Very few people have ever been told to slow down by an F1 driver passenger, but one reader has had that experience.

Chosen to drive in the Drivers' Parade Lap of this year's Australian GP, John was assigned to none other than Takuma Sato. In his short article that follows, John describes the mayhem of the grid photographers and joy of driving a "bright, bouncy and friendly man" around Melbourne's race track...

The cars selected to take the F1 drivers around Albert Park for the Drivers’ parade at the Melbourne GP were MG TFs, built in 1954/55. Some of the MG drivers were built earlier than that, including me!  I was allocated Takuma, and we were to wait while the drivers had a group photo taken, then they would board the cars. When this happened they were pursued by many photographers, and it became quite confusing to see what was happening in front of us. We were told to parade with about 4 car lengths between cars for the best visual effect on TV and this became a problem. When I could see in front of me the car in front had already left and was about 10 car lengths away at least. The F1 drivers were sitting on a board placed underneath the rear canvas cover, and Takuma only had a strap to hold onto (click for photo). So they were sitting quite high up for best exposure to the crowd. I had to speed up to catch the car in front and we were heading towards the apex of turn 1, a tight corner,  when Takuma said ‘Slow down, too fast!!’ I had forgotten that he was sitting on a board and had no lateral support whatsoever, and so would have felt very precarious. So I am the only person I know who has ever been asked by a F1 driver to slow down!  This is my 10 seconds of fame. It was a very hot day, track temperature was 50 degrees Celsius, air temperature was 37. We were lucky the old cars behaved impeccably.

I have good friend who is a huge Formula 1 fan, and he now lives in Japan with his Japanese wife and their little boy, Sam. I really wanted to get a race program signed for the little boy so I could mail it to him, and I had a very elaborate story to tell Takuma about how I knew the father etc etc etc. A very long story! Then I realized that Takuma would have been dedicated to the big race starting soon and had no time for long stories, so when we got back to the drop off point I said ” Takuma, my name is Sam, could you please sign the program for me?” And he did. Here is a picture of Sam and his dad in Tokyo with their Australian Grand Prix souvenirs.   

Takuma was a very bright, bouncy and friendly man, and it was my pleasure to meet him and drive him around the track. It is quite sad that the team could no longer continue this year, but they certainly earned a huge amount of respect in the two brief years they competed under such difficulties. I hope they bounce back in other ways.

John H, Australia.