Roebuck's Legends: Elio de Angelis and the GP Drivers Strike

Denis Jenkinson had Catholic tastes in music, as in much else. If his particular devotion was to traditional jazz – Sidney Bechet was up there with Rosemeyer, Gilles Villeneuve, Senna et al among his heroes – so also he loved to listen to Beethoven. And once in a while something quirky would catch his fancy: ‘Song for Guy,’ by Elton John was one such.

There is no vocal here, merely a piano solo, written in memory of a motorcycle messenger who worked for John’s company and was killed in an accident. For Jenks, this added poignancy to an already haunting tune. I put it on a tape for him with some Bechet, Beiderbecke, and so on, and he soon wore it out.

He was touched, too, to learn that ‘Song for Guy’ was played at the funeral of Elio de Angelis, that lovely man who died in a testing accident at Paul Ricard in May 1986. De Angelis, too, had adored this particular piece, and frequently played it himself. He was a wealthy young man, which is not uncommon among racing drivers, but also very cultured, which is. Natural ability in a car was but one of Elio gifts; many have said he might equally have had a successful career as a concert pianist.

This had come to the notice of his fellows in unusual circumstances. Prior to the 1982 season, the F1 drivers, as usual, received an application form for their ‘Superlicence’, and most blithely signed it without troubling to read the small print. Niki Lauda, though, noted a clause for which he did not care, and pointed it out to Didier Pironi, then President of the Grand Prix Drivers Association.

Worrying to Lauda was the proposal that, in future, superlicences be issued to a driver and team; at its foot, the form read, “I am committed to the above team to drive exclusively for them in the FIA World Championship until the….19…” Niki didn’t go for that at all, envisaging trading between teams, with drivers being passed around like a tray of cakes.

Away everyone went to South Africa, but when the drivers arrived at Kyalami on the first morning of practice, they found a coach at the paddock entrance, which Lauda and Pironi invited them to board. Some, including Keke Rosberg, were reluctant, but only Jochen Mass refused.

“It was like a high point in Pironi’s life” Keke Rosberg

Once loaded up, the bus set off to Johannesburg, to the Sunnyside Park Hotel, where the drivers installed themselves, while Pironi, at the circuit, negotiated with Jean-Marie Balestre, President of the FISA (then the motorsport arm of the FIA), and Bernie Ecclestone, President of FOCA, these two in agreement for once.

Ecclestone, predictably, had snapped into combat mode from the first: if his Brabham drivers Piquet and Patrese were not on parade for the first session, he said, they were sacked for breach of contract. As 10 o’clock came and went, Nelson and Riccardo, like their colleagues, lounged by the pool, now apparently out of work.

Up at the circuit it was difficult to have too much sympathy for anyone save the spectators, who had not come to look at a deserted track.

Pironi was no more in a mood to compromise than either Balestre or Ecclestone. “It was,” commented Rosberg with evident distaste, “like a high point in his life.” Late in the afternoon the FIA stewards announced the race was to be postponed, and that an application was to be made to suspend the drivers’ licenses.