Q&A: Perry McCarthy.

Former F1 aspirant, sportscar star and all-round 'nice bloke' Perry McCarthy was present at last week's International Motorshow in Birmingham's NEC, and Crash.net caught up him as he was trying to hawk his wares - namely the book Flat Out, Flat Broke....

Fortunately, we managed to get Perry off the subject of his autobiography just long enough to talk about the current state of F1....

Q:
Perry, before anything else, I'm sure you want to tell us what you're doing here...

Perry McCarthy:
I was just passing through and they happened to have a load of my books on the Auto Express stand, so I'm signing them for people who come along and buy them. And because they're very nice people too....

Q:
Tell us a bit about the book....

PMc:
It's the drama, the excitement, the tragedies, the disappointments, the successes, the laughs and the jokes, the friendships, all those things, but really it's the story of coming through against the odds and just keeping at it. There are an awful lot of laughs along the way and I'm really explaining to people what it does take - and not just from my angle, because so many of my friends are racing drivers as well, so there's an awful lot about them in it as well. Damon [Hill], Mark [Blundell], Johnny [Herbert], Julian Bailey and Martin Donnelly, Johnny Dumfries.... there are a lot of things that are in their lives that are in this book as well.

It seems to have been picked up really well - the reviews are great. It's ever so nice of everyone to write such nice things, and I'm just hoping that everybody's really enjoying it. One of the best things that's been happening to me is being stopped so many times, whether it be at circuits or at shows, by people who've read it and just say they haven't stopped laughing. They just thought it was so funny, and that's a really lovely compliment.

Q :
For those people who don't know so much about you, just give a brief history of yourself and how you're related to Formula One....

PMc:
No, they'll have to buy the book! It's all in Flat Out, Flat Broke - it's ?18 and available at all newsagents.

But, there again, I could give you a small pr?cis... I kicked off in 1982 with an entry in Formula Ford, won the British championship. The year afterwards, I had a very big crash, then I came back, then moved up to Formula Three, Formula 3000, sportscars, then made it into Formula One. But the Formula One team I was with was a total disaster, so that left me with nothing at the end of the year. I'd been hanging on financially all that time. Then I managed to make a big comeback, then quit the sport again, then managed to make another big comeback, and I'm looking forward to a lot of success next year with Audi and hoping really to win Le Mans.

Q:
This year has obviously seen a couple of F1 teams go by the board [Prost and Arrows] and there's potentially some other ones on the edge. What are you thoughts about Formula One, the state of it at the moment?

PMc:
I think that the people without the budgets have to be very very careful indeed about chasing those with the budgets because, if they try to mirror the technical facilities and advantages that the big boys have got and they don't budget correctly, they will go out of business, and this is what we've seen. However, they do need engines and I'd guess that engines are the biggest single cost factor - that alone can probably make a team go broke. I think that it was the biggest thing for Prost and it's probably one of the things that affected Arrows. With Minardi, they've got Paul Stoddart at the helm, who's financially very smart and into many different deals. If it's going to survive it needs people like that.

Formula One has always been expensive, we've always seen teams go by the wayside, but what they do need to do is ensure that it is a spectacle, that the viewing figures are kept up so that, as a package, it is a valuable commodity as far as media buyers are concerned for sponsors and those wishing to be associated with it.

Without the television viewing audiences, then the well-funded teams, in time, will find it a problem to support their overheads.

Q:
Which drivers have you enjoyed watching in 2002?

PMc:
Michael [Schumacher], of course. Michael is just a great driver to watch on all occasions. Juan [Montoya], with his five pole positions - that was fantastic. Been a bit disappointed with Giancarlo [Fisichella] - I was thinking that maybe Fisichella could have done a bit more sometimes. Eddie Irvine's had a couple of good drives, but needed to do more. I think really that sums it up.

