Lauda vs. Reutemann

[Jeroen Brink]

Lauda did not like Lole one little bit and made no secret out of it. Reutemann, an intriguing enigma, did nothing wrong to him as far as I recall.

Then why did the rational Lauda even write about these negative feelings in one of his books? Perhaps because in Reutemann Lauda encountered a fellow driver whose intelligence came relatively close to his own?

[Murph]

“Perhaps because in Reutemann Lauda encountered a fellow driver whose intelligence came relatively close to his own?”

Nah…..

After the ’76 season (and Niki’s decision to drop out of Japanese GP) , Lauda had a meeting with Enzo. Enzo offered Lauda the position of team manager. The reason for this was two-fold…. (1) Enzo was told by those around him that Lauda was finished (they believed that Fuji showed that Lauda was scared)….and …(2) With Lauda as team manager he couldn’t go off and sign with another team and win a title (just in case Lauda was not “finished”) causing Enzo more than a little embarrassment. The only problem with this scenario is that Niki had signed a contract in July for ’77. He reminded Enzo of this and then stated that if Enzo was not going to honor this contract, that he and Enzo should tear it up freeing Niki to drive with some other team. Lauda was asked to leave the meeting so that Enzo and his staff could decide what to do. Niki was called back into Enzo’s office…was told that he could remain as a driver BUT Lole was to be Ferrari’s Number One driver. To underline his #2 status….Carlos did most of the preseason testing. But as Niki put it…. “My first priority was to put Reutemann in his place and secure the Number One slot in the team. By the third race of the season (the South African Grand Prix) this had been more or less accomplished, and I was able to concentrate all my efforts on pushing for technical progress.” Niki was one hell of a test driver….. Lole wasn’t bad…he just wasn’t as good as Niki….and Ferrari realized that early in the year.

The AUTOCOURSE 1977-78 Annual ranked Niki 1st in their Top Ten Drivers of the Year. They put it this way…..

“For the third year running, Niki Lauda tops AUTOCOURSE’S driver ratings after careful analysis of the season. This year there were three candidates for the accolade. Lauda, Hunt, and Andretti, and the decision was as difficult as ever.

To say Niki Lauda is a modern day hero is an understatement. This time a year ago one marveled at his remarkable recovery from his dreadful accident at Nurburgring and his return to the cockpit at Monza. One admired too, his decision to quit in the early stages of the Japanese Grand Prix. Now, a full season further on, an even more mature and complete Lauda emerged.

Lauda’s relationship with the Ferrari team began to fail as long ago as Nurburgring 1976. After Japan they cared little for the man they said threw away a world title. So Niki almost had to begin all over again, to regain the lost ground and once more run the team his way. He began the season almost scornfully undoing new team-mate Carlos Reutemann’s winter testing work and by mid-season Niki Lauda and his Ferrari were competitive again. Lauda’s victory in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim just a year after is accident was sweet indeed.

It could be said that the single-minded Lauda salvaged the World Championship from his last year at Ferrari. As the season ended, having already announced is intention to switch to the Brabham team in 1978, Lauda’s relationship with the Italians went sour again. The final straw was when his mechanic was sacked at Watkins Glen, with the result Niki refused to race in the final Grands Prix.

Like many of is colleagues, Niki Lauda is a man of many words. Unlike them, he is also a man of action and must be applauded for it.”


Take care,

Murph

[Jeroen Brink]

Good stuff Murph. Sure thing that until Prost no team mates' performance could really top Laudas. But what about the human side vs. Reutemann? How did Carlos feel about this? (A very difficult question, I agree).

[Murph]

Hi Jeroen

I would imagine that it was a shock for Lole. He was annointed Number One by Enzo. If Niki hadn't been hurt at the 'Ring he would have have had an easy 2nd WDC... so Lole knew the car & team were very good. He must have believed that the title was his for te taking..... yet after Niki left...Gilles came on board! In '78 Lole won a number of GP's ( I saw him win at the Glen...and he gave his team the 2-fingered salute on his victory lap) but Ferrari was in talks with Jody and..after signing him they chose Gilles over Lole for the remaining seat......

