STEFAN JOHANSSON

b500 magazine

Racing Driver / Artist / Watch Designer

Stefan Johansson is a Swedish racing driver who had a 10 year career in Formula 1 for both Ferrari and McLaren, among other teams. Since leaving Formula One he has won the 1997 24 Hours of Le Mans and raced in a number of other categories. He lives in Santa Monica, where he is nowadays an accomplished artist, designer entrepreneur and independent thinker.

The Adventures of My Ferrari Company Car

When I negotiated my deal to drive for Ferrari back in the spring of 1985, it all came together at the last minute, replacing Rene Arnoux after the first Grand Prix of the season.

I met Marco Piccini at the Savoy in London on the Monday prior to the following Grand Prix, where he asked me if I would be available for the remainder of that season. Needless to say it didn’t take more than a second for me to say YES! He asked what I was looking for in terms of salary etc, and I gave him a number which was obviously way too low because he agreed immediately. We then went on to the smaller details which were also to include a company car for me to use while I was employed by them. Finally my dream had become a reality, I was going to drive for Ferrari, and have one of their cars to drive on the road as well. It was very easy to deal with Marco and he never even blinked when I asked for the car as a bonus, we never got into the details of what model, I just assumed it would be the 328 which was the popular model at the time, or maybe even the Testarossa!

The car was to be delivered at the San Marino GP in Imola on the Friday evening at the Molino Rosso Hotel which is where I was staying. This was a typical Italian Motor Hotel located right by the exit to the Imola Circuit, and very convenient for getting to the track in the morning.

I had a sponsor event to attend that evening and it was arranged for my car to be delivered at 6pm in order for me to be in Bologna by 7pm. I was waiting with excitement for the driver to show up with my car, and I didn’t want to be late to the event as it was only my second race with the team. The delivery driver was running very late and eventually showed up just before 7pm, so not only was I now worked up about the fact that I was going to be extremely late for the event, there were no mobile phones back then so I had no way of contacting anyone, but when my car which I had been dreaming about for the past couple of weeks finally turned up, it was a Fiat Ritmo…no expletive in any language on this planet would justify how I felt at that moment! A Fiat Ritmo!! I still had to get to the event in Bologna in a big hurry, so I jumped in the car and started leaving the hotel. To their credit, at least it was a Turbo model and it had quite good power, I also discovered immediately that it was a front wheel drive car, as I got wheel spin right away as I hit the throttle in 1st gear. The ceramic tile covered garage floor was like driving on ice, incredibly slippery. So, of course I just keep going through the gears with full wheelspin in every gear until I reach 4th gear, by which time the wheels were probably doing 90mph, whereas the car was actually moving at probably 10mph or less! I turned the corner between the two buildings, still on full throttle with maximum wheelspin, and as I got halfway through the turn the surface switched from ceramic tiles to regular asphalt and suddenly the grip level went from zero to full grip in around 1/10th second, and the steering wheel just got ripped out of my hands and the car suddenly took off heading straight for one of the garage pillars! There was nothing left of the front of the car, lots of steam and fluids everywhere, the right front wheel was more or less on top of the engine and the pillar was smashed to pieces. I couldn’t find anything that would fit the description in the F1 drivers book of excuses, (which is thicker than the bible by the way), so there was a seriously embarrassed Ferrari driver trying to explain what had happened to my boss the following day! I almost made up for it in the race leading with one lap to go when the car ran out of fuel!