At the end of the 1985 season, we interviewed a young Englishman who had just finished his first full campaign in cars, following a few years on motorbikes interspersed with some four-wheel outings.
He had won a handful of Formula Ford 1600 races but not set the world on fire as Mark Blundell dominated.
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He reflected: “In another year, in slightly different circumstances, I might have won more. I’m sure it was [due to] my inexperience at the beginning of the year, when I was trying too hard.
“If nothing else, you learn survival [in Formula Ford]. You can take people up the inside, but if you want to make sure you get your points for a good finish in the championship, then you’ve got to think about it and make sure you do the right thing. And I think that’s a very important lesson. If you don’t learn that, then you go into Formula 3 or Formula Ford 2000 with the same attitude – forget about the championship, I’m going to pass that guy, and I’m going to do it now – and you just have bigger and bigger accidents.”
Following a test with Eddie Jordan’s Formula 3 outfit, our man was excited to step up; and after two anonymous UK campaigns, he finished third in 1988.
Back to 1985, and he told us: “I’m serious about getting to Formula 1 on the strengths of my performances; I wouldn’t want to do it just because I had masses of sponsorship. I’m not prepared to just be in the way out there and get called a ‘mobile chicane’ or ‘the idiot’ by James Hunt.”
Itching to discover if this young racer achieved his lofty goal? Well, you might have heard of him - it’s Damon Hill..
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