When Ickx and Boutsen tested the Brabham

I went with Boutsen to this test, end of November 1981. We left Brussels in a BMW 323i, a car Thierry had on loan from BMW Belgium. We reached the Paul-Ricard circuit in the evening, so we were comfortably on time to be on the track next morning.

There were a lot of drivers ready to test the Brabham BT49C Cosworth that brought Nelson Piquet to the World Championship: The BMW Motorsport drivers like Thierry, Manfred Winkelhock and Corrado Fabi, but also Jacky Ickx, who was invited by Bernie, despite having officially stopped with F1 racing.

Jacky was wearing his famous “split opening” Bell helmet that he was wearing in 1979 during his last active season (although he had driven in Le Mans in 1980 with Reinhold Jöst before winning the 24 Hours with Derek Bell in the 936 “Jules” in 1981 and in 1982 again in the beautiful Rothmans Porsche 956).

He was allocated a few sets of fresh tyres in order to set good times, where the youngsters had to be happy with used ones … but don’t ask me who set the best lap times, frankly I don’t remember !

Thierry drove the next day, and in the evening we took the road back to Belgium at full speed via Paris, where we dropped young photographer Keith Sutton.

I took the wheel of the BMW after Dijon, and I crashed it close to the city of Avallon, destroying a Renault 4L while trying to avoid a truck ! We continued with a bent front end and a smoking radiator, and we finally reached Brussels the next morning. What an adventure!

At the time, a certain rivalry could be felt between Jacky and Thierry. Ickx was planning a comeback in endurance racing with Porsche the coming year, and Thierry was driving in Group C to gain experience and make a little money (first in a Rondeau-Ford in 1982, then in private Porsches 956 in 1983).

Also, Thierry had decided to sign for Spirit-Honda in F2 for the 1982 season, against the advice of Ickx who wanted him to sign for Ralt-Honda, the team of his former engineer Ron Tauranac (ex-Brabham).

From that moment on, Jacky decided not to be Thierry’s mentor any more and to consider the youngster as a rival like any other driver, … or nearly.