Breakfast with ... Marc Surer

©CahierArchive

©CahierArchive

You were never afraid to say what you really thought, which might not have always been the best thing to do for your career.

Today, as a commentator I do exactly the same. I know it makes you sometimes very unpopular, because I get bad mails, or if I say that what a driver did was shit or whatever but that’s me and I think you have to be yourself because this is your style.

Why do you think you never really got a top drive in Formula 1?

I had two chances, one was when Villeneuve died. It happened the day I was having my first race after my accident in Kyalami (the 1982 Belgian GP at Zolder). I did quite well (he finished 7th for Arrows) and Daniele Audetto who was the man responsible for sponsorship at Arrows came to me and said that Ferrari was interested in me. “I want 50% of your income and I get you to Ferrari.” “That’s a lot” I said, but he said this chance would only come once and so I agreed, even though he wanted 50% of all my income not just what Ferrari would pay me. However at Arrows we had Pirelli tyres I think, and Oliver (Jackie Oliver Arrows team boss) said that if Ferrari wanted me, they had to organise it for Arrows to get Goodyear tyres at which point Enzo Ferrari said, “No one is going to try and make a deal with me” and that was it and they took (Patrick) Tambay. It was close.

But even before that, when I was driving for Theodore I had another chance with a top team and that was with McLaren. We made a secret seat fitting in the night, just four mechanics and Ron (Dennis). This was in ’81, before the Austrian Grand Prix. They wanted to get rid of (Andrea) De Cesaris. The seat fitting was to make sure I could sit in the car, because previously John Watson had a problem with his hips not fitting. I did that and I was so excited, so excited… Wednesday evening before the race they said, “sorry, we can’t get him out, his father is too strong (very influential with Marlboro). Sorry Marc.”

©CahierArchive

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I had the opportunity to drive for Brabham in ’85 but I think it came too late. The car (BT54) kept breaking and by then I’d broken my legs twice and I had got used to driving bad cars! When I got in the Brabham, it took me a while to adapt and to believe how fast you could drive. It was a different feeling. On top of that was the new experience of working with engineers who would give you what you asked for. “You want more power at 8500, then we give it to you.” It was unbelievable the difference working with the BMW engineers. But I had the slight handicap from having broken my legs and I had some good races, but the car kept breaking down. I had a good race in Brands Hatch, probably my best race ever, the European Grand Prix. I overtook (Elio) De Angelis and (Ayrton) Senna and was second behind (Nigel) Mansell when he took his first win. I was even catching him but with three laps to go, my turbo went. I just was not lucky in Formula 1.