Great Motorsport Quotes

[Steve Holmes]

Motor racing is an emotional sport. The object of teams and drivers giving 100%, putting in insanely long hours, all in an effort to be first to the chequer, can bring out the best and worst in people. Sometimes people say things in the heat of the moment they might not normally say. But that is part of the sport, and something the media and fans thrive on.

Motor racing also has more than its fare share of larger than life figures, show-men, and silver tongued characters to whom the fans hang off every word.

The sport has produced some classic quotes over the years, and although the media and sponsorship pressures in modern motorsport are increasingly shaping drivers into robots who carefully pick and choose what they say, and limit their words and emotions to avoid getting themselves into hot water, The Roaring Season is a historic website, and one which celebrates history, and all the larger than life characters of the past who weren't suffocated by the limitations brought about by political correctness.

So how about a thread dedicated to great racing quotes.

I'll kick off with one of my favourites, Aussie Kevin Bartlett, at Bathurst in 1981, when his Channel 9 Camaro was punched off the track and out of a potential race win when he collided with the Commodore of Ron Wanless when coming up to lap him.

Back in the pits, as his team set about trying to repair the damage, and with a fuming Bartless still sitting in the car, tv commentator Evan Green thought it would be a good time to get KBs thoughts:

"Its just a complete and utter amateur nincompoop got in the way and turned right, just went straight across my path and put me straight in the fence and I took him, mate, that guy has to be black flagged, I'm going to punch him in the mouth when the race is over!".

[AMCO72]

Good one Steve.......these should fill up a page or two.

Jody Schecter............Some of these drivers think their mirrors are for shaving!!

[pallmall]

I'll kick off with one of my favourites, Aussie Kevin Bartlett, at Bathurst in 1981, when his Channel 9 Camaro was punched off the track and out of a potential race win when he collided with the Commodore of Ron Wanless when coming up to lap him. Back in the pits, as his team set about trying to repair the damage, and with a fuming Bartless still sitting in the car, tv commentator Evan Green thought it would be a good time to get KBs thoughts:

"Its just a complete and utter amateur nincompoop got in the way and turned right, just went straight across my path and put me straight in the fence and I took him, mate, that guy has to be black flagged, I'm going to punch him in the mouth when the race is over!".

The conclusion to this one was far from a punch in the mouth, but rather a back down by KB when he was told that the other driver was Ron Wanless, speedway driver, and former pro boxer, and a bit larger than KB.

[Murray Maunder]

"Gentleman Jim" Richards on winning Bathurst in the Nissan Skyline was booed and jeered on the podium by the (Holden/Ford, delete which doesn't apply) fans. Taking the microphone "You're nothing but a pack of assholes, this one's going to stay with me a long time!"

I like Aussie forthrightness but not their parochialism like booing before a player takes a penalty kick or as they come onto the field. I thought motorsport fans had better sportsmanship but obviously not, that was a deserved roasting by one of the good guys of motorsport.

[Steve Holmes]

Paul Hawkins at a press conference at the 1968 Sebring 12 hour, after his John Wyer GT40 was eliminated by the AMC Javelin of Janet Guthrie and Liane Engeman. Engeman had outbraked herself and nearly stopped on the track, and was hit by a Porsche 911, right behind which was the Hawkins/David Hobbs GT40 which was comfortably leading the race, and which collected the Porsche.

Hawkins was quoted as saying: "The bloody awful girls are not remotely qualified to go motor racing. The bloody birds were all over the bloody road. Birds belong either in the bloody kitchen or the bloody bedroom, and if they're no good in the kitchen, send them back to the bloody bedroom. They were only in it for the publicity".

[AMCO72]

I suspect Steve that by quotable quotes ,you meant something a bit more substantial than one liners, but some of those hit the nail on the head so to speak. This one from an unrecorded GP driver.........Some drivers used to believe in God, now they think they are God!!

[Shano]

The oft-repeated motorcycle quote, which was originated by Mike Hailwood as far as I know.

"Which way does the track go and what's the lap record?"

[beowulf]

The oft-repeated motorcycle quote, which was originated by Mike Hailwood as far as I know.

"Which way does the track go and what's the lap record?"

I think that the quote was a Croz one liner.
Wasn"t it Bernie Ecclestone who suggested that woman should be dressed in white to match the kitchen.

[Shano]

Nope, Croz borrowed it, as have many people over the years but as far as I know Hailwood was the original.

