Spanish Racing Crusader

Today, Spanish motor racing spectators have much to cheer for. Fernando Alonso wins many Grand Prix races and is number one Ferrari driver. Jamie Alguersuari is a great driver with the F1 Torro Rosso team. It was not so easy for me, so many years ago in the 1980s. In those days, Spain did not have a culture of motor sport. Drivers like me, Emilio de Villota, Luis Pérez-Sala, and Carlos Sainz had to fight a lot because people didn’t know motor sport. We had to be a good driver and find sponsors, so we had to have commercial knowledge. Without this we would not have money to race. I think Spanish drivers today are helped by what we did many years ago, a time when Spain didn’t know motor racing, just bull fighting and football. Spain had one motor racing hero in my early days, Alfonso de Portago. Unfortunately, he was involved in a terrible accident driving his Ferrari at the 1957 Mille Miglia. The accident took his life, his co-driver’s life and many spectators were either killed or badly injured. This all happened three years before I was born, yet from a very early age I looked at him as a gentleman driver, and my hero—I really wanted to race.

I won my first race when I was just seven years old, in “cyclo-cross.” There were about one hundred kids competing that day. I remember the circuit was just two long straights with corners at each end. I was amazed with myself that I knew how to take the right line to keep fast, something other kids found difficult. For me, I didn’t really have to think about it, it was very natural. The racing line was very clear in my brain, as I say other kids were over here and over there—for me there was just one correct line. Jim Clark was the great racing driver in these days and I wanted to be like him.