Riccardo Patrese is one of my favourite drivers. It was so good to see him do so well at Williams. I like James Hunt too, but the shit he gave Riccardo was bang out of order.

My favourite driver ever. Nice to hear from Riccardo again, a true gentleman who never got the success he deserved. My favourite year was 1991, when he totally outdrove Mansell for the first half of the season, and would have been challenging for the title if it wasnt for reliability problems. It was an absolute disgrace James Hunt continued his vendetta all those years after the incident at Monza. Riccardo's final words to him were very fitting! They dont make drivers like Riccardo anymore!

very nice guy, personally. I asked him several years ago via e mail a Question and he answered me in detail

Am I the only one who really likes Patrese's Italian accent when speaking English? Absolute joy to listen to 😊

James Hunt's behaviour towards Patrese over the years made absolutely no sense. It' well documented in Hunt's biographies and elsewhere that he felt somehow indirectly responsible for Peterson's death - since it was his McLaren that was punted left into the Lotus in the mayhem of the start of that race when all cars funnelled into the narrower part of the straight. Evidence from photos and film from a number of sources over the years has always cleared Patrese's direct involvement in the crash. The fact that he continued to blame the Italian driver and to rubbish him throughout his career says more about Hunt's state of mind than anything else. Maybe it was his way to rationalise his guilt, transferring it onto Patrese, but that it lasted for so long to become nearly an obsession it was sad to see and certainly a bad reflection on Hunt's character. And I am speaking as someone who really liked James Hunt the driver.

Mr. Patrese seems like a real good guy. I felt it when he said: "And I am sad for them, what happened to them" when talking about the tragic fate of Senna and Schumi.

This guy is a legend, so pleased to see you interviewing him.

Yay Riccardo Patrese.. this should be interesting. Patrese didn't replace Nelson Piquet at Benetton in 1993. He replaced Martin Brundle.

Ricardo patrese your great driver🇮🇹🇯🇵

This guy has so much stories in f1 One and half hour was not enough. Very technical dude

Riccardo was a class act and a berter driver than he was ever given credit for.

Love patrese. Was an honour to have him drive for Williams.. As a Williams fan. My favourite driver full stop.

I love how you allways say the full name of the people, your interviewees mention. It's little things like that, which make these podcasts soo good and you don't need to know much about f1 to understand everything! Thank you!

You missed out there Tom. I wanted you to ask him if he had got his Mrs to do another lap with him. You’ve seen that video of him taking her round Jerez in a Honda. His misuse of overtake due to the Italian verb sorpassare which means both to overtake for example on track and also means to get over something. Keep up the good work.

Always loved him. And his italian accent is just top ! Didn’t know about his relationship with Ferrari but it makes sense especially with Fiorio as team principal. Senna/Patrese at Ferrari would have been cool ! Loved his explanation about the 91 season and the difference between him and Mansel. Old school driver who had to be fast with deadly cars, circuit, manual gearboxes, big engine, no power steering... true talent ! 3 different decades in F1 and the golden era !

Didn’t know much about this dude: competing in F2, F1 and doing Macau in a single year: respect!

Parting words to Mr.Hunt indeed ! This was a long one... thank you Mr.Patrese for being a guest ! Thank you Mr.Clarkson for bringing it to us !

🇮🇪 Williams team must have been very proud to have had the opportunity to give Patrese their Racing car !

