Bring Back V10s - Classic F1 stories

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Special tribute to F1 legend Murray Walker Mar 15, 2021

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Bring Back V10s pays tribute to legendary commentator Murray Walker, following his death at the age of 97. Mark Hughes, Edd Straw and Simon Arron join host Glenn Freeman to reflect on the key moments from Murray's time in Formula 1, and what made him so special to those inside the F1 paddock as well as the millions of fans watching at home.

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S3 E10: F1's action-packed 2005 Japanese GP Mar 11, 2021

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Kimi Raikkonen won the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix with a daring final lap pass, a fitting end to an afternoon full of drama at Suzuka.
This episode of Bring Back V10s is brought to you by F1 Experiences, the Official Experience, Hospitality and Travel Programme of Formula 1. To find out more and to book your own F1 Experience, visit https://f1experiences.com/
Former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley joins Mark Hughes and host Glenn Freeman to look back on a thrilling race, where a mixed up grid created action from start to finish. We look back at how Raikkonen charged from 17th to win, how Fernando Alonso starred from the back too in a race he could have won - but he had to settle for being remembered for passing Michael Schumacher around the outside of the fearsome 130R corner. We also look at the decision from race control that Renault and Alonso believed cost him the win, and how his team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella blew his chance to win as he wilted under pressure from Raikkonen.
There's also a look back at the incident that put Juan Pablo Montoya out of the race in the other McLaren, plus how Takuma Sato got himself disqualified on the weekend news first broke of a new team being set up for him to race for in 2006. We get the inside story on how Super Aguri was born, from one of the key men at the centre of setting the team up. There's also a look at tyre and qualifying rule changes that were coming for the following season, and why Bridgestone didn't need those changes, even though the one-race tyre rules of 2005 had hindered the company and Ferrari so badly. And by this stage of 2005, there was already plenty of speculation about Raikkonen racing for Ferrari in 2007. We get to the bottom of where those talks had got to by this stage, and find out from Marc when Kimi finally told his mechanics that he was leaving.
ASK US ANYTHING: Get your questions in about F1's V10 era from 1989-2005 by using #BringBackV10s on Twitter, or by leaving us a five-star review and submitting a question there too!

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S3 E9: Jerez 1997 - Villeneuve vs Schumacher Mar 04, 2021

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The 1997 European Grand Prix produced one of F1's most exciting championship deciders, with the destiny of the title coming down to a controversial collision between Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher.
Karun Chandhok and Jonathan Williams join Glenn Freeman to revisit a memorable weekend in F1 history, where drama and controversy were never far away. We look back at Villeneuve racing under appeal in the previous race in Japan, and Williams's decision to drop that appeal against his one-race ban. Then there was Villeneuve's plan to repeatedly mention his fear of being taken out by Schumacher ahead of the race, and his fallout with Eddie Irvine in the pits during practice. We look back at the three-way dead heat in qualifying, and ask if Damon Hill's Arrows should have taken pole that day.
The race is revisited in great detail, from Villeneuve's bad start, Heinz-Harald Frentzen's team play for Williams, Norberto Fontana's eventual confession about holding Villeneuve up, and where an agreement between Williams and McLaren fit into how the race played out. We then take an in-depth look at the collision and Schumacher's failed attempt to take Villeneuve out, and Jonathan tells a hilarious story of how Frentzen reacted on the radio when he saw the accident take place ahead of him.
From there, we get Patrick Head's side of the story on the agreement between McLaren and Williams, as well as finding out why Jonathan was collared by Ron Dennis early in the race, the arguments that were taking place on the radio between McLaren and David Coulthard over letting Mika Hakkinen through to take his first win, the backlash Schumacher faced from inside Ferrari and Italy, and if the FIA made the right decisions with its punishment of the Ferrari driver and deciding not to take action against Williams and McLaren.
There's also a bonus story about Jordan and Nigel Mansell from the previous winter, the revelation of McLaren's mystery extra brake pedal, and Gerhard Berger's decision to retire from F1 after a fractious year that involved Flavio Briatore trying to prevent him returning after missing races in the middle of the year.
ASK US ANYTHING: Submit your questions about anything to do with F1 from 1989-2005 by using #BringBackV10s on Twitter, or by leaving us a five-star review!

