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[Louis Mr. F1]

Here's an article I found in a recently purchased 89 Prix Edition magazine, on one of the most controversial driver in recent history, Rene Arnoux. He will talk about his relationship with Guy Ligier, his critics of blocking the leaders, crying at Silverstone88 and others. This interview was conducted in the later part of 89 with Patrick Camus.


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Having plumbed the depths last season, Arnoux can't get back up again. This time it can't all be put down to the car. Time to enter the confessional: with all the sincerity, honesty and clarity that makes him such a rare F1 specimen. "Poor old Rene's finished. Qualiying is a bigger and bigger mountain for him to climb, because he's got no motivation. And did you see what happened at Monaco or Silverstone? Absolutely crazy, some of his moves. He blocks everybody dangerously, you'd think he'd lost some of his field of vision! Maybe we should be thinking of drugs testing in F1. And as for set ups, don't talk about it, it's beyond him..."
There you have adigest of what people in F1 have been saying about Arnoux. For some people, other people's distress is something to be exploited. Now where distress is concerned Arnoux has had more than his share, much more. His haunted look shows it mroe than the things he says. He thought he'd seen the end of it last year, with the original an dstriking JS31 with it's double uel tank. It was a monumental mistake: and yet he looks back with mixed feelings. Siometimes he catches himself thnking it wasn't so bad after all. Maybe it needed more development more time. Maybe a team like McLaren would have known how to make it work?
" We still don't know what it was on that car that didn't work" "Taken on their own, the windtunnel, chassis, suspension systems all gave exceptional results, but when you put it all together the whole thing just didn't work. It's weight was also a trouble some factor. And the mechanical complexity didn't help. THe JS31 was a very difficult car to get the best from and because of that , difficult to develop.
and yet, the day Ligier put the projuect to him, Arnoux gave his full backing "To me it looked a great idea. the lines were soft, low the balance of volumes just perfect. The only thing that worried me was that very complexity: for me, a F1 car should be simple, so you lose no time in completing it and developign it" the rest is common knowledge
For hi spart, Rene found failure to qualify hard to swallow. Last year at Silverstone, sadly, we saw the full force of what it was doing to him. Locked in his motor home, Rene confronted by a handful of jounalists, was in tears. "Yes, I snapped. I cried like a baby. Not so much about not qualifying, a sportsman must always be prepared for the worst, but because I had just been fighting so hard with myself and with a car that would not run properly. Some drivers set a good time with a single lap: I'd just put in 20 laps on the very limit. For nothing. One or two tenth s would n't help, I needed seconds. ANd nobody can imagine what it's like to do 20 laps in those circumstances, expecting to go off, flirting with a spin every second. You have to live through moments like that, that level of pressure and stress, to understand. that's why I snapped..." Arnoux is still on those limits because the JS33 is no more competitive. Even worse, he is so caught up wwith his own obsesssion that he forgets where he is - and that brought him some deeply felt criticism from colleagues at Monaco an dSilverstone. Today people call him unthinking, dangerous and this year's British GP saw a fierce flare up between him an d Theirry boutsen. " I've never been one to bite teh hand that feeds me but you know, F1 really isn't what it was, it hasn't worn its own development well. Straightforward relationships have gone, in fact there aren't any relationship , any atmosphere. Everything is become false and hypocritical There's aggression in the air the whole time. Why? Money! That is all that matters. Nowadays, you can't put in a qualifying lap without seeing an arm shooting out of a cockpit, a finger pointed skywards. It's terrible - these drivers aren't sprtsmen any more. they say I ignore the blue flags? That's not true, I respect them to the letter when it's me they're being waved at. And if they aren't shown, today's rear view mirrors are not going to be much help. In Monaco, only one driver didn't complain of being baulked, Senna, and he won. So he didn't need to look for excuses. I've led GP too, I've won 7. I've caught backmarkers too, I've been baulked at times too, I've lost time an dmy temper. But I've never criticeised anyone. At Silverstone Boutsen came to yeell at me because I'd spoiled his flying lap. So what? In the first place I'm not so sure I did, and if so it wasn't deliberate, but on top of that I believe that sort of incident is only to be expected in this sport. Overtaking is a part of the game, isn't it? Prost hates it, SEnna pays no heed, in fact it's often his passing manoeuvres taht make the difference, who does Boutsen think he is? One win in Montreal, down to luck, an d he's a star? Let him come and see me after the seventh proper victory! It's too easy to justify yourself by refernce to other people."
"It's easier to win witha good car and an engine above the rest than to qualify in a bad car.
The JS33 's major defects are of course harder to grasp. What do the engineers say? " they are lost themselves" "as long as they lacks a top quality Technical Direcxtor we shall make no progress.. "
"Like everyone in this profession Guy Ligier has his own character. You either like him or hyou don't. I don't think there is any problem between us. His legendary slanging matches are often very understandable, just like his quiet spells. Nowadays, if thinkgs aren't going well, he doesn't shout any more, he shuts himself in the motor home an dkeeps his jaws clamped shut for a couple of hours...."
"A GP isn't won on race weekend but in the winter testing and in the drawing office at the factory. the driver gives his all, but it's the car that decides. If truth be told I'm the last link in the chain. Give me a good car and I'll show you, as i think my Canadian GP showing proved."
Maybe his love of racing will help him find a good drive, something to round off a career turned sour. "A career that will probably leave me with an unsatisfied felling. Even if,. taken as a whole, it's let me lead to the full a life full of good things. A F1 driver has no right to complain or regret anything becasue he has had an extraordinary life. The rest - victories, retiremnets - is purely marginal, circumstantial. The only thing I might hav egenuine cause to regret is not having achieved the goal I set myself, the world title. But a restrained regret because I'll say it agian a racing driver has too many parameter to rely on"
If we are talking about drugs, F1 is surely one itself. "People have been talking about that for ages! It would seem that's why I was ousted from Ferrari....let the doctors do a blood test. They'd certainly find traces of vitamin C and mineral salts." And perhaps of disappointment. "Really, there's no end to some people's meanness".....