On the autocourse.com site....Ask Nigel June27....Nigel Roebuck talks about Lole (ya might want to read tat very soon as I don't think the archive Nigels stuff....and in the next issue of MOTOR SPORT there is to be an article on him as well.

take care

Murph

[Darren Galpin]

The article Murph is referring to before it gets removed:-


[PART 1}

Dear Nigel,
Carlos Reutemann has always been an intriguing figure for me. Massively quick on his day, he also seemed mentally fragile and downright stroppy. How good was he? How flawed was he? And how on earth did he cope with driving alongside Alan Jones at Williams?
David Castle, Sydney, Australia

Dear David,
Carlos Reutemann was without doubt the most enigmatic Grand Prix driver I have come across in 30 years. When all was right with his mood, he was as good in an F1 car as anyone I have ever seen, with literally boundless flair and speed. Yet this same man, with all his enormous talent, could on other days be an also-ran. It remains a mystery, not only to me, but also to the many teams for which he drove.

On his day, Reutemann was quite literally unbeatable. But that was always the problem with Carlos; every good thing you said about his driving had to be prefaced by 'on his day.' There were days when the angels touched him, when his rivals looked clumsy by comparison. But there were others - too many for one of his gift - when his presence in a race went unnoticed. In his work he wavered between sublime self-confidence and dithering uncertainty.

"You know," he once told me, "I can honestly say that I've never been in a team which I felt was supporting me 100 percent." And Frank Williams, for whom Reutemann drove his last couple of seasons, acknowledges that, with hindsight, the team might have treated him with more sensitivity.

"In terms of equipment," Williams says, "we gave Carlos exactly the same as Alan Jones, but there was more to it than that. Carlos needed more psychological support than most drivers. He needed to be aware that everyone in the team was wearing a Reutemann lapel badge and an Argentine scarf. We probably didn't appreciate that sufficiently at the time - which is why we didn't achieve as much together as we should have done."

True enough. And it didn't help, either, that Reutemann and Jones were diametrically opposed in so many ways, sharing nothing beyond the ability to drive a racing car very, very, fast. Carlos was all moody introspection, where Alan, at times, could make John Prescott seem shy and retiring. Through their second season together, 1981, they were not team mates in any accepted sense, but rather two individuals who happened to operate out of the same pit. Towards the end of the year, Reutemann suggested they bury the hatchet. "Yeah, mate!" roared Jones, doing his Les Patterson act. "Right in your bloody back!"

It was an awkward time, I remember, for folk visiting the Williams motorhome - and particularly so for those, like myself, who liked both these men. This was a far-off time when racing drivers were well paid, but not obscenely so, when they didn't have tacky little agents fluttering around them, and could speak for themselves.

Invariably, I found myself feeling sympathy for Reutemann through that summer of 1981, for in the psychological game he was utterly at the mercy of Jones, who could be intimidated by no one, on the track or off. In Alan's mind, though, he had cause enough to ostracise Carlos.

Their problems truly began early in the season, at the Brazilian Grand Prix. When Reutemann had joined Williams the year before, it was as Jones's number two, for the team's priority had been for the long-serving Alan to win the World Championship. This was duly accomplished, and Williams should then have thrown the whole thing open for 1981, instead of which he kept the 'Jones priority' clause in Reutemann's contract.

At Rio it rained, and Carlos, despite his distaste for the conditions, led throughout, with Alan sitting a few seconds behind, awaiting an invitation to pass which never came. Despite JONES-REUT signals from the pits, instructing Carlos to give way, REUT-JONES was how they finished, and afterwards Alan was fit to be tied.

Inescapably, under the terms of his contract. Reutemann had done wrong, but I always thought him an honourable man, and there was a curious innocence in the way he sought to justify his actions. "Jones had reason to be upset," he said. "I can't disagree with that. I saw the pit signal three laps from the end, and I knew the terms of the contract. But still I was in a dilemma.

"From the beginning of my career, I always started every race with the intention of winning it - but now I was being asked to give it away, just like that. 'If I give way,' I thought to myself, 'I stop the car here and now, in the middle of the track, and leave immediately for my farm in Argentina. Finish. Not a racing driver any more.'"

