I Should Be So Lucky?:
by JKate Taylor.
F1 Racing, June 1998 issue.

Formula 1 is a dangerous sport, an 'on the limit', 'need that little bit extra' kind of sport. Not the little bit extra that comes
from poring over pages of telemetry or spending long hours in the gym....but from pulling on a pair of old pants. From time to time there's a tragic reminder that Formula 1 drivers are not immortal, and many of them feel the need to rely on the something extra that comes from being superstitious: a lucky mascot, a certain piece of clothing. a special pre-race routine.

The Drivers:

New boy Alex Wurz has the well-documented superstition of always going racing with one red boot on (the left) and one blue boot, after he won a race early in his career odd boots because his team-mate had hidden the other red one as a practical joke. Similarly strange is that David Coulthard only ever gets into his McLaren right foot first, from the left-hand side. Stranger still is that this season Jacques Villeneuve is racing with two little Super Mario-type 'cartoon ment' stickers on his dashboard, which he asked to be put on the Williams in Melbourne. Apparently, they're there for luck, though whether it's for luck before the race or during it is debatable, since one says 'Love' and the other says ' Fuck'.....

Johnny Herbert has worn lucky pants on race day in the past and Coulthard has succumbed to this too, being a lucky pant devotee since his early racing days. Apparently DC's pants got so old they fell apart due to over-use and couldn't be worn 'properly', so they had to be put over his fireproof long johns, a la Superman.

The Mechanics:

Lots of the mechanices, who at the end of the day are not risking their lives on the track, are just as superstitious. They do it for luck to win and the luck to bring their driver home safely - although it seems to be a practice that is kept quiet, mainly due to the fear of "having the piss taken out of you" by the rest of the team. For the Formula 1 mechanics that do admit to being superstitious, lucky clothing features high on the list. Bob Davis, Heinz-Harald Frentzen's number-one mechanice, has a lucky pair of underpants, and Paul West, Frentzen's engine mechanic, has a lucky T-shirt. Both wear them on race day under their fireproof suits. Jacques' boys are less superstitious, which could account for Frentzen's superior performance in the first three races.

When Michael Schumacher won his first world championship in 1994 and then a second in 1995, it might not have been the advanced engineering of Benetton Formula or the crafty manoeuvres of the German driver. Perhaps it was thanks to a couple of pairs of boxer shorts? They mechanics on Schumacher's car all wore 'lucky race-day pants'. And the criteria for these pants? Just that the wearer had to have been 'lucky' in them before....These days, Kenny Handkammer, a member of Schuey's lucky pan' team and now Fisichella's number-two mechanic, reckons that if anyone else do anything superstitious they keep it to themselves.

The Teams:

Lucky pant-wearing team members can also be found in both the Tyrrell and McLaren pit garages, but last year the McLaren boys, clearly influenced by the superior standards of engineering around them, tried the high-tech tactic of hiding a small child's toy in the car to improve its chances of crossing the finish line first. 'Brian the plastic snail' was secreted in Mika Hakkinen's McLaren by his mechanics at races last season, often without the driver's knowledge. After a sequence of disappointing 'nearly wins' for the flying Finn, Brian's retirement at Austria was inevitable. He was removed from the car, ceremoniously doused in petrol (drained from the fuel tank of Mika's MP4-12), and cremated in the pitlane at the Osterreichring after the boys packed up. Now Mika's car is snail-less, he is winning all the time - which surely goes to show that it was Brian, rather than the unreliable Mercedes engines, who was to blame for Hakkinen's bad luck.

The Sauber team also had a mascot in the garage last season, though they're not so naive as to rely on a simple, plastic toy. Instead, suspended from the roof of the pit garage about the cars they hung....a lucky troll. A bit further up the pitlane, Eddie Jordan says he doesn't believe in all that either. Presumably he's covered by 'The luck of the Irish', a national policy. However, try interviewing EJ in the pits before the cars have passed the chequered flag and he won't have much to say, a superstition born out of an interview he once gave at the end of a race, only for his podium-placed car to coast to a halt on the last lap.

On the other hand, some other teams deny being superstitious at all. At Arrows, team manager John Walton says that none of the boys does anything special for luck, while at Stewart there is also scepticism about underwear preference improving the car's performance. In Melbourne, the team worked into the night, every night, few mechanics getting no sleep at all, only to lose both cars by lap two of the race. This may explain why some team members feel that there's just no point in being superstitious. "We're not stupid. We know it's going to take more than a sticker on the car to get it around the track at the moment, let alone to the finish", explained one. Although it is much cheaper thank a new carbon gearbox.

Maybe those who don't believe in superstition have got a point. It's ironic that in the most technologically advanced sport, some of the key players rely on a lucky sticker or a pair of boots to help them feel ready to race. Or that mechanics skilled enough to put together such critically engineered cars believe that wearing special pants will help give them the edge. But human nature decrees that if you're going to do something dangerous, you need a bit of luck; and if you're going to fly by the seat of your pants, they may as well be your luckiest pair.

Sub article:
Superstition is Nothing New:

F1 drivers have been superstitious for as long as cars have crashed and engines have let go within sight of the finish line...

* As a result of his Formula Ford shunt at Brands Hatch in 1977, Nigel Mansell always insisted on using the same neck brace after the accident. He is also said to be very twitchy about other people touching his helmet before a race (apart from Roseanne, obviously).

* Like David Coulthard, Aussie world champion Alan Jones had a lucky pair of underpants that racked up a considerable amount of mileage with him in his Williams. In the end they got so worn out that they had to be stitched together with patches.

* Seventies Brabham driver Carlos Pace used to race with a large arrow design on his helmet - that is, until a Mexican witch doctor told him that the arrow was a bad sign and would bring him bad luck. So, Carlos duly redesigned the arrow logo into a letter T-shape. He started the 1977 season well, with a second place in the Argentine Grand Prix, but was killed soon afterwards in a light plane accident in Brazil.

* Former Tyrrell driver Stefano Modena used to drive with one of his racing gloves inside out.

* Stefan Johansson started off racing with a black helmet, but he changed it to a very dark blue when he was told having a black helmet wasn't the best omen for a long career in the sport.

--End of Article--

_______________________________________________________________________________________________