Yes Marco
The MX race was quite good and fun of course the organizers lacked a little experince.
Keke Rosberg was not so very popular in his home country for sure when he drove Formula Vee Volkswagen based Formulas. The chassis were made in Finland. But Keke moved to Germany and became fluent in the German language. He became a World Champion in Formula 1 by taking the fifth place in the last GP in Las Vegas on Ceasar’s Palace parking slot. Keke, whose real name was Keijo, had some luck when winning the World Champion Ship because the French Ferrari Driver Didier Pironi had to retire from Formula One a little earlier after a nasty crash in Germany with Alain Prost in a Renault.
Before that another fast and famous Ferrari driver the Canadian Gilles Villeneuve driver lost his life in a crash with German Jochen Mass in a March car..
Before the race John Watson with a McLaren was a few points behind and he had to win the race and Keke must be outside (max 7) in the race. The race was won by Michel Alboretto in a Tyrell Car. Watson was second and Keke fifth and world champion despite that he only won one race that year. And that was in the Swiss GP that was driven in France Dijon because Formula One is forbidden in Switzerland.
Keke drove a few years more but his next best race season gave him a bronze. He finished his carrier in Australia leading the race when his tire exploded. He was a rather good driver but had a very aggressive riding style and that consumed his car (and the gasoline) during the last years.
But since this is supposed to be a two wheel thread I must tell You that Keke probably still owns a oval piston HONDA NSR motorbike in his garage in Monaco. And they are expensive….
But funny to hear that Your dad have raced with him.
During his career he drove for Theodore Racing Hong Kong owned by a funny billionaire Teddy Yip whose money….Then it Was Wolf Racing, ATS, SKOL sponsored Fittipaldi Cars, Saudi Arabia sponsored TAG Williams, Ending up in Marlboro sponsored Honda Engine McLarens or was it a Porsche designed TAG engine.
But the Formula one is a rather dirty business, there has always been a lot of big money in involved which origin is a little doubtful. Teddy Yip maybe one and there are many more. The Belgian Investment Banker Pierre Van Rossem was another one with his Onyx team. Unfortunally after having swindled a fortune from shareholders and Sponsors his team and his investment company went down and he went to jail in 1989.
In 1992 half of the Larousse team was sold to a German businessman called Rainer Walldorf. Unfortunally somebody found out that his real name was Klaus Walz and he was on that name wanted by Interpol for some murders and other Monkeybusiness.
Rainer Walldorf/Laus Walz wasn’t Gerard Larrousse’s only unfortunate business partners. On first entering Formula One it had been with a Didier Calmels who promptly shot and killed his wife, having caught with her lover.
The Benetton team manager Flavio Briatore was also a man with a little special background, He started as businessman and had som sucess. He was a successful manager for Benetton in the USA and in that way he could use the Benetton Family”s billions to set up the very successful Benetton Formula one team. A driver named Michael Schumacher was employed…
But before that Flavio Biatore had some hidden secrets. He was hired my the Catalinian mafia in his young days to bring rich people to their illegal casinos on the French Riviera. Among them was a guy called Atilio Dutto for whom Flavio had worked before. Atilio got a little upset because he lost his fortune at the Casino and he planned to take revenge. Unfortunally for him a car bomb exploded under his car…
Flavio continued to run an illegal Casino in Milano still in the 1980:s was caught and got a jail sentence but escaped to the Virgin Islands. Now he was good friend with the Italian Socialist party boss who became Premier Bettino Crax who gave Briattore amnesty Unfortunally for Crax he got a jail sentence of 30 years for corruption and must escape to his villa mansion in Tunisia. There he died under the protection of Tunisian Tyranny President Ben Ali, Ben Ali on the other hand had to escape quite recently from also a thirty years life sentence and some angry Tunisian protesters to a silent and safe place in Saudi-Arabia. The boys learn from each other…
But Flavio never gave up, he run his Formula one team with great success and at the same time he was agent for some very successful riders in the Formula One world, one of them named Fernando Alonso’ But he was given a life ban from motorsport by F.I,A, (Federation Internationale d’ Automobiles) F.I.A is the one who “Govern” the “sport side of Formula 1m, Bernie Ecclestone runs the Business Formula one. The ban was given after a crash in Singapore GP race in 2008 were Briattore ordered Nelson Piquet junior to arrange a crash so that Alonso could win the race. That is real Sportmanship…
But Flavio fights back in courts and against F.I.A. That caused the retirement of FIA:s longtime president Max Mosley. For some strange reason a without permit but not fake video was released by magazine People of The World. On that video Max Mossley is quite naked but the prostitutes wear German Nazi uniforms and Max Mosley seems to like the treatment despite maybe some pain…After that video he had to retire partly also because his Father had been the German minded English Naziparty boss during the wars…But Max Mosley is fighting in the courts to get compensation and with some success. Private life and sexual desires are private….
