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 British Grand Prix at Silverstone was my second visit of the year to the F1 circus, coming for my racing fix, and naturally I was looking forward to being back in the 'real world' again. With Silverstone being the home of British Motorsport, and Britain being one of the dominating nations in this particular sport, the emotions and adrenaline always run high at this event.

To think that at some stage the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone were threatening to scrub off the calendar the one and only Grand Prix in this country makes one shiver, but I never thought that the threat was really serious - just a typical push for a 100% improvement, where you perhaps get 50% done.

One of my good friends in the course of my racing life is Brian Pallett, a Silverstone director who is a doer rather than a talker, a man that has devoted his life to Silverstone. When I spotted him on race day, I went across to say hello, without realizing that in front of him was Bernie Ecclestone, giving Brian an almighty bollocking for things that were wrong...

It all started when Bernie, who arrived by helicopter, was not able to land at the normal helipad because of low clouds. He then arrived at the other side of the circuit and got a lift in a car whose driver did not know his way around. He called Brian for directions but failed to convey his whereabouts, so Pallett and his men were running round in circles over the 850 acres of Silverstone trying to find him, without success. Naturally, Bernie was not amused. I believe his main complaints were the lack of signs and directions throughout the perimeters of the circuit, the lack of proper parking places - rather than just muddy fields, and to add insult to injury there were queues in the very few toilets available.

That said, I basically think that Bernie hasn't forgiven the BRDC (British Racing Drivers Club), who own the circuit, for spending several million pounds on their own lavish Club House, but not enough on the circuit facilities. That's not difficult to understand - the old racing boys, having spent all their time and money on their racing cars, wanted some luxury and comfort in their old age! And, as none of them have any business acumen but only petrol in their veins, they were very short sighted and unaware that racing is a business which has moved with the times. In fact, it is only thanks to the efforts of Ron Dennis, Frank Williams, Jackie Stewart and Martin Brundle that Silverstone kept its entry.

Anyway, after the comments of Mr. E, following his off-road excursion last Sunday, Rob Bain, CEO of Octagon Motorsports Group, resigned from his post as he considered the criticism unfounded and unfair. So once again, we start the roller coaster on the way to another British Grand Prix.

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It's not only Silverstone who is in trouble, though.

As I was riding my Harley out of the circuit on Thursday, I saw the big unmarked Arrows transporter (the one that transports the racing cars) pulling away and it suddenly dawned on me that the rumours I heard during the day were true - that Arrows had failed to pay their engine bill and therefore Cosworth were not given them any more credit.

Earlier in the day I was ignoring the rumours, as I was sure that Tom Walkinshaw would be more than capable of bailing the team out of trouble. Sure enough, he eventually did, and we were all very happy to see them back on Saturday for qualifying, and very sorry to see Heinz Harald Frentzen coming from 17 to 7th in the race, only to have his offending Cosworth engine give up for the day.

Having been a member of no less than five Grand Prix teams that no longer trade, I get particularly sad when another team fails to make the grid. Not only do you lose those names who were at the leading edge, but the sport also loses the team name and with it the team history. So many big and small teams have gone - Lotus, Brabham, Ligier, Fittipaldi, Shadow, Tyrrell, Prost, to mention but a few - and nobody likes to see this, not even the teams that are running behind them.

But I guess one has to be realistic: racing is getting more expensive every year, and cutting costs would only make you slower. To add to this, the big companies are cutting their advertising budgets and with the financial market being at its lowest in the last five years, the chances for survival of the smaller teams are very slender. Unless you have a car manufacturer as a partner, the writing is on the wall that you will not make it. Sadly, the days of the small racing enthusiast teams have gone - in fact, those wonderful scenes that we saw when Minardi's Mark Webber scored two points by finishing fifth in Melbourne already seem too long ago!

Bernie Ecclestone is already talking in terms of asking the top teams to enter three rather than two cars in order to make up the numbers, and sad as it may be to lose the small teams, the racing and the competition will certainly improve; more drivers will be able to race the same cars as the stars and will undoubtedly be eager to make their mark in the sport.

If this happens, it will most certainly dramatically reduce the testing, since it is very hard to run two cars - let alone to try to race three - and perhaps the test teams will be running the third car! We will wait to see how history develops, but I can see this possibly happening as soon as next year.

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While in Silverstone, I heard that John Frankenheimer died. John was the film director of the sixties film "Grand Prix", the last film ever made about Grand Prix racing cars and drivers.

I imagine most of us have seen this film more than once and have the video, and would like to see another being made of a more recent era of the sport. During my life I met a few people from Hollywood who toyed with the idea of having a crack at another version of the life in the fast lane, but never came back. The one that got close, before Bernie finally sent him home, was Sylvester Stallone, and thank God for that, as Stallone went back to Hollywood and made that diabolical flop, "Driven", based on the American CART series.

Talking about racing films: if you ever have a chance, I would recommend you to get the video of a film called "The Racers", with Kirk Douglas, Gilbert Roland, Cesar Romero and Lee J. Cobb, filmed in the fifties. As a teenager I saw it 32 times!

A couple of people were also keen on doing a film about Ayrton Senna's life, and I was aproached about it, but it never materialized, although I heard that Antonio Banderas was keen to do it, as he happens to be physically very similar to Ayrton, so it would be quite easy for him to play the part.

A lot of people criticize Bernie, because he has not welcomed anyone that comes on the scene trying to make an F1 film, but the truth is that no one really serious enough has ever approached him. Of course he is not going to allow any Tom Dick or Harry to do a Grand Prix film that is not going to convey the right message or image to Joe Public, but yes it is about time to make another movie of this great sport.

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It was a shame that in Britain we had to resort to the weather to have a good race, and having brought a lot of luck to my old team McLaren in Monaco, my presence did not help them at all in Silverstone. I was so grateful that I was not wearing the McLaren shirt, as this was a very uncharacteristic race for McLaren - far too many mistakes for a single race. But, as they say, you have to have disastrous races, to appreciate the good ones.

Off to France for the next round and hopefully by then the French will have settled down after their big disappointment in the World Cup (which must have taken them down a peg or two!)

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.