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<\/a>\u201cHi, Bill,\u201d says Stewart, knowing me from back when I was still called Bill, not yet Will. \u201cWhat side of America are you in, New York or LA?\u201d he asks. I tell him northern California, and we exchange hearty greetings. \u201cI\u2019m in a car in London,\u201d Stewart says. \u201cI live about an hour and a half from London, by road. So I\u2019m being driven there. If we get cut off, because I\u2019m on a mobile phone, just call the office back and they\u2019ll still map you through to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
My first question is to ask Stewart about his Formula One career and how he thinks about that today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look back with somewhat sweet and sour,\u201d he says through a clear connection to his mobile. His voice, as bright and full of keenness and Scottish brogue as I\u2019ve always known it to be, flows faultlessly from one sentence to the next, and to the next, in a distinctively page-ready perfection that has forever defined him and what he has to say.<\/p>\n
Stewart continues: \u201cThere are all those good memories of, let\u2019s say, entering the world of Formula One as a rookie in 1965 and joining up almost immediately and playing with the big players. In other words, Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jack Brabham, etcetera, and John Surtees, who at that time I remind you was the reigning world champion. And, suddenly, I was competitive right away with them, and in fact that year three times was on the podium finishing second to Jim Clark and winning the Italian Grand Prix at Monza toward the end of the season, then finishing third in the world championship. So it was a pretty remarkable entry, if you like, into Formula One. And the people, the camaraderie, was deeper in those days. We traveled a lot together. We stayed in the same hotels. In those days there was no elaborate motor homes, so there was much more socializing with each other. And, of course, like anything else in life, you got closer to some people than you would with others. So that was the sweet side.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sour side was obviously the fatalities that were to later come. But in 1965 we got away pretty clean. Those so-called \u2018swinging sixties\u2019 and early seventies were by far the most glamour period of Formula One, I think, and probably had the best collection of top-line drivers, just as good as there is actually today. I would say that if you look back through this last season there hasn\u2019t been since the mid-to-late sixties so many top-line drivers. There\u2019s about eight really top-line either world champions or damn near world champions today. The technology, of course, changed as we went along, but that has been the story of motorsport since we\u2019ve had the horseless carriage. The motor industry technology has led to what is Formula One today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Widely known for his efforts toward improving safety in racing cars and race tracks, often to the point of his being criticized for it, I ask him when and how that focus began.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t focused in safety in 1965,\u201d Stewart says of his first year in Formula One. \u201cI was just a new boy and it wasn\u2019t for me to get into heavy discussions about that. As of that time I didn\u2019t really know or appreciate how dangerous the whole damn thing was.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy accident at Spa-Francorchamps in 1966 [Stewart spun his BRM P261 in heavy rain and hit a telephone pole, and was trapped in leaking fuel.\u2014Ed.<\/em>] was a wake-up call. There were no marshals to help us. There was no medical facility to help us. It was really ridiculous. There was nobody to assist Graham Hill and Bob Bondurant taking me out of the car. And God knows how long we had to wait for an ambulance. When we finally got to the so-called \u2018medical center\u2019 of the circuit I was laid on the floor in a canvas stretcher with a whole lot of cigarette ends. At that time, I was coming in and out of consciousness. Then, during the motorcycle escort taking the ambulance to Li\u00e8ge Hospital, because they thought I had a back injury, they lost the ambulance and the ambulance driver did not know how to get to Li\u00e8ge. It was a comedy of errors. So that taught me a lesson.\u201d<\/p>\n The lesson at Spa lead Stewart to look deeply into safety issues in motor racing for years to come, bringing about, among other safety improvements, the extended use of full-face helmets and seat belts, and helping develop the Grand Prix medical unit that began traveling with the Formula One series. The need for better safety was a message often personally heard from Stewart, as he became more and more visible through his presence as a race commentator on television while still driving races in the sport\u2019s most dangerous era. The mod \u2018Wee Scot\u2019 with his long hair and attractive wife, Helen, alongside was very soon a world-recognized celebrity couple.