'Mike the Car': Hailwood's underrated F1 adventures

There was inevitability to ‘Surtees & Hailwood’. Their fathers had raced each other in sidecars before WWII and Mike followed John from Norton to Reg Parnell via MV. Their similarities ran only leathers-deep, however: Surtees was intense, studious and technically minded, whereas Hailwood’s idea of a successful debriefing was a racy conclusion to another wild night.

John Surtees: “A natural rider, he tended to ride around problems. When he came to cars he wasn’t getting the best out of himself relative to their set-up. He had no knowledge yet wouldn’t ask; I had to approach him. He was telling me his problems when I said; ‘You need to ride… drive for another motorcyclist who understands what you’re feeling’.”

Tim Schenken: “Mike just turned up, drove and then left. He didn’t have to work at it. He was just quick. He didn’t get involved in any technical stuff and had no time for politics. That suited John perfectly because he didn’t need anybody else fussing or worrying about this, that or the other because he wrapped himself up in all of that. They had that biker’s bond, too.”

Their car relationship was forged in F5000 during the bulk of 1971. Hailwood had already enjoyed two convivial and competitive seasons in these rugged single-seaters aboard twitchy Lolas run by Jackie Epstein. He’d also spent 1969 driving Gulf Ford GT40s and Mirage for JW Automotive Engineering. The surprise withdrawal of Honda – “The people I was driving… riding for” – prior to the 1968 season had left him at a loose end. Paid a £50,000 retainer not to ride for anyone else, it was the ideal opportunity to give cars another try.

David Hobbs: “When Bernard White, a rich guy from Yorkshire with no visible means of support, told me I’d be sharing one of his cars in the 1966 [winter] Springbok Series with Mike Hailwood, my hackles went up. Bikers weren’t high on my list of social types. Likewise, Mike probably thought I was a snobby toff. We were billeted with a family and rolled up separately but, within about 15 seconds, we realised we were two peas in a pod.

“So I was full of enthusiasm when [JWAE] told me he was to replace Paul Hawkins as my co-driver. I thought Mike’s driving terrific: very fast, very good in the wet, very underrated. He was just brilliant. He moved unbelievably well when he danced; he played clarinet, guitar, drums and piano; and he was a fantastic water-skier. He had a girl in every port, too. Quite remarkable.

A fortnight later he qualified on the front row for the Brands Hatch Race of Champions and finished second to Emerson Fittipaldi’s Lotus 72. In April’s International Trophy at a bitterly cold Silverstone, he again set fastest lap, and passed ‘Emmo’ for the lead at Copse on lap 24, only for a faulty cooling system cap to let his water boil away.

In May he kick-started his European Formula 2 campaign with a second place and lap record (for all eternity) at Crystal Palace. June brought him a fourth at the Belgian GP and another F2 second and fastest lap, at Rouen. Fittipaldi beat him on the latter occasion but was ineligible for points as a graded driver. Cosworth had also favoured the Brazilian’s Lotus 69 with a rare BDF engine, whereas Hailwood’s TS10 used a smaller-capacity BDA tuned by Brian Hart.

After scoring a point in July’s French GP at Clermont-Ferrand, he was again content to play second fiddle to Fittipaldi and his BDF – and cannily score another maximum – at the Österreichring. In Emmo’s absence, he then won outright at Sweden’s Mantorp Park in August. He also won the first heat, from pole, at Enna, but retired from the second. Between F2 times he finished fourth in the Austrian GP.

September began with another outright F2 victory, at Salzburgring, and included another starring role at an Italian GP: had his airbox not come adrift after 19 laps, costing him 300rpm, he might have won rather than finish second to Fittipaldi. A decision to skip the Canadian GP, in a bid to secure the F2 title at Albi, looked like paying dividends when he won his heat, defeating the Brabham of rival Jean-Pierre Jaussaud, but he struck trouble in the final. Instead he sealed the championship the following weekend, at Hockenheim, with another calculating second place behind a graded driver with a BDF.

