarest, who is 11th after complaining of handling problems during the weekend up to that point. Schumacher's performances were well and truly turning heads and he was in earning praise from some of the most respected voices in the media. James Johnson in Motorsport magazine said Schumacher's uninhibited performance was one of the highlights of the two days of practice and qualifying. Here was a man making the car do what he wanted when he wanted it not having to see what the car wanted to do. And he also sport Nigel Robuck wrote, it may seem ridiculous already to speak of him as a special talent, but just once in a while you get a feeling about a new driver and impression that this is the start of a major career. It was there with Vilnerv, I think it means Jill, but he could mean Jack with Prost and with Senna and I together with nearly everyone else at Spa felt it there with Schumacher. So Gary, did you feel it by the end of qualifying? How impressed were you after the first two days of running at Spa? Yeah, very impressed, obviously. The important thing for me was that when he said he would be able to do something he was. He would have done it like El Rouge at that time with Formula One cars. It was difficult but flat. And on the Friday he hadn't taken it flat. He said to me, Friday night, you know, he was going to be able to be done flat with the car the way it is. And he said, yeah, no problems just getting my confidence in the car. And Andreas said the same thing. And it took Michael the first lap, certainly more than the flat through El Rouge. And Andreas took him to the last lap of qualifying before he went flat through El Rouge. He did go flat through there, but Michael just seemed to know, it could tell himself what he needed to do and then he would go and do it. It wasn't like, you know, it was a blur to him. It was actually confidence, but it was also calculated confidence. I think what Ed said earlier is a bit true of quite a few drivers come through the formulas and you never quite see them excel in the formula until they hit the one that they're really good at. And you know that is ultimately Formula One, but that just means that that driver has more bits of the jigsaw able to put it together that makes the driver out for that typical formula. If it's sports cars, it's fine. You know, you need to look after lots of different things and sports cars from what you need to look after in Formula One. So they're very, very different disciplines, but Michael just seemed to have older as a say all the bits of the jigsaw that made up a Formula One driver. And from day one, he was using all those bits, you know, his inertness, his mind, his commitment, his, you know, just his ability to sort of be able to read the car from day one was quite incredible. So yeah, I, you know, started a night to sit back there and say, this thing is some pretty special. Of course, Schumacher's race famously lasts a matter of seconds because he burns his clutch out at the start. So by the time the field streets up the hill from radion to Lake Whom he's already pulled off at the side of the circuit. But Ed, after what Schumacher had done during practice and qualifying, did it really matter that you didn't get to put on a show during the race as well? In real terms, no, the ball had been resoundingly set rolling. He'd been noticed. He proved what he can do. He'd made that a massive impact like, like robot that quote you mentioned with people like Villeneuve just making that impact when they turn up and people seeing what they've done. And it doesn't matter if they score points or doesn't matter if they finish the race or whatever it's all, it's all about that making that impact. Actually Gary had a bit of a stake in Villeneuve debut in 77, but that's another story will maybe tell on another podcast another another day. But yeah, there is a slightly more fanciful sense that even though Schumacher did make that impact with a race that lasted probably about 30 seconds by the time he'd ground to a halt. It is quite fun to think what might have happened had he not had that clutch failure because as I understand it Gary, there was no pre-ordained reason for that failure to happen. It was down to the circumstances of the start wasn't it? So he could well have completed that first slapping carried on. Yeah, there was a lot of circumstances really. They'd not to it, I suppose you might call it basically the engine we had at that point in time, the cause of the engine had a bit of a crankshaft problem. And we had to run what was a single plate carbon clutch on the on the back of the engine obviously because if you run the double plate one that which was the robust piece of kit at that point in time, it was about too heavy and the crank suffered because of it. So we were committed to a single plate clutch. That's all okay, but we also there's an aluminium hub that basically drives the carbon fibre plate. And it's got a spline inside it that goes on to what's called the clutch shaft or it's that this shaft that comes out of the gearbox. Then it's got this aluminium hub and there's a spline on it that drives the carbon plate and the carbon plates connected to the engine so that the drive is all going through that aluminium hub. The AP racing with people who met the clutch has brought out a new one, it was made the titanium because heat was a problem in that aluminium and the aluminium would just basically get too hot and distort. We couldn't really afford the titanium ones, so we actually got a batch of ones that Williams had sent back because they didn't, they got the titanium ones, they could afford them we couldn't. So they gave us brand new aluminium ones for your charges