<\/p>\n Sir Jackie Stewart – Speaking Out of The Box Continued<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sir Jackie Stewart – Speaking Out of The Box – Page Two<\/strong><\/p>\n After his mobile phone connection drops, and Stewart\u2019s UK office re-connects to the car, Sir Jackie again picks up the thought train: \u201cClearly one of the most important things I did as a then-current racing driver was to sign a contract with Roone Arledge at ABC Sports in 1971. Roone was a genius, and it was because he was such a genius that he later became president of ABC News as well. It\u2019s not surprising that he had one of the best line-ups of top sports commentating talent. Jim McKay was a master of the English language, and for me to have been with him in more races and more telecasts than any other commentator that I worked with was a gift. Keith Jackson was great to work with as well. All of these people were masters at what they did, and somebody like myself, who had previously not had much experience of doing television, to understudy with Jim McKay, for example, and keep in mind a great many of those races in those days were live TV, whether it was NASCAR or Indycar, not so much the Formula One things, but to be able to learn how to do it in one take and have the best producers and best directors, I mean ABC\u2019s Chuck Howard and Chet Forte, and Don Ohlmeyer and Doug Wilson, and people like that\u2014that was it.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it was doing the Cresta Run or the bobsleigh run commentary, or whether it was doing the winter Olympics or even the summer Olympics, which I did once, or doing the Highland Gatherings at Braemar next to Balmoral\u2014you had to be versatile, but above all you had to be able to get the job done in a very professional way, and nothing other than the best was allowed. Roone pulled the crew together in that respect. So I had a fantastic opportunity, and it was a great thing for me to have done. I mean, Bill, I would never have won the American Sports Person of the Year for Sports Illustrated<\/em> or for ABC Television in \u201973 had it not been for my appearance on television as well as winning world championships at the same time. But it took a lot out of me. You know, I was doing NASCAR races on a Sunday, flying back home across the Atlantic Ocean on a Sunday night, then flying back on a Wednesday to New York on the Concorde to do a voice-over of the program so that it went out on the air Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cI did eighty-six crossings in 1971, and that\u2019s not counting all the other travels that I was doing\u2014475,000 miles a year by air. There was Australia, South Africa, Asia Pacific and Japan, and never mind anywhere else, and I was going around the world with Goodyear and Ford by then, to India, Thailand and Indonesia, Hong Kong, just everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n The pace he kept was staggering. From the period I was making films for TWI and IMG, I recall following Stewart\u2019s schedule and hearing stories from my executive producer, Jay Michaels, who was also Jackie\u2019s road manager, about the almost ceaseless intertwining of travel and racing. Now, as his car takes Stewart further north from London toward his home in Buckinghamshire County, I ask him what it was that kept him so heavily engaged, both in and out of racing.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess ambition,\u201d Stewart tells me. \u201cOn the basis that I saw how powerful television was, because I was suddenly doing a lot of television commercials for Ford, Goodyear, for Wheel Horse tractors, for Simoniz, for Getty Oil, a serious number of them in America, so my television appearances were making me a personality to the American public while I was still winning Grand Prixs and winning world championships. It happened to be a very potent cocktail, if you like. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I was being paid for it, and in those days racing drivers didn\u2019t make the kind of contract money that we make today. Therefore, I was doing Indianapolis and Formula One, and by 1971 I was doing the Can-Am series\u2014the whole damn series as well as Formula One. That year I got mononucleosis, the blood disorder, and I won the world championship in \u201971 with mononucleosis. Then, in \u201972, I was doing the same kind of travel and I got an ulcer that hemorrhaged because of the stress, the strain, the diet, the flights, the long hours, the time changes. It was a tough life, and at that time in motor racing, by then, the danger element was so big that our batting average was very poor. If you raced for five years, there was a two out of three chance you would die. That wasn\u2019t good, but on the other hand the rest of it was all very stimulating, whether I was doing something about Atlanta, Georgia with Richard Petty and driving his stock car, or whether I was doing IROC races and driving Camaros with Paul Newman, or if I was doing something else with Mario Andretti, or whether I was doing something else at the Monaco Grand Prix. It was all good stuff, Bill. It was very stimulating and it also was very important in the formation of my future life, which was to have some of the skills clearly that I would otherwise not have been able to develop.