[AMCO72]

Something a bit closer to home........Alan Grice 1986........'I drive as hard as I possibly can, all the time, and damn the machinery'

[bry3500]

FRANK GARDNER

I never wanted to be the fastest driver in the world, just the oldest", and regarding Porsche 917, "The computer reckoned 8 inch tyres were wide enough, but the computer wasn't trying to steer the thing around the Eifel Mountains".

I know, I've been there and done that. I can't see the logic of a bloke earning good money here wanting to go to America to get his backside blown off.”
On whingers - "If you want to complain, go buy yourself a Labrador. A good listening dog the Labrador: nice tail action...."
On the past - "We usually find, the older we get, the better we were"
On the Porsche 917 - "I didn't want to be the quickest bloke in motor racing , just the oldest. And that car was certainly going to interefere with those plans "
On himself - "It's not that I am better than these people, it's just that experience allows you to spot the warning signals earlier"
'After my first practice lap, I tore up my victory speech' !!
From the 1985 Bathurst 1000, when both his cars ended up in the sand trap at the same corner, “Hero to Zero in nothing flat”.

One that has stuck with me was one of the Porsche cars with a gauge on the dash with a constant pressure reading, when Frank enquired from one of the German engineers whether the gauge was correct/broken etc the reply went something like this.... Herr Gardner,when the gauge drops to zero you shall drive the wagen very slowly back to the garage, that gauge is the pressure contained in the chassis tubes & if the pressure drops it means the chassis is broken,.... Franks reply was along the lines of....'' stuff that ,if that bloody gauge even flickers Ill park the bloody car & walk back to the pits!!

[bry3500]

Denis Hulme
"Teretonga Park? It wasn't the end of the world. But you could definitely see it from there. It was a good place if you liked penguins."

[bry3500]

You might not think that's cricket, and it's not, it's motor racing.
Murray Walker
I will drive flat out all the time. I love racing.
Gilles Villeneuve
Running an airline is a normal job. Racing is more.
Niki Lauda
Anything happens in Grand Prix racing, and it usually does.
Murray Walker ( again)

[bry3500]

Keke Rosberg is as calculating as a slot machine.
Louis T. Stanley
Nelson Piquet looks like a jockey being strapped into his car. Alan Jones looks like a commando on his way to Vietnam.
Charlie Crichton Stuart

Nigel Mansell is so brave, but such a moaner. He should have 'He Who Dares Whines' embroidered on his overalls.
Simon Barnes The Times (1993)
On receiving an OBE from the British government- When I drove for British teams ... they called me The Tadpole' because I was too small to be a frog.
Alain Prost (1994)
On starting from the back of the grid- My dad once said that you meet a much nicer class of person there, but I'm not sure.
Damon Hill (1993)
The best classroom of all times was about two car lengths behind Juan Manuel Fangio.
Stirling Moss

"Oh, we're just looking for the ear"
- Niki Lauda replying to somebody asking what the former world champion was doing back at the site of the 1976 accident that nearly killed him at the Norschleife circuit.

Once an accident has started happening, you've just got enough time to say 'Sh*t, I'm having a shunt!'
James Hunt
"Christ - I used to complain that this thing was underpowered, I must have been mad"
- Chris Amon after driving a 1970's F1 car up the hill at Goodwood.
"Break a leg"
- Grid Girl at 1999 British GP offering some 'advice' to Michael Schumacer pre-race. A few hours later Michael was in a hospital and his leg was in plaster, following an early race shunt

Never think of your car as a cold machine, but as a hot-blooded horse.
Juan Manuel Fangio (1958)

"Aerodynamics is for those who cannot manufacture good engines"
- Enzo Ferrari.
"Rene Arnoux is coming into the pits ... lets stop the startwatch"
- Murray Walker,( Again again)

"Anyone who doesn't speak English isn't worth speaking to"
- Bernie Ecclestone.

