After forty years of working in Formula One, former McLaren team co-ordinator Jo Ramirez joins the millions of racing fans who watch the action on TV. Now writing for Atlas F1, Jo follows the 2002 season in a personal column, which comes straight from the heart of a guy who is, after all, just a racing man...

The European Grand Prix was created due to the need to have another race in Europe and the demand from existing countries already hosting one event to have another. It started in 1983 with a Grand Prix in the fabulous Brands Hatch circuit but moved to the new circuit of the Nurburgring in 1984. It returned to Brands in 1985, disappeared for some years, then re-appeared in Donnington in 1993, Jerez in 1994, and back to the little Nurburgring in 1995 where it has stayed ever since, with the exception of 1997 (Jerez). And, for some reason, in 1997 and 1998 it was called the Luxembourg Grand Prix.

While I have nothing against an extra Grand Prix, I do resent the fact that we are returning to the home of one of the most, if not the most, exhilarating circuits ever created, yet have to use this very uninteresting race track. I remember from my old school days reading about it, and the name Nurburgring became the synonym of a tortuous, difficult, breathtaking, and hard circuit, one which every driver dreamt to win.

The first time that I was there was with Gian Carlo Baghetti in 1962, as I accompanied him to all the European Grands Prix. We arrived in his Ferrari Berlinetta on a very wet afternoon, and I have to say that I did not enjoy being driven a lap by Gian Carlo. Having done a lot of miles around Europe with him, I was none too impressed by his driving, but it confirmed everything I had read about the place - it was just frighteningly magic!

The next time I had a chance to go around again was in 1967 with Dan Gurney in a clapped-out Ford Transit van (!), and a year later we repeated the exercise in a rented Mercedes Benz which started out fairly new but finished clapped-out! Subsequently, as the years have gone by, the rides became more interesting and the cars faster.

In 1972 I went around with Jackie Stewart in a factory-prepared Ford Capri rally car. Not only was the car faster than my earlier runs, but with motor-mouth Jackie I learned more about the circuit than ever before.

For the whole 22.5 kilometers and 190 corners, Jackie would tell me when he changed gear, which line he would normally take in an F1 car, his braking points and marks that he used to use as reference points - even to the point that when approaching the carrousel, he would say, 'you don't turn into it until you see the house.' 'What house?!' I wondered... and then suddenly this house appeared in front of us and Jackie turned into the carrousel.

Speaking of Stewart, to me the 1968 race at the Nurburgring confirmed him as one of the greatest in the sport when he won the Grand Prix, in appalling conditions with lots of rain and very poor visibility, by more than 4 minutes - arguably the biggest gap between first and second in the history of the sport. This race was also the very first time that a full face protection helmet was used (the Bell Star) by my boss Dan Gurney in the Eagle-Westlake. Very soon this type of helmet became the rule for every car and motorcycle racer in the world.

To me, the only attraction in going back to the Nurburgring is to have the chance to drive around the old circuit (which is still in use for a lesser type of motor sport, and it is kept in pristine condition). I could then have a trip down memory lane and recall all those wonderful F1 and sports car races hosted there over the years.

On one occasion, arriving from the airport with some of my colleagues in the courtesy E class Mercedes Benz, I managed to get clandestinely into the circuit, saving the 14 deutsche marks or so admittance fee per lap. As I was gathering speed, feeling pleased with myself for having found a gap to enter through, I suddenly found a car coming equally fast towards us... faint hearted, the penny dropped: I was driving in the opposite direction!

If you think that was frightening, you should have tried going around with saloon car and DTM Champion Bernd Schneider on a C55 Mercedes Benz as I did in 1999. Yes it was scary, but also exhilarating because he knows the circuit back to front and no one can drive a Merc as well as he can. In fact, Bernd was another victim of earlier exposure into Formula One in a non-competitive team; someone should have given him another chance as he is a great driver.

I also went round the old track with Norbert Haug, the Mercedes Benz Motorsports boss. An accomplished rally driver himself - although he was obviously not as quick as Bernd, but with loads of nearly spins and sideways show-off excursions, his car control was very impressive.

The new Nurburgring has some good memories from my McLaren days, as we won in 1997 and 1998, but it also reminds me of probably the worst defeat in McLaren history. This was in 1995 - our first year with Mercedes Benz, and being in Germany as you can imagine, the whole top hierarchy of Mercedes management were there, as well as Roger Penske, a shareholder of Ilmor Racing Engines who make our engines.

We qualified 9th and 10th, but that was not the worst: in the race - which started in damp conditions and never dried up completely - the MP4-10 (which was not a good chassis combined with the abrupt throttle response of the Ilmor engine) went nowhere from the start and rather went backwards. Mark Blundell eventually went off on lap 14 while in 19th place!

I remember soon after this, when Mika Hakkinen was fighting with a Minardi for fourteenth place, our company co-owner Mansour Ojjeh came down from the pit wall, gave me his head phones and said 'I can't stand this any longer, I am going home'...

The good thing about races this bad is that they definitely give you strength and are character building, and later on you can reflect back and proudly say, we hit rock bottom, but we pulled out of it.

This year's Grand Prix proved once again that although Williams can take the front row of the grid, in race conditions the Ferrari package is light years ahead of the rest. I always have the impression that neither Michael nor Rubens are really trying their hardest, as they do not have anyone to push them and they are not allowed to push each other, so in making Rubens the winner this time - with Michael spinning out on his way trying to keep up with him - I suppose they can project themselves as the good guys again... perhaps with only a few days from the World Council hearing in Paris, they were hoping for a more lenient view of the events in the Austrian Grand Prix?

Speaking of that - what a great farce is this 'Million Dollar Fine'! Frankly, I would not be able to express my real feelings about this penalty, as they would not be printable! Undoubtedly, the FIA will evoke a much bigger criticism from the fans than the incident itself, and although a million dollar is not an insurmountable amount of money for someone like Ferrari, a million dollar is... a million dollar, and will confirm once again that there is too much money in the sport and that motor racing is no longer driven by engines and drivers but by money.

I am sure that Ferrari would have preferred to have lost both the drivers points for that race, as it would not have made the slightest bit of difference by the end of the year, and the drivers would have been happier as their FIA license fees would have been cheaper for next year since they are pro-rata on the number of points from the year before!

Anyway, these days one has to separate the politics from the sport otherwise you will never enjoy it and we in motorsport are not alone - did Italy and Spain really lose against South Korea???

On a brighter note, think positive! The next race is the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, and in spite of the preliminary negative attitude from FIA about this venue, it is here to stay, and I am looking forward to being there for my second race of the year. Stay tuned, as they say...

Until two weeks from now...

Jo X

About the author:
Jo Ramirez began working in Formula One in 1961, when he arrived to Europe from Mexico with his childhood friend Ricardo Rodriguez. He worked as a mechanic and a team manager with Dan Gurney, Emerson Fittipaldi, Ken Tyrrell and many others, before making McLaren his home for 18 years - where he worked as team co-ordinator between the years 1983 and 2001 and where he made life-long friendships with the sport's top drivers. Jo retired from F1 at the end of the 2001 season. He joined Atlas F1 as a regular columnist in February 2002.