\u201d<\/p>\n Rivetingly set to print with the help of author\/professor Peter Manso in a 239-page Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover titled \u2018Faster! A Racer\u2019s Diary\u2019, Stewart recounted 1970\u2019s bittersweet day-to-day events of his life in racing that include the deaths of close Formula One driver friends Piers Courage at Zandvoort and Jochen Rindt at Monza. The writing, vividly true and personal, makes for one of the very best books ever written on racing at the top of a world champion\u2019s profession.<\/p>\n \u201cPeter Manso was challenging to work with,\u201d Stewart tells me from his car on the M1 motorway,\u201d but he did travel with me all of the time for a season. It was a good combination of two people, sometimes in conflict, which always makes it even more interesting. But Alan Henry was good to work with, and I later did one of the Jackie Stewart\u2019s Performance Driving books with him. And there is the more recent one, \u2018Winning is Not Enough\u2019. That\u2019s quite a good book. It was much more about life than it was of hardcore racing. About writing the books, I wrote my first book [\u2018World Champion\u2019] with a journalist called Eric Dymock, and that was when I won my first world championship in 1969. It was sort of obligatory for every racing driver to do. You won the world championship, then you did a book.\u201d<\/p>\n Sir Jackie Stewart – Speaking Out of The Box Continued<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sir Jackie Stewart – Speaking Out of The Box – Page Three<\/strong><\/p>\n I made two television documentary films involving Stewart in Can-Am racing during 1971, the first in July at Road Atlanta, another in October at Laguna Seca. Peter Revson won both in Team McLaren\u2019s M8F.<\/p>\n \u201cDoing Can-Am with Carl Haas was good,\u201d Stewart tells me as our conversation continues about cars he raced other than Formula One. \u201cEric Broadley made the Can-Am car, which was not a good car. It was called the T260 Lola and it was not an easy car to drive. It was short wheel base, very twitchy, very demanding. I won a couple of Can-Am races. But, at the same time, again, it was using up a lot of time in a plane.<\/p>\n \u201cRevvy was a good racing driver. I think he was also good for racing. He was a very good-looking guy, he had the Revson name and the Revlon identity, he was very cultured, and, well, he \u2018did a lot of damage with the girls.\u2019 It was a great contrast between him and Denny Hulme for example. Denny was the very basic New Zealander, a great guy of course, and a very good driver. So Peter got a very good ride there to be with McLaren, and he drove well. The top Can-Am drivers after Bruce died were Denny, and Revvy I suppose, and myself.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t do Le Mans with Steve McQueen [The plan was for Stewart and McQueen to co-drive a Porsche 917 for the 24-Hour race in 1970.\u2014Ed.<\/em>] There was a point where I might have been doing it, but then I chose not to do it. I only did Le Mans once, and that was in \u201965 with the gas turbine, Rover-DRM, where we finished the race as the highest placed British car, in tenth or eleventh, I can\u2019t remember. My co-driver was Graham Hill.<\/p>\n \u201cI drove the Ferrari P4 with Chris Amon at Brands Hatch for the BOAC Six-Hour in 1967. Chris took ill and was only able to do a small amount of the driving. I mean he was really ill, so I had to do most of that, and that was a fantastic car, a beautiful car to drive, and probably the most attractive racing car I\u2019ve ever driven, in addition to which Mauro Forghieri was engineering it. I had never been able to get a car to go around Brand Hatch comfortably\u2014it was always too bumpy and just wasn\u2019t a track that I could get a car set up on. And Mauro got that one set-up for me perfectly. That was a 4-liter V12 works car, and we were a second place finish to the Chaparral [Phil Hill in this race, his last professional competition, co-drove the 7-liter V8 Jim Hall Chaparral 2F with Mike Spence for the win.\u2014Ed.<\/em>] We could never have matched it, but we finished ahead of all the Porsches and we secured the World Championship for Sports Cars for Ferrari. I was given \u2018Grazie Stewart!