Dick Bennetts: Discovering Senna, Häkkinen’s hand signals and Mansell’s Mondeo

Motor Sport magazine

For over 50 years, Dick Bennetts has been central to some of racing's greatest stories. From giving Ayrton Senna his famous Formula 3 break, to communicating engineering feedback via hand signals with young prodigy Mika Häkkinen, and gaining respect for Nigel Mansell through his spectacular touring car cameos, Bennetts has lived and breathed motor sport through some of its most thrilling moments. In the final installment of Engineering the Greats series 2, in association with Scalextric, Bennetts gives true insight into the link between driver and engineer. Now a stalwart of the BTCC, the New Zealander also talks about what makes the series great, analyses the respective styles of his superstar drivers Colin Turkington and Jake Hill as well as explaining what he would do to make the championship even better. Bennetts also expands on how his West Surrey Racing team could have dominated with Tom Kristensen, and explains why he turned down working for Ron Dennis at McLaren. In another fascinating episode of Engineering the Greats, Bennetts' memories of a brilliant life in racing are not to be missed.