Interview: What Allan McNish Learned from Senna and Brought to Audi

– For longtime Audi man and Le Mans winner Allan McNish, being appointed as Audi’s first race director in Formula 1 feels like the natural progression of his eventful career on both sides of the pit wall.

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After McNish climbed the British formula racing ranks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, his path to the top took some strange turns. A test driver role at McLaren in Formula 1 ultimately did not lead to a cockpit in the premier class.

Instead, McNish switched to sports car racing, becoming one of the pillars of Audi’s highly successful prototype program and winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1998 with Porsche.

The Scot finally made it to Formula 1 in 2002 at the age of 32 for newcomer Toyota, but returned to Audi the following year and won Le Mans two more times: in 2008 and 2013, his final season as a driver.

McNish remained part of the Audi family and became team principal in Formula E before being chosen by the manufacturer to participate in the emerging Formula 1 program.

In the interview, McNish talks about the invaluable lessons he learned along the way—from exchanging ideas with Ayrton Senna as a young McLaren test driver to working with Audi’s legendary race director Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich.

Question: “Looking at your career, the role as Audi race director in Formula 1 feels like the crowning achievement of everything you’ve done so far. You won Le Mans three times as a driver with Audi, raced in Formula 1 for Toyota, and then became a driver manager, liaison, and team principal in Formula E.”

Allan McNish: “That’s true. As a driver, you come into contact with all areas—engineering, strategy, tires, communication, because you have to be involved in press releases or work with partners.”

“What you have as a driver, however, is a very limited view of what success means, because success only looks like personal success. When you then work in the team, you naturally have to look at it more broadly and holistically. Of course, at the end of every race, we are still defined by the same success rate.”

“But you bring a very good breadth of experience if you come from a top-level driving career. However, that doesn’t always translate equally well. Just as good football players don’t always have successful managerial careers. But I had a very good time in Formula E, as you said, and also through other things I did with Audi over time.”

“At the same time, I had very good people to learn from—Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich or Dieter Gass at Audi and then Mattia Binotto here from the Formula 1 perspective. In that respect, I would say I was a student of very good professors.”

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Question: “Formula 1 obviously operates on a completely different scale compared to Formula E. How different exactly is the role of team principal? Has anything surprised you?”

McNish: “I think it’s just a natural progression. When I think back to when I was a little boy in karting and racing at 12 in Larkhall or Rowrah or somewhere, the basics of proper preparation are exactly the same.”

“Make sure you do everything right on track, make sure you make the right decisions at the right time, and in the end, the result counts. But the numbers, the technology, and the sophistication are significantly higher.”

Question: “Speaking of early days: in 1989 you finished second in British Formula 3 and were a test driver for McLaren. Your Formula 1 test debut in Estoril was alongside none other than Ayrton Senna. For a 19-year-old boy from Dumfries, it must have been quite an eye-opening experience to test a McLaren Formula 1 car with Senna.”

McNish: “That was just before I went to the Macau Grand Prix. I actually didn’t think about it at the time because I just ‘did things.’ You know, he was world champion Ayrton Senna, McLaren was world champion then, but you just went and did it.”

“What I remember is getting out of the car and thinking, ‘Damn, that’s fast!’ Ayrton talked about engine friction and various other things, and that was a benchmark. It very quickly made clear to me that if you want to be successful in this game, you have to get better on every level.”

“Talent alone only gets you so far. It takes a work ethic and a focus on details that you have to bring. And that applied as a driver, but I think it’s no different in any other area of life. That was training for me.”

“I still have the old data printout from that first test in Estoril. It was two sheets of paper held together and held up to the light because there were no data comparisons like today. You still had a clutch pedal and only two buttons on the steering wheel. Compared to today’s cars, those are dinosaurs.”

Question: “You definitely had an unusual path up the motorsport hierarchy. You made your Formula 1 debut with Toyota at the age of 32 in 2002, four years after your first Le Mans win.”

McNish: “Oh no, it was definitely not a straight path. It was straight for a while, then it went a bit left and right… But funnily enough, I think that actually gives you a different level of experience because it gives you a certain resilience when you have bad days or bad years.”

“And drivers have those. Not every year is a winning year. It depends on how you recover from it. I had to rely on that resilience at various points in my career.”

