He credits Brabham as being a major catalyst for McLaren Cars & that it would never have happened without Jack's support. He also compared budgets & even allowing for inflation, todays McLaren F1 team would burn through the old McLaren team's budget in 5 weeks. And in those days the budget stretched over F1, F2, Can Am, Indy & F5000.
In the 70s Phil was 1 of the 3 that negotiated the original accord that brought F1 into the realm of professional sport, the other 2 were Ecclestone & Mosley. It was Ecclestone that made it happen while Mosley took care of the legal side (I guess Phil made the tea). At the end I asked Phil what he made of the current F1 mess & his opinion was that Mosley had turned into a paranoid megalomaniac (a jackass in other words) & had done his best to ruin F1 with the rule changes over the last few years. Phil was sure though that the teams have reached breaking point with Mosley & will not back down. He made the comparison between Manchester United who have just sold Ronaldo for 80 million while Mosley expects an F1 team to operate with a budget of 40 million.
It was a good talk I thought. I have it recorded but even at low quality it is a 12MB file so maybe I can post it on a website somewhere. In any case I can thoroughly recommend his book which covers the F1 scene from 1960-1980 & has many great pictures.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Finish-First-Ph ... 1899870814
Never say die. At least not while you're still breathing.