"The car is such a dog we should have tied it to the fence"
- Dick Johnson, former Australian Touring Car Champion, discusses an obviously less than brilliant vehicle....
When a V8 gets running bad, it's like it's in labour. It's only a matter of time before everything goes.
A. J. Foyt (1976)

[bry3500]

"Flavio would not recognise a diffuser even if it were stuffed with money." - Frank Williams

Interviewer: Mika, Jean Alesi said that going through Eau Rouge flat out is like having an orgasm, what do you think about it?
Häkkinen: I think Jean is sh***ing his pants and mixing up those feelings

"A lot depends on Carlos (Reutemann)'s mood. If he feels like winning, then he goes like the Argentine air-force. If he feels unhappy, then he fades away like the Argentine army."Clive James

"A weekend isn't a weekend unless you're in a flame-retardant suit."
(no idea who said it, but I´d love to know)

Murray : And there are flames coming from the back of Prost's
car as he enters the swimming pool!
James Hunt: Well that should put them out then!

We make history - you only write about it" - Ron Dennis to journalists

"On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit'. And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high." ( Guess who?)

"Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting. " -Michael Delaney (Steve McQueen) in Le Mans

[bry3500]

Innes Ireland describing a crash he had at Monaco in the fragile Lotus when as usual something broke causing a crash...'came out of the tunnel minus the bloody car...'

"...as the day went on, all the horsepower sort of dribbled out the exhaust pipe".Dick Johnson,

Johnny Rutherford, Bathurst 1977, on the topic of the Mt Panorama circuit, which he was seeing from behind the wheel of a Ron Hodgson Torana:

When you leave the pits, you've got balls like melons... when you get back down off the Mountain, they're like raisins

More from Frank Gardner and the Porshe 917
"The chassis flexed so much that the position of the gearchange was never the same twice in a row. You'd reach out for the lever and it wasn't there anymore. I was asked to drive it at Le Mans, the money was great too, but I told them 'I never wanted to be the quickest bloke in motor racing - just the oldest- and that Porsche was going to interfere with my plans.

"Then there was the engine. You had about 300 horsepower at 5000 revs, and then between 5000 and 6000 you picked up another 300! So it was a bit of delight, really, and it was on narrow nine-inch rims all round. The computer had said that nine-inch rims would make the car very quick in a straight line, but the computer wasn't strapped in the bloody seat up in the Eifel mountains, where you tend to get the odd corner...

"David did one lap at the Nurburgring and said he was too young to die. It snowed and poured, the car was snapping sideways and aquaplaning at the same time. It was one of the few times I extended my concentration levels above and beyond what I possessed, but we finished 5th".

"Late one Friday in 1969 the telephone rang. Hello Frank, this is Husche (von Hanstein). We would like you to drive our new car at the Nurburgring 1,000 kilometres this weekend. I said I was busy and recommended he call Brian Redman. 'Brian has had a crash, and is in hospital.' Jo Siffert was my next suggestion. 'Jo has had a crash and is in hospital.' 'What the bloody hell is going on there?' Our new car is not easy to drive, Frank' - and he wasn't kidding!

"I did not win - I merely finished first. The just and deserving winner is Nuvolari, the greatest racing driver in the world." – Clemente Biondetti.[

"You do things, you fuck people, it's racing." – Niki Lauda.

[beowulf]

I think that the quote was a Croz one liner.
Wasn"t it Bernie Ecclestone who suggested that woman should be dressed in white to match the kitchen.

You are right Shano, I apologise for doubting you. It is on the back cover of Croz's very readable book

[Malcolm McLeod]

Each patch on his overalls, Keke is fond of saying, represents a house. He has lots of patches. I mentioned another driver, a far lesser light in Formula 1, but a man of considerable height. Imagine, I said, if you were that tall, how many personal sponsors' names you could accommodate on a driving suit.
"You're right!" he responded at once. "Maybe I should get myself stretched to his height. What's more," he added, "if I drove at his speed, you'ld be able to read them....."

Nigel Roebuck, "Grand Prix Greats", about Keke Rosberg.

[rf84]

Alan Moffat (never much liked by most Ozzie fans) at Sandown 1975. Moffat and Geoghegan were interviewed before the race. Moffat was boasting about what he was going to achieve with his brand new Capri. After the race (in which he was third) they were interviewed again. Moffat was full of excuses saying "if I had been allowed to run my wide tyres and if I had been allowed to run the fuel injection and if this had happened and----( a whole lot of "ifs" followed) I would have won. Geoghegan could be clearly heard saying "Yeah and if your aunty had balls she'd be your uncle!" The cheers of the Ozzie fans was deafening.

[rf84]

Alan Jones when asked if he had ever heard of Kenny Smith. "Hell yeah I knew Ken back in the days when sex was safe and motor racing was dangerous!"