Johnny Dumfries, who is quite literally British Royalty, may not be the most famous Scotsman ever to sit behind the wheel of a Formula One car but he is still a bad ass in our book after watching this video. He clearly has no fear, and is hauling the mail in what would most just call the beast, the Renault 98t powered Lotus. Ayrton Senna was Johnny Dumfries teammates during this 1986 Formula One season and this footage was supplied by one of the first live on board cameras in Formula One.
You’ll dig this video as it shows him really driving the car. An actual shifter is present, and you can see him winging the throttle, grabbing gears, and doing a lot of one handed driving. It’s greatness from the tail end of the most dangerous era in the history of Formula One. Like lots of insanely powerful cars, the Renault 98t was a hit or miss proposition, literally. These were the cars that either led raced and looked dominant or broke before the contest really got underway. Looking at what it takes to drive this car and what modern Formula One drivers are doing presents an awesome look at the evolution of the sport. They called this car the beast for a reason and you’ll see why in the video!
Thanks to Mike Gayowski for finding this one for us, as always we appreciate the great stuff you BangShifters send us each and every week.
Click play to watch British Royalty race Formula One –
that’s Adelaide, South Australia – as I write this I’m in an office at the uni I work at about a 3 minute walk away. When F1 or later V8 Supercars are on we can hear them from here and even pick up on the in circuit TV output.
In 1986 I drove cabs on the weekend, and as the circuit was still new to drivers and media they hired 10 cabs for a couple of hours – the job was to pull into the pits, pick up a carload, do 2 laps at normal speed limit then repeat….but after a while it got to be a race between cabbies! nobody was policing our speed on a closed circuit and so with boozed up media or drivers on board they’d encourage us to go faster and faster – it was great fun!