Perry McCarthy was a Formula One racing driver. He then went on to be the original “Stig” in the BBC show: Top Gear. He has also been a works Audi sports car driver. He is now an After Dinner Speaker and gives motivational and business talks.
I approached Perry for an interview after he mentioned that one of his best on track experiences had been driving a Ferrari F40.
When we talked, you had - I assume it was a pleasure - of driving an F40. The F40 is quite a different Ferrari with that big wing at the back. It’s quite “in your face”. Is it great to drive on the track?
Yeah it was amazing. It was funny, that particular story. I rarely go to circuits if I have nothing to do but for some reason that I can’t remember I was at Donnington Park and wandering around.
It was kind of like a general track day and saw some fellow who obviously owned an F40 going past the pits giving passenger rides to his friends. Well to be quite honest he wasn’t going to set the world alight at those speeds. He wasn’t very quick at all. So he actually pulled into the pitlane and I was having a look round the car.
He said to me “Oh, Perry, are you interested in the car?”
I said: “Yeah it looks fantastic.”
“Do you want come round?”
I said: “OK but I’ll drive it.”
So he said: “OK I’d love to, that’s fine.”
So we jumped in the F40 and I could feel it straight away. There are some cars that you just think: I know what this car is going to do. I just really did. And he jumped in the passenger seat and he had a video camera - back then it wasn’t the little phones it was a big video camera. And I kind of smiled to myself and thought “you’re not going to be upright with that for long, mate!” So I floored it as we were coming out of the pits and sure enough by the time we exited the first corner, which was Red Gate, he and the video camera were on its side. And I absolutely went for it. The car was electric. It’s pick up, it’s turning, a bit “taily” - you had to be careful with the throttle because the amount of torque that it had was amazing. You could light the rear wheels up in third gear! But that was - I really kind of got into that and pushed it for about three laps. Then suddenly started feeling brake fade because I really had been on it. So I came into the pits the guy actually couldn’t get out of the car for a little while - so you know you’ve done your job right! But suddenly I just heard this PSHHHHHHH and lots of stuff coming out of the car and all steam. Now I swear to you I hadn’t over-revved it but it had been three hard laps.
He got out and said, “I don’t know what to say, I’ve never experienced anything like that in my entire life but conversely you just ****** my car!”
I said: “Sorry mate, but you wanted to go quick!”
It was three laps and I still remember that car, it was just electric.
Honestly, if I think of 90s cars, the F40 is the first one I think of. It’s such a presence of a car.
Yeah but not just the looks though. It really was - especially back then - it was a long time ago - to have a road car capable of doing what that could do, back in those days was significant. It was a beast.
I think when people think of supercars and such, they think of going fast, but it’s so much more. It’s the power, it’s the handling and the control that you get with it.
It’s the same thing with any car, any race car, it’s no good just having a load of power, because the components that make up a lap time is how the car can brake, how it can turn in, the traction through a corner, how you put the power down. The stability of the car. You’ve got to have some kind of confidence. It may have its idiosyncrasies, it may have certain little things that you think: OK it likes to do this so you adapt - but it’s no good all out and out power; it has to have some other features.
So of course, what you’re trying to do from an engineering perspective is that you’re trying to make a car fairly light so that you’re not having to accelerate, brake and corner all this mass across the tyres and obviously the geometry. I wouldn’t get too much into its aerodynamics, to be honest. I’m not clear how much downforce its old rear wing would produce. I personally prefer that was there probably for styling. Someone who’s brighter than me might say “oh it produced a certain amount of downforce” but with downforce, you’ve also got drag. I suspect that wing was aesthetics more than stability.
The Black Stig. Credit BBC Television.
Obviously you were The Stig on Top Gear and drove many supercars in that respect. Are there any that stand out?
Pagani Zonda - that was pretty cool. I enjoyed that. And that reminded me of the F40 but just like a slightly calmer version of the F40. Still very very rapid.
The Koenigsegg was interesting. I wasn’t so keen on that as it‘s such a big block - it’s one of the reasons I’m not always keen on Lamborghinis to be honest. It just seems to be this huge, great big thing that you’re sat in and I don’t feel quite as comfortable. I’m not being flash but I can drive them quickly but my absolute preference is something that’s wrapped around me a bit more. So the Koenigsegg and Lamborghinis for me are kind of unnecessarily big.
