John Marshall Watson (born 4 May 1946) was already 23 years old when just before Easter he left Belfast to take the boat to Thruxton for his first F2 race in a Lotus 48. A shy, quiet young man with a beard. He had raced for five years in Ireland. At Thruxton Jochen Rindt won from Jackie Stewart. But the story of the race was how an unknown 22-year-old bearded Irishman, driving an outdated car in his first major race, stormed through a strong field from 20th to fifth – before crashing. Back home to save ( and help of his father) for a Brabham BT 30 (photo 1). With this car, he travelled through Europe in 1970. During practice for the F2 race in Rouen, he smashed the Brabham in the guard rails. He ends in the hospital with a broken leg, broken arm. But luckily, Bernie Ecclestone took care of him and gave hin money to fly home.
The next year, he was back with a restored BT30 (photo 2) and a very low budget in the F2 with two P05 finishes. Derek Bell offered him the use of his workshop in Bognor Regis, so he went to live there and he employed Derek’s mechanic, George Brown. They travelled around Europe in an old Ford Transit, towing the Brabham on a trailer. But then, his luck turned. In a training session at Hockenheim at the beginning of 1972 Bert Hawthorne had a deadly accident. Team boss, Allan McCall needed a new driver for his TUI F2 team. Bert and Allan also came from Ireland, the choice was easily made. In the summer he drove a Chevron F2 to sixth place in the Rothmans 50000 at Brands Hatch, a combined F1/F5000/F2 race. He finished sixth, ahead of all the F5000s. Two months later he made his F1 debut there with a March 712 (ex-Eifelland Coloni body from Rolf Stommelen- more to read) sponsored by Hexagon. This was a car dealing business from London; boss Paul Michaels had seen John Watson race in a Chevron and made sure that John would get into F1 by getting him at the start for the Victory Race. Again Ecclestone: he had picked-up the car and sold him to a Dubliner Monkey Brown. Watson drove the car first in a Phoenix Park race and retired before the car went to Michaels. Watson was fast in the victory race: fourth in the rain and sixth at the finish.
Photo 1 and 2
Over the winter, John Watson signed several contracts for the European F2 championship, a few F1 races with a Brabham and endurance racing with the Gulf Mirage. In the first race in March, the Race of Champions, again at Brands Hatch, the throttle of the Brabham BT42 got stuck and John had a massive crash and a broken leg. John’s comeback race was the 24h Le Mans, driving a JW Gulf Mirage (photo 3); later in the year he also did the Watkins Glen Six Hours with Mike Hailwood, finishing fifth. Watson was back in the GP at Silverstone in an old BT37 and, when Andrea de Adamich was injured, he was at the wheel of the official BT42 at Watkins Glenn (photo 4).
Photo 3 and 4
Brabham and Surtees in 1974 and 1975
For 1974 and with extra money from American businessman John Goldie, Hexagon bought a BT42 and later in the year a new BT44. Watson could do a full F1 year. At Monaco he drove brilliantly, taking sixth place and his first championship point. In Austria he finished fourth after a tyre stop. At Monza he was fastest in final practice. He was on a quicker lap, which could have beaten Niki Lauda’s pole, when a rear wheel broke at Lesmo and pitched the BT44 into the barriers. He started in the works spare BT42, from fourth on the grid, and finished seventh after a pitstop. At Watkins Glen, despite broken suspension, John managed fifth place, bringing his and Hexagon’s points tally for the season to six. But there was no more budget, and the little team folded.
In Formula 2, Watson raced for the Bang & Olufsen Team Surtees. He drove also with Peter Gethin a Chevron B26 with an Hart engine (first race) in the 1000 km Nürburgring.