\u2019 on the front page picture of Autosprint<\/em>. And certainly it was the only time I ever drove for Ferrari. I met Enzo many times. He was a very unusual man, but nevertheless dynamic, and nobody better known in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cI later drove a Chaparral, the \u2018vacuum cleaner\u2019 as they called it. I drove it at Watkins Glen in a Can-Am race. I liked Phil Hill. He was a wonderful man\u2014perfect manners, and a great deal of culture in him, a great ambassador for the United States of America. You couldn\u2019t\u2019 have done better than Phil Hill and Dan Gurney. They were really both true Americans with a love for Europe, and Europe loved them. I had good times with them both. I drove against Phil, but not very much. I did drive quite a lot against Dan Gurney, and he was the perfect gentleman on the race track. There was Jim Clark and Dan Gurney, and Denny Hulme was very good. Jochen Rindt was very good with impeccable manners on the track, just good to race with.<\/p>\n \u201cI drove a Porsche Super-90 in my first ever competition of any kind. It was a sprint in Scotland, and that was my first competition as a driver but after that I never drove a Porsche at all.\u201d<\/p>\n In Formula One, between 1965 and when he retired in 1973, Jackie Stewart won 27 Grands Prix in 99 starts. Many agree that perhaps his most notable Formula One win was at the full-course 14-mile 14-lap N\u00fcrburgring on August 4, 1968. With a broken wrist and in the worst of foggy and wet weather, Stewart brought his Matra-Ford first to the finish 4 minutes and 3 seconds ahead of the second place Lotus-Ford of his former teammate Graham Hill, followed 6 seconds later by Jochen Rindt\u2019s Brabham-Repco. Sir Jackie\u2019s thoughts, from the comfort of the rear seat of a saloon northbound on the British highway, are in essence being there with Stewart at the \u2018Ring 43 years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cMost people\u2019s perception is the N\u00fcrburgring in 1968 might be my best race because of the over four minutes ahead of second place in conditions that, today, we would never have raced in, and it was ridiculous. But it was just one of those days, everything went well, we didn\u2019t go off the road, we didn\u2019t spin. The N\u00fcrburgring, of course, was the greatest challenge, I think, that motorsport has ever seen in respect to learning the track and being able to do sub-lap-record laps all of the time almost in order to win. I liked the \u2018Ring. I mean I liked it, and I hated it. Being in front of a fire at home with the snow outside, I loved it. When I left home to go to it, I hated it. I wondered whether I would ever come home from it. I never did one extra lap there at the N\u00fcrburgring than I had to, because if you were driving a Formula One car around the \u2018Ring at full tilt it was an experience you wouldn\u2019t want to go through very often. I say, \u2018Anybody who really likes the N\u00fcrburgring, either they have not gone around there fast enough or they\u2019re telling a fib.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI named it \u2018The Green Hell\u2019 because the track has fir trees and greenery all around it. There are no run-off areas, there is no space for anything and, in those days, we got it changed for the 1971 race and we got it changed again for the \u201973 race. But finally it was stopped after the Niki Lauda accident there in \u201976. It\u2019s no place for a single-seater Formula One car to be driving. You took off thirteen times per lap, and racing cars can take-off quite well, though they were never good at landing. Actually, it was nonsensical to drive a Formula One car around there, so my appreciation of it is very deep and I\u2019m glad I did it, and I\u2019m glad that I won four times there, and that I\u2019m a Ringmeister, and that I was given the golden ring and all that sort of stuff, but I won the Formula Two championship race around there and three Grand Prixs, which is more than enough for me, thank you very much.<\/p>\n \u201cI learned the \u2018Ring in a Volkswagen rental car,\u201d says Stewart, then adds, \u201cI did drive a P1 Ferrari there, and we did quite well\u2014we out-qualified the works team. I was driving for Maranello Concessionaires. I drove a European Championship Ford Capri around there, too. I did quite a lot in the rain. Even in a Capri the N\u00fcrburgring was a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n Sir Jackie Stewart – Speaking Out of The Box Continued<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sir Jackie Stewart – Speaking Out of The Box – Page Four<\/strong><\/p>\n Stewart\u2019s ninth season in Formula One would be his final rounds of Grand Prix racing. He tells about that time 39 years ago in this telephone interview from South East England.<\/p>\n \u201c1973 brought the World Championship to me for the last time. I had made up my mind in April \u201973 that I wasn\u2019t going to do any more than one last season. I didn\u2019t tell anybody other than Ken Tyrrell and Walter Hayes, who was the vice president of Ford Public Affairs, and I had a good season that year. I did win the World Championship. But I would have retired in any case whether I had won the championship or not.