What do racing drivers do after the race?
07/03/2019
What do racing drivers do after racing? They go racing. In 2008, for example, a group of retired racing drivers got together during the F1 GP for a NASCAR fun race in Bahrain. Seven ex-Sauber drivers were among the participants.
With JJ Lehto, Johnny Herbert, Jean Alesi, HH Frentzen, Stefan Johansson, Gianni Morbidelli and Jacques Villeneuve (from left to right in the picture above, the picture is of course also available in high resolution here), half of the NASCAR field had already competed for the Swiss Sauber F1 Team. We all know the GP drivers, but Stefan Johnsson does not fit logically into the Sauber list. But the Swede actually drove three sports car races in the Sauber C9 together with the Italian Mauro Baldi in 1988. The two even won the 1000 km of Spa-Francorchamps.
And who came out on top in the end in the sedate NASCAR cars? It was Johnny Herbert, who started the race from pole position and finished with a clear start-finish victory. JJ Lehto had to retire with a flat tire:
And HH Frentzen preferred the hunt for a bird to a possible podium finish:
Klaus Ludwig and Ukyo Katayama were two other greats on the grid. The Japanese joker Ukyo Katayama unfortunately never made it to the top in racing, but after his F1 career he climbed many a mountain, including various 8000-meter peaks, and so he was also on the roof of the world at least once, without oxygen of course. I remember meeting him in the pedestrian underpass of the start-finish straight at Hockenheim when he demonstrated his breathing technique on Mount Everest. Miraculously, no paramedics came running.
