“Good question… as you can imagine as it was just a demo was impressed on me very strongly by everyone in the team, it goes without saying, such a historic car no-one was there to become a hero or anything like that and my aim really was just to do a respectable job really, to look after the car and give everyone that was watching something to enjoy but really just do a respectable job and with a bit of luck do the car and its history a tiny bit of justice if possible, but like I just said it was such a good car that you just can’t help but push it, there was no way that I was just going to go and trundle around, and I found that I could have a lot of fun, really push the car, and have a good time out of it without getting into any area of risk and that all helped because the car was so predictable and so foregiving like I said, just inherently very well designed and very well balanced.
“What I found, when I got out the car after the first run was that all the mechanics and all the guys in the team had been up on the wall with the stop watches, as soon as they saw that I wasn’t going around at a walking pace which was completely against their own rules and that was good fun, we had a good laugh about that, but I think the reason was that because there was also a load of current
Ferrari F1 cars being demonstrated from the last two or three years, and people had been timing those cars and the mechanics had watched me and thought I was going relatively quick but when they put a watch on me they found out that I was actually quicker than the current F1 cars being driven around so they were obviously chuffed to bits to see that and it just gave me a nice pat on the back, and the chance to have a crack at a couple of nice, safe timed laps over the weekend when I went even faster but again that was running to the level where there was absolutely no risk involved. It was just the most welcoming car, just so much fun and such a rewarding car to drive.
Q
Which aspect of actually driving the car surprised you the most?
SH
What surprised me was just how easy it was to drive and how easy it was to push it and when you think of a
Formula One car you think it’s going to be snappy or very violent and aggressive, it was all of those things, but in the most brilliant way, if that makes any sense at all it felt very fast but the feeling of power and speed that you get used to very quickly and just want more of, I’d have done anything for them to have turned up the boost for me, but I don’t think that was a possibility, because you’ve got to look after the car and the engine and so on but I would have absolutely killed to have had more power, and I think that was the most surprising thing, I expected to be slightly intimidated by the fact that it was a very special, powerful old turbo formula One car and I just wasn’t at all.
Q
So how much of a factor is it the thought that this is a very rare and valuable racing car, if you do bend it it’s not just a case of buying bits off the shelf.
SH
“It’s right up there. Luckily I’ve grown up with a huge passion for where my sport has come from and its history and understanding the importance of such special cars so it is very much a priority of mine to make sure that nothing stupid happens, and yeah sure we’;re all there to have a bit of fun but these cars are designed to be raced and pushed and driven hard so at the same time nobody wants to see the cars trundling round. So if you can find the balance between driving them as they were designed to be driven whilst at the same time looking after them then that’s the best scenario.
And, other than his late in the season F3000 campaign, what will Sam be doing for the rest of the year?
“This year I’m grabbing every opportunity that I can to get into a car to keep my name as much as I can on people’s tongues but that is going to incorporate having some fun outings in the formula one car, doing some fun events like the Goodwood Revival meeting later in the year in a Lotus 11 and maybe the Le Mans Classic again.”