F1 was no place for anymore for private sponsoring teams. But thanks to John Surtees, John got to drive a TS16 for the 1975 F1. It was a difficult season in a team without budget. The team missed the German GP, and John drove a JPS Lotus 72 instead, replacing Jacky Ickx. “I got that drive because Colin Chapman couldn’t understand why Watson, in a Surtees, had beaten Peterson, in a Lotus, at Brands Hatch in the Race of Champions. He was quite upset about that.” But in the pits he had a good talk with Heinz Hofer, team manager of Roger Penske. Subject: the 1976 season. As their first driver Mark Donohue had a fatal accident at Zeltweg, John was already drafted in the team for the last GP. At the Glen he qualified 12th in the PC3, but it expired on the warmup lap. The team had their original Geoff Ferris-designed PC1 on show on the grass in the hospitality area,so they put Watson in that car. During the race he broke two ribs because the seat didn’t fit, but I he finished ninth. In endurance, he did one race with the Gelo Mirage team and drove a T33 Alfa in a Nürburgring Interserie race.
First win in F1
1976 was his breakthrough year. The year started in the Penske PC3 (P05 Kyalami) and from Sweden onwards the PC4. The team made progress throughout the season with Watson finishing third in the French GP, third in the British GP and a fine drive and victory in the Austria GP. After that win, he had to shave off his beard because Roger Penske did not like facial hair. John was running second at Zandvoort, when the gearbox failed and was sixth at Watkins Glenn. He ended the year seventh in the world F1 championship. At the end of the year, Penske withdrew from the F1 to concentrate on American Racing. The cars and factory were sold to Gunther Schmid for the new ATS team.
Again with Brabham in 1977 and 1978
Ecclestone gave him a drive next to Carlos Pace for 1977 in the Brabham BT45(B). After 3 races with leading his first race for the team in Argentina until the rear suspension started to fall off and a P06 at Kyalami, Carlos Pace had died in an light-airplane crash. Hans Stuck was the new team mate. At Monaco Watson took pole, and chased Jody Scheckter’s Wolf for the lead until his gearbox failed. He led the Belgian GP from the start, but was punted off by Mario Andretti, and was nudged off in Sweden by Scheckter while second. Then came the French GP at Dijon, where John planted the bulky Brabham-Alfa at the head of the field on lap five and stayed there. “It was going to be a great victory. I’d fought off a hard challenge from Mario in the Lotus 78, and on the last lap, coming out of that hairpin round the back, the engine stuttered. Fuel starvation. Mario was gone, I finished second. Two weeks later I was leading at Silverstone, and it happened again. Two races we should have won. Watson’s best results were a P02 in France and a P05 in Sweden.
For 1978, he got a real strong partner: Niki Lauda. The Austrian arranged with Ecclestone to become the team's number one .This meant that in case of a fight in the race, Watson had to let him past.
The year started with the BT45C, but the new designed by Gordon Murray BT46, and the BT46B ‘fan car’ were great cars (see article on BT46B). Watson was third at Kyalami, on pole in Monaco (and P04 in race), third at Brands Hatch after being in the points in Spain and France. In Monza, the Brabham team had a 1-2 finish. Overall, a sixth place in the championship. And time to look for another team, because politics in a team with putting Lauda always first was not his thing.
The McLaren years
Watson became a driver at McLaren for 1979. Initially this was the pre-Ron Dennis McLaren, with Teddy Mayer at the helm. The first season was a disaster. McLaren didn’t understand ground-effects yet. The McLaren M28 was the first wing car still with a honeycomb monocoque, inspired by the Lotus 79, and would get numerous modifications during the year. But, under pressure from Marlboro, in the space of six weeks they produced the M29, a true wing concept. From Germany onwards, John could drive the car. The first race in Argentina got Watson on the podium (P03), the only one for the rest of the season. In six other races, he was able to score points with a P04 in Monaco and Silverstone. Overall, he was ninth in the standings.
