What Doesn't Kill You... by Johnny Herbert

Author:Johnny Herbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473542464
Publisher: Transworld

Ten

BECAUSE OF RELIABILITY issues, 1990 yielded few successes, but what it did provide me with was an awful lot of driving experience so from a rehabilitation point of view it was the perfect year. My braking, although painful and slightly unorthodox, was good, or as good as it was ever going to be, and even heel-and-toe was becoming far less of an issue. Best of all was the lack of politics and the lack of non-performance-related pressure, and when I wasn’t racing, I was either at the gym, putting my two gammy feet up, or receiving physio. I even learned a few words of Japanese while I was over there and became a bit of a sushi connoisseur. ?

Despite the lack of podium action there were still one or two highlights to be had in 1990, the most significant of which took place roughly ten thousand kilometres west of Japan at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France. If winning the Formula 1 World Championship, or at least a Grand Prix, was at the top of my professional bucket list, winning Le Mans wasn’t too far behind, so when I was approached by the man at Mazdaspeed responsible for booking the driver teams, a former racing driver named David Kennedy, I gave him a big fat yes. He and the team had decided to put together a line-up consisting of young Formula 1 drivers. This race also fell foul of reliability issues, but as an experience it was amazing, and one that I was desperate to repeat.

Endurance racing is all about teamwork, which suited me down to the ground. I’ve always loved working as part of a team. Some of the best times I’ve ever had in motorsport have been sharing a success with those who’ve helped make it possible. That’s why prima donnas aren’t tolerated in endurance racing. If you’re ever going to succeed in the sport you have to surrender your ego, leave your halo at the garage door and just get stuck in. There’s no hierarchy as such; everybody, regardless of what job they do, is working towards one common goal. Formula 1, on the other hand – although it does try to position itself as a team sport – is all about individuals, but that’s one of the things that makes it so entertaining. It can be divisive, political and downright nasty sometimes, and I’ve had first-hand experience, so obviously it generates a lot more headlines. People want competition, in all its forms, and if that takes place off the grid as well as on it, all the better.

Personally I’ve always preferred to do without the politics, the power struggles and the infighting. They didn’t bother me as such, just annoyed me; but then perhaps I’m a bit of a purist. As I keep on telling you, I just wanted to race, preferably in a competitive car, and if anything ever jeopardized that I’d get pissed off. When it comes to what we do

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