But I remember I drove a 575 Ferrari on the show, but that was back in the days when they were first coming into the flip lever gear change behind the steering wheel. That wasn’t very good back then, it was kind of like a mechanical linkage and it was a bit slow. You’d be accelerating really hard and you’d go for a gear and it took so long to take the gear that you’d feel the car slow down and dip again on pitch before it came in. There was a way around it by lifting your foot on the throttle really quickly at the same time you change - I’m getting a bit technical and boring on that now - but finally clearly of course, they got their act together.
Many years later, I actually bought a Ferrari, I had the 458 Spider. That car was genius - absolutely a beautiful - aesthetically beautiful and - boy - that car did everything you wanted it to do. Where I get upset with very expensive road cars is that you’ve got this big brand and they’re really expensive and when they don’t do exactly what you think they should be doing for that sort of money, that’s when I get upset. The Ferrari 458 - clearly it’s an expensive car, but it was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. It’s one of my favourite cars I’ve ever driven.
When we talked about Formula One, Perry mentioned his connection with Michele Alboreto, who later became his team mate at Audi.
They first approached me in 1995 when they were looking at bringing Audi into the British Touring Car championship for 1996 and I was quite interested in that but they’d signed Frank Biela who was an established touring car star - and I knew Frank from Formula 3 when we raced together there - but then Richard Lloyd went away and signed another driver. I wasn’t very happy with him about that actually. Richard and I were to become fantastic friends but I think he feels he made a mistake doing that and I do as well to be absolutely honest.
But it’s how life rolls out but they made it up to me in 1999 when they chose me as one of their first drivers for their works squad for their first entry into the World Sports Car racing such as Le Mans and Sebring etc.
Another Ferrari connection actually, one of my teammates was Stefan Johansson.
Now I did see you when I was watching YouTube in the Titan Rallycross series. That looked like an awful lot of fun.
Yeah that was fantastic. I hadn’t really been on track for 16 years - that was when I was last driving for Audi. And I got the call up, would I like to come and participate in like the European RallyX Championship but Titan. And they had a bunch of people I had heard of and I said OK I’ll give it a go. I’ll come back; I’ll do it.
As you can imagine in RallyX, with my own background, which has been predominantly single seater or top level sports cars, it was really different. There were some things about turning when you’re sliding or how to use the accelerator or the brake which were completely different to what was plugged into my head. But we had some fantastic drivers there and they were the first people to come over and sit with me and say “Hey Perry, what you’ve got to do here and what you’ve got to do there, ...” So they were really helpful, some of the old race stuff came back into me. I thoroughly enjoyed it; I got quicker and quicker. I didn’t trouble the world champion, I might add, Timmy or Kevin, the Hansen brothers, but they were brilliant. It was just a great way to go motor racing. So much fun.
It does look like fun. And the format, with the heats and the finals, rather than the qualifying and the practice and all that. It’s action right from the start.
You’re busy! You turn round, there’s a few heats and it’s your turn again. And you’re going “Oh Wow” and you're sitting on the grid bbbbbbr - and bang! And then it’s like - bang bang bang going into the corner. It really was good fun.
It was really kind of the Titan series to ask me along and always something I’ll always be appreciative of.
Do you have any future plans for that or was that a one off?
I’ve got a really, really nice crash helmet sitting on the side with a HANS device and a new set of fire proof overalls and it’s all just sitting on the side. I’m thinking - I don’t know - the biggest problem with this game is that I know what it takes to be competitive in a top series and there’s part of me that romances about thinking come back and do this or come back and do that or whatever and there’s another side of me that says: but Perry, if you don’t put the effort in, the training, the testing, that time allocation then, you won’t be as quick as you can be and if I’m not as quick as I can be I’m only going to get upset with myself. I’m going to get a bit down in the mouth. So it’s just a question of that level of commitment. And having known what levels of commitment that I have and many others had to put in to come through this sport, so it’s a slightly unanswered question at the moment, Clare. I suspect that it’s probably not going to happen but if there was an irresistible offer, you just never know.
Never say never!
By Clare Topic
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