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No wins for Surtees. Why?


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#101 Doug Nye

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Posted 11 December 2022 - 07:29

Others increasingly  lose touch with reality, become parodies of themselves , trotting out the same embellished anecdotes ,  becoming  masters of self mythology. I don't  think I need to name names , do I ?   

 

Please exclude John Surtees as a potential candidate for the category cited here.  

 

He was hyper competitive - absolutely not in my experience hyper conceited - just confidently and quietly sure that he had been capable of achieving the best or equal to it, but moreso that he knew best, that he was right, and that the only sure way to get things done right was to do it himself... He did not embellish stories (other than in argument) and he certainly did not, in my experience, self-mythologise.  Not admitting error is different from bellowing personal brilliance.

 

DCN



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#102 john aston

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Posted 11 December 2022 - 08:23

I think I will leave it for others to nominate - if the cap fits , and all that. But , for what it is worth , Surtees  wasn't on my mind 



#103 opplock

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Posted 11 December 2022 - 20:04

I wasn't there on the day but spoke a couple of weeks later to a fellow marshal who had witnessed and assisted in dealing with Henry Surtees' accident at Brands. He had been deeply touched to receive a phone call a few days later from John Surtees thanking him. In the aftermath of that tragedy he had taken the trouble to obtain the names and contact details of marshals and others who had been involved and contacted them personally.   



#104 Michael Clark

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Posted 12 December 2022 - 00:25

In early 1996 I was approached by the organisers of a Classic motorcycle extravaganza at Pukekohe. Their guest was John Surtees and would I like to spend the hour of my motor racing focussed radio show interviewing him. It was only after the phone call finished that i began to wonder what I'd just agreed to, given what I'd read.

I had no need for concern - he was magnificent. He had wonderful anecdotes and was charm personified and even complimented the interviewer at the end of the session. He was then on the cusp of his 62nd birthday and I could only conclude that if everything I'd heard and read was correct, then he must have mellowed significantly.

Fast forward 20 and a bit years and one of the weekly phone calls I would get from the man who eventually replaced 'Big John' at Ferrari. By mid 2016 Chris was starting to fade as the cancer took hold but he retained his fanatical interest in F1 (and cricket, politics...) so we always had plenty to chat about. This day was different - he'd just received a letter from John Surtees. Not an email - an old-fashioned hand-written letter posted in England and delivered to a post box in Kinloch, New Zealand. Chris read the letter to me - clearly JS had heard Chris wasn't well and penned what I can only describe as a warm and heartfelt letter that could only have been written by a person who knew compassion and empathy.

It was certainly touching and Chris was a tad emotional reading it over the phone. And then the familiar Amon chuckle before - "I must have told you about the time he and I went to Disneyland?" Ah no Chris, you hadn't...

"It was after the '66 Can-Am series - you should have seen him. He was like a little kid - running from ride to ride."

A month after interviewing Surtees I was in a very full tent at Melbourne ahead of the first GP there - waiting for Eddie Jordan to announce what everyone already knew, that his cars would carry the bronze/gold livery of a tobacco company. Eventually EJ and his entourage turned up that led one of the assembled to stand and belt out the opening line of 'Goldfinger'. I turned to discover the man with the quite decent singing voice was someone I's always read as being quiet and reserved - John Watson.

What was that about not believing everything you read?

#105 Tim Murray

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Posted 12 December 2022 - 02:31

What lovely stories Michael, thank you.

#106 djr900

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Posted 12 December 2022 - 16:25

Mansell and Ron Dennis were never going to be a match made in heaven.


If ever two people deserved each other it was Ron & Nige.

It was such a shame that we didn't get a full season of those two clashing at every opportunity.