the excitement of the first Formula 1 race of the season palled when I heard about the death of Charlie Whiting on Thursday morning.
To say it was a shock would be an understatement and I kept reading it with the hope that it was a misprint or misinformation from the other side of the world. Tragically, it wasn't.
Charlie was two years younger than me and I knew him from when he started in Formula 1. I didn't realise it at the time but I actually knew him before his F1 days.
I came over from Ireland in 1972 and lived in Swanley Village, just down the road from Brands Hatch where I worked as a mechanic for Motor Racing Stables. Just across the road from the circuit was All Car Equipe, which was owned by Charlie's brother Nick. It was the place to go to get all the motorsport gadgets and I often frequented his shop.
Charlie was the one person that - through all of the changes we've seen over the past 40 years - maintained his cool and focus to keep F1 at the cutting edge. As anyone will say about him, he was fair, honest and hard - and all at the same time.
He had a tough job because, in reality, he only had to make decisions when there was a problem. He never got thanked for handing out penalties or fines to the drivers or teams, only abuse.
During my time as technical director with Jordan and Stewart Grand Prix, he was the man who would haul you up if he didn't think you were going about things in the right manner.
I remember with the Jordan 191, he was the one to come and observe all the crash tests. In those days for a new team this was no easy task, but it had to be done - and when we did the nose impact test it was very scary, to say the least. But Charlie was there to calm us down with his smile and when we passed it we were all smiling. He said that the day before he'd been at another crash test with a French team and when they passed it the technical director came over and kissed him full on the mouth. He said he was worried I might do the same!
When we were at Monaco in 1991 with the Jordan there were a lot of rumours going around that the floor on our car was flexing too much. So I went to Charlie and asked him what he thought. He said it's more important what I thought, so I said we wouldn't be racing it if we didn't think it was legal. He then came to have a look.
As the poacher at Brabham they would come up with some fairly interesting rule interpretations
It was long before the FIA had all the deflection equipment it deploys today, so he stood on the side of the floor and said, 'It seems all right to me,' so that was the end of discussion. Little did he know we weren't using the flexing floor at Monaco. Only joking...
One that went against us was in Aida in 1994. We just had our first podium finish with Barrichello in third place. Michael Schumacher won in the Benetton, but I'd noticed earlier that they had mounted the bargeboards with a bracket at the front and one at the rear, meaning that between the bottom of the bargeboard and the underfloor was an opening.
Now, the regulations defined that the underfloor must be impervious and as all of this assembly was on the same flat floor plane, to me that opening contravened the regulations. We protested it and in the end lost.
On that day, Charlie's opinion was that the flat floor area that was left was impervious. Still to this day, this interpretation confuses me as the dictionary clearly states the definition of impervious means you can't pass water through it. To me, by the Aida interpretation a sieve must be impervious.
He was the poacher turned gamekeeper. As the poacher at Brabham they would get up to some fairly interesting rule interpretations. He didn't start there until 1978, by which time I'd moved to McLaren, but I was there from '73 so it was good to see that he kept up the Brabham tradition of pushing everything to the limit and on many occasions just that little bit beyond - just as I had done.
By being involved in that, it put him in good stead to make sure that in his new role with the FIA, no-one was pulling the wool over his eyes. Charlie was involved directly with writing the rules and because of this he knew them inside out. If a team thought they had found a grey area they could ask for the FIA's opinion.
Charlie was a spannerman. In the years since he put them down things changed a lot, but he was behind most of those changes - so had a good handle on how things worked. If he didn't understand it, he would go and find out
In effect, this was his opinion. But since we, the teams, all thought we had the best ideas we wouldn't always be completely honest with him! But he could usually see through that and would end up asking a question that meant you needed to put everything on the table to explain it. From that, he would make his judgement and let you know if you could go down that route or not.
After Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna's fatal accidents at Imola in 1994, the safety of Formula 1 was questioned and both FIA president Max Molsey and Bernie Ecclestone worked together to set up a technical working group. This worked with Charlie to find solutions for improving safety.
Some of the changes made mid-season to reduce the performance of the cars were for the good, while others such as temporary chicanes were a little more questionable - something Charlie himself later admitted.
But from all that, Charlie and Professor Sid Watkins worked together tirelessly with their people. It's down to their focus and commitment that Formula 1 is safer than it was.
Some say 'too safe' but I don't agree. The risk to drivers should be losing a race or a practice session, not their lives.
Another thing Charlie was very good at was keeping those working group meetings focused. When you have a group of technical directors together, everyone has their own vested interests at heart so it's very easy to get led astray. Normally he set an agenda and at the beginning everyone would contribute to that. From there he would steer the course but was also open enough to follow a new direction if a suggestion led that way.
As a technical manager he would have been an excellent addition to any team. But with his inside knowledge of what everyone was up to that would not have been a good solution for the others. I'm pretty sure that in the early '00s a few offers were made to him, which meant both Bernie and the FIA had to step in and put a contract in place that both rewarded him for the job he was doing and eliminated any chance of a team poaching him.
Like me, Charlie came through from being a spannerman. In the 40 years since he put them down things have changed a lot, but he was responsible for instigating most of those changes. So he had a good handle on how things worked and how they should work. If he didn't understand it, he would go off and find out.
I've never chatted to him about anything that he didn't have a very good grasp of. Charlie, it was a pleasure to know you and to work with you. Formula 1 is all the poorer for losing you. My heartfelt sympathies go to your family. RIP.
As for the Australian Grand Prix weekend, well I think the new regulations did allow cars to follow closer for longer, but overtaking was still at a premium.
Valtteri Bottas in his Mercedes just dominated race day. He wasn't far off Hamilton in qualifying so it was the perfect start to his season. This year is a big one for him and he needs to keep this up. The win and fastest lap will have improved his confidence tenfold.
The main talking point was Ferrari - what has happened to it since testing? Every man and his dog thought Ferrari would - at the very minimum - be biting at Mercedes' heels but not so. It will go away very disappointed but more importantly confused. This is now the time for Mattia Binotto to work out if he is a team principal or a technical director.
The tifosi will want answers for why they were also-rans in Melbourne. In the race, Ferrari was about a second slower per lap than Bottas. Yes, Albert Park is a bit of a one-off circuit but if you're going to fight for the championship you need to be pretty good at all styles of circuits and Ferrari just wasn't there.
Perhaps it just made a set-up error so we may need a couple more races before we see a trend, but coming away from Melbourne it looks like Mercedes surprised everyone - itself included.
Once again, Max Verstappen in the Red Bull did a very good job. Would we have been able to tell if it had a Renault engine or a Honda engine in the back if we didn't know? Probably not so.
At the minimum Red Bull hasn't lost anything and I actually think it has gained a little bit here and there. It's a good starting point, but now more is needed to close the gap to whoever is the leading team at the next race.
The customary gap to the midfield was there, but that group of teams were all running closer which is good for the racing. But the advantage of the leading teams is too big. Williams is bringing up the rear and was the only team that was slower than last year, so considering it was right at the back last season things aren't looking very good.
Both George Russell and Robert Kubica deserve better, so it's time to burn the midnight oil at Grove.
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