At the time, Williams was as incensed as Jones, and fined Reutemann for disobeying team orders, but later, perhaps jaundiced by Jones's late-in-the-day decision to retire from racing, he thawed. "All I care about is the team, and the points we earn - why the hell should I care about who scores them? Drivers are only employees, after all."

[Darren Galpin]

[PART 2]

For most of that 1981 season, despite the off-track turbulence, Reutemann drove sublimely, apparently shedding his reputation for inconsistency. In Belgium, where he won, he finished in the points for the 15th straight time, a record which stands to this day, as far as I know.

If Zolder showed the qualities of Reutemann the driver, an incident in qualifying revealed those of the man. As Carlos drove down the pit lane, and young Osella mechanic slipped from the wall into the path of the Williams. There was nothing to be done, and the boy later died.

Reutemann, for all his natural hauteur, was always a compassionate man. I happened to be right there when the tragedy occurred, and can still see Carlos's expression as he ripped off his helmet, and ran back to where the mechanic lay. For the rest of the weekend, he uttered barely a word, but on race day he was at his very best. Then, on the Monday, he flew to Italy to see the boy's parents.

In race after race, he continued to drive wonderfully, and by the time of the British Grand Prix led the World Championship by 17 points. At Silverstone, though, I began to detect the return of the flawed confidence. "Six races left," he scowled. "A long way to go. At the moment everything is going well for me." A pause. "Too well, in fact, and that worries me. To be honest, I feel a little bit alone..." That was Reutemann pure.

Thereafter, his season went to pieces. He drove as well as ever, but his car repeatedly let him down. At Monza, an out-and-out power track, he qualified the normally-aspirated Williams-Cosworth second, splitting the turbocharged Renaults, his time well over a second faster than Jones's best. In the race, though, it rained, and he trailed in half a minute adrift of his team mate.

Still he went to the final race, in Las Vegas, with a one point lead over Nelson Piquet, and in practice was simply fantastic, setting a time in the opening session which remained unbeaten. You awaited a Reutemann qualifying lap as later you did with Senna.

Through the days before the race Carlos was relaxed, full of good humour. On the Sunday, when it mattered, he faded to nothing. As I watched that afternoon, I was embarrassed for him. Afterwards he mumbled about understeer on right-handers, and gearchange problems, but in all truth he drove like a man who had suddenly decided he did not want the World Championship.

Whatever may have been awry with the Williams - real or imagined - how could a man on pole position, touching the hem of the title, have been down to fifth by the end of the first lap, to seventh by the end of the third? To become World Champion, Reutemann, whose stamina was exceptional, had only to stay ahead of a perilously unfit Piquet on a tiring circuit in torpid conditions, yet he allowed Nelson by like a man being lapped.

Las Vegas, an appropriately pitiless place, was the scene of high tragedy in the life a great racing driver. As Jones - ironically the winner of this race so crucial to Reutemann - put on the garland, Carlos slipped quietly away to his nearby room at Caesars Palace, lost in his own private sorrow.

That evening, for the first time, I came face to face with the sort of brutal mentality we now take almost for granted in Formula 1, and it shocked me. Why, one the younger drivers asked, hadn't Reutemann simply put Piquet in the wall? "I mean, that was all he had to do - and he'd won the World Championship..." It was futile, but I tried to explain that Carlos, with all his integrity, would never contemplate anything of that kind. This was a man who took pride in his profession, after all, who put his crash helmet on the window-sill in his bedroom, so that he would see it as soon as he awoke in the morning.

A man of complexities, too. He came into Formula 1 with Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham team at the beginning of 1972, appropriately in Buenos Aires, and he took pole position in his first Grand Prix, a feat duplicated only by Mario Andretti and Jacques Villeneuve, but it was not until 1974 that he began winning, with dominant displays at Kyalami, the Osterreichring and Watkins Glen. All three were Reutemann displays in extremis, when he simply checked out, leaving everyone else behind.