And Flavio Briattore continues also. He got quite recently a dauther with the famous model Heidi Klumi who was Flavio”s girlfriend for a while.Flavio also runs some funny “Billionaires clubs” and in Kenya where he has had a mansion for some twenty years he is building a twenty house complex where all the owners will only be able to buy the houses after invitation from Flavio. Price of minor importance… Just some time ago he flew there with his private Jet to show the houses for former Italian Prime Silvio Berlusconi. They stayed there for one week and maybe it is possible for Berlusconi to arrange those famous Hula Hula parties at the swimming pool with under aged girls….
But FIA is not so clean either even now under former rally and Ferrari boss Todt. The FIA vice president 73 year old Spaniard Carlos Cracia just lost his driving license after being driving drunk for the third time…
And there are newcomers to the Formula one circus. One new sponsor for Mc-Laren will be Carlos Slim from Mexico the World’s richest man at the moment. He already finances the Mexican Formula 1 riders McLarens Sergio Perez and Saubers newcomer Mexican Esteban Gutierrez, Carlos Slim has made a fortune in telecommunications. Anyhow when I hear the country name Mexico I start to think about corruption and drug cartels but of course Carlos Slim has made his fortunes in a honorable way.
One reason why I am a little skeptical when Mexico is involved in Formula One is that there was a Mexican Team in the late 1980:s. It was called GLAS coming from the owners Gonzales Luna Associates. He succeeded to get Lamborghini involved and when investors heard that name money started to float in. But for some strange reason the businessman named Fernando Gonzales Luna disappeared with the money and he has never been found.
Another very colorful figure in the Formula One business was Lord Hesketh from a rather rich family. As a young boy he went to the Us and studied investment banking. From there he went to Hong Kong and was a shipbroker for a short time. Then he went back to his Family”s estate in England, got bored and started to invest the family money into Hesketh Racing, they were in the Formula One business for quite a few year, he bought the best engineers on the market and I think they made a factory on one of his home estate. And the cars were not so bad. He knew some of the con artist from the Formula One world and they helped to get rid of his family’s money. His best achievement was actually that he found the very talent rider James Hunt who used to crash the cars quite frequently. But Lord Heketh had money to build a new car every time. Then McLaren bought James Hunt and then Hesketh Racing started to decline. He manufactured cars for some years more, rented many to privateers on a race to race basis fee, I think that some of his technicians went away and started the ATS Formula One Team and something ended up in a Canadia Oil millionaires Wolf Team.
But Lord Heketh brought the Flamboyant style to Formula one as long as he had money. He flew to the races with a Bell Helicopter, in Monaco he lived either on his own Yacht or in a even bigger rented yacht. He drove in the paddock with a Rolls Royce sitting himself inside slipping Champange.
Lord Hesketh was also involved in Motorcycle manufacturing. He created a quite beautiful Hesketh V2 bike and the plans were huge….
He was also at some stage some financial advisor to the Tory party. But he did have some tax problems with the English authorities but I think he still lives. A few years ago some investor intended to start production of the bike again….
But there were more Con artists in Formula one. The Renault Racing Managing Director Gerard Toth was sentenced to jail after Renault found out that some of the incoming money went to Toths private account.
But the riders also have some colorful background. Former Formula One rider (ex Benetton, Arrow, Stewart. ATS etc.) Dutch rider Jos Verstappen was accused for trying to murder his former girlfriend but he got away with it. The Finn JJ. Lehto (ex Benetton and Sauber) was sentenced for causing his best friends dead to Two Years in prison but the next court freed him because they cannot proof for sure who was driving the boat through the very narrow channel where there is some 5 knots speed limit. They were driving some 30 knots and hit a bridge. His friend died and JJ Lehto was badly hurt. Both were drunk and it was in the middle of the night.. Another former F1 driver from Finland Mika Salo (ex Lotus, Tyrell Arrows, Bar Ferrari,Sauber and Toyota) also got caught driving drunk and is sometimes in the press after behaving a little bad in the night life. Kimi Raikkonen is also quite famous for his life outside the racing track..He also owns some houses in Thailand and his personal spokesman lives quite often I Pattaya just a few kilometers from my home. But Kimi doesn’t have any legal problems only I just started divorce from his model wife. German driver Adrian Sutil Forca India has also a few legal problems among them a verdict for beating up the Lotus co-owner Erik Lux. Probably he will have some visa problems this season…
Also the Maestro of Formula One Mr. Bernie Ecclestone has a rather “colorful” background. But since this is a motorcycle site I must tell You that he started his career as a motorcycle racer and as a motorcycle dealer in England at the age of 16. According to some rumors he was the mastermind behind the big Train Robbery in England 1963, but they are not true…
But his background and a little strange behavior is to long to tell here. But read the book “No Angel: The secret Life of Bernie Eccelstone” By Tom Bower.
I hope that I will be able to fly to Sepang next week for the Malaysian Grand Prix, despite that the Formula one world is a little dirty….
MP-Terveisin HIKO
