In Austria we had the rather strange situation of Felipe Massa being passed as fit by the FIA medics, for Massa to then get out of his seat at Williams saying he was too sick to drive, leaving the seat for Paul di Resta to take over at the last minute. I smell a rodent somewhere, but will we ever know?
Likewise it is only coming to light now in Jones’ latest book, some 32 years later, that ex-World Champion Alan Jones pulled a sickie in South Africa at the behest of Bernie Ecclestone.
1985 was also the time of Apartheid, and while many sports had by now boycotted South Africa, despite increasing pressure F1 was not one of them.
While some governments attempted to prevent their drivers from contesting the event, only France was successful, with Renault and Ligier refusing to compete.
Jones’ team was Beatrice, a company that had a sizeable presence in South Africa, and ahead of the event, as pressure on the sport grew, American civil rights activist Jesse Jackson warned that if a Beatrice sponsored car participated in the event, he would call on the company’s workers around the globe to strike.
“Jackson had said that if a Beatrice car raced in South Africa he was going to get all of the black workers – thousands of them – at Beatrice around the US to go on strike,” reveals Jones in his autobiography AJ: How Alan Jones Climbed to the Top of Formula One.
“Beatrice couldn’t be seen to be backing down to an individual like him, but if they didn’t back down there was a chance of the strike.”
“During the Friday I was summoned to see Bernie Ecclestone in his penthouse. As I went in the door Bernie said, ‘How do you feel?’ Standard greeting, although he had a look in his eye, I gave him a standard reply, ‘Pretty good, thanks.
“‘What do you think your chances are of winning the race tomorrow?’ he asked.
“Again, I felt no need to be subtle: ‘Bernie, I think you know the answer to that question. If I start now, probably pretty good.’”
“‘Well, I’ve got a bit of an idea. If you pull up sick and can’t run again this weekend, we’ll give you first-place prize money. Go home and visit Australia.’
“‘If the driver falls crook and can’t drive, then the Beatrice car doesn’t race. It’s a force majeure. Jesse Jackson can’t get on his soapbox and say, ‘I forced that company to withdraw,’ and he also couldn’t call a strike because the car didn’t race,’” he quotes Ecclestone as saying.
“The idea was that I would wait until Saturday morning when everyone went to the circuit. I would quietly check out, and jump on a plane to Harare to get home (because Qantas wouldn’t fly to South Africa).
“And so, on the Saturday morning I was gone. I just didn’t turn up. They had the car out ready to go, when they were told, ‘AJ’s been struck down by a virus and we are not racing.’”
Following the 1985 event South Africa was dropped from the schedule, though it returned briefly in the early 90’s (1992 and 1993), with Kyalami also hosting pre-season testing in the early 2000’s.
Devious chap our Bernie, mind you I can remember sitting on the grid for a night meeting in Sydney, and the driver on pole being given his winnings before the race even began, and guess what? He “stalled” on the grid and then stormed through from last position to win. Motor racing is a circus, is it not?
