Day 178

[from The Ballad of Conor Stewart]

"So, on to 1988, and my season at March. We'd had some fairly good results in pre-season testing, and I went into the first race knowing that I had a good car underneath me, and I was gonna get some solid results that season. If I'd had any doubts left about leaving Hildebrand, they were dispelled on the Saturday, when both cars failed to qualify!" Conor chuckled. "To be fair, I think they started that season with B-spec cars because the new ones weren't ready yet, but still, they were about nine seconds off pole position, which is diabolically slow. I knew Gary Brabham, he was their lead driver then, and I almost considered apologizing to him for having joined such a crap team." He chuckled again.

"Now, while he'd failed to qualify, I'd qualified… ninth, I think. I know I was alongside Ivan Capelli, in the other March. Either way, it was my best-ever qualifying by a long way. The race… that didn't quite go as well. My clutch gave out on the first lap, and that was the end of that. Ivan only lasted six laps before his engine gave out, so all things told, it wasn’t really the best of starts for us. I was still pretty enthusiastic though, as was Ivan. We both knew what this car's potential was.

"Sadly, things didn't really improve for the next few races. At San Marino I was a few places behind Ivan on the grid, and I finished ninth. I think Ivan had the same problem that race that I'd had in Brazil: his clutch gave out in the opening laps. After that, I retired from the next four races in a row, all of them with mechanical issues. I was running in the points in both Canada and Detroit until my car packed up, and by that point I was starting to get a little tired of it. I told the team, look, you gotta fix these reliability issues, this is a fast car with loads of potential, but it's even less reliable than the shitty Hildebrand I drove last year. Hell, it was less reliable than that year's Hildebrand, at least where the races were concerned.

"Now, I dunno what they did, I dunno how they fixed it, but after Detroit, I didn't retire again for the next nine races. Those nine races, as far as I'm concerned, were where my career really kicked off. I'd already been courting other teams, thinking that maybe March weren't going to be competitive as I thought they would be, but then the car's performance just shot right up, and in turn that caught the attention of the teams I'd been trying to court. In France we finished eighth and ninth, but at the British Grand Prix we qualified in fifth and sixth, and I finished fourth for my first points of the season, and my best-ever result. Two races later in Hungary, I finished fourth again, followed by a sixth-placed finish in Belgium.

"The best moment, however, came at Estoril. By then I'd already signed for Tyrrell for '89, and with turbos banned from '89 onwards, I expected them to be pretty competitive that year. Plus, I mean, you know, it's fucking Tyrrell, previously one of the most successful teams in F1. I was pretty damn excited about signing that contract, even more excited than I had been when I signed that first contract with Hildebrand. On top of that, our setup for Estoril was just absolutely sublime. It was pretty much the fastest car round the Parabolica, and at the other fast turns. It wasn't just me either, I talked to Ivan and he agreed that the car was set up absolutely perfectly. Something about our car just seemed to love that track.

"With all that positive energy and all that excitement, I promptly put the car third on the grid, with Ivan fourth. Suddenly there was this massive buzz around us, with people suggesting that we could even upset the McLarens in the race, and go on to take the win. I thought that was nonsense, to be honest with you: the McLarens had been one-and-a-half seconds ahead of us in qualifying, and of course we had atmo Judd engines, whereas they had the powerful Honda turbos. Not to mention that they were being driven by Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, the two greatest drivers of their generation. I thought, yeah, the day I beat those McLarens is the day the world ends.

"Before the race, I had a chat with Ivan about our race prospects, and he seemed to think we were in with a chance of winning. After all, it would only take the two McLarens retiring for us to be first and second, and we'd be leading the race. It was a pretty big if, but the chance was there, and the last thing either of us wanted to do was fuck it all up by crashing into each other, so we agreed that whoever led into the first corner would keep that position for the rest of the race.  

"The first two starts were aborted due to people stalling, and by the third start I was thinking, come on, let's get away cleanly this time, I want my first podium already! Luckily the third start wasn't aborted, and just as I'd expected, the two McLarens pulled away pretty quickly. Ivan and I settled down for the long haul, not expecting to see them again, but then after a few laps I suddenly noticed that my gap to Senna in front had gone down by half a second. I thought, hang on, is that accurate? Has he made a mistake or something? Then the next lap it had gone down again, and I thought, hello, I'm catching him! Has he got a problem? Turns out he had, actually: his fuel gauge was on the fritz and he was slowing down to save fuel when he didn't need to. But all I knew at the time was that I was catching him, and I started pushing like hell to try and overtake him.

"By lap 20 or so, I'd caught up to him, and on lap 22 I out-braked him and drove right past, into second place. Capelli followed through shortly afterwards, and now we were second and third. My pit board quickly spelled out that I wasn't gonna catch Prost, he was long gone, but I didn't much care, because just being second was amazing enough for me. Sadly, it didn't quite last, as about twelve laps from the end I started having problems with the engine. I had to start nursing the car, dialling back the power to try and stop it from blowing up, and that meant letting Ivan through into second place, in spite of our promise. It wasn't easy, but I managed to hold off Thierry Boutsen behind me and bring the car home in third, for my first-ever podium.

"I really hope you guys get to stand on an F1 podium someday, because it's a tremendous feeling. The roar of the crowd below you, seeing your flag fluttering above you… well, not that last one anymore, because they've replaced the actual flags with fucking digital displays, I mean, really? That's just dumb. But yeah, it feels great being up on that podium, and that feeling never goes away no matter how many times you're up there. The champagne's pretty damn good, too. Me and Ivan went at it like kids in a water fight, showering each other and Alain- fuck, I coulda worded that better," he added, as Sergio and Stefan smirked. "Uhh… you guys know what I mean."

"Yeah, we know what you mean," said Sergio, trying to hold back a chuckle.

"Fucking… well yeah, anyway, that was my first podium, and the first of many," said Conor, trying to steer the proceedings back on track. "I went on to score points once more that season - fifth in Suzuka - though I was rather overshadowed there by Ivan briefly taking the lead. That was the first time an atmo car had led a race for five years, so even if it was only for a few hundred yards, it was still a pretty big deal. I was also impressed with my old mate Satoru Nakajima, who went into that race having just found out his mother had died, and went on to qualify sixth in the Lotus. We all admired him for that result, it was a pretty stellar performance from him.

"I went into the last race in Adelaide thinking I could get a pretty big result, and I had the crowd behind me all the way, but sadly I got caught up in an accident and crashed out. In the end I finished ninth in the championship, ahead of people like Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese, and I'd sealed my reputation as one of the sport's brightest new talents. Now I was looking forward to '89, and what I hoped would be an even better season. And of course, it was, in quite a number of ways."

[dedicated to Jules Bianchi 1989-2015. RIP]