<\/p>\n \u201cMy Monza race that year, in \u201973, was a good one, because of having the early puncture, and wheel changing was not what it is today. I mean, I don\u2019t know how many times I broke the lap record that day but I think more than anybody ever has. We never really had any hope of finishing fourth when I started off very much last at the very beginning of the race almost, so it was for me, although I didn\u2019t win it, one of my best races ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Stewart\u2019s Formula One driving career would have counted 100 Grand Prix races, if he had finished 1973 as planned. But that would not happen. While qualifying for the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen in New York on the morning of October 6th, Jackie Stewart\u2019s 29-year old prot\u00e9g\u00e9 and teammate, Francois Cevert, was killed instantly when his Tyrrell-Ford spun and struck a guardrail at 150 mph. Stewart, in his driving suit, later stood with his fellow racers during a minute of silence in tribute to Cevert. Then, as the other drivers walked to their cars to resume qualifying in Saturday afternoon\u2019s session, Jackie Stewart, aged 34, stepped from the ranks and retired to the Team Tyrrell motor coach. Stewart\u2019s professional driving ended that resolute moment with a record 27 Grand Prix wins.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people I raced with, Bill, were the best,\u201d Stewart tells me from his car. \u201cI\u2019m on record for saying many times \u2018the engineers and the mechanics I had were better at what they did than I ever was at what I did.\u2019 Roger Hill and Roy Topp and Roland Law and Keith Boshier and Neil Davis, that group of people were just fantastic. And Ken Tyrrell, I couldn\u2019t have asked for a better man\u2014first of all to break me into single-seater racing and then to take me to where I turned out to be. Without him I probably wouldn\u2019t be here today, because I\u2019d probably been dead, and secondly you wouldn\u2019t be doing an interview because maybe I wouldn\u2019t have been successful, so Ken was a pretty important man in my life. In those days, Edsel Ford came around to the races, and Edsel is still one of my best friends. He was with me on my last ever race that I was supposed to have run at Watkins Glen when Francois was killed, so with Edsel we\u2019ve shared a lot of things together.\u201d<\/p>\n For as long as I\u2019ve known him, Stewart has been represented by IMG, and even today remains one of this 130-office worldwide company\u2019s most distinguished clients among the hundreds of elite athletes who have called IMG their agents and financial advisors. My own documentary film career for 20 years was tied strongly to Mark McCormack\u2019s IMG and its then-media arm, Trans World International. When I ask Sir Jackie to reflect on his years with IMG, it\u2019s something like talking again of old school chums and times gone by.<\/p>\n \u201cMark McCormack,\u201d he tells me on his mobile, \u201csigned me up himself and I had a great relationship with Mark. He was the best. He was the most powerfully involved man in sport of any kind. I had the highest regard for him, and I am still with IMG today. Jay Michaels and Jay Lafave were the other guys. Jay Lafave was the sort of administrator. And Barry Frank was TWI, Trans World International. All of these people were good. They were amazing years. But on the other hand, between sweet and sour, when you think of all the people who died from Jimmy Clark to Piers Courage to Jochen Rindt to Francois Cevert to Roger Williams to Lorenzo Bandini to Ludovico Scarfiotti to Jo Schlesser to Mike Spence\u2014so many people died. I mean, Helen and I, and you have probably read this in the book, counted up fifty-seven people who we knew well enough, if not a deep friend then certainly acquaintances and people we mixed with a lot, who were, you know, taken out. So the experiences were very varied in those days. I mean, to do Can-Am and Formula One, to do sports cars and GT racing, touring car racing, and Indianapolis by the way, which I really enjoyed doing in the two years I raced there was \u201966 and \u201967, and I could have won it. Two laps in the lead! And then, to be able to go back as a commentator was very enjoyable. I liked Indianapolis and the people that were there.\u201d<\/p>\n By now, we\u2019re getting around to what Sir Jackie has been doing in more resent years and up through 2011, and at this time looking to the 2012 Formula One racing season that kicks off the third week in March at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, Australia. I ask him what it has been for him to witness change with these new-era Grand Prix venues and the impact they have on Formula One today.