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I interviewed Gordon Murray a few years ago and even after so many years had passed since Pace's death, he still felt the loss . IGM was confident Pace would have won many more Grands Prix , if not the championship . I wouldn't disagree - El Moco , as he was nicknamed , was special .
But so were Pryce and Nilsson. I followed Pryce from his F100 days and saw him take his only pole in a GP and his only (non champ ) F 1 win at Brands . He was wild , spectacular and more of a Peterson than a Prost and I was very upset indeed when he was killed. I went to the Pryce exhibition at Denbigh a few years ago and I was deeply touched . The book to read is of course David Tremayne's Lost Generation , on Pryce, Williamson and Brise which leaves many readers , me included in tears. But good as Williamson and Pryce were, I felt it was Brise who had the golden future . He was very very fast ,very smart and had (I felt ) more of the killer instinct than Tom and Roger.
Nilsson - what a driver . I saw him win an F3 race at Cadwell in - 75 ? - and just knew he had it . Later that season he crashed at Silverstone in front of us, got out of the car , wandered over (no debris fencing then ) and asked , ruefully 'Can anybody spare me a cigarette ?' The pleasure was mine. Had he lived , he'd have won more Grands Prix , I'm sure . A very , very cool guy . The Gunnar Nilsson Memorial Trophy at Donington was special too - a rare sighting of George Harrison behind the wheel of a Cooper, Fangio (in a Merc ? ) and a wonderful ProCar race for BMW M1s . This was when you stood in the same time zone as the track at Donington .
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