An Interview with Warren Hughes

An Interview with Warren Hughes 

Warren Hughes must be a bit of a hero back home in Sunderland. For a start, there are few (if any) other Le Mans drivers from the north east of England. And then there’s the fact that in 2001 he was a Le Mans virgin, yet in the hour Warren spent at the wheel of the MG Lola EX257 before mechanical problems forced retirement, he cut through the wall of rain until he was lapping the circuit faster than any other car at the time – including the leading Audi. Not bad for a new boy.

But Warren is not just a top level Le Mans and Touring Car driver. He’s also one of the friendliest faces in professional motorsport: a genuine nice guy. At the end of a day’s testing at Snetterton, Warren talked to Charis Whitcombe about racing, road cars and his involvement with MG.

• What was your impression of the MG marque when you were growing up? 

“My older brother Mark owned MGB Roadsters and GTs, so I thought of MGs the way many people did at the time – stylish classics, but not necessarily built for performance. Except perhaps the MGB GT V8 which I thought of as a quick car. Now, of course, MG’s image is very different. The new range is cutting-edge stuff.”

• Presumably you’ve driven MG’s road cars? 

“I’ve driven them all. My own road car is a ZT because of the number of miles I do: it’s perfect to sit on the motorway, comfortable for cruising but the performance is there when I want it. I also like the ZS very much because the handling is so good. And I was involved in the development of the MG TF 500 which is an extreme car and real fun to drive – halfway between an MG TF and a full-blown race car.”

• No one will forget your outstanding performance at Le Mans last year, in that torrential rain. Anthony Reid said it was like driving into a wall of water. How did it feel to you?

“I can’t say I enjoyed it. I’d never raced at those speeds – we were doing 200mph on the straight and I couldn’t see the nose of the car through all the water. I couldn’t see what was ahead and, very importantly when you’re racing, I couldn’t see where there was standing water. Although you don’t think about the danger at the time, it was very dangerous. On reflection, of course, there’s huge satisfaction in it, but I can’t pretend it was much fun at the time. “Having said that, the MG Lola is the best car I’ve ever driven. It’s not just because it’s the fastest, although it is, it’s more the way it feels to drive. It handles superbly.” 

• What are the stresses on your body in a car like that? 

“In the dry, there are tremendous forces when you’re cornering. I’ve tested for Williams F1 and I can tell you that the forces you experience in a Le Mans car are not that different from F1. We pull almost 3.5G through the corners, where an F1 might pull 4. We have a great deal of downforce in the MG Lola but of course we lack the sheer power of F1 machinery – we’re probably 200-300bhp shy of it.”

• So you need a lot of physical training to stand up to the rigours of racing? 

“To get the maximum out of a car like that you need three things: you need to be fit, you need to be committed, and you need to be motivated.

“I’m a vegetarian and I take health and fitness very seriously. I even have my own trainer these days. I watch what I eat and work out at the gym a great deal through the winter. People are always coming up to me in the gym and asking ‘Don’t you have an engine? You work out so much you must have to push the car.’

“Just as with an F1 car, however, the MG Lola puts huge forces on the neck, which can’t be simulated in a gym. At the beginning of the season there will be a few stiff necks, at least for the first couple of days of practice.”

• Now that the BTCC season is about to start you must have very little free time. How does racing affect your home life? 

“From December to the end of January I spend a fair bit of time at home. I live in Sunderland with my girlfriend and I really look forward to going back there: my parents live nearby and I just love that part of the world. But now things have started hotting up for the season. This week, for example, I’m spending five nights in a hotel.”

Although we know Warren best for his drives last year at Le Mans and in the British Touring Car Championship, where he gave MG its first ever BTCC pole position, he already had an impressive record on track. As Jacques Villeneuve’s F3 team-mate he beat the soon-to-be F1 World Champion every time they raced together, and also proved quicker than Rubens Barrichello in F3 testing. In 1999, Warren seemed to stroll to championship victory in the MGF Cup, while the following year saw his F3000 debut, in the Italian series with Arden Team Russia. He finished 2nd in the Championship, having won outright at Imola and Monza.

• What was your aim when you began racing? 

“When I first set out, my aim was F1. The Jim Russell Racing School at Donington selected me as their most promising pupil that season and I naively assumed that I’d make it to F1. When I started racing seriously, I still felt that I was progressing up that ladder and it was a fair time before I hit any hurdles.

“The first real hurdle came in 1992, in F3, when we had problems with the new Vauxhall engine. The whole momentum of my racing career was interrupted. That momentum is so important to a racing driver aiming for the top. Somehow the season was a turning point, and I realised I’d have to explore other branches of racing in case I didn’t make it to F1 after all.”

• What are your particular strengths as a driver? 

“I’m regarded as being good on technical feedback, helping the team to get the most from a car. They also say I’m particularly strong in the early laps of a race, before it’s settled down into a pattern. Some of my manoeuvres in the early stages seem to surprise other competitors and come off very well.”

• You’re certainly not known for having accidents but there was one fairly big shunt a few years back. What happened there? 

“I have bad memories of that incident, although it was – what, six years ago now? I did three races in the German Touring Cars with Ford and had a major accident while avoiding another car which was spinning. It’s been my only serious incident and, fortunately, I can look back and understand why it happened. That helps. It’s all been logged away so it won’t happen again.”

• How do the members of the MG race team get on? Is there camaraderie or competitiveness between the drivers? 

“There’s huge camaraderie and a spirit that I’ve never come across in racing before. For example, Anthony has a lot of Le Mans experience and he’s always willing to pass this on where he can.

“But it’s not just in the race team. Everyone at MG seems so full of enthusiasm and it’s a feeling which goes right through the company. We went to visit the Longbridge plant and everyone on the factory floor wanted to ask us about Le Mans and what it was like to drive there.”

• What about Bentley? As the other top British team at Le Mans, are they your greatest competitors? 

“To be honest, we don’t think much about our competitors. We just concentrate on getting the most out of our cars, which have already proved they have enormous potential. We’ll just get on with the job of extracting that potential and the rest – the race results – will fall naturally out of that.

I just hope it stays dry this year. If it rains again, we’ll cope, but I’ve done Le Mans in the wet. Dry would make a nice change.”

• My final question was whether racing drivers are born or made. For an answer I turned to Warren’s older brother Mark, who is “Grand Prix Editor at Large” on Autosport magazine. Mark’s answer was a true story which demonstrates that by the age of three, Warren had grasped the basic principle of racing…

On being invited to enter an impromptu pushchair race against a group of older boys, Mark accepted and three-year-old Warren was duly strapped in place. The race began, Mark jostling for position at high speed. He soon lost control of the buggy which veered off the path and rolled down a steep bank, with little Warren still strapped in the seat. Fearing he had killed his sibling in a racing accident, Mark dashed down the bank and righted the upside-down buggy. The bruised toddler looked groggily up at Mark without a hint of reproach and asked; “Did we win?” Charis Whitcombe Captions Warren Hughes at Brands Hatch in the British Touring Car Championship Warren Hughes at the launch of the MG Motorsport Programme at Longbridge