We’ve started this chat back to front. I can trace you back to Abu Dhabi and before that, you were Team Manager at Toyota. I can’t remember you before then.
Basically, I started my career in Aer Lingus as an aircraft engineer when I was 16 and I just loved motorsport.
Where are you from in Ireland?
From just outside Dublin, County Kildare. I was following rallying with a very good friend of mine at home for years, Gerry McDonald, and we used to get in with anybody that was rallying and mechanic for them. Toyota at that time were doing a lot of rallies in Africa, the Ivory Coast Rally and all that sort of stuff. So I just thought I’d love to go and do that.
How far back are we talking?
That was in early 80s. I’d read an article in Motoring News about Toyota’s rallying in Ivory Coast and Henry Liddon was team manager at that time – a great man, a lovely man - and Ove Andersson was still driving at that time.
You couldn’t Google the number of Cologne (Toyota HQ) back in those days, but I found the number of the factory in Directory Inquiries. I ended up talking to a guy in the stores. Luckily, it was a guy from the UK and he put me through. I said, ‘I’d love to do some freelance work for you and I’m working for an airline so I could get to Kenya under my own steam. All I want is a hotel and I’ll work free.’ I thought, ‘I’ll never hear anything again’. About a month later, I got a telephone call from Henry Liddon. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. He said, ‘Are you the mad Irishman Richard Cregan that wants to come work for us free?’ And I said ‘yes’. That was the beginning of it. I went to work full-time the following year and I stayed there for 26 years. We won lots of African rallies and that laid the foundation for the World Championship programme. Ove went to Japan and convinced them to fund a new factory in Cologne. There were 25 people at that time. We then went and did the World Championship and won it with Carlos (Sainz), Carlos Jr’s dad so we were good friends for many, many years. We won seven world championships in rallying, then went on to do Le Mans for two years and then decided ‘let’s do Formula 1’. That’s how it all came about so it was a great time. Ove was a great man, he was a great visionary who brought Toyota all the way from his garage in Sweden through to F1.
I’ve been very privileged in my life to work at what I love. Then basically, Toyota in F1 got to a point where I suppose I was a bit disillusioned with the whole thing. After Mike Gascoyne, we didn’t really have a technical director that was going to bring us to the top and there was a difference in opinions, is the way to put it, and I decided to move on. It was a great time and I don’t regret one second of it. Then the opportunity came through Mr Ecclestone to go to Abu Dhabi. He did his usual ‘Well, if you’re not working, I’ve got something for you’ and that was it.
Where do you spend most of your time now?
We live in Abu Dhabi and commute here. We were here almost full-time until March this year. Then, after that, we were doing a week a month here and full time for the past five weeks. We had a big discussion the other day as to how we’re going to approach next year because it’s only six months until the grand prix is back here but I think the team is in a position itself now to take it there. We’ve hit targets ahead of schedule. There’s a great core team. If they keep that core team together, our job is done here.
We’re facing a longer calendar with more races, but the sport’s a bit shaky right now. Does that affect race promoters?
You look at all the promoters around the world, they’re putting huge money into Formula 1. They’re building circuits, they’re paying fees. They’re trying to get the best out of it for their countries and their businesses. It’s getting to a point now - we see it with Silverstone, we see it with other races - where circuits are struggling. They have to be supported in some way from central government. Look at what F1 does for a country. A lot of countries like here, like Abu Dhabi, they’ve all recognised that and they’ve all jumped in and it’s paying off, it’s working. I think the ideal scenario is for example central government pays the fees and the circuit is left to create a business plan that breaks even for the grand prix, which is possible.
I can see why emerging nations would want to pay for a Grand Prix, but the British government, you say ‘come on, pay for Silverstone’. They’d say...
They’d just say, ‘why?’ And we all know the great circuits around the world that we don’t want to see leaving Formula 1. I don’t have a solution for it but it would be a great shame to see those iconic circuits replaced by squeaky clean new ones, even if a few of them are great circuits but at the same time, you do have to remember the heritage of the sport.
The sport is so rich but money is obviously not going to the right places. If you look at how a freelance journalist operates, if I have to go to Australia, if I looked at my profit from the Australian grand prix, it would be much reduced because of the cost of getting there and staying there for longer. Whereas when I go to Silverstone, I stay at home, I’ve got no air tickets, no hotel fees. You need to look at the global picture - what your costs are over the year and what your profits are over the year. If I was running Formula 1, if you’ve got places like Silverstone and Monza, that have got no government backing, you’d say ‘obviously they pay less’ because they’re the circuits that have given the sport its history and that should be recognised, in the same way that Ferrari gets more money.
Let’s end with what I should have asked you at the start - what’s your job title?
The company’s name is Rasgaira but it’s basically Richard Cregan Inc. I just get on with things and when people want me to go in and help, that’s what I do – I try to apply my experience. Rasgaira is actually Irish for ‘race’ and ‘smile’ - put the two words together and that’s how I came up with it because that’s what I like to do. Race and smile.
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