During my motor racing career, which started in 1974 at the tender age of 10, I’ve driven most forms of circuit racing machines, from karts to F1, Le Mans cars to Supercars, and now I’m venturing into the British Touring Car Championship driving, for the first time, a front-wheel-drive racecar. So, when I look back, there are a plethora of cars to consider as great racing cars. I was quite fortunate to be able to test—but, unfortunately, not race—one of the powerful F1 turbo cars of the 1980s era. The test, in a Benetton B187 Cosworth V-6 turbo, was part of my prize for winning the 1987 British Formula 3 championship. The car was built in the last of the “turbo years,” and the power had been significantly cut. However, when you look at these cars, they were pretty awesome and powerful, considering the ratio of the weight of the chassis to the power of the engine. I think the car I drove had its engine set at about 2.5 bar, which gave about 1000 hp. In the heyday of F1 turbo engines of the mid-1980s, some qualifying engines were reported to be giving up to 1400 hp.
My test was at Brands Hatch, which meant a lot of short shifting, so I couldn’t really take advantage of all the power available as it would be difficult to keep the car on the road. That meant a significant change of driving style for me. It was made slightly more difficult as we were using the Brands short 1.2-mile “Indy” circuit with 6 corners rather than the 2.3-mile “Grand Prix” circuit with 9. I remember going around Clearways in second gear, short shifting to fifth by the time I got to the pit lane entrance, and from there, I’d “floor it” to the next corner. The power would come through and hit you in the back. Unfortunately, as I’ve already mentioned, it was impossible to use all the 1000 hp available because it came in too quick, hence the short shifting.
