Cepi, Fittipaldi, Pedro Riga discussed on The Autosport Podcast
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
And cepi himself said, you know, the race had been long rather just I would have won other cool everyone, and looking at the numbers you'd say, he probably had a point if he had won this race surely this would have bad idea to your number one, right? I would have been, yeah, I think if he'd won this, I mean, maybe that's a bit harsh, really, but to not put it number one. I've very very nearly did it put it at one. I just think it's a phenomenal race and it would have been so brilliant to have finished it with a win. I guess from a sort of championship story it was kind of nice that Graham hill won the race. You know, took the title, you know, after being killed earlier in the air, so that's got a sort of nice poignancy to it as well. But yeah, I think in terms of all his F one races for rob walker, this was the one that for me stood out more than the brand's hatch where he needed a little bit of unreliability for the works loaded to win, whereas here, on a clean run, I think he'd have won the race going away. And that brings us nicely to number one, which is his second Formula One World Championship Grand Prix win, the 1971 Austrian Grand Prix. Now this is as close to a perfect win as possible, but it was a dramatic end to this race. Yeah, the reason that this is number one is I try and be, I've said this before, I try and be objective when I'm picking my doing the list. But number one, it's so difficult to do it without laying a little bit of emotion and subjectivity to get into it. And this is poignant for a number of reasons, you know, it's after Pedro Riga's has been killed. See if it's become team leader, it's also obviously you wouldn't know that didn't know the time, but it was last win in anything because he was killed at brands a couple of months later. And also I like the fact that there's a lot of the races we've talked about, he was sideways and really charging. This is one of those races where you feel like maybe he was actually on that next level where he was just in control of the whole weekend, which is the way that the real great is the top people, the stuarts, the hamiltons, the shoemakers. When they're absolutely on top of their game, it looks easy, even though it isn't. And so I thought the combination of reasons I put this one here. So you put it on pole and he then hit him and Jackie Stewart just cleared off at the start. You know, Stuart was the guy in 1978 he won the chance easily. And if it was leading him and Stuart struggled more and more to keep as he struggled with tyre, I think it was a tire issue. And he waved Frances his teammate through. He couldn't ever go either. So it's one of these things a little bit reminiscent of 61 Monaco where the Ferrari was just swapping order to try and go after the moss. It makes in a difference and fun enough shortly after severe went into seconds, if it banged in a new light record that was three quarters a second faster than anyone else had managed for the whole race. So as if to say, yeah, I don't care what you're doing behind me. I'm gone, japs. And when both deals hit trouble, so if it was left with almost a half minute lead. So he's absolutely got it nailed. Home and dry and then just for an extra bit of drama as you say, what wasn't particularly unusually in those days is that he started suffering from a slow puncture and people didn't know what the problem was to start with. They were watching. But Fittipaldi in the second place lotus was getting closer and closer and closer. But see if it just held his nerve, didn't do anything to paced himself. Did what he needed to do and still crossed the line before seconds in hand over Fittipaldi. So Patrick and Ali, who's the F one report in those days reckoned it was if it's best ever race. It was his last one, he was in complete control and he dealt with hardship at the end. So for me, it was just enough just enough to push it to number one, but I think Mexico 68 or Austria 71 could have could have been number one really. I think it's a worthy choice. It's a great top ten. And I have so few questions that I think it's worth discussing just a bit about a bit about jar in that. Do you think maybe he doesn't quite get the credit that he deserves? Yeah, that's probably true. That's probably true. And partly because it's long enough ago now, you know, there's more time passes and fewer people saw these guys these drives in action. Obviously the big name is always going to get remembered. You know, you know the benchmark drives of each year of Fangio moss clerks loud across center schema. You know, they come to they come to mind very easily. But then there were a lot of good drivers who were almost as good as some of these guys at various points during their careers. And see if it really had to work hard for his, you know? His statistics very much like Rodriguez actually. Although they've got different backgrounds, I see them in a similar, a similar way really that they're records do not do them justice. I think Pedro is probably a little bit better. I think when he was killed, he was up there, and we said in the Rodriguez podcast, I think he was after jochen was killed and in 71, I think Pedro was as good as anyone except Jackie Stewart, I think he'd have been up there with Jacky ickx. As the kind of next year line, I think if it was just behind that, but I think it would have been interesting to see how his career would have gone in the year or two afterwards because I get the impression that if it was a better driver when he wasn't in a direct competition with Rodriguez. Now you might say that's a mental weakness. There may be a mental block with him. But the fact is that that mental block was no longer there by the end of 71. So yeah, he probably doesn't get the credit he deserves other than with sort of aficionados of the time. But certainly you speak to the other drivers, you aspect to Brian Redmond, Jackie Oliver, Tony, South Gate, the design of the BRM. Yeah, they all rated him. They said he was very, very good. He wasn't a technical driver. He wasn't a great development driver, the same as Rodriguez..