Towards the end of 1976, however, Carlos had tired of Brabhams now made uncompetitive by heavy and unreliable Alfa Romeo engines, and handed over a cheque to Ecclestone so as to buy himself out of his contract, and move to Ferrari - where his reception from Niki Lauda was less than welcoming. Before the season, I asked Lauda if he regarded Reutemann as a team mate or a rival. "Neither!" came the withering response.

It was only in his second season with Ferrari, 1978, that Carlos found himself teamed with a man with whom he could truly get along. Gilles Villeneuve, for all his ferocity in a race car, was a gentle and humorous fellow in private, and also one of unquestioned principle. Unlike Reutemann, he was an accessible man, who invited friendship, and Carlos would never have a word said against him. "I envy Gilles so much," he once said to me, "because he so much belongs here, in a Formula 1 paddock."

"And you, Carlos? Don't you feel you belong here, too?" The familiar facial contortions. "Mmmmm... sometimes yes, sometimes no." He was not in a chatty mood that day, which was frequently the case. At other times, though, he very clearly wanted to talk, and that was always a little unsettling because it was so unexpected.

In 1978, the Lotus 79s, pioneers of the 'ground effect' era, largely dominated, but Reutemann was superb most of the time, and won four Grands Prix for Ferrari, including the British, which he stole from Lauda in a split-second of breathtaking commitment as the Austrian hesitated behind a backmarker.

After a disastrous move to Lotus in 1979 - "I just couldn't deal with Colin Chapman" - Carlos transferred to Williams, which is where we came in. By all that was just, he should have been World Champion in 1981, when his artistry was never more clearly on view, but only he truly knows what went wrong that day in Vegas. Somehow, it was no real surprise when, a couple of weeks later, he announced his retirement.

It was much more of one when he changed his mind, under pressure from Frank Williams, who had already lost Jones, and had under contract only some semi-unknown named Keke Rosberg. In South Africa, the opening Grand Prix of 1982, Carlos seemed to have shaken off the blues, and took brilliant second place, beaten only by Alain Prost's Renault turbo.

In Brazil, though, Rosberg was the Williams front man, and Reutemann looked ordinary. A couple of days later, he told Williams that his first instinct had been right: he was stopping, and this time his jaw was set.

A year or so later I asked him why. At the time of his decision, the dispute in the Falklands was blowing up, and some had extravagantly suggested that the well-connected Reutemann had known the likely outcome of events, and had considered his position - an Argentine in an obsessively British team - untenable, a potential embarrassment both to Williams and himself.

It had been nothing to do with that, Carlos insisted at once, although he allowed that it would have made for a very difficult situation. "If you want to know," he said, "I was suddenly very tired. The atmosphere had changed so much in racing. It wasn't fun any more, like once it had been.

"The other thing was, I hated the ground effect cars, which were like go-karts to drive. Always I raced because I liked to drive quickly, and to be very precise with the car, which you couldn't do with those things. I had a competitive car, yes, so there was still pleasure in a good result, but none at all in the actual driving."

Reutemann, though, did not dwell on his World Championship lost. "That part of my life is finished," he said. "As far as the championship is concerned, I always said that if it happened, fine, it happened. But if not, well, the sun would still rise in the east, and set in the west. Now there are other things to think about. Business. Politics, maybe."

Politics, certainly. Compared with most racing drivers, Carlos was always an unusually sophisticated man, in that he had a strong awareness of a world beyond motor racing, beyond himself. When based in Europe, during his Formula 1 days, he was invariably well abreast of political happenings, not least in Britain. His heart was firmly in his homeland, and when he retired there was never a doubt that he would return for good to Argentina. There he soon immersed himself in the politics of his province, Santa Fe. As a national hero, the governorship was his for the taking.

In 1995, when F1 returned briefly to Argentina, he took a ride in a Ferrari on the opening day of practice, and a lot of fingers were crossed. It was pouring down, and everyone knew he had never liked the rain. More to the point, he hadn't been near a Formula 1 car for 13 years, let alone one with a semi-automatic gearbox, and he didn't know this new Buenos Aires circuit.