such and we, you know, we lived 91, big, borrowing, stealing or if you like to call it. It was a year like that. So we got these new aluminium hubs for a spa and it was really, I suppose, from there on in it was a bit of naivety. We didn't really realise how much extra load the uphill start at the spa would put into the clutch and you had to do a bit more slipping of the clutch. So, you know, this all compounded and basically Michael got to turn one and there was a big blockage and he'd gone up a few places and basically he did another start. He went round turn one with the clutch disengaged. and then did more or less another start going out of turn one and just that killed it. The aluminium hub, the single plate clutch, the uphill start, two starts at the same time, you know all just mounted up to the clutch itself went don't want to know anymore and that just melted the aluminium hub. That's it and the story. Jordan still had plenty to focus on in a race though because Gary's 1-9-1 had looked good throughout practice in race trim and in the Sunday warm-up Schumacher and Dechezeris were fourth and fifth quickest. Dechezeris climbed from 11th to 8th at the start of course aided by Schumacher's retirement and he moves up another place when Prost's Ferrari blows up early on. Once the pit stops have cycled through he's up to 6th. Ahead of him at this point are Mansoul, the non-stopping Elaci, Senna, PK and Patraezi. Then Mansoul retires from the lead and the Jordan is up to 5th. Key moment in the race is when Senna tries to pass Elaci for the lead on lap 27 but he struggles to find a gear on the run out of La Source. He crawls up the hill thinking his race is over until he eventually finds 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th gears are working. From then on he decides not to try a first or second gear again and he's lost 10 seconds to Elaci in the space of a lap. Without the use of the lower gears for the hairpin Senna can't make inroads on Elaci but then just 3 laps later the Ferrari's engine fails. By this point De Chesaris is up to 2nd and he's only 2.5 seconds behind Senna but he can't make inroads on the ailing McLaren. Gary why don't you take up the story from here because Andrea had problems of his own and at what point in the race did they start to materialise? Well it's you know one of those sort of situations is always some reason behind it. Again on the engine the Cosworth HB they had some new pistons for that event and basically the engine was using more oil. We didn't know that we normally had an oil tank which you put an extra oil for the race basically. Sparby and what it was with El Rouge it was quite difficult there to get the oil pickup system to work correctly because you got the big compression and then the extension as you went over the top of the hill so very difficult to keep oil at the pickup of the oil tank and we didn't know that the engine was using more oil so basically we just put in the normal extra I think it was like two litres of oil at that point in time to use up during the race but the engine used a bit more so suddenly we were starting to get oil pressure dips coming out of El Rouge so that's never a good sign and we sort of knew it would be a matter of time to be honest but what do you do you know you just have to keep the hammer down. I would have been pretty happy to finish 2.5 seconds behind Erickson and McLaren but you know it wasn't to be but we never find out really about the reason for the engine failure until we got to Monza which was you know then we have to start putting more oil and tank to be able to see the race out but obviously that race that one race at Spar where we had a very good car and some other people had some problems was our opportunity and you know that was gone basically very very quickly. Yeah the Chezre is disappears from the race on lap 42 out of 44 when he was 3.4 seconds behind center at the start of that lap so it's heartbreak for Jordan which could have got a podium in its first season. I think Eddie mentions in his book Gary that you told him the engine normally used about a liter of oil during a race and that you needed 5.5 litres or you used 5.5 litres in that race. Eddie also says that he felt Chezre is eased down the media agenda after Schumacher's qualifying performance and Eddie doesn't believe enough people associate that race with how the other car got on and he adds that to this day he doesn't like to think too much about if Jordan could have won that race. Ed I know this is a favorite race of yours and a favorite performance from Chezre is do you think that this race gets forgotten with what I guess we could call the second Jordan that weekend because of what Schumacher did and because of all the interests around in his debut. Yeah it certainly has suffered from that which is understandable in many ways because of the size of the splash that Schumacher made. In recent years you do just start to see it referenced a little bit more often though which is which is nice and you know Chezre is we know it is best he was a very good driver he was clearly on it that afternoon he had a good season then. Had he won which was certainly absolutely possible it would have been an absolutely remarkable story and we should add actually that had Schumacher kept going you know you can't kind of invent a race out of thin air but he was ahead of the Chezre is at the point he retired so who knows where Michael Schumacher might have been how much better this story could have been but yeah it would have been a wonderful way to cap the amazing story of Jordan in 91 because what that team achieved was astonishing we've taught before on podcasts in this series about