In an Exclusive Conversation With Ex-F1 Driver Perry McCarthy: Dissecting the Mind of a Winner

“I understand failure. I also understand success. But the one thing I absolutely do not understand is mediocrity.”

When The SportsRush sat down with Perry McCarthy for an exclusive interview, I was talking to an “older, beaten-up racing driver” who had seen it all, done it all but most importantly, survived. I, on the other hand, was just a googly-eyed fan who wanted to know the inner-workings of our sport to write about. But McCarthy, who drove in F1 for the ill-fated Andrea Moda Formula team and tested for the likes of Benetton and Williams in the 90s, didn’t want our conversation to be just another Q&A session.

If there’s anything that Perry’s mastered, other than racing lines and setups; it is life. When he met someone who had been tangibly inspired by his own journey, Perry gave me the distinct privilege of sharing the truth: “The absolute heart, guts and soul” of a man who defied the odds, broke the mold and rubbed shoulders with the elite of motorsport, as an equal.

Hence, this is an excerpt from my interview with the “Original Stig” about the lessons he taught us while he was Flat Out, Flat Broke, trying to carve a niche out for himself following his passion for motor racing.

FROM THE NORTH SEA OIL RIGS TO FORMULA 1

Perry didn’t choose the conventional path into the sport. Well, he never really had the money to. By his own admission, at 18, he worked 14 hours, seven days a week at oil rigs in the North Sea to earn the buy-in money for a racing seat.

“When I was hanging from the scaffolding that was 40 meters high in the sky and freezing cold and you have to join another piece of scaffolding and you’re swaying in the wind, I was just thinking, ‘This is worth it. Because this is my buy-in price to get to motor racing.”

Adversity and bad luck were still Perry’s best friends. However, a chance meeting with Bernie Ecclestone at Brands Hatch really reveals the mindset of the man who was possessed with the idea of making the best out of the worst.

HEY BERNIE ECCLESTONE, CAN I PLEASE BE A FORMULA 1 DRIVER?

“By the time I started, you know, all that money was only really good for one season for motor racing,” explained McCarthy. “And I was coming in, at 21, racing against people who had been racing since they were 10, in National Karts and International Karts.”

However, without a trophy cabinet brimming with karting accolades, he still decided to square off against ‘experienced’ rivals in Formula Ford, Formula 3 and Formula 3000. That’s when fortune favored the brave and a friend introduced McCarthy to F1’s ringmaster, Bernie Ecclestone, at Brands Hatch.

A bloody quick ‘nobody’ at the time, McCarthy, recollects saying, “Hi Mr. Ecclestone, I want to go to Formula 1.” In pure Bernie fashion, bordering on being impolite, he told McCarthy that his chances of making it to F1 with his paltry fortunes were a million-to-one shot.

But rather than being dissuaded, McCarthy remembers saying to himself, “Well, here’s the main thing: I’ve just met the top guy in Formula 1!” He continued, “This hasn’t come from reading Management books. This isn’t the ‘Top 10 Tips on How to Be a Better Person’. This was inside me, that’s how I felt: elated about meeting him, thinking, ‘That’s a chip in the rock. Does that somehow give me another foothold?”

F1 AND BEYOND: LIFE LESSONS FROM A PROVEN WINNER

McCarthy really did have to develop a ‘mantra’ to racing and to life. “The optimum journey would be from point A to point B in a straight line. But in my career, I was forced to zig-zag.”

McCarthy did make it to Formula 1. In 1992, he drove for the infamous Andrea Moda Formula team. The team was Andrea Sassetti’s, who owned Andrea Moda, an Italian shoe company, and was later convicted for fraud. And just like that, McCarthy’s big break was cut short.

Devastating for many, McCarthy never stopped fighting. Brief stints as test driver for Benetton and Williams never really came good, too, for reasons of their own. But once again, Perry McCarthy never stopped fighting. After a substantial Le Mans career, McCarthy bumped into an old pal, Jeremy Clarkson. And the Stig was born.

When I came away from my interview with Perry, I had only two words to describe him: Iconic and Inspiring. In conclusion, I deem it fit to leave you all with what Perry said to me that has now been etched into my DNA as my single greatest learning:

“I hear people, just to get a job in England. They’ve written a hundred and twenty letters and nobody has even replied. Maybe those letters are wrong. Maybe you’re sending them to the wrong people. Or maybe, the 121^st letter is the one that does it.”

Thank you, Perry, for being my 121^st letter.