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I hope you enjoy the above article as I think it shows some insights into his character.

Louis

[Geza Sury]

Thank you for the article, Louis. I'm just reading Mike Lang's excellent book about the 1983 season and got interested in the carreer of Rene Arnoux. He would have had a shot on the title that year, if the Ferrari had been more reliable!

I agree, Ligier made a big mistake with their double fuel tank JS31, but remember, its prodecessors, the Megatron-powered JS 29B and JS29C had been bad constructions also. So 1989 was the third difficult season for poor Arnoux, no wonder if he became disillusioned and thus ignored some blue flags. He certainly drove a great race at Montreal in the pouring rain to clinch two points after starting 22nd. Remember, there were 39 entered for that Grand Prix, so qualifying alone was tall order. I wish we had 39 entries for this year's championship!

[man]

I find it interesting that no decent team even gave him the time of day in his latter years. OK, he was making up th enumbers after the 1986 season, but a talent like his doesn't vanish. Piquet had a that one final opportunity at Benetton hence we remember him in a more positive way rather than his Lotus days where Nakajima was on occasion a match. Did Arnoux have any offers late in his career?

[fines]

I always loved the JS31, beautiful concept!! Sadly, it never worked...

[John B]

Arnoux had several very good runs for Ligier in 1986, and was even a contender to win Detroit. My guess why he wasn't given a higher-level offer in the very late 1980s would be his age; there were a couple good rides available but at the time Boutsen and Berger and possibly Nannini were highly rated as future stars. I also wonder if his past difficulties with his teams had any effect? The problems at Renault with Prost are well-known, and he had a couple incidents overtaking Tambay at Ferrari (Germany, Austria) which were not well-received by the #27 camp.

It also wasn't Ligier's first radical attempt that decade....remember the long wheelbase 1982 car that Cheever and Laffite drove?

[paparadiation]

I think that a driver with a sound reputation as was the case with Arnoux, has to leave F1 without racing in mediocre teams just for being there. Some of them - like Lauda, Prost and Rosberg to name few- managed this and we tend to remember their good times. But thinking of Rene - or Alan Jones or even the late Michele Alboreto-, they may even have tried harder than ever to put their cars into respectable positions, but after so many successes is it worth to give your all just to make sure to be in a race or finish outside the top10? As for Ligier, 1986 was a flash in the pan IMHO. The team had a great opportunity to make it to the top in 1980 and instead of hanging to Cosworth and try to find a turbo engine they went back to that awful Matra unit, a decision that doesn't make any sense!
Back at Rene now, ok, he had a third difficult season with Ligier in 1989 but does anyone know how things could have turned if he had not criticised the AlfaRomeo engine in 1987 and the Italian firm had stayed with the French team? Much better for both parties I think in the long run.
Anyway, Rene was surely fast, sometimes brilliant, other times not-so brilliant, but I can not see any good reason why he should have continued driving for teams like Ligier from 87 to 89. Nothing to gain with an off-the-pace car and so much to lose!

[Haddock]

I doubt that Rene Arnoux's criticisms of the Alfa Romeon engine made much difference to the logn term future of the team. Alfa had already shown through its own GP team that it couldn't get the business of building engines right, and in anuy case, Alfa were looking for a way out by then. Arnoux's criticisms were just a convenient excuse.

FIAT had bought Alfa Romeo, and as they already owned Ferrari, it didn't make sense to have the two companies competing against each other in F1. They were also aware that the new Alfa 4 cylinder turbo was desperately uncompetitive and that there was unlikly to be any positive publicity come from the project. Thus, they pulled the plug.

On Arnoux: Does anyone know the real story behind his firing from Ferrari at the beginning of 1985. There were a lot of rumours about drugs...Nigel Roebuck has gone on record as saying that he knows what went on there, but can't say.

[SteveB2]

I found it. The 1985 firing was covered in this thread:

http://www.atlasf1.c...?threadid=10428

Warning: Kind of spicy.

[paparadiation]

You 're absolutely right Haddock! Just missed that. What I meaned was that a team tend to expect more by a company like Alfa Romeo than Judd or Cosworth.

[Haddock]

I found it. The 1985 firing was covered in this thread:
http://www.atlasf1.c...?threadid=10428
Warning: Kind of spicy.

So either he had a problem with his knee, he was on drugs, or he was having an affair with Enzo Ferrari's underage grand daughter. Or something else ?

Looks like that will just have to remain an unsolved mystery then.