“But it’s also something that served me very well when the opportunities came to seize and use them. And you’re right: from that test at 19 in October 1989 to sitting on the grid in March 2002 was a good 13 years…”

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Question: “During this time, you covered more kilometers in a Formula 1 car than many regular drivers will ever get nowadays.”

McNish: “Without a doubt. I probably had about 20,000 or 30,000 test kilometers in a Formula 1 car with various teams, including Benetton. But in hindsight, it was probably ten years too late. I won many things in between, but making your first Grand Prix start at 32 in 2002 was not ideal.”

Question: “What was it like to be part of the Audi Le Mans program? You already mentioned Dr. Ullrich’s influence. What did you take away from working with him?”

McNish: “I was under contract with Porsche when they ended their racing programs. They built a car that we tested and that was supposed to compete against the Audi R8, but ultimately that didn’t happen. And I met Dr. Ullrich, we basically agreed on a handshake. And that handshake lasted until I could sign the contract.”

“So I would say it goes back to an old principle: ‘A handshake is an agreement.’ And I still hold on to that very strongly today. Dr. Ullrich was very aware that motorsport is just as much about people as it is about technology.”

“He built teams out of people and recognized that certain character traits and personalities fit together. That was definitely an attraction for me. It was quite clear that after my time in Formula 1, I would return to Audi. Nothing was fixed in writing, but it worked. And it was quite clear, black or white, whether you won or lost.”

“If you lost, you came home, didn’t point fingers at anyone, but just got back to work to find solutions and win next time. That was actually a common thread through most of the good people I worked with in my career.”

“You need a long-term vision, and you don’t get short-term success without a lot of hard work. The Audi Le Mans program was a perfect example of that, and that was probably the biggest lesson that transfers to what I do now. Especially in Formula 1, where the competition is extremely tough. There are no shortcuts.”

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Question: “Towards the end of your driving career, you did various side jobs, such as managing Harry Tincknell and working as a commentator. Did you always want to switch to a career outside the cockpit?”

McNish: “Various side jobs, I like that! (laughs) It’s actually two things. I was always very aware that as a racing driver you have a limited lifespan, and I never wanted to be the weak link clinging on.”

“I won the championship in my last year with Tom [Kristensen] and Loic [Duval]. We won Le Mans and we won [the 6 Hours of] Silverstone. And the day after my last win in Austin, I decided to retire because I wanted to make sure I had ticked all my boxes, so to speak.”

“At the same time, I was always involved in one way or another in other business areas around the automotive industry and motorsport. It’s an environment I’ve grown up in since day one and love. So it’s actually a passion, not necessarily a job or a sport. It’s a way of life, I would say, for me and most people in this situation.”

Question: “If I remember correctly, you initially said you had no interest in becoming a team principal because you didn’t want to deal with those selfish bastards in the cockpit …”

McNish: “People like me, to be honest! (laughs) And that’s true, because running a team is quite an investment of time and energy. I know how difficult I was as a driver regarding the demands on a team. And I thought, ‘Man, I just lived as a driver. Do I really want to go through that on the other side again?'”

“But it was also a lesson in ‘Never say never.’ When the team principal role came up in Formula E, it was actually a surprise because I had done the analysis for Dr. Ullrich and Dieter Gass on how to approach Formula E and what opportunities there are.”

“I sat in the room and presented it, and on the wall was a chart with several empty boxes, including team principal. Then they said, ‘And that’s Allan.’ That was the first time that thought even came into my head. It wasn’t necessarily that I knocked on the door. It was actually the other way around.”

“It was quite nice that they saw something in me that I probably hadn’t seen in myself.”

Question: “With all the data and technologies we have today in Formula 1, the old book of racing driver excuses doesn’t really exist anymore, does it?”

McNish: “It has definitely become more difficult. When I think back to when I first drove a Formula 1 car, there was very limited data and it was a stopwatch. And you listened to the engine while driving; it literally screamed. But today everything is covered by data. We are driven by it. We live by it.”

“And it defines us to some extent. But data is only a snapshot. It also depends on how you read the data. But with all the data we have, at the end of the day, the stopwatch is decisive. It tells the truth …”

This interview first appeared in Autosport, a sister publication of Motorsport-Total.com in the Motorsport Network.

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