Riccardo was one of the fastest drivers of his time. He was really really fast. He outqualified almost all his teammates. The first time he had the chance to drive a decent car was 1982 when Bernie Ecclestone offered him a sit in the Brabham team. Remember Riccardo joined Brabham alongside Piquet who won the World Champíonship last year 1981. Is not truth Parmalat wanted Patrese to be the first driver of the team. By 1982 Parmalat was more brazilian than italian. The number 1 driver of the Brabham team was always Nelson Piquet. Patrese was the only Brabham Piquet's teammate who ended up winning races and ended up ahead of Piquet in the World Championship. In 1982 both drivers started the year using the BMW engines. It wasn't reliable at all. So after the first race at Southafrica in wich Patrese was ahead of Piquet during the race or at least up until Patrese's turbo broke, they jumped back to the Ford Cosworth engines for the next two races at Brazil and Long Beach. Piquet won in Brazil but he was dsq for weight infringement. Next race at Long Beach Piquet retired and Patrese ended up the race on 3th position after Gilles Villeneuve was dsq with wing infringement on his Ferrari. For the next race at San Marino a lot of teams including Brabham refused to race (FISA vs FOCA drama). So the next race at Zolder where Gilles get killed on satuday qualy Brabham went back to the BMW engines once again. Both drivers with BMW engines. Patrese was ahead of Piquet all that race at least up until he spun over the oil of some other car on lap 52 and Patrese retired from the race right there. A few seconds after that Nelson Piquet also spun in the same spot but he managed to control his Brabham and ended up on 5th position that race in which Patrese was always ahead of him. So Piquet continued using the BMW for the rest of the season meanwhile Patrese was back on the Ford Cosworth engine for the next three races at Monaco, Detroit and Canada.. Patrese won at Monaco and the next race at Detroit Piquet didn't even pass the qualy session so he couldn't be able to race at Detroit. Then at Canada Piquet won the race with Patrese ended up behind him in second position. A few days later Piquet gave an extensive interview for a brazilian tv show in which he picked this winning at Canada 82 the one he likes the most. He said his foot was burning because of an oil leak inside the car and he almost retired from the race. But he didn't wanted to retire he said and I quote "behind me was Patrese and the son of a.....was on Ford Cosworth engine so not in a million years I was going to let him win the race". So Patrese ended up that race on second position and at that point Patrese was on 3th position in the drivers championship points ahead of Keke Rosberg who ended up winning the championship that year. From now on Patrese was forced to use the BMW just like Piquet when everybody in the team knew it wasn't reliable at all. Piquet was the first one on the team who wanted Patrese on BMW engine. As you can imagine Piquet dindn't want Patrese fighting for the championship with him preparing the BMW engines for the next season. So Patrese is back on BMW engines at Zandvoort and now for good. Piquet ended up on second position at Zandvoort with a not good performance of Patrese there. In the next race Patrese outqualified Piquet at Brands Hatch but stall the engine at the start of the race. Next race at Paul Ricard Patrese was always ahead of Piquet. Patrese was leading the race when his BMW engine blew up. Next race at Hockenheim Piquet was always ahead of Patrese. Piquet was leading the race when Salazar did what he did. Next race at Austria Patrese was always ahead of Piquet. Patrese was leading the race when his engine broke. That day at the Osterreichring Patrese become the first driver in the whole F1 history to enter the pits on 1st position, refuel the tanks and rejoin the race without losing first position. Next race at Dijon Patrese outqualified Piquet and the brazilian ended up the race on 4th position with Patrese right behind him. Next race at Monza Patrese was ahead of Piquet but on the 6 and 7 lap both Brabhams retired from the race with a clutch failure. And the last race at Las Vegas Patrese outqualified Piquet once again he was always ahead of Piquet during the race untill his clutch once again broke after 17 laps. Patrese ended up in 1982 with 21 points in the championship and Piquet with 20. So as you can see it was not truth that Patrese was faster than Piquet in 1982 because he was on Ford Cosworth engine. Patrese in 1982 was faster than Piquet with both engines and he was ahead of Piquet during the race in most races that year (Southafrica, Long Beach, Zolder, Monaco, Detroit, Brands Hatch, Austria, Monza, Las Vegas). On top of that Piquet always said the circuits he likes the most are Brands Hatch and Silverstone. Well...the only teammate who always outqualified Piquet at Silverstone and Brands was Patrese. Piquet never lost a qualy session in England not even against Niki Lauda in 1979 at Brands. Not even against Mansell in 1986 and 1987 at Brands and Silverstone. Patrese outqualified Piquet at Brands both 82 and 83 and also outqualified Piquet at Silverstone in 83. The thing is in 1983 Patrese had all sorts of mechanical failures. From the whole 15 races that year he had to retire with failures on 11 of them. On the other hand Piquet almost never had a failure that year. On top of that Patrese made a terrible mistake at San Marino which affected him really bad. I strongly suspect it affected him over the years, it kept on his mind and he only could put that behind when he won the San Marino GP in 1990. Throughout his entire career Patrese had to retire from the race with mechanical failures when he was leading the race in 13 times and it wasn't his fault. Mainly mechanical or electrical failures. In other 18 times Patrese had to retired with mechanical failures when he was P2 or P3 on the race. Those were the times when F1 cars used to have all sorts of mechanical failures and Patrese had them all: exhaust, gearbox, engine, fuel pump, electronics, distributor, oil leak, radiator, camshaft, water leak, turbo, clutch, fuel pressure, run out of fuel.....Most of them when he was leading the race or fighting for P1 or P2. On top of that in 1992 Monza race, his home race, he was leading when the active suspension on his car went into fail-safe mode causing the front of the car to raise and the back to lower, dragging it's arse against the ground and seeing him drop from 1st to 5th over the last 5 laps. Since Mansell was Mansell (I mean not the Mansell with Lotus who was always outqualified by De Angelis) he was teammate with drivers like Nelson Piquet (3 world champ), Prost (4 WC), Keke Rosberg (1 WC), Berger (very fast driver). The only teammate who outqualified Mansell this way: 10 to 6 was Riccardo Patrese in 1991. From the period when Mansell was already a great driver (after Lotus), no other teammate from the englishman could do it that way. I don't have any doubt about it. With equal cars Patrese could be as fast as Mansell and even faster than him. The story of Portugal qualy session in 1991 is a clear example. Patrese had electrical problems and had to wait until the end of the qualy session to jump into Mansell's spare car. Patrese had the time for just 1 lap in a car that wasn't prepare for him. By that time Mansell was P3 behind Berger and Senna with the McLarens. Patrese made a single qualy lap with Mansell's spare car and made pole position more than half a second faster than Mansell. Riccardo was one of the fastest drivers of his time. Period.

