Derek Warwick at Monza…….a true F1 hero

In the first few years of watching Formula One races on television, BBC coverage with Murray Walker and James Hunt commentating, one of the most memorable races for me was the annual pilgrimage to Monza. More correctly the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, an absolute speed fest of a track – and over the years that the track has hosted Formula One the cars have simply gone faster and faster, even with the intervention of chicanes to break up the flat out nature of the original track.

The 1988 race saw an emotional one-two for the Ferrari team, a matter of days after Enzo Ferrari had passed away, but it is the 1990 event which took place on the 9th September which I was reminded about last weekend. Whilst the footage provided by Italian TV seems very basic compared to the current coverage, the speed of the cars and drivers around the track were just as impressive some 30 years ago.

One driver in the field, Derek Warwick, was enduring a challenging season for the Lotus team. Having been in Formula One since 1981, Derek had driven some front running machinery whilst part of the Renault team, and had raced towards the sharper end of the field on more than one occasion for Arrows, but the 1990 Lotus – Lamborghini was a midfield car at best.

Four top ten finishes had been wrung out of the Lotus in the races before Monza, including a 6th place in Canada and a 5th place finish in Hungary, and on paper the V12 Lamborghini engine had the potential to allow Derek to be closer to the front of the grid in Italy.

12th on the grid, a place behind team mate Martin Donnelly was a strong performance for the team, even if their best efforts were over 3 seconds slower than pole sitter Ayrton Senna in his McLaren – Honda ! Jean Alesi in the Tyrrell 019 proved that its not all about horsepower as somehow he got the car into fifth on the grid, ahead of a both Williams and Benetton cars.

I recently re-watched the race, the BBC coverage on Youtube, in part to test how good or at least accurate my memory of the race was – and Derek managing to flip his car on lap two coming out of Parabolica , the final corner on the track, was exactly as I recall. Murray Walkers commentary is worth a watch of the race alone, but its Derek’s actions following extracting himself from the wrecked Lotus that had stuck in my memory the clearest.

Almost as if nothing major has happened Derek walks across the track and heads back towards the Lotus pit, running down the pitlane, to ensure he can restart the race in the spare car! The crowd in the grandstands opposite the pits applaud his efforts to return to the race as James Hunt acknowledges how good a driver Derek is.

Given that his car hit the outside barrier at around 140 miles per hour, then flipped over, its hard even so many years later to believe that he wasn’t concussed. In the more sterile 2020 world of Formula One, whilst the drivers are better protected in terms of car safety, it is unthinkable that a driver would simply run back to his or her team garage and prepare to restart the race (even if spare cars were allowed….)

Safely strapped into the spare Lotus Derek took the restart in 12th on the grid, lights flashed from red to green and off set the field for a second attempt at completing the grand prix.

Sadly Derek suffered clutch failure on lap 15 so there wasn’t a fairy tale ending to the race for him, and in fact the season for Team Lotus went from bad to worse. Martin Donnelly suffered a life changing crash in practise for the Spanish Grand Prix three weeks later when he suffered a suspension failure.

Derek failed to finish any race following the Italian race, finishing the season 17th in the drivers championship with 3 points. Strong qualifying pace was not translated into race long reliability, and I’m sure in part this contributed towards Derek walking away from Formula One for the 1991 season. A return to the Footwork (Arrows) team in 1993 led to a final season haul of four points, making a career total of 71 points from 147 race starts, including four visits to the podium, but sadly no race victory.

As the current F1 circus heads to Monza in 2020 I’d recommend a trip to Youtube to check out some of the late 1980’s / early 1990’s Monza races. Whilst the red and white McLarens tended to dominate the races, its great to appreciate the speed of the cars heading down to the first chicane, Variante del Rettifilo or coming out of the Parabolica corner.

Today the cars continue to be quicker, but seeing the drivers wrestle their cars round the track and the level of reliability across the grid of the early 1990’s makes watching the race a great deal more interesting in my opinion, even if Senna and Prost are literally miles ahead of the rest of the field.