Williams Page #7

that people find it surprising

that a girl might be doing this job,

it really kind of annoys me.

Heritage is sort of a nice,

to-itself department uh...

we, we have some support

from people in the factory

but it's, it's mostly just,

just me and Dicky so

yeah it's mostly just, just us here.

Just getting down here to some of

the bigger components,

you can see much heavier there,

they're actually

buckling the shelves in here.

Oh that box isn't numbered.

Does Claire ever

come over here Johnny?

No I don't think

she knows this room exists.

- I don't.

- No?

No, nobody comes over here

I don't think.

Me and Johnny.

Jonathan wearing his um, Johnny used

to like playing soldiers quite a lot.

- How are things?

- Not, not the best.

- Can you talk about that?

- Um...

Um... Johnny is, you know it's um...

I suppose some families just have,

you know, always gonna have

you know some issues

aren't they and um

unfortunately Johnny and I do

um, which I think is something that I will

regret and be very unhappy

about my whole life um...

And is that,

is that to do with work or...?

Yeah. Yeah it is, unfortunately.

Is it because

you got the position that you did and...

- Yeah.

- He didn't.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah I'm not, I'm not the oldest

and I'm not a boy.

Uh... that's me and Claire.

You two look

pretty close in that one.

That was about 30 years ago

flaughsL.

It's horrible,

he thinks that I was ambitious

and that um I put myself in,

in the position and

you know I lobbied, I,

you know cajoled my way in and

couldn't be the situation... could not

be further from the truth.

It's something their mother

would be deeply unhappy about

and I think it's something

that she could've sorted

um in a way

that probably nobody else could.

I don't believe Frank could,

could sort it out.

I can remember some time in

1984 and as young children do,

waking up earlier than their parents

and just for this man

with a moustache and uh...

an accent different to ours,

obviously being from Birmingham

just walking past

and saying good morning

and it scaring the living life out of us,

and us both running into

my parents' room

and saying there's a man in the house,

there's a man in the house

and uh... them saying,

No, no, no, no it's Daddy's new driver,

"that's Nigel Mansell."

The rumours say

that you might be going to Williams,

what would you have to say about that?

Williams? Williams?

Who are they?.

When Nigel was on top form

he was as good as any driver

we've ever had I would say,

he was hard work out of the car

but in the car he was,

he was really superb.

Nigel is three people in one,

he's an absolutely fantastic racing driver

who is just astoundingly good

when it comes to overtaking people.

And Mansell moves to the

outside and Manselfs going through,

Nigel Mansell takes the lead

and neatly boxes Ayrton Senna.

As a family man,

he's just the nicest guy,

he's got a lovely family, he adores his

children, he's faithful to his wife,

unlike quite a few racing drivers

but as a person out of the car

he's an absolute arse,

you know he's just

a difficult bloke to work with.

Drive slower, get it together,

it's a f***ing nightmare,

then someone's...

And that was why,

generally speaking,

we all liked Nelson quite a lot

and found Nigel a bit too much.

Nelson Piquet replaced

Keke Rosberg for '86

and he was hired because

Frank loved the idea of Nelson Piquet,

he had already won

two world championships

and he loved

Nelson's Brazilian flare, his girlfriends,

the way he looked,

the way he carried himself.

He had the private yacht

and he had a helicopter on the yacht

and he had a

citation 10 jet which at that time

was by far the fastest jet in the world

and he was flying it.

Nelson was ebullient, loved life

and was a very cool guy,

Nigel was cheese

and chutney sandwiches

and hot milk before he went to bed.

Yes!

I thought at that time

Nelson was the best driver in the world,

so I was thrilled to bits he was coming,

he was very keen to join Williams

because he felt that

we were the quickest.

Nelson felt

with that package around him

he could win

another world championship.

We were doing

the last of the pre-season tests,

"the Paul Ricard Circuit, so we had both

Nigel Manse" and Nelson Piquet there,

Frank had come out to the test because

he was very excited

about the performance.

Dad was you know away,

he was at a preseason test

and it was a kind of

spring afternoon and mum

suggested we go out on some bikes

and took a little picnic

and found a field, like you do

and it was a really lovely day

and then we just got back

and waiting for dad to come home

and, but he never did.

The test was going very well,

I think Frank

was full of the joys of spring

and thinking, right we're gonna go out

and show them

we can win the world championship,

he was due to run a half marathon

on the Sunday morning afterwards.

Frank, keen to get back

for the half marathon he was doing,

it was a county half marathon,

he was that good.

And so he and Peter Windsor

who was the marketing guy at the time,

they went to the airport.

And he had his Avis Ford Sierra...

and he said Right c'mon, let's go.

And then a spot of get-home,

have you ever heard of get-home-itis?

When you wanna just get home?

You've gotta get home, must do,

must catch the last flight.

He took a little twiddly road

down through the back of the circuit

and it was a very, very twisty,

narrow road.

And he was in this 1600 Sierra,

throwing the thing around,

braking as late as he could

but I do remember

saying to Frank at one moment,

when the back end skipped out

under braking into a tight left hander,

uh... Are the brakes ok

on this thing Frank?

And he said

with sort of trepidation,

Frank do you always drive like this?",

meaning, and you can't really

tell your boss this, f-ing well slow down.

I remember him saying,

Yeah, the brakes are fine,

brakes are fine.

I was rushing

and rushing and rushing.

Suddenly we were in clear road,

the road was downhill

and there was a fast left hand kink

about 300 yards ahead of us

and I remember seeing

through the windscreen the,

a stone wall on the inside,

it looked like we were just gonna hit the,

the end of this wall and my reaction was

just to bury myself in the foot well area.

As we hit the back,

that wall the car went up in the air...

...there was just silence,

just a terrible silence,

then this massive thump and crash.

It was you know a real whack

in my neck sharp, sharp pain, pain.

It's, rolling over doesn't hurt like this.

I remember Frank saying

after about 10 seconds,

Are you ok? Are you ok?

I can't move, I'm trapped, I'm trapped,

get me out, get the ignition off,

get the ignition off',

because already

there was a smell of fuel.

I'm suspended about three,

four inches from the floor upside down.

And there was a lot of blood

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