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously the new races are going to both the Middle East and the Far East, in the sense that it all started off really in Malaysia, the first one, and I was there,\u201d says Stewart of the current trend. \u201cThen Bahrain came in, and China came in, Singapore, then Korea came in after Abu Dhabi. India is the very newest one. It\u2019s going to be quite difficult for a while because there isn\u2019t a motorsporting culture in most of these countries. And, of course, the world is becoming more motorized, and that\u2019s why Formula One has been able to become the largest television sport in the world on an annual basis. The Olympics are bigger and so is the Soccer World Cup, but they only happen every four years. But with an aggregate of four years, Formula One is still ahead. And there are more road users than ever before, more people, men and women, driving cars. So, with these new venue countries, it will take a while before they fill the bleachers, or the grandstands.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nice to go to these new countries,\u201d Stewart continues. \u201cI\u2019ve been in these countries when I was doing my world tour with Ford and Goodyear, so all of them, including India and Korea and China\u2014I never went to China before, actually\u2014but Singapore I used to go to, and some in the Middle East, and that region has become very important. So, it will take a while before we get drivers from all of those countries. It might be really ten to twenty years before we see really competent drivers coming from that neck of the woods because there are no local race tracks. You know, you build a big Grand Prix track, but there\u2019s got to be kart tracks in every city in each country in order to bring young talent along. So you\u2019ve got to start them off at eight, nine and ten years of age, really. There\u2019s not a single Grand Prix driver today that\u2019s not been a karting champion, so that has to happen. But it\u2019s a healthy spreading of the world of Formula One.\u201d<\/p>\n Sir Jackie Stewart – Speaking Out of The Box Continued<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sir Jackie Stewart – Speaking Out of The Box – Page Five<\/strong><\/p>\n And, what does Sir Jackie Stewart do at the current Grand Prix races, where his presence always sparks an on-camera television interview, however brief, from arguably the most recognized name in all of motor racing? I ask just that.<\/p>\n \u201cI have corporate relationships,\u201d replies Stewart, and I\u2019m hoping at this point that his ride into Buckinghamshire will still allow enough time for us to talk on, and it seems it will. \u201cObviously,\u201d he says, \u201cI was forty years with Ford. I have been spraying Champagne since \u201969, so I\u2019ve been forty-two years of being under contract with Mo\u00ebt et Chandon. I\u2019m still with Rolex, and I\u2019m going to the Daytona Twenty-Four Hour race in January with them. But I am also with a company called Genii Capital, you know, it\u2019s like you polish the lantern and the genie comes out! It\u2019s a Luxemburg-based company. They specialize in investing in high technology start-up, and they brought me in because they own what is called the Lotus Renault Team, and in 2012 it will be simply Lotus F1\u2014two young men, one thirty-nine, one forty-three, very successful businessmen, and they are using Formula One as a marketing tool because they are really global players and are bringing clients and partners from every corner of the world, whether it\u2019s Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America, etcetera. So I\u2019m doing what I was doing whether it was with HSBC or whether it was the Royal Bank of Scotland, or whether it was the Ford Motor Company. I\u2019m involved in their strategy, and partially responsible for using motorsport in this way to create incremental business. And then, they\u2019ve got corporate hospitality, sometimes at the very highest level\u2014obviously chairmen, presidents, CEOs and sometimes senior politicians at the same level, prime ministers, or presidents of countries. And much more as well. So, I\u2019m deeply involved in the sport still. I do between eight and ten Grand Prixs a year, and I\u2019m right in the middle of it, really. I love the life. I still work as hard today as I\u2019ve ever worked, but I enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n I wonder, does Sir Jackie Stewart ever think about giving it up? Doing something else?<\/p>\n \u201cNo. No, I\u2019m just in the middle of negotiating a new contract even today. No, I enjoy it. I enjoy it very much.\u201d<\/p>\n And, if we have time, and we apparently do\u2014what about the Formula One drivers today? What about Kimi R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen and his return to Formula One in 2012?<\/p>\n \u201cKimi, I think, will come back well,\u201d responds Stewart. \u201cI mean, we\u2019ll only know that after the second or third race, maybe, but I think he\u2019s the type of driver who will plug back into F1. He\u2019s just a racer. I think he will plug in quite well. I think many people will be quite surprised, and I certainly hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n And what about Sebastian Vettel? How is he?