Also, there's [Heinz-Harald] Frentzen, who's done a couple of nice laps in the Arrows. I was having great entertainment with [Felipe] Massa at the beginning of the year, he's got great car control - the same with Takuma Sato. Takuma, his heart's there, and it would be nice to see him get another chance, it really would be. It is great fun watching some of the youngsters coming through and how they're dealing with it and so on and so forth.

Also, there's Kimi [Raikkonen]. I think that some of the things that Kimi's done have been very good indeed - he's obviously a very exciting driver for the future, but nobody else is really springing to mind.

Q:
Speaking as someone who was, for many years, on the outside trying to get in, who would you like to see in Formula One in 2003?

PMc:
Me!

Q:
Other than yourself.....

PMc:
It would be nice to see Justin Wilson get a chance, because he's done enough by winning the Formula 3000 championship to get in. but obviously his height is against him.

I think also we're going to see a big turn around at Jaguar. I think [Antonio] Pizzonia and also [Mark] Webber are signing for Jag, so it'll be interesting to see how Antonio gets on in there, because his Formula 3000 season wasn't so hot, but of course he was great in F3. So it's been remarkable that it's probably his testing contract at Williams that has kept him right in the forefront of that, and I think that that is what, changing the subject ever so slightly, I think that without an F1 test contract, these boys are dead in the water because it doesn't seem to matter what they do in F3000 - unless they're in front of people, and in their face as a testing contract, they've got a real problem moving on through it.

Q:
You touched briefly on Jaguar. It's quite topical at the moment obviously, do you think they're making a bit of a step into the unknown for a team with such a big budget as they've got, especially with manufacturer backing? Webber only has a year's experience in Formula One and Pizzonia has got no race experience [at that level]....

PMc:
There are different stories flying around, and it depends which one you believe on how you would agree or disagree with what they have done. I understand that Ford corporate need Ford Europe to save a hundred million dollars across the year, and there have been all sorts of cutbacks so if, and I stress if that is the question, then signing both these boys will be a significant saving on driver retainers. If that's correct...

Conversely, I think Jaguar really could have done with somebody who has got more technical understanding and more experience in Formula One that either those boys have got. But, maybe they're taking the Dave Richards approach, where he felt that the car needed to be developed before you go for the superstar drivers.

I mean, Mark Webber has done a very good job this year and it was fantastic to see a fifth place in Australia in his first race - it was very emotional indeed. But I do not know personally if Mark has the experience - I don't believe he does - to carry a team forward technically. He wouldn't have been testing left right and centre with Minardi because of their budget, so he would have had limited exposure to how a top team works. But Jaguar must have weighed up these decisions.

The only thing that concerns me about Jaguar is that we've seen them weigh up other decisions and get it fairly horribly wrong over the last three years. That's no slight on Mark or Antonio as drivers, I'm just speaking of this experience thing that technically they have got to have direction, and they need it now. This is the thing that surprises me most about this decision.

Really, I would have been keen to get Frentzen in that car - he would have been somebody under control on cost and has an awful lot of experience - and then have either Antonio or Mark as the second driver. It would be better for those guys in that position. But, then, I'm just a spectator on this.

Q:
Last question, other than winning Le Mans next year, what are your hopes for the season?

PM
I'd like to win Sebring 12 hours as well.

I think, if we're talking about Formula One, I hope that the initiatives that Bernie [Ecclestone] and the others have put forward work. I think it sounds pretty exciting what they're doing with qualifying. I'm used to single car qualifying from America [and], for a driver, it's very exciting and the format they're using is very good indeed. I think it's fantastic that they're banning team orders, but the biggest trick is going to be policing that.

Bernie has already said that Ferrari are going to be closely scrutinised, so lets see what happens... There may be some controversy next year over that, but it is something that needs to be addressed because you cannot have blatant manipulation like this. Sure, all these teams are spending cubic industrial strength money, but they're digging their own grave long term if they do not provide a spectacle, as I was saying earlier.

My wish for Formula One is that the new enhancements work and that Formula One becomes the spectacle more and more that it should always have been.