[Darren Galpin]

[PART3]

After three or four laps, they waved him in, figuring that was probably enough, but Reutemann was always good at looking the other way. Finally, after 11 laps, he stopped, took off his helmet, and sat there in the cockpit a minute or so, savouring re-acquaintance with a loved one. When he stepped out, he was smiling, and he smiled a long time. His 53rd birthday beckoned, and still he looked like the racing driver from central casting.

He had taken to the track after the end of the first practice session, and those watching might have believed it was Gerhard Berger or Jean Alesi out there. Despite the glassy surface, he didn't spin the car once, and his best lap was actually the 11th fastest of the day. "Amazing," mused John Watson. "The same style, same timing, same flair...it's all there still."

"Give him a bit of time to get acclimatised," reckoned Bernie Ecclestone, Carlos's one-time employer, "and he'd qualify in the top 10, no problem. It's the old thing: if you can do it, you never lose it - and he really could do it."

So he could. The mystery was why he didn't do it all the time, and only he can answer that.

[matje]

Fascinating.

BTW, does anyone of you know what kind of politician Reuttemann is?

mat

[Darren Galpin]

Wasn't he the governor of the Santa Fe province in Argentina?

[matje]

Originally posted by Darren Galpin
Wasn't he the governor of the Santa Fe province in Argentina?

I think so. What kind of governor? What is his reputation? And: is he a kind of conservative, or a liberal (do they have liberals in Argentine), etc?

mat

[fines]

Wonderful article, thank you Darren!!

I can still feel the sadness I felt on that day of the Vegas Grand Prix! Carlos was a wonderful character, and to see him sink without a trace, relinquishing his last chance against Piquet who was poised to have so many more, simply hurt.

About the politics, he's a member of the Peronist party PJ (Partido Justicialista) and was once considered as the successor of President Carlos Menem. However, he wasn't assigned, and PJ's candidate Eduardo Duhalde lost the last elections in 1999 anyway. If he's still Governor of Santa Fé, I don't know, but perhaps. The PJ is rather conservative, although it has a strong grounding in social matters, albeit rather like Hitler's NSDAP. In fact, Perón himself was a dictator nothing short of Franco or Mussolini, but the party has, of course, mellowed since his days. But it's certainly not liberal!

[Peter Mallett]

On the original question, I think you may find that Brands Hatch 1978 has some bearing on Lauda's postion.

[matje]

Originally posted by Peter Mallett
On the original question, I think you may find that Brands Hatch 1978 has some bearing on Lauda's postion.

can you elaborate on that, Peter?

mat

[Mekola]

Originally posted by fines
Wonderful article, thank you Darren!!
About the politics, he's a member of the Peronist party PJ (Partido Justicialista) and was once considered as the successor of President Carlos Menem. However, he wasn't assigned, and PJ's candidate Eduardo Duhalde lost the last elections in 1999 anyway. If he's still Governor of Santa Fé, I don't know, but perhaps. The PJ is rather conservative, although it has a strong grounding in social matters, albeit rather like Hitler's NSDAP. In fact, Perón himself was a dictator nothing short of Franco or Mussolini, but the party has, of course, mellowed since his days. But it's certainly not liberal!

Fines, as Argentinian I can ask this.

Reutemann become a member of PJ and won the election of Governor of Santa Fe in 1991. When his period finished in 1995, he become senator for his province in this same year. When his 4-year period of senator finished, he again postuled as candidate for Governor of Santa Fe and won for the period 1999-2003. He is one of the main Peronist Governors (like Carlos Ruckauf in Buenos Aires and Jose Manuel de la Sota in Cordoba) what usually talks with the actual President Fernando de la Rua.
About Peronism, since the dominion of Menem (1988-89 at now) the Party modified his ideology at leas in some sectors, and moved to neo-liberal polytics. In other reason we can't understand why a party like that decided the scandalous privatization of principal statals services like light, gas and telephone enterprises, the national airline and finally (sigh) YPF. Also finished with inflation with secure stability (the argentinian peso is 1:1 with US Dollar), but the foreign debt increased too much in that period, and also was increased the unemployment, specially since mid-90s. The sector of Menem is called "Menemism" and he moves like a "caudillo" and his partidaires never questioning him and treaths him as a semi-god. Now Menem is in domiciliary prison due to illegal arms traffic to Peru and Croatia.

