Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/02/07
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]==On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 2:33 AM, FRANK DERNIE <frank.dernie at btinternet.com>wrote: I knew Senna well, but only as a competitor. He was one of the very few > drivers who showed a genuine interest in how the car worked, and tried to > understand. There is lots in the press about various good test drivers and > good at setting up cars. I have rarely seen it, it is normally the engineer > who sets up the car using driver comments to steer his actions. Mansell > always set his own car up, his "race engineer" was just a secretary keeping > notes, but this is really rare! > On the fateful day in 1994 I was Chief Engineer of Benetton and was > running Schumacher and Lehto. > > In the summer of 1993 I was changing planes at the larger Houston, Texas, airport, when I found myself sitting in a gate area next to A.J. Foyt, who by then had retired as a driver and was a team owner. We were off to different places but we had a pleasant ten or fifteen minute chat about various things including then currently active drivers. If I recall correctly Mansell had recently started racing in the States and I asked if had an opinion about that; Foyt responded 'Mansell is a real racer. He'll drive anything and drive it well' (or words to that effect). --Bob