the struggling teams and all these teams that turned up with kind of chances and stepped up from lower categories and failed and what Jordan did then was unbelievable really and I think to have so we've got a podium to what the second would have been nice but two of one given what that team achieved it would have been a fantastic thing to have just as the kind of crowning glory and we should say you know what Gary did with that car was was particularly astonishing given that that team didn't really exist when when he first turned up to to start well there he had to basically not only design the car but you know all the facilities from scratch as well along with Andrew Green and Mark Smith so yeah it would have been brilliant for Jordan wouldn't it in great for the Chezre is he never won a race and did a fine job for them for them that year so yeah we should talk about the Chezre is almost winning more often and on please we've done so if you want to hear more stories about the early years of Jordan some of those stories they're hinted about about the job Gary faced when he joined the team stories like that always come up on Gary's own podcast so search for the Gary Anderson F1 show and check that out it's released every Wednesday and Ed and Gary get together and they discuss a lot of questions from listeners as well so that's a good fun podcast and you can ask Gary about anything to do with modern day F1 the future of F1 and of course the glory days of Jordan and Stuart as well Stuart went quite well but anyway back to 1991 after the race weekend Schumacher is expected to stay with Jordan at least in the short term according to reports he does drive the car again in a test at Silverstone where he is reported to do that Jordan's fastest time of the year on the South Circuit the 54.4 seconds so Gary firstly I didn't recall that he did another test after Spa so if when he turned up and I believe it was damper and break testing was the purpose of the test when he turns up for that was everyone in the team including yourself assuming that he's going to be there for at least the rest of the season well you know at Spa we we did assume that was what was going to happen so we were planning ahead basically to try to you know to work together for the rest of the season there were you know there's a few things that sort of pop up in my mind that I've sort of question and end up seventh on the grid Nelson P.K. and the Benet and was sixth on the grid and that was Michael's biggest upset I think whenever you look at the back at it he did get held up on his on his best lap and qualifying into the Bostock by Alan Prost memory memory told me it was John Lissi but I you know I'll go with the whatever the trend is but he can held up into the Bostock by by someone and that lap if he sort of equate what he did through the Bostock on his best lap it would act to be in third in the grid so you know it was a massive the massive improvement on what he really did do but it didn't happen but he was very upset about it mainly because Nelson P.K. was ahead of him so I think some of this stuff was going on in the background all the time you know they they they attempt to try to get with Benet and or be with Benet and was simmering in there somewhere it didn't just all start after after Spa also you know we talked about it the weekend about the Yamaha engines for next year and we were trying to put a good a good light on to that and I remember him having a comment after one of the practice sessions that he had gone through El Rouge behind this Brabham Yamaha and he said if that's the engine you have for next year you're going to have problems so you know those things I had up to and two and sometimes come up with five but I'm sure there was definitely a five in there somewhere if you add them up correctly so you know we we continued dollars after season was going to go on because we didn't know anything different and to be honest we were in Monza before even really weird exactly you know it wasn't as though it happened in the next week it was a two-week gap I think it was between between Spa and Monza so it was you know it had time to reach head but we we were still continuous if you're gonna gonna go on with it so yeah we had to put our eggs in the basket and allow them to get on with the work that might emit as you know better all the way so yes it's one of those situations I think where you know we we were very naive as a team and maybe he saw that as well because he had been working with Mercedes you know he had been working with a very big and professional team and I think he may be commented to Jordan and saw that we were pretty much a very small team relatively so maybe he got a little bit fright from that as well and you know all these things that up you mentioned the Yamaha engines there and in fact after Spa Eddie Jordan flies to Japan to finalize that deal which was set up by Bernie Eccleston who knew Jordan was in financial trouble and needed a financially friendly should we say engine deal for 92 on the Friday after Spa Ian Phillips at Jordan gets a call from Ville Weber who says Yucca near Pash from Mercedes would turn up the following Monday to sign a contract with Jordan on Schumacher's behalf but Weber warned Phillips to to watch Neapash. Jordan waits all day for Neapash to arrive on the Monday, and when he finally turns up late in the afternoon, he's accompanied by the famous driver manager of names like Senator and Prost, Julian Jacobi from IMG. And the initial letter of intent that had been agreed between Schumacher and Jordan had now been changed, and Eddie Jordan said the new letter was totally unacceptable. Eddie says Schumacher's camp wanted all