[matje]

Thank you, Fines and Mekola, for the quick answer on my question about the politics of Reuttemann.

I expected something like that.

mat

[Jeroen Brink]

Thanks Darren, I read that piece on Reutemann too. (Actually Nigels answers are archived on the site in the "features" section. I copied them all into hundreds of pages of word docs to allow for easy retrieval and rereading).

I find it very intriguing how he describes the enigma Reutemann; just like he did in the chapter "on a clear day" in his book "Grand Prix Greats". As to the political ambitions of Lole, he is reportedly not out of the running for the next presidential election...

The question on the two complex and apparently confronting personalities is still open though. Perhaps Peter is going to shed some light on it. In the mentioned race at the Brands Carlos finished in front of Niki. (In the final standings as well, for that matter).

[Peter Mallett]

Ah, I remember it well.

Last lap, Lauda leading Carlos coming into Clarke curve, when just in front a certain Bruno Giacomelli was preparing to be lapped in his BS Fabrications M23, by the leaders. However, he only saw Carlos attempting to overtake on the inside of Clearways and moved off-line, right into the path of Niki.

Reuteman took the win.

[fines]

Mekola, you're certainly in a better position to judge on Reutemann's political ambitions and positions, and the PJ. But "neo-liberal"? What do you mean with that? At least Carlos Ruckauf is regarded as a right-wing Peronist here in Germany. Whatever...

Peter, I remember it slightly different: It was at Clearways, and certainly not the last lap. What's the Clark Curve anyway?

[minutes later]

I checked with Mike Lang's "Grand Prix!" book, it says lap 60 of 76. Giacomelli tried to wave Lauda past on the inside by moving off-line, but the Austrian was already committed to the outside, and Reutemann went past both "in a brilliant move of opportunism". I was only 11 at that time, so I'm not able to judge on the driving standard, but I do remember that Lauda had nothing to complain about, at least not with regard to Reutemann.

And wasn't it a works McLaren M26? I believe BS Fabrications only entered for Brett Lunger, didn't they?

[fines]

On the subject "why didn't Lauda like Reutemann", I remember having read somewhere that when Lauda was unfit to drive after having broken a rib at Jarama in 1977, Carlos made sure Niki saw his broad grin...

[Roger Clark]

not the last lap, but lap 60 of 76. Giacomelli must surely have seen LAuda who was leading. In fact Lauda moved to overtake on the right just as Giacomelli moved in the same direction. Lauda had to lift off and Reutemann took his opportunity.

[Jeroen Brink]

As things stand, Carlos did nothing wrong sofar.... Indeed, for to outsmart no one less than Niki in a pragmatic move, that's a hard act to follow and merits nothing but appraisal.

[Peter Mallett]

Well I'm working from memory so it may well have been earlier in the race. I always remembered it as the last corner.

Clarke curve is the bend before clearways on the old GP track.

Don't think Lole did anything wrong. I just recall Lauda being less than ecstatic at the finish.

A friend has the Michael Turner print of the move and as I recall it wasn't a Marlboro car which Bruno was driving.

[Peter Mallett]

I stand corrected

Just flicked through Maurice Hamilton's excellent tome "British Grand Prix" ISBN1-85223-213-7

"It comes on lap 60. The leaders are about to lap the third works Mclaren (my italics) driven by Bruno Giacomelli in only his fourth Grand Prix. On the approach to Clearways [Clarke curve] Giacomelli heeds a blue warning flag and moves to his left. But he is already too late. Lauda has decided to pass on the left and, in the brief moment of confusion, Lauda is forced to lift off the throttle while Reuteman sees the gapon the right, takes his chance and dives for the inside, the Ferrari clipping the grass on the way through."

Well there y'go. At least I got the track right!!!!

BTW. Tambay, Giacomelli and Brett Lunger were driving McLarens that day.

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by Peter Mallett


BTW. Tambay, Giacomelli and Brett Lunger were driving McLarens that day.

Not to mention J Hunt, of course.

[Peter Mallett]

Of course, he retired. So Lunger would have been in the BS Fabs M23 and the other three in the M26?