Henri Pescarolo – Other | The “forgotten” drivers of F1

1977 this was a one-off Bob Jane promoted, Kleber Tyre event held after the completion of the 1977 Rothmans F5000 Series. Photo Peter Husband via FB

1977 this was a one-off Bob Jane promoted, Kleber Tyre event held after the completion of the 1977 Rothmans F5000 Series. Photo Yves Clairc

1977 this was a one-off Bob Jane promoted, Kleber Tyre event held after the completion of the 1977 Rothmans F5000 Series with #11 Kenny Smith. Photo Ian Smith

During our interview, Henri Pescarolo talked about his taste for danger. However, he admitted he once had to face more reckless than him…

“In the late eighties I was hired by Nissan to develop the Primera. Their main target on the European market, was to compete against the Peugeot 405. So I spent 1 month testing their car at the Nordschleife. My day to day consisted of doing laps with the 405, then with the Primera and between each stint, have a debrief with the Japanese engineers.

I quickly told them « Look, your car has a flaw. The suspension falls short compared to the 405. As soon as the damper reaches the end stroke, you suddenly lose it and you hardly regain control over the car”.

One of the Japanese answers “You have to show us”.
I tell him “Listen, there is nothing to show except maybe how you car withstands a guardrail !”.
The guy insists : “Never mind, we want to see”.

There was one place in particular, the famous triple right hander on the descent towards Adenau where I wrecked the March in 1972. With the Peugeot I went through the 3 corners in a single smooth drift whereas, with the Primera the car became awfully twitchy.
And here are the chief engineer and 2 other Japanese getting in the car and saying : “Great, let’s go to that corner and you show us”.

I tell them “Guys, I almost crashed there driving by myself and you want to be 4 in the car ? Do you really want to experience an accident on a very fast corner ? »

“We just want to see what you tell us”.

Fair enough.

Off we go and lo and behold, at the very same corner, I lose it big time and miraculously miss the rail by a hair’s breadth.

So here we are, stopped in the grass, in a cloud of smoke and the chief engineer says : “Perfect, now we understand”.

The very same day they sent the car back to Japan to modify the suspension !

Illustration kindly provided by Burkhard Köhr from https://www.pro-steilstrecke.de/index.php. IMHO, the best source of information about the Nürburgring available on the web.

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