manner of things for the £3 million they'd be paying for the drive, including sponsorship rights for the entire car. Jordan said it would need to be worked on overnight, but he also heard whispers at this point that Schumacher had been to Benaton for a seat fitting. Sure enough, the next morning, so on the Tuesday at 10am, Jordan receives a one-line fax from Schumacher saying, "Dear Eddie, I'm very sorry, but I'm not going to be driving for your team." Gary, how did you find out about this, and what was your reaction when it all started to unravel? Well, we found out, as I say, I was, it was monzo really before we really got any idea what was going on. Obviously, initially there was about a fighting about this fax to say I'm not going to be driving for you, because again, Eddie was trying very hard, I think, to do the deal with Schumacher directly. And then suddenly, you know, Nia Spassen and Mercedes were coming in the middle of it all, so it was getting more and more confusing. And again, because we were quite small, Eddie's always done wheeling and dealing, and you can wheel and deal with Michael Schumacher, but you couldn't wheel and deal with the maintenance of Mercedes. So, again, we weren't involved in that side of it. As a technical side, we just had to get the car ready for the next race and get there and get on with it. So, everything became a bit of a surprise when it got to, when we actually got to Monza. Yeah, and you're still waiting to find out who's going to be driving your car. So, what really happened here? Well, over the weekend, before that Monday meeting at Jordan, Nia Pash had contacted Tom Walkinshaw at Benaton to see if they'd be interested in Schumacher for 1992. Walkinshaw said he thought Schumacher was committed to Jordan, but if that wasn't the case, he'd be interested. The initial idea was for Schumacher to test the Benaton and for talks to progress from there. Then on the Monday night, Nia Pash called Walkinshaw to say that they had failed to reach terms with Jordan, and would Benaton be interested in taking Schumacher immediately? The initial paperwork was drawn up on that Tuesday morning, and in Walkinshaw's words, it was subject to the confirmation that Schumacher was free. Walkinshaw spoke to Eddie Jordan on the Tuesday afternoon, and he described Eddie as a bit excited, but he told Eddie to do what everything had to do in terms of legal action as Walkinshaw was of the belief that a big corporation like Mercedes wouldn't tell him Schumacher was contractually available if that wasn't true. Schumacher tested the Benaton on the Wednesday, across the road from the Jordan factory at Silverstone, the team were happy and the contract was signed. When we got to Monzer and it all kicked off, Walkinshaw said there was a lot of nonsense flying around. He added, "The fact is that Schumacher, for whatever reason, had no contract with Jordan. He was a free agent. How anyone can allow a talent like that to be walking around the paddock, I don't know. That's their business." When we were informed of that, we went about the proper way of securing him. Ed, there's lots to go over here. We'll come on to why Schumacher was contractually available in a moment, but if Benaton were initially contacted about signing him for 1992, is it possible there was an element of fortune here that Walkinshaw suddenly realized Schumacher might not be tied down in the immediate term as well? Well, look, can play a role in these sorts of things, but it wasn't by chance that Walkinshaw was contacted by Nia Paschewaldsett. I can't imagine that there wasn't some sort of hint of what might be possible, far from me to suggest anything until Walkinshaw was going on, but I think as Gary has suggested, there was sort of something going on from quite early in this whole thing. I mean, that's sort of so interesting about this. There's so many moving parts in the move, individuals with vested interests in seeing it happen. Probably Michael Schumacher, although, by all accounts, he was happy to keep going with Jordan. I'm sure a driver of his ambitiousness would have seen what Benaton could offer him, and indeed, we saw where he got to with Benaton in a few years' time. I think probably Jordan were just hopelessly outgunned. They were a new team, you know, Eddie Jordan Shroud, but he was still on a very steep learning curve with the Alperana Club at this stage. So, yeah, so many courses wanted it to happen, and those courses, when they've got more money than you as well, it means you're going to lose, aren't you? And, yeah, I guess it was almost inevitable that they'd be sunk on on this thing. Too many people wanted it to happen, and so it did happen. Yeah, we'll discuss a few more of those forces in a moment. So, some of them were very powerful. So, what I didn't Jordan have Schumacher tied down, it appears to come down to one word in a letter of intent. This was reported by motorsport news in the UK back in 2005, when it uncovered the key letter. The letter was dated August 22, 1991, which I believe was the Thursday before Spa. The original version of the letter said, "Dear Eddie, I confirm that if you enter me in the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix, I will sign the driver agreement with you prior to Monza in respect of my services in 1991, 1992, 1993, and subject to Mercedes' first option in 1994. The driver agreement will be substantially in the form of the agreement produced by you with only mutually agreed amendments. I understand that P.P. Sable Limited will pay you £150,000 per race for 1991. I also understand you require $3.5 million for both 1992 and 1993, and if I or my backers are unable to find this money, you will be entitled