of Roman Klemm                                                                    

RAYMOND BOULTER

The only technician who has worked for three female drivers in F1

Words and pictures: Roman Klemm / Archive of Roman Klemm

Sometimes incredible coincidences help to create interesting experiences. On Saturday of the Austrian GP ´25, ??I put on a T-shirt with the Skoal RAM team motif. I was at Gerhard Berger's seat test in Laudas 1975- Ferrari and had been chatting with the man who was preparing the car for a long time before that. After a while, he looked at my clothes and said: "By the way: I was Winkelhock's technician when he drove for RAM in 1985." This was followed by a conversation of several hours with Ray Boulter, who later led the Brabham and Lola-F1 teams. Nowadays he is responsible for Bernie Ecclestone's car collection. I never would get this interview if I had worn a T-shirt with Fittipaldi on that day...

Are you the offspring of a motoring clan?

Not at all. I trained as a mechanic in my uncle's workshop. When his business went bankrupt, I had to look elsewhere. So in 1967 I joined the London company of Mr. John Macdonald. He sold and repaired used cars. In addition, he raced semi-amateur. He drove in the heavily modified roadster class. He had a Ford Anglia equipped with a powerful Ford-F2 engine. Roger Williamson also used a similar car there. Roger and I became quite friends - I really liked the whole thing.

How did the RAM team come about?

John stopped racing and together with his colleague Mike Ralph and me (there were actually three of us) founded RAM (Ralp and Macdonald). At the end of 1974 John bought two Chevron B24s, which he first put Dave Walker and Andy Suttcliffe in for the F5000 championship in the 1975 season. The sponsor was the London disco "Thursdays" and the budget was 15,000 pounds. 

Was this first season a bit "windy"?

We were not happy with the results. John sold the Chevrons and bought a March chassis and put Alan Jones in it. Suddenly we were a top team!

How did you get to know the future world champion Jones?

That was easy. Jones's "Australian International Racing" was based in Macdonald's premises. More precisely, In the showroom where the shop window would normally be. So Alan was actually always with us and when AIR collapsed, he was happy to be involved. 

Top results in F5000 and exemplary clean preparation of the car made RAM's appetite for more?

Yes. For the 1976 season, John bought two Brabham 44Bs and one 42B, which we modernized. And we threw ourselves into selected F1 World Championship races! The team consisted of John, Mike, myself, John's brother Phillipp, two mechanics and a "gofer". John was sort of the financial manager, I was the chief technician and Mike took care of everything else. Then there was the unpleasant incident with Loris Kessel at the Nürburgring. He kept complaining that the car was not OK. Maybe he was right - for example, we had problems with the conversion from a high intake manifold above the engine to a lower one. So John sold the cockpit to experienced Rolf Stommelen. He was immediately sensationally fast, but in the afternoon Kessel came with the police and they confiscated the team's property - and we didn't drive at all. I must admit that this case cast a dark shadow over the RAM team, which it did not easily get rid of. But we were not frauds. We simply worked for the best possible results.

John Macdonald was very diligent in changing drivers at that time. How do you rate these pay drivers?

In 1975, in addition to Kessel and Stommelen, we also run Bob Evans, Patrick Neve, Lella Lombardi, Emilio de Villota, Jac Nelleman and Damien Magee. Loris certainly knew more than our car allowed him to show. Stommelen was a super fast world class pro. Lella wasn't bad either, and Patrick Neve? There was too much fuss around him. He was good, but not a superstar. Everyone was great to work with. By the way: I am the only chief team technician who has worked with three women in Formula 1. In 1976 with Lella, in 1980 with Desiré Wilson and in 1992 with Giovanna Amati.

A year later, RAM was using March cars. Even with its own modifications.

We had a March 761, which the Dutch sponsor F&S Properties insisted on having its own aerodynamics. So they hired a designer, Martin Slater, and it didn't work. We only managed to qualify twice in the whole season (Boy Hayje). Imagine that just a few years ago a Dutch journalist attacked me for allegedly ruining Hayje's career. But where else did he prove his talent.

After two years in the British Aurora-F1 Championship, RAM returned to the World Championship with the top-of-the-range Williams FW07.

Guy Edwards drove for us in Aurora, among others. He was very fast on his day, but above all he was a first-class sponsorship scout. We used March and Fittipaldi cars - but they weren't very good material. For 1980 John got top cars from Frank. I remember Frank needed this deal. He once asked John to pay part of the instalment early so he could pay his mechanics. I fondly remember a test with Rupert Keegan at Silverstone. We were almost alone there and I had the whole day to play with the car. That was when I came up with the solution of using two springs on each shock absorber. Patrick Head congratulated me on that and used it on the factory cars. Rupert later finished 9th for us at Watkins Glen.

