The following story is abridged from an article originally appearing in the January issue of F1 Racing magazine. –Ed.
You became used to it after a while – to the caustic comments and the silent responses that said much more than mere words. The dismissive hand gestures became commonplace; his pained expressions began to speak for the greatest team in racing.
You could have a quick laugh with an engineer or two, or perhaps with a truckie or three. You could even talk to the drivers – sort of, in a jokey, one-dimensional kind of way. Those were rare, rushed, side-moments, however; in the main there was always the fear that the boss – Jean Todt – would suddenly appear from nowhere. You always had to be ready, if you were near Ferrari, suddenly to lower your voice or to fade into the shadows. Todt, Ferrari’s F1 boss, made the Old Man seem positively friendly.
You know the story. The interviews that went nowhere because the journalist in question had at some point in previous weeks been critical of the team or its cars. The unique embraces in the midst of post-race driver interviews. The reluctance to talk to the press on the grid (when complying with requests, in the style of Flavio Briatore or Ron Dennis, might crucially have alerted Ferrari to its ignorance of the tire rules prior to the Japanese Grand Prix). Yes, you know about Todt. He has been the face of Ferrari for a dozen years. His success has been phenomenal. His organization has been impeccable. His demeanor has defied belief.
Yet you respected him; you had to. You saw him arriving at racetracks on Sunday mornings in chauffeur-driven Maseratis; you saw Michael Schumacher raising Todt’s arm after all those astounding wins. To many people – such as Frank Williams, for example – Jean Todt was maybe the greatest F1 manager we’ve seen in modern times. And so we respected Williams, too, for respecting Todt.