to retain my services in those years. You're sincerely Michael Schumacher." But there were key changes made to this letter, and the line I will sign the driver agreement was changed to I will sign a driver agreement, and the line about it being substantially the original agreement with only mutually agreed changes was crossed out entirely. Speaking to most sport news about this in 2005, Weber said that without the change of the contract to A contract, Schumacher would have had to stay at Jordan. However, in the revised form, it meant Schumacher could sign any agreement he liked with Jordan, and the example Weber gave was that he could agree to visit the factory twice a year, and that would count as A contract. Jordan said he learned a lot about contracts from his incident as the change made was clearly deliberate on Schumacher's side, and he was gutted to lose the driver. But Gary, how was he at the time? Once you get to Monza, and this is all falling apart, was Eddie a fit of fury and rage, or was he just crestfallen and almost devastated? Well, I think, yeah, crestfallen devastated. You know, it was one of those sort of things. Everything was done in good faith. And I think that was, we talked about the Piranha Club there a minute or two ago. I think that was just the realism that really did exist. You know, I don't blame Tom Welton's show for trying to take Schumacher. I don't blame Schumacher for going there. I mean, whenever you look at the wrist result, PK finished third in Spa, and that Marina was fourth. Marina got the fastest lap of the race. So they had a competitive car. They had two finishes. One on the podium, one not quite. And we had two DNFs. So, you know, if you were at up and coming, would be seven times world champion that probably Michael Schumacher was at that point in time, what way would you go? What way would you try to go? And those are quite big numbers as well. 150,000 pounds of race for 1991, three and a half million for the two preceding years. At that point in time, those were quite big numbers. And you know, that's, it's what you, you know, that's what we were expecting. It's what we needed. But obviously, they could do a different deal altogether with the Bennett and Relationship. So suddenly, it became a non-paid drive to be in a paid drive with a team that was doing a very good job. So, you know, Eddie, Eddie, it was naive to expect that it might happen for us. But at the end of the day, Eddie still tried to work with the fact that, you know, you should be able to have a gentleman's agreement and do some stuff. But it didn't work out with us with that lot, no? Jordan took out various attempts at legal action to block the move happening, but because he didn't have a valid contract with Schumacher, those attempts all got thrown out. But one man who did have some legal power in all this was Gary's buddy Roberto Moreno. After Spar, whereas Gary said there, he'd set the fastest lap. Beneton had told Moreno he wouldn't be retained for 1992. And yet a week later, they were binning him off immediately. And Flavio Breatori has said recently that Moreno was not good enough to race in F1, which is perhaps a tad harsh. So with some advice from Jordan, Moreno managed to get an injunction in Italy against Beneton on the eve of the Monza event. Bernie Equiston, who Eddie Jordan believes was one of the main players in this and was keen to get Schumacher into a more competitive car to boost F1's profile in Germany, got everyone together at a flash hotel in Italy, too, in Eddie's words, bang some heads together. Moreno has been offered half a million dollars to drop the injunction, but Jordan was advising him to hold out for a million. Breatori admitted in an appearance on the F1 podcast that Moreno's contract was the first one he put together in F1, and he said, it was not a good contract. I put a lot of mistakes. And I remember the lawyer of the team told me I needed to redo the contract, because it wasn't clear between a chassis and a car. Flavio went on to explain that what happened with Moreno was that his contract only promised him a chassis, but Benetal reserved the right name. not to give him essentials such as an engine and wheels, which would make it legally a car. So once that dawned on Marano, supposedly that's why he gave in except in the half a million dollars, which was the remaining value of his contract and what Flavio called a bonus to go away. So Ed, what do you reckon Eddie Jordan wanted Marano to hang on for a million dollars? Do you think Roberto should have held his nerve? Well, it's easy to say you should have done if that sort of money was available, but I imagine the fact that he could see that Beneton would stop at nothing to make it very hard for him to drive that car. And the fact there was an actual half a million on the table that he could pick up and then immediately reinvest into his career meant it was a quite simple and straightforward move. And I think in Roberto's interest, it probably did make sense for him to take it. Perhaps it would have helped out Jordan if Schumacher was bought from racing at Betaton certainly, but for Roberto. No, I think the amount that he was offered would have been very carefully calculated. He knew he was out of Beneton for the following year. Anyway, there weren't that many races left. So sometimes you've got to be pragmatic and know where you beat when you beat. And if you've got something out of the deal, then you're probably ahead. So, yeah, I shamed for him, but probably pragmatic to accept it. And the treatment of Marano went down very badly with the other drivers, particularly the Brazilians. Nelson P.K. gave Breatoria a piece of his mind saying