Son of the Father

Since 1996 we have had Jacques Villeneuve racing in F1, despite the fact that his father Gilles was killed during qualifying at Zolder in Belgium back in 1982. This week we hear that the son of Manfred Winkelhock, who raced turbo-powered monsters back in the 80s and lost his life at the wheel of a Porsche, is also about to step into a Formula One car. I guess that shows what an amazing drug motor racing is. If you lose your father at the age of five, it must be incredibly difficult to put your family through the same stress by doing the same thing. And when you consider how much backing (financial and emotional) a driver needs to be able to get to Formula 1, it's clear that Markus Winklehock must have had the complete support of his family since he was very young.

I guess it all comes back to that line in the Steve McQueen film, Le Mans; "Racing is life, everything in between is just waiting". Everybody thinks that that's over the top and a bit of a joke. But if you've raced, you know that it's true.