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S3 E8: The end of Lotus, with Johnny Herbert Feb 25, 2021

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Johnny Herbert joins Bring Back V10s to revisit the final year of Lotus in 1994, when the team sadly bowed out of F1 without even scoring a point.
Herbert, Glenn Freeman and Edd Straw go through Lotus's entire final season in great detail, from starting the year with a C-spec version of its 1992 car, with an ageing "dumbell" of an engine, which was finally replaced at the Italian Grand Prix - where Johnny famously qualified fourth. Johnny and Edd both offer their theories on where he could have finished that day at Monza, were it not for a heartbreaking punt from Eddie Irvine at the start. The following day Lotus went into administration.
We also look at McLaren's attempts to sign Johnny at the start of 1994, how the team was affected by its own incidents on F1's horrific Imola weekend, and Johnny recounts in amazing detail what he encountered when he arrived at the scene of team-mate Pedro Lamy's terrifying airborne accident in testing at Silverstone shortly after the San Marino GP. He also explains why even the new Lotus 109 wasn't any fun to drive, and how Lotus's miserable season left him not even wanting to drive the car. Eventually Johnny was snapped up by Ligier and then Benetton, but he watched from afar as Lotus limped on without him, before it was bought by David Hunt, who had to shut the team down a month later.
ASK US ANYTHING: Get your questions in for our series finale - ask us anything about F1 from 1989-2005 by using #BringBackV10s on Twitter!

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S3 E7: Raikkonen's controversial F1 arrival Feb 18, 2021

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SPECIAL GUEST: Kimi Raikkonen's Sauber engineer from 2001 - Jacky Eeckelaert! Sauber made waves over the winter of 2000-01 when it decided to sign a young Finn straight out of Formula Renault, with only 23 car races to his name.
In the space of 12 months Kimi Raikkonen went from testing an F1 car for the first time - and impressing Michael Schumacher in the process - to signing for McLaren to replace two-time world champion Mika Hakkinen. Jacky Eeckelaert shares stories from inside Sauber, from the moment the team first gave Raikkonen a run-out at Mugello, to all the fuss about him being granted a superlicence - and why FIA president Max Mosley voted against it. Jacky also explains how big a mark Raikkonen made from the first time he sat in an F1 car, why Sauber never had any doubts about him being ready for F1 despite his lack of experience, how quickly he settled in during his rookie season - plus the story of how he tried to reattach his steering wheel when it came off at Imola, and kept his foot flat on the accelerator the whole time while doing so!
We then plot the inevitability of Raikkonen's departure from Sauber just one year into a three-year deal, as McLaren and Ferrari went to battle for his services. Mark Hughes joins Jacky and host Glenn Freeman to explain what made Raikkonen stand out as soon as he joined the F1 grid, and why choosing silver over red was the right move for 2002. We also look at the other McLaren-contracted drivers who thought they were in with a shot of that drive, including one man who was told the seat was his before Raikkonen signed!
ASK US ANYTHING: Get your questions in for our series finale on anything to do with F1 from 1989-2005 by using #BringBackV10s on Twitter, or leave us a five-star podcast review and ask your question there!

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S3 E6: Lola's disastrous 1997 F1 team Feb 11, 2021

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Lola's brief attempt at joining the F1 grid in 1997 is one of the most famous failures in recent F1 history. In this episode of Bring Back V10s, Sam Smith and Edd Straw join Glenn Freeman to revisit how this famous British car constructor got things so badly wrong when it finally tried to enter its own team.
We look back at Lola's long-running ambition to enter F1 itself after building cars for other teams in the past, and why it kept stretching its own deadline for an entry for 1997. It's well known that title sponsor MasterCard forced the team to enter at the last minute - but why was the credit card company so insistent that it had to be '97 rather than Lola's preferred path to an entry in '98? There's also the stories of why the car was so bad, what it felt like to drive, why Lola thought it could design its own V10 engine on a fraction of the budget spent by major manufacturers, what happened when the T97/30 was finally put in a windtunnel, the drastic changes Lola considered making during the embarrassing Australian GP weekend, and how alterations were made for the second race of the year that would have made the car even slower if the team hadn't closed just before that Brazilian GP weekend.
ASK US ANYTHING: Submit your question for our series finale about anything to do with F1 from 1989-2005 by either using #BringBackV10s or leaving us a 5-star podcast review!

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S3 E5: Mansell's heartbreak - Canada 1991 Feb 04, 2021