Schumacher had done nothing to deserve the drive. And according to Breatoria, P.K. then refused to drive for Beneton because he claimed he'd never seen a team operate like this. So Breatoria called his bluff. He gets the team to prepare Alex Zanadi for a seat fit and Zanadi is told to walk past the Beneton motorhome in full overalls. When P.K. sees that and asks what's going on, Breatoria tells him Zanadi is replacing him because P.K. has refused to drive. And at that point, P.K. backs down. Ed, what do you make of this? Is that a genius move from Breatoria or a bit harsh on Zanadi, who of course at this point was an aspiring driver trying to get his break in F1? Yeah, a bit of both, probably. A left-poor old Alex Zanadi in no doubt as to the role he was playing as a pawn in the whole thing. And he genuinely thought he had a chance of racing a month of that weekend, which everyone is Grand Prix debut, home race, competitive point scoring car, perhaps even a podium car. So this was a serious opportunity. And he's talked about it in the past. I think probably on the grid podcast from F1, they did a great interview with him where he talks about that. But he became just a prop in this whole fiasco. It was not really a fiasco that was going on, but it was a bit of an unseemly negotiation, should we say. I do suspect it probably played a part in Zanadi deciding to leave Beneton because he walked away from a test role to race for Lotus down the line because he probably didn't believe that Breatoria necessarily had his best interest at her heart. So maybe it played a part in that. I don't know, but yeah, you shouldn't really be using your test driver to do that, but I completely understand why Breatoria thought it was a great idea to show that he was serious. And of course we should say P.K. was old friends with Marano from way back in Brazil. So there was a real connection there. And Roberto Marano is a popular and likeable character. So you can see why P.K. wanted to try and fight for him, but it didn't stretch to shooting himself in the foot for it. Yeah, I do feel a bit sorry for Zanadi because I think there was also a misunderstanding where maybe Jordan thought he was under contract and they couldn't get him. He'd also had to get permission from Marlborough to potentially race a camel sponsored car and all of that proved to be for nothing. But to show how serious he was being taken by the drivers, this was a rare issue where P.K and Erton Senna were fighting on the same side. Breatoria says it was the only time he ever fell out with Senna and Senna spoke at length about the saga over the months of weekend. He said, "What happened was not correct and I thought somebody had to say something. It's always the people in the top teams, Alan, Alacy, the two Williams drivers, Gerhard, Nelson and me who are written about the most. So I feel that unless one of us speaks about it, something like this just goes by and people get away with it. From the outside I can say I don't think it's a good thing to change drivers in the middle of the season like this because it starts a precedent, which allows me or anyone to say, okay, I drive for you. If someone turns up with a better car or offering better conditions, you can imagine the mess there might be." Marano, of course, does end up driving for Jordan that weekend and part of Eddie's motivation to get him to hold out for as much money as possible was so he could then take a chunk of that from Roberto immediately in exchange for a drive. But Gary, Roberto was in your car that weekend. You guys were good friends by this point. Did he appreciate the support he was getting from the other drivers in the paddock? Yes, I think he did. Many obviously the Brazilian contingent, but it was a difficult situation for Roberto because Nelson P.K. was Roberto's hero. Basically, that being the same team, I think that hurt him quite a bit because Nelson would stitch him up as often as possible on just set up some new, set up changes on the car and whatever. Roberto wasn't sort of, I don't know what you call it, committed enough to sort of call him out on it. It was one of those situations where actually with Benath and whenever Roberto says that Roberto wasn't good enough for football, I think that's absolutely rubbish. He got definitely treated as a second driver because P.K. was his big hero. If you imagine, Roberto Marano was up all night on the night before practice in Monza, getting the list things sort of out. I think he went about four o'clock in the morning. We got go to your first practice. He's seven fastest. Andreas ninth fastest in the second car. Michael Schumacher happens to be sixth fastest in the Benath. So they're side beside us for our speed concern. Practice two, Roberto is eighth fastest. Andrea eleventh, Michael Schumacher's fifth. Qualifying one, Roberto's eighth fastest. Qualifying two is ninth fastest. And the car had never driven, other than what you might call anger or a resmean. I'm being up all night the night before. There's all these mental problems basically going on about losing his drive and losing everything. He did a very, very competent job up to the race. And the race problem was one of our problems as well with the brakes over hating. But never mind that, Roberto was an excellent driver. He's there to be informal one for sure. And he's served a team to have confidence in him to go forward. And that never really happens. So I don't believe what Breitori said was right at all. I think what they put Roberto through was really a wrong thing to do. So I do agree with the sinners and those top guys. They're going to stand to try and make sure these things didn't happen to their fellow drivers. So