IN IRISH folklore, a banshee is a female spirit who heralds the death of a family member, usually through wailing.
A newspaper advert publicizing an upcoming Formula 1 race once invoked the myth by describing the sound of the sport’s cars as being like a banshee’s howl – flourishing the punt with a literary turn of phrase to the effect that experiencing such a zenith of racing was something akin to Nirvana! The myth aside – death and F1 have for more than five decades existed side by side!
Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit has hosted no less than 20 F1 races which have been contested by the bravest of drivers such as South Africa’s own Jody Scheckter, Austrian, Niki Lauda and the Brazilian mass hero, Ayrton Senna – to mention just the decorated trio amongst a pantheon.
Between the years 1997 and 2015, not only did I photograph the exploits of five of F1’s drivers (who included three World Champions) – but also personally interacted with them in the paddocks.
During the 1997 FIA World Championship, the Williams-Renault team decided to test its FW19 cars driven by the French-Canadian, Jacques Villeneuve and the German, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, at Kyalami.
Having successfully secured media credentials – I travelled to the venue to experience the sound and sight of the touring automobiles at close quarters!
Jacques Villeneuve
A 1995 Indianapolis 500 winner, Villeneuve was 11 when his dad, Gilles was killed whilst racing for Ferrari in the Belgian Grand Prix in 1982. Expressing an interest to race at the age of five, his father’s death momentarily dissuaded him from motor racing, fearing the sport’s dangers – only taking it up later.
Out at Midrand, I was bang in sync with history since I was photographing a man who was to claim the 1997 Drivers’ Championship – in only his second year in F1! His team also scooped the Constructors’ Championship. Villeneuve, Damon Hill, Nico Rosberg and Nelson Piquet Jr. – share the distinction of being sons of former F1 driver fathers.
At Kyalami, I recorded a close-up image of a contemplative Villeneuve – reminiscent of one the now late photographer, Ken Oosterbroek, once recorded of Ayrton Senna at the same circuit pending the staging of South Africa’s last Grand Prix in 1993.
Opined the triumphant scion: “winning the championship was more than the culmination of a dream; it was the goal.”
Heinz-Harald Frentzen
The German scored three wins and stepped onto the podium 18 times during his F1 career. At the conclusion of the 1997 victorious season for Williams-Renault team, Heinz-Harald Frentzen ended up being a runner-up to team-mate, Jacques Villeneuve, on the Drivers’ Championship standings.
He competed against Michael Schumacher in the German Formula 3 Championship, with the two drivers’ rivalry extending to the romantic front whereby Frentzen was once in a relationship with a woman, namely, Corrina Betsch – who ended up marrying Schumacher.
At Kyalami, I snapped Frentzen – who had made his F1 debut in 1994 – inside his FW19 cockpit alongside Villeneuve whilst surrounded by a trio of hostesses for an arranged publicity photograph.
Jody Scheckter
South African, Jody Scheckter remains the country’s and Africa’s only ever F1 world champion! He was the reason that I was at Kyalami in 2011, to photograph him for my project on South African newsmakers – recording him in the very Ferrari he had won the 1979 Driver’s Championship.
Then, his team-mate was none other than Jacques’ father, Gilles. I was within earshot to eavesdrop on a father earnestly concerned about his son, Tomas’s continued participation in the Indianapolis 500. This was after the younger Scheckter had partook in that series’ recent race in which a driver, Dan Wheldon had been killed in a particularly fiery crash!
Mika Hakkinen
During March 2015, Finland’s two-time Formula 1 World Champion, Mika Hakkinen accepted Johnnie Walker’s Gentleman’s Wager from South African rally driver, Gugu Zulu, wherein Zulu could earn the opportunity to drive the Finn’s prized car, a silver 1958 Mercedes 300SL Roadster (a variation of a car Mercedes once gifted American war photographer, David Douglas Duncan, on the proviso that he wrote an article on his friend, the great 20th century artist, Pablo Picasso, for either Collier’s or Life Magazine, in 1956.)
To win the wager, Zulu would have to train businessman, Vusi Thembekwayo to set a lap time at Kyalami within 5 seconds of Hakkinen’s best track time. Zulu did realise his wish of driving the covetous Merc!
I had never been spoilt as the day I encountered the “Flying Finn” – what with being chauffeured exclusively from a boutique hotel to the circuit in German sedans; a helicopter flight over the Sandton sky and thereafter witnessing Hakkinen driving the Monaco-registered vintage Merc across the length of a dimly-lit garage!
Sir Stirling Moss
Upon Sir Stirling Moss’s passing in April of 2020, Formula 1’s most successful driver, Sir Lewis Hamilton hailed his fellow Brit as the greatest driver never to have won the World Championship.
A newly-published book I’ve just reviewed titled, Formula 1: The Official History, offers insight on the Englishman’s participation in F1 during the Juan Manuel Fangio-dominated 1950s when drivers didn’t even wear crash helmets (statutory in this era) and straw bales protected marshals from speeding cars.
When I photographed the erstwhile racer – whose career put paid to during a 1962 crash at Goodwood – at Kyalami in 2011, the then octogenarian obliged local spectators by taking an Aston Martin for some laps around the circuit.
David Coulthard
Eleven years before I met David Coulthard, in person, the son of a karting Scottish National Champion survived an aeroplane crash in which both pilots were killed at Lyon, on May 2, 2000. In the aftermath, the Scot remarked: “I don’t live in the real world being a grand prix driver.”
At the Top Gear Festival at Kyalami in March 2011, I documented the 13 Grand Prix winner and 2001 championship runner-up driving a snazzy Red Bull car and an Audi R8 – in between obliging spectators with autographs.
Images by Jacob MAWELA (David Coulthard pictured posing with a fan after having obliged him with an autograph in the paddock of the Red Bull Formula 1 team at the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit, during the Top Gear Festival staged in Autumn of 2011.
