We've interviewed Stefan Johansson!

[minrdi]

Greetings Jamie and Enoch, and all F1 Rejects readers!

In continuing with my lucky streak interviewing current and former members of the F1 grid, I have just finished interviewing one of my childhood heroes, Stefan Johansson, whose full interview is on the RichardsF1.com website at:

http://richardsf1.com/category/exclusive-interviews/stefan-johansson-exclusive-interviews/

Stefan is the twenty-first in our exclusive interview series - which includes the likes of Mario Andretti, Alan Jones, the Hispania Racing driving quartet, and F1 rejects such as Berg, McNish, Hobbs, Noda, Lavaggi and Apicella, and our most recent interview with Thierry Boutsen.

The full compilation of our driver interviews can be found here: http://richardsf1.com/category/exclusive-interviews/

He will shortly be followed by interviews with Sebastien Buemi and Derek Warwick, whose interviews will be formatted and published in the coming weeks. We have a further ten interviews with current/former drivers and key media figures in the pipeline.

Thanks again for granting me the opportunity to share this and I hope you enjoy reading the interview! Many thanks, Richard

[Aerond]

Great interview, as always!

[Faustus]

Great interview, as we've come to expect from you. Thank you for posting it!

[Phoenix]

I've always thought of Stefan Johansson as an also-ran who had three years of good machinery, but he deserved to win San Marino 1985 through and through.

[Barbazza]

Oh, I don't know. His drive to 4th place in the Toleman in 1984 was pretty awesome, and the fact that he nearly got that dog of a Spirit into the points deserves some credit too!

[Jack O Melley]

I'll never forget his fantastic drive in Imola 1985 grand prix, it was an amazing experience watching his Ferrari #28 overtaking Senna, Prost and De Angelis one after another like bowling pins...

Great Stefan!

[FullMetalJack]

The only driver to score a podium for a reject team, that says it all. That makes him awesome.

[Faustus]

A great driver who drove in Formula 1 for the 2 biggest teams, albeit at a time when they weren't at their best, but he performed admirably with Toleman, Tyrrell and Onyx. And let's not forget, he started and ran a successful team in sportscar racing and CART and he is rare among racing drivers in that he has a genuine knowledge and interest in the history of the sport. He is a very nice guy (which comes across very well in the interview) and very approachable.

[Phoenix]

(...) He is rare among racing drivers in that he has a genuine knowledge and interest in the history of the sport.

I thought every single F1 driver had a genuine knowledge and interest in the history of the sport...

[tommykl]

(...) He is rare among racing drivers in that he has a genuine knowledge and interest in the history of the sport.

I thought every single F1 driver had a genuine knowledge and interest in the history of the sport...

Oh, Phoenix, Phoenix, Phoenix...You are such a naive little boy.

[Faustus]

(...) He is rare among racing drivers in that he has a genuine knowledge and interest in the history of the sport.

I thought every single F1 driver had a genuine knowledge and interest in the history of the sport...

As tommykl said, you'd be amazed mate, you really would...

This is something that I have discussed extensively with my race engineer mates. The vast majority of racing drivers don't take an interest in the history of motorsport, because they feel that to be interested in another driver's performance and achievements undermines their own performance.
Having worked with lots of drivers in different formulae, to an extent I can understand that a driver cannot be too... (how shall I put this) admiring of or beholden to another driver's skill, performance and / or talent, because of the incredible level of self-belief that a racing driver has to have. To succeed as a racing driver you have to have absolute and utter belief in yourself and, frankly, you have to be a bit of a deluded arsehole and believe that you are the absolute best in the world. The 2 Formula 1 drivers that I worked with (1 is a reject) were completely convinced that given the same car, they would be faster than Michael Schumacher.
The big difference between a great driver and a good driver is the ability to suppress the instinct of self-preservation and know that he (or she) can take a corner in a certain gear and speed, despite what his instincts tell him. Also, a great driver has complete and utter belief in what his team's personnel, especially the race engineer, tells him, so for instance, I knew that if I told my driver that he could take a 4th gear corner in 6th gear and I showed him a cooked-up data plot, he would do it, no questions asked, because he knew that if his teammate had done it, he could do it as well.

[Yannick]

Wow, thanks for the article.

[Phoenix]

(...) He is rare among racing drivers in that he has a genuine knowledge and interest in the history of the sport.

I thought every single F1 driver had a genuine knowledge and interest in the history of the sport...

As tommykl said, you'd be amazed mate, you really would...

This is something that I have discussed extensively with my race engineer mates. The vast majority of racing drivers don't take an interest in the history of motorsport, because they feel that to be interested in another driver's performance and achievements undermines their own performance.
Having worked with lots of drivers in different formulae, to an extent I can understand that a driver cannot be too... (how shall I put this) admiring of or beholden to another driver's skill, performance and / or talent, because of the incredible level of self-belief that a racing driver has to have. To succeed as a racing driver you have to have absolute and utter belief in yourself and, frankly, you have to be a bit of a deluded arsehole and believe that you are the absolute best in the world. The 2 Formula 1 drivers that I worked with (1 is a reject) were completely convinced that given the same car, they would be faster than Michael Schumacher.
The big difference between a great driver and a good driver is the ability to suppress the instinct of self-preservation and know that he (or she) can take a corner in a certain gear and speed, despite what his instincts tell him. Also, a great driver has complete and utter belief in what his team's personnel, especially the race engineer, tells him, so for instance, I knew that if I told my driver that he could take a 4th gear corner in 6th gear and I showed him a cooked-up data plot, he would do it, no questions asked, because he knew that if his teammate had done it, he could do it as well.

Well, if I was myself, I wouldn't give a toss if I saw Ayrton Senna's numbers. I would just think something like "If he could do it, me too." I would be interested in it just for the pleasure of it.