why did Schumacher's camp go so cold on Jordan so quickly? We've already hinted at it. And the answer really is two words, Yamaha engines. Jordan believes that part of Bernie's scheme to get Schumacher into a better car as quickly as possible was to make Schumacher's management aware of the Yamaha engine deal that of course Bernie knew about because he had set it up. Yamaha just scored its first point in F1 at Spa with Brabham, but the engine was clearly going to be a step backwards from the Cosworth Jordan used in 91 as Gary referenced earlier, Schumacher had clocked to that out on track. And speaking to most sport news in 2005, Ville Vabe confirmed that when they found out Jordan would have Yamaha engines for 92, this was not what we really expected. That's what prompted the sudden change of contract wording, which Vabe said, "saved our lives because it got Schumacher out of being lumbered with that Yamaha engine for his first full season of F1." During the monze weekend, Nearpash was keen to point out that all Schumacher had in place with Jordan was an agreement to talk about an agreement. Gary, regular listeners of your podcast have heard stories about how bad the Yamaha was. Given what Jordan went through in 92, can you understand why that would scare Michael off? Yeah, Ken. I never saw what the car was like on the track as such. A driver can tell a lot of things about the car on the track. At that point in time, it's just basically an engine. So when he was driving around Spa and there was a Yamaha engine car near him, he was the first one to say to me in the evening, were you sure about that? Because that doesn't seem the right thing to be doing to me. But it was, Jordan Grumprey wouldn't have existed. It needed to do something. So we took a punt at the Yamaha. I hope the other side would move on. Unfortunately, it didn't. It had to move backwards. So the engine, the first engine we tested, we built a chassis specifically for the longer engine, a 191 car basically with a Yamaha engine in it. And Alex and I already drove it at Silverstone. Immediately, it was impressive. We just, like you can't believe, it was so good. This engine came straight from Zezuka, from the Brabham Yamaha sort of pack of engines, I suppose you might call it. And as I say, we should honed it into the car. Alex knew of the car. It was very impressed. We were very impressed. The lap time was very good. The important thing was it blew up after eight laps. So we thought, oh well, that's okay. Just the way it is. It's been on the side. And this is like the Yamaha tool, this has been on the side and the create coming from Japan or one thing or so. We put another one engine in it. And as Alex said, it was like the light's gone out. This second engine that we put in was just a completely different dimension. It wouldn't even have been a good form of the 3000 engine. And that was really the problem we had all year long. The randomness of what you got was unbelievable. If you got a good one, you tried to save it. Normally it would blow up. If you got a bad one, it would go forever. But we just couldn't make a plan with anything. So it was very, very difficult year and it would probably destroy the micromania's career. And as we also mentioned earlier, Benetson had a good time. another key advantage over Jordan because it was willing to pay Schumacher rather than ask him to bring budget and Breatory said on the F1 podcast, "I said to Weber, I pay you, I don't want the money from the sponsor, just don't send the money to Eddie. Eddie was shouting, 'I have a contract but there was no contract.' We never took him from Jordan because he didn't have a contract with Jordan. He just did one race there." Interestingly, Eddie says that when it was all kicking off in the hotel in Italy, Bernie Echelsten was orchestrating the whole thing and he describes Breatory as a puppet because he was new to F1 at the time and did not have a clue. Flavio counters that slightly, saying that while Bernie was pushing for the switch, certainly, Benetton was already on the lookout for a young driver because it knew it couldn't afford Senna or Prost and Schumacher had been recommended by Wokenshore who had courseed seeing what Michael was capable of as a rival in sports cars. Did you think it's unfair on Breatory and Benetton to suggest this was all Bernie's doing? After all, Flavio took the recommendation from Wokenshore and was willing to pay for this driver. He couldn't have just been a puppet just doing whatever Bernie said, surely. Benetton are active participants in all of this, weren't they? It certainly seemed to the team to get him in the car. We can't portray them as passive players in the whole drama. Race-winning team, realistic aspirations of going for titles in the future. One of the bigger beasts in the F1 padded by this stage, so they knew what they were doing. Breatory, he's one of those people who sometimes can look like he doesn't know what he's doing, but he does. Although this was relatively early in his relationship with Bernie Eccleston, there's a reason why he got on very well with Bernie and there were plenty of enterprises between the two of various forms over the years. I'm absolutely certain he was part of it and talked about it before, before the Piranha Club, before the Piranha Club rules, no. Yeah, and I think to be fair to Flavio and to be fair to Eddie's representation, he said that Flavio may have been clueless in the beginning, but he learned the ropes very quickly and Eddie actually thought that there were other team bosses in F1 who didn't like the fact that someone who knew so little about racing and perhaps engineering could do such a good job running in F1 