The M29 was also the car for the 1980 season. The best results were a P04 at the USA-West GP and in Canada, overall P10 in the championship. His team mate for that year was Alain Prost, newly crowned European F3 champion. This was a little political. Alain became the weapon for Teddy to hit back at Marlboro, who were trying to move McLaren into Ron Dennis’ Project Four operation. They weren’t prepared to force the issue at that stage, and Teddy had the balls to face up to them. So once again Watson was being sidelined. Thanks to the input from Gordon Coppuck and Robin Herd as a consultant, the M29 improved during the year. But McLaren were also working on a secret project, which appeared at Zandvoort. This was the M30, the culmination of all Alain’s input. But fundamentally it never worked. Alain went with the M30 and John with the M29. That started getting him the upper hand. Alain was now being courted by Renault; they had a turbo and McLaren not and McLaren slowly got Teddy Mayer out and Ron Dennis jumping in as team boss.
Technical director John Barnard after 2 years research, introduced in 1981 the MP4 with the futuristic carbon fibre chassis together with a higher standard of perfectionism from his part and money from Marlboro. It was Watson, who brought the first win in England for McLaren in four years! In lap 4,he had to avoid a spinning Gilles Villeneuve and dropped to 9th place. In lap 56 he was already just behind leader Arnoux. With a great overtake at Becketts, he got the crowd up and cheering him to the finish line. First McLaren win in four years. On top of that, he was second in France and Canada and third in Spain.
The 1982 season was the come-back of Niki Lauda as his partner at McLaren. Lauda knew Watson, so he expected no problem. Lauda set about it the way he always did things, he got Willi Dungl to sort out his fitness, he got the key people in the team around him. But John knew the character of the Austrian and used that to his advantage and Ron Dennis provided totally identical equipment to both drivers. And John had a great season and had during the season the world title within his sight, especially after Didier Pironi was out after his accident at Hockenheim. Watson went on to win the Belgian GP. In Detroit, he started from P17 and won again thanks to his clever racing. With a second place in Brazil and a P04 in Italy, and after 11 races, Watson could become world champion only if he won the last GP at Las Vegas. Unfortunately, he ended the race second behind Keke Rosberg (Williams), who became the champion.
1983 was still a F1 year for McLaren without a turbo engine in the first 11 GP’s. For the last races, the MP4/1E had a TAG turbo engine. In Long Beach, Watson started from P23 and won the race after a smart move to pass by his team mate Lauda. He was third in Detroit, fifth in San Marino and Germany and again third at Zandvoort, the last race for the normal aspirated engine McLaren. In the championship standings he was classified sixth.
In Zandvoort, John had a feeling that things would change for next year. When at the last race in Kyalami, Alain Prost lost the title for Renault and immediately got his resignation afterwards, it was done. Prost was always sponsored by Marlboro, so he asked them to look for a team for 1984. Ron Dennis saw a big commercial thing teaming him up with Niki Lauda even when Lauda did not want that really; he just wanted another title without the threat of a team mate. So John Watson ended without a drive for 1984 after 10 years in F1. He tried at Toleman, but they did not have a tyre contract. He drove just one F1 race in 1985 when Lauda had injured his wrist; the race ended in a P07.
Ending in the endurance racing
To wean himself off the racing drug, he took up sports car racing again. In 1984 he drove some races with Porsche, winning in Fuji with Stefan Bellof. Watson also drove the Bob Tullius Group 44 Jaguar in the 24h Le Mans in 1984 with Tony Adamowicz and Claude Ballot-Lena. He joined the Silk Cut Jaguar squad in 1987. With Jan Lammers he won at Jarama, Monza and Fuji in the XJR-8 and ended second in the world Championship. In 1988, he partnered with John Nielsen and Raul Boesel in the XJR-9 and got two podium finishes. In Le Mans with Boesel and Pescarolo, the had a DNF.
In the 24h Daytona 1988 Watson ended third with Eddie Cheever and Dumfries. For the rest of the season in IMSA he raced together with Davy Jones.
Then John started broadcasting, first for BBC Radio, then F1 on Eurosport and on Sky.
At a lunch -intervieuw for Motorsport Magzine he said: “I did 150-plus Grands Prix, I finished second in the World Championship, I won some races. I feel I should have achieved more. I know I had the ability in terms of my speed in the car, and there were races that should have come to me and didn’t. But I can’t change any of that. It’s in the book…”