An F2 victory at Interlagos in November – that man Fittipaldi beat him to the three-race Torneio title – wrapped up an excellent season. In contrast 1973 began to unravel from the moment – five laps from victory in the Race of Champions – when his TS14A’s rear suspension collapsed and Mike threw his crash helmet to the ground in a rare display of petulance. Those F1 frustrations were building again.

“Mike became very disheartened, to put it politely”

Surtees: “We were the first [in 1972] to build a full crushable structure for the new regulations [in 1973] and that worked against us when they backtracked; our car could have been lighter. Then Firestone announced its withdrawal. It backtracked, too, and made one tyre construction. Our fronts were destroyed. And I would have loved a batch of fresh engines and to run shorter mileages. We did an awful lot on not a vast budget but there were lots of silly things. It was a shame for both of us.”

Pauline Hailwood: “Mike became very disheartened, to put it politely.”

Certainly he seemed down in the dumps when interviewed for the 1973 drama-doc Champions Forever: “I’ve got nothing in common at all with the other [F1] drivers. We stay in the same hotels but sit at separate tables. And the guys I have got something in common with – the mechanics, a really great bunch of guys – are always working. So it’s a pretty lonely sort of deal.”

Pauline Hailwood: “He was delighted with the results and felt he was achieving something. When he had his accident at the Nürburgring he was sixth in the F1 championship [equal with team-mate and good friend Denny Hulme] and I think he could have won a GP. I think he thought so, too. He was full of confidence now.”

Battling the Lotus 72s of Peterson and Ickx for fourth, Hailwood landed awkwardly at Pflanzgarten on the penultimate lap and snapped sharp right into the barrier. The omens had not been good. He had crashed his GR7 in similar circumstances at May’s Nürburgring 750Kms and written-off his preferred M23/1 during practice for the GP. Although the latter incident was caused by a wishbone failure as he crested the rise before the pits, Hailwood put his race crash down to a lapse of concentration.

Caldwell: “It was rare for McLarens to break. They were strong. We never had any trouble with the minimum weight. My memory of it is that he made a mistake. It was such a shame. He was never going to be at genius level but probably would have won races had he been able to stay with us.”

Pauline Hailwood: “The spirit was willing but the body wasn’t up it. He’d broken both legs. The left was quite straightforward but the right was complicated: the heel was shattered and the ankle pushed down and compacted. It soon became clear that doctors couldn’t fix it. Mike was devastated. He took it very hard. That leg was an inch shorter and had very little movement. The foot went gammy and its toes started to claw and metal rods had to be inserted. He had a few operations and lots of rehabilitation. There were plenty of sad moments and it took a long time to readjust. He suffered withdrawal symptoms. I don’t think he’d ever looked on F1 as a bit of a lark.”

Hobbs: “Although he’d got off to a pretty spotty start driving some pretty substandard stuff, I always felt that he had the skill to win in F1. His results don’t back that up because things let him down.”

Hailwood in retirement reckoned that he had got as good as he was going to be on four wheels and was unconvinced that he’d been a shoo-in to replace the retiring Hulme alongside Fittipaldi at Marlboro Team McLaren in 1975. (Imagine him and Hunt together in 1976!) When he crashed an F1 Lotus 18/21 during an exploratory test at a wet Silverstone in 1961 he might have guessed that he was unlikely to match his motorbike exploits. He would have known for sure 10 years later. Although the thrill of the chase, a fascination with the new, drove him on, his relationship with cars remained love-hate.

Attwood: “He always felt he was a biker. We were holidaying somewhere when David Hobbs said, ‘Why don’t you put your leathers on?’ – something like that, something [jokey] about bikes not being as good as cars. That really cut into Mike. He felt savage about it and was really frosty. It only lasted a short time but it really got to him. It was a class thing’.”

‘Mike the Car’ was talented indeed, but ‘Mike the Bike’ was, well, ‘Mike the Bike’: a class apart. Four wheels good, two wheels never bettered.