teams. So he's eventually complimentary towards Flavio. That's pretty much where we'll end the story, but not long after this, Schumacher was involved in another contract tug of war when he was still getting used to life as a Beneton driver. In February of 1992, SAlba announces its entering Formula One the following year with some Mercedes support. And Peter SAlba says its drivers will be Carl Vendlinger and Schumacher, who he believes he has under contract. Schumacher battled against this, refusing to make the move on the grounds that any contractual option was only held by Mercedes and not SAlba. Beneton released a very firm statement calling SAlba's announcement irresponsible and saying Schumacher can only leave Beneton before the end of his contract on receipt of written notification from Mercedes that they intend to enter Mercedes cars in the championship the following year. Peter SAlba says, "I'm not quite sure the Beneton people have full knowledge of our contract. We have signed a deal with him which allows us to use him as a driver if we enter F1, with or without Mercedes. It is a contract with SAlba, not with SAlba Mercedes or SAlba Ilmore." And in James Allen's book about Schumacher, called The Edge of Greatness, "Fourma Mercedes Motorsport Boss Norbert Hauge said the contract was valid but Schumacher didn't want to come and you can't make a driver drive your car." Norbert felt that Schumacher knew he was with a race-winning team by this point and didn't want to take a step backwards with SAlba. So Ed, here you go, you love a bit of SAlba and now you've got a chance to talk about them. Norbert does point out that the 93 SAlba was a pretty good car. What do you think Schumacher could have done if he'd ended up racing it? I'm always delighted to talk about SAlba. I think you could have done some impressive things in that car. It was a very neat and tidy and usable car, not actually dissimilar to the Jordan 191 in that respect. So, kind of a sensible get on the grid car and cause a few surprises. Some good people contributed to that car as well, including Harvey Possil's way, Mike Gascoin. Brand new team finished its first slapping, growing pretty racing, running fourth and fifth at Karl Arming, which is pretty impressive. You'd have to step. It's one of my favourites. But you'd have to say Schumacher would surely have done something special without, okay, he wasn't going to be running around winning races, but I presume he would have gone a little bit more out of it, although Vennlinger, if you look at him, particularly in the early in the season, he's right up there having collisions with Mike Landretti in some of the early races right up near the Sharpen. So, yeah, I'm sure he'd have had some good moments in that car, but no doubt whatsoever that he was better off going down the better tonnory. And Gary, you can have the last word here, because as we mentioned earlier, if Schumacher's deal with Jordan had gone through, it would have been for multiple years. So, if we ignore the difficulties of 1992, do you ever look back and wish that you'd been able to hang on to Michael and had him in your 93 or 94 cars? I think, you know, having him in the 94 car, that was a good little car. I think that would have been the time we would have been ready for to take on that challenge. I just like to go back a little bit there until the salbre days and make it happy. You know, Yockelmas was a very good friend of mine. I worked with Yockel at McClaran in the 70s. And as far as they had the junior Mercedes team and they had the senior Mercedes team which Yockel was part of, and he would still, to this day, say that Carl Wendlinger was the man as far as the three juniors were concerned. Heinz Hall of Friendsson, Michael Schumacher and Carl Wendlinger, that Carl Wendlinger was the guy that would be, you know, get the right breaks and he would do the one that would take it through to form the one. Obviously we never saw that really at the end of the day, but he had some good results, but it's a, you know, it's just a fact that a driver working with him knew that. But yeah, going back again to the Jordan days, I mean the 94 cars that say was a good little car, we struggled for survival in 92 and 93. So at the end of the day, that wouldn't be good years for Michael Schumacher with his talent, they have been there. So I think what we had was with the Rubens coming through was the best solution for 93 and then in 94, you know, he was knew out of the big guy, he's time to cut his teeth as such and the 94 car was pretty good and he made good use of it. Yeah, that's a good hat tip, I think, to Carl Wendlinger, who, you know, his career was never the same, following that accident in Monaco, but of course Schumacher wasn't in a Jordan or a Soutber by 1994 when he won the first of those seven world championships. So how different history could have looked. That's it for another episode of Bring Back V10s, where hopefully we've shed some fresh light on a famous story. Don't forget to get your questions into us about anything to do with F1 from 1989 to 2005 for our series finale using a hashtag Bring Back V10s on Twitter or leave us a five star review and a question there if you'd like to support the show. We're skipping forward a decade with next week's episode where we look at the year Toyota spend on the sidelines before it entered F1 when it managed to upset its future rivals on more than one occasion despite not even racing against them in 2001. You're not going to want to miss that one and I can tell you that we will be joined by a very special guest to help give us some nuggets and inside stories of Toyota's preparation to join the grid for 2002. [BLANK_AUDIO]