<\/p>\n \u201cTerrific,\u201d enthuses Stewart. \u201cHe\u2019s the most mature twenty-four year old I have ever seen in auto racing. So well balanced, and he\u2019s a proper thinker, and goes about his business correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n Jenson Button?<\/p>\n \u201cVery smooth. Good mind management. Never over-drives. Really gets the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n Lewis Hamilton?<\/p>\n \u201cLewis is probably the fastest driver out there, but sometimes doesn\u2019t have the mind management, and clearly in 2011 was an example of that. Too many incidents. Not just with Massa, but with other people, and putting himself in a position where other people could negatively effect him\u2014even if it wasn\u2019t his fault, it was his fault for being there. Another driver with a little more vision would not have been where he was when the incident occurred. I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s his lifestyle, or if it\u2019s his focus, or his commitment. He\u2019s made a lot of money. He\u2019s become a real personality in his own right, so sometimes these things can be distracting. He\u2019s got the skills. If he can just keep his head together he\u2019ll be successful again.\u201d<\/p>\n I say to Stewart that it must be so gratifying for him to continue in this Formula One picture and to keep that vital part of it going.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really lucky and feel very fortunate,\u201d he answers, \u201cand I have wonderful commercial relationships and I still love the sport, and I\u2019ve got a lot of friends in there.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ll always remember Stewart flashing by during a Grand Prix in his Tyrrell and him, at the wheel, noticing that IMG\u2019s Jay Michaels was talking to someone on the sidelines, and Stewart being conscious of this and also curious, and to have the facility to do that while driving past Jay at full tilt, 160 or so miles an hour!<\/p>\n \u201cI remember it,\u201d says Stewart, and he pauses to bring to mind an observation so perfectly his: \u201cThe consumption of a top racing driver is fantastic, the consumption of information you get. You see people, just as you describe, you see photographers, you see someone opening an umbrella in a grandstand with ten thousand people in it. You pick it out, because it\u2019s important. Your peripheral visions are very good and the consumption of information is fast and you can decipher it quickly. That\u2019s one of the things I wouldn\u2019t be able to do at this age. The eye consumption of information, the processing of it, and it spitting itself back out for you to clearly identify what you had seen and what you are going to do about it. I mean, that\u2019s when you are at the height of your profession.\u201d<\/p>\n It seems that\u2019s it, he\u2019s said it all, it\u2019s time to stop\u2014until I mention again that my interview with him will be on Sports Car Digest<\/em>\u2019s website. And he reminds me of what I already know from having worked with him in the past.<\/p>\n \u201cI have dyslexia,\u201d Stewart says. \u201cI don\u2019t use websites, and I\u2019m not computer literate. I can\u2019t even do emails. You know, I can\u2019t find my name on a keyboard. I don\u2019t know the alphabet or the words of my national anthem. Being dyslexic is very serious, but what it does do, you think out of the box a lot. You learn to do things that other people never thought about doing. In that respect it\u2019s actually sometimes quite productive.\u201d<\/p>\n Closing this interview comes spontaneously, saying to my friend: \u201cAnd so many of the things that you do are done no better than by Sir Jackie Stewart.\u201d<\/p>\n He laughs. \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know about that. But listen, Bill,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019m going to slip away if you don\u2019t mind. I\u2019ve got to catch up on one more call while I\u2019m in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n That \u201cone more call\u201d is so typical of this man driven by his passion to involve, to think so far beyond words he can barely read. In doing media, never show him a cue card or a teleprompter, but engage him in a conversation and he will absolutely astound with his knowledge and perceptions no matter what the subject. He\u2019s an amazement.<\/p>\n Harking back to 1974 and Practice Day at Brand Hatch on page 1 here, I need to say this: Everywhere the Wee Scot and I went that Friday of the British Grand Prix was as if I was walking next to a giant. The three-times World Champion was the target for every autograph seeker, every opportune handshake, every prospect for a smile and comment\u2014and it\u2019s still that way with Sir Jackie, everywhere he goes.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>