Not another cockpit!:
by Gerhard Berger.
F1 Racing, December 1996.

Things have been pretty quiet since Japan. It's been good to relax a while at home and spend some time with the family.
People are always asking me what I do to take my mind off Formula 1, and of course being at home is the best way. But during the season, when I'm always travelling, I do find flying my own aircraft a very pleasant distraction too. Flying is a completely diffferent world to F1 but, at the same time, there are also a lot of similarities. It demands a lot of concentration and keeps your mind pretty sharp, so in that way it's actually quite good training for the day job - as well as excellent therapy.

I first bought a little business jet after I joined the McLaren team in 1990. Back then, it was just to keep up with my increasingly busy schedules, which often simply weren't feasible by commercial transport. Particularly if you wanted to live away from the big cities. I used to sit in the back and had no interest in actually flying the aeroplane - despite the fact that my father had a little single-engine plane, and my sister also had a pilot's licence. Then I started to fly my father's plane a bit, and suddenly I was hooked!

I got my licence and then, a couple of years ago, took my instrument licence as well. Once you've got one of those, you can fly seriously in any weather. I started taking the controls of my jet under the watchful eye of my full-time pilot and now, unless I'm really tired, I do most of the flying wherever we go. It's not hard to understand why so many racing drivers take up flying - even if we don't all push it as far as Niki Lauda and run our own airline! Martin Brundle and Eddie Irvine both fly themselves around in helicopters, while other drivers like Michael Schumacher and Heinz-Harald Frentzen have their own jets, although they don't really have time to learn to fly them at the moment. Believe me, it takes time: all those different aircraft, the instrument training - that's why so many drivers prefer to sit in the back.

Alain Prost had the same problem while he was driving, but as soon as he stopped racing, one of the first things he did was learn to fly. Like anything else, the more you get into it, the more enjoyable it becomes, and he's another big fan. As for me, who knows? Maybe when I stop racing I'll get a job flying for Lauda Air. After all, I've got some pretty good contacts.....

We're starting to get the first falls of snow in the Austrian alps now, and that means another one of my favourite pursuits: going on long cross-country skiing treks. It's a great way to keep fit, and at the same time recharge the mental batteries which gradually get run down after a hectic season of racing. What a contrast with F1 it is to stand all alone on top of a mountain in freshly fallen snow with a great view, breathing in clean crisp air that tingles in your nostrils. F1 is so intense these days that we all need a distraction. Even someone as intense as Ayrton had to switch off for a few months over the winter and go and enjoy himself on his island in Brazil, to make sure he was back on form for the rigours of the season ahead.

Talking of 1997, I understand that Damon Hill is due to get his first taste of Bridgestone rubber just about now. With the top teams all signed up for Goodyear, I doubt they are too worried about the Bridgestone threat but, as we all know, things change really fast and, if Bridgestone come up with a winning tyre, there could be a lot of teams tempted to try them if they are able.

It certainly adds another interesting twist to next season. The fact we have no major regulation changes for 1997 will be good for some and not for others. It should allow more teams to close up the technology gap on the leaders, and there will certainly be a lot closer racing. I would be very surprised to see one team dominate and win 12 races the way Williams did this year. Ferrari are going to be strong right from the word go this time and, in the same way, I think here at Benetton we've got to be looking to win from the first race of the season. Last year both teams had a complete change of drivers, and it always takes time to settle in and work together as a single unit.

But by the end of the season, things were going much better for us. I was working a lot more easily with the team and they with me. Now I'm really looking forward to next year. Hopefully, we will go to the first race with a lot less unknowns and a package that's ready to win. Unfortunately, it will probably be a similar story at Ferrari and McLaren. I just hope that Renault's latest engine is so much better than their rivals that the rest of the field has a problem keeping up with us and Williams!

--End of Article--

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