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The 1991 Canadian Grand Prix is well remembered for Nigel Mansell stopping on the final lap after waving to the crowd. But what actually happened? We look back at the theories around his car grinding to a halt - with a little help from legendary Williams technical director Patrick Head - and reflect on the explanations Mansell and Adrian Newey have given over the years as well.
Through the rest of the episode, we look at why Williams's cars kept breaking down in early-1991, the moment McLaren realised its car and engine was no match for the the Newey-Head-designed Williams-Renault FW14, how Mansell upset Renault when he rejoined the team, and why he thought his title chances were over so early in the year. We also look at the fortunes of the race-winning Benetton team, from its ambitious plans to run a V12 Ford engine in 1992, to the political wrangling behind the scenes that led to the acrimonious departure of design icon John Barnard - and why Barnard had told Ayrton Senna not to join the team!
We also revisit the Ferrari upheaval of 1991 from a different perspective to the Alain Prost side of the story we've previously covered, and look at how Johnny Herbert's long awaited full-time return to F1 reduced him to tears on his first weekend back with Lotus. Plus there's talk on a significant weekend in Jordan's F1 history, why Riccardo Patrese looked so good against Mansell at this stage of the year, and how F1 driving standards and reliability have changed from 30 years ago to today.
ASK US ANYTHING: Get your questions in about anything to do with F1 from 1989-2005 by using #BringBackV10s on Twitter - or leave us a 5-star review if you think we deserve it and ask a question there!

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S3 E4: 1999 French GP - Jordan strikes again Jan 28, 2021

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SPECIAL GUEST: Mike Gascoyne!
Former Jordan technical director Mike Gascoyne joins Glenn Freeman and Edd Straw for a look back at Jordan's second F1 win in the 1999 French Grand Prix. We'll hear stories of what made the team's '99 car a step up from the 198 that won at Spa the previous season, what was happening on the pit wall (and a few miles away in a French field) that was key to Heinz-Harald Frentzen's victory, and the despair Damon Hill was going through on the other side of the garage as he realised his time was up in F1.
Away from Jordan, we also discuss Eddie Irvine speaking out about team orders at Ferrari, BAR's forgettable start to life in F1 and who Jacques Villeneuve and Craig Pollock felt was responsible for it, Alain Prost putting the pressure on Peugeot on home turf, why various teams misjudged the conditions in qualifying to create a mixed-up grid, how McLaren could have dominated the race, the mysterious problem that almost forced Frentzen to retire in the closing stages, why Mika Hakkinen couldn't catch the Jordan on fresh tyres after a late stop, the problems that ruled Michael Schumacher out of the battle for victory and how a decision Ferrari took that day potentially cost Eddie Irvine the title at the end of the year, plus why Ralf Schumacher felt this race was his best drive in F1.
ASK US ANYTHING: Submit your questions about anything to do with F1 from 1989-2005 by using #BringBackV10s on Twitter, or by leaving us a 5-star podcast review!

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S3 E3: French GP 1989 - Prost quits McLaren, first corner chaos Jan 21, 2021

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Alain Prost won the 1989 French Grand Prix, but was what was far more significant that weekend was his announcement that he was leaving McLaren at the end of the year. Edd Straw and Sam Smith join Glenn Freeman to discuss everything that was going on in F1 early in our Bring Back V10s era, from the driver market ramifications of Prost's decision, how toxic his relationship with Ayrton Senna was by this point in the year, why Tyrrell needed a new driver at short notice and how Eddie Jordan played hardball before releasing Jean Alesi, Mauricio Gugelmin's explanation of the huge pile-up he triggered at the start, why Johnny Herbert was dropped by Benetton, Onyx's plan to get a 'star driver' and Porsche engines, plus how Nigel Mansell charged from an unexpected pitlane start to finish on the podium.
ASK US ANYTHING: Submit your questions about anything to do with F1 from 1989-2005 using #BringBackV10s on Twitter

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S3 E2: Nurburgring 1995 - Schumacher stuns Alesi Jan 14, 2021

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Michael Schumacher put in one of his greatest F1 drives on home soil in 1995, snatching victory from Jean Alesi's Ferrari in the closing stages after bringing down a gap that at one stage was more than 40 seconds. Edd Straw and Matt Beer join Glenn Freeman to look back at all the stories going on in F1 back in late-'95: starting with a team orders debate at Williams, how Eddie Jordan sold Eddie Irvine to Ferrari and made himself some money in the process, why Alain Prost tested for McLaren around this time, why Tyrrell plucked Gabriele Tarquini from touring cars to make a one-off final F1 appearance, how Jacques Villeneuve's imminent arrival from Indycar with Williams was being perceived after Michael Andretti's McLaren disaster in 1993, why Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger both fell out with Ferrari management, how good the 1995 Williams really was (and how well Nigel Mansell could have done with it).
Then getting into the race we look at how Alesi got himself into such a huge lead, Schumacher's bizarre strategy, the incidents both had with Hill during the race, and the significance of Hill's crash amid the personal battles he was trying to deal with during a difficult season. And of course we finish up by looking at how Schumacher hunted Alesi down, and if the Ferrari driver could have done anything to prevent the Benetton snatching the win in the closing laps.
ASK US ANYTHING: Submit your questions about anything to do with F1 from 1989-2005 using #BringBackV10s on Twitter, and we'll answer as many as we can in our series finale.

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