When you think of the Prost-Senna rivalry, you normally always think of Mansell, Patrese and Berger completing the top 5. Unfortunate that he raced with some of the best drivers ever

Brilliant interview always liked Ricardo, a solid driver. Can you interview Pierlugi Martini? would be good to get his views on a career with Minardi.

Drove in the best era 1977-1991

This era was THE era of F1 kids!

Really interesting to hear how the performance gap between himself and Mansell changed in 91-92 at 31:21 - 33:59.

Tom have you recorded one with JJ Lehto yet? How about Stefano Modena, Sandro Nannini, Mike Thackwell, Luca Badoer, Carlos Reutemann, Rory Byrne, Jan Magnussen, Mika Salo, Eddie Irvine, Geoff Lees, Marco Apicella, Roberto Moreno, Bruno Giacomelli Timo Glock

After playing the Magnetic Fields series of racing games in my youth he will always be Riccardo Pastry to me.

The amount of commercials these now have is freaking ridiculous.

Meu respeito pelo Patrese, um abraço daqui do Brasil!

Riccardo Patrese, what a legend!

Pleasure to listen to and hear the stories that never came out like the test session swap with de Angelis and the 1994 Williams test role. Shame the question wasn't asked about the 1992 (maybe 1991) French Grand Prix where Patrese answered 'no comment' with a disgusted look when asked about team orders at Williams.

This guy was very quick

GRANDE RICCARDO

Him n cheever got though more shoes walking back to pits than tyres 84/85alfa years. Top driver top man.

Mexico 1991 - probably Patrese's best race. He got a bad start, but managed to overtake both Senna and Mansell and take the win.

Great person, great driver

Such an amazing interview! One of the greatest names of the sport. Please, bring montoya

A true gentleman. He had an amazing run at Williams once they teamed up with Renault.

I want Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli on Beyond The Grid :)

Hey Tom, when are you going to get Keke Rosberg as a guest on Beyond The Grid?

Its a bit of a shame it never went in chronological order and the interview misses some time, some people which whom Ricardo drove with, also it does miss the Grand Prix Masters Series years (2005 and 2006) which was great fun to see and great racing. I liked it, but i found it a missed chance to get deeper in some aspects.

Piquet was such a joker, everybody loved him. Except Mansell of course. And Briatore.

Great driver, great interview

Great Riccardo!

That’s great!

Still remember how his physical fitness hurted his 92 campaign.

I like this guy. ✌️

Finally!!!

Let’s hope this pod is not all about HAMILTON

20mins in on Schumacher as a team mate -- interesting

Someone needs to do an "Errrr" count 👍🏻 I lost count at 3874 👍🏻😅

🏎

0:22 you could at least say his name with the right pronunciation

Never saw this great 90's drivers :/

Top

Did you really scroll down all the way to see who was first?!

He definitly could be wc...

Why do Brits say - imegeeiatley when the word in immediately

F1

Almost semi kinda not really not at all FIRST

He’s right about helmet colours in modern F1. Horrendous colour schemes and patterns compared to earlier days.

Hello

Maximum Respect Ricardo! Finally one driver who tells the truth about being Schumachers teammate! Same car, same material! A F1 want to get as many points as possible! So every driver always gets the best material! Everything else is just bullshit, illogical and a F1 would never disadvantage their second driver! They would shoot themselves in the head, not only in the foot! So all the excuses especially a Barrichello had or a Verstappen - just cheap and stupid excuses for totally failing coming even near Michael!

Was Patrese on crack? Piquet won his two championships for Brabham with a worse car than his rivals. Williams had the best car in 81 and both the Ferrari and the Renaults were better cars than the Brabham. Schumacher only won a single championship without the best car, 1994.

I know I say this every week but can we have Alonso in so please

Patrese to Renault confirmed?

We want Il Leone Nigel Mansell!!!

Ricardo is full of it. So are some of his cheerleaders.

😥😥😥💪💪💪🏎🏎🏎🏎

Why does Ricciardo look like crying here?

We need Nando...

5th

Would be cool if I got pinned...

First

FIRST YEEEEEEEEES!!

First