And what about Desiré Wilson, who complained about the crappy material?

She and her entourage claimed that we gave her some crappy chassis for Brands Hatch. Yes, I admit that I modified her FW07 a bit, including swapping the chassis number plates - but I swear she had perfect material like Rupert…

In 1981, RAM began working closely with Robin Herd's March...

We started the season with Derek Daly and Elise Salazar. Robin wanted to build a particularly light chassis and the result was that the honeycomb walls of the 811 were so thin that the chassis twisted. The result was a series of non-qualifications. Salazar left us after Monaco and we concentrated solely on Derek, whose shell we had strengthened ourselves. The results immediately improved and Daly finished in the top 10 twice. I felt sorry for him. He could have done much better. But he himself was responsible for too many accidents in the races.

Nevertheless, you secured a powerful sponsor and again entered two cars.

Guy Edwards and Jochen Mass secured support from Rothmans cigarettes and the chemical company ICI. The team was based in Bicester and grew to 35 members. The problem that year was the tyres. We started with Pirelli and later switched to Avons, which required a different suspension design. It didn't work...

The unfortunate "highlights" of the 1982 season for RAM were two terrible accidents of Jochen Mass..?

In Zolder, where Gilles Villeneuve lost his life after a collision with Jochen, we were at rock bottom. Jochen returned to the pits and just said "He's dead…” It was a disaster for him, both professionally and personally. The two families in Monaco lived next door and their wives took turns taking the children to kindergarten in the morning… Jochen then finished in the top 10 in Detroit and Brands Hatch, but in Le Castellet he had a serious accident with Baldi, after which his car flew into the spectators. He then tried to practice in Hockenheim, but he was in a lot of pain and gave up. When he took off his overalls, you could see why: he still had the blue stripes from the seat belts on his body after the accident in France. From his neck to his pelvis, it looked like he had blue suspenders - I've never seen anything like it.

In 1983, the name "RAM” first appeared in the chassis designation. However, the results of the RAM-March 01 were disastrous. Eliseo Salazar ended his F1 career after several non-qualifications and Kenny Acheson took over the car. The Ford-Cosworth engines were to blame. They were tuned for us by John Nicholson and were worthless. Kenny simply couldn't qualify. Nelson Piquet also tested the car once. But it bored him and it didn't lead to anything - a waste of time. Before the last race of the year in Kyalami, Macdonald asked Williams if he would lend us one of his engines? He didn't need them anymore, because he had switched to turbocharged Hondas. Frank remembered well how John had helped him once. He lent us the machine and voi-la: Kenny even finished the race!

Despite the desolate 1983, RAM managed to find a sponsor for two cars and turbocharged engines again?

In 1984, we were sponsored by the chewing tobacco manufacturer Skoal Bandit. Thanks to Guy Edwards again. We paid for Brian Hart's engines. I remember the first test with Philippe Alliot at Silverstone. He was a very nice guy and didn't know much English. For example, instead of "straight", he said "street". After his run, he would say how short the "streets" seemed to him with the turbo. The preparation of the cars was tip-top. This is evidenced by the fact that Palmer finished eighth in the car's debut in Rio. RAM was only the second team in F1 history to finish its first race with a turbocharged engine. But the season didn't work out again. It was simple: Brian Hart tried, but he focused his limited efforts on Toleman. The money RAM paid him was actually used to serve the Tolemans well...

But the sponsor remained and RAM also entered in 1985 with two cars?

We even had two significant reinforcements: The opportunity arose to engage Manfred Winkelhock, so we immediately took this respected driver. The chassis was designed by the brilliant Austrian Gustav Brunner - and he managed to create a sensational car, the RAM 03. But we suffered again with the Hart engines. Alliot, when he later drove for Ligier-Renault, told me that if he had had a Renault engine in the RAM 03, he would certainly have driven for victory in 1985! And then Manfred's death... It was very, very sad. He was a driver with whom everyone in the team felt that we could achieve absolutely anything. With Manfred in the car, we believed in success. I don't want to underestimate our other drivers, but we have never had such confidence in a driver before or since.

And the end of RAM in Formula 1?

For the 1986 season we tested under the name Black Swan Racing in Brazil with Mike Thackwell. But our engine was such a crap that we decided to leave it. We then returned to our roots in FF2000. From 1988 the Japanese company Middlebridge joined the team - it was a betting office, focusing on horse racing! From the 1990 season I was the head of the organization and we entered F3000 with Damon Hill and Gary Brabham. We did not qualify for the first race, so we tested for 3 days in Pembrey and Damon then put the car on pole position several times!

And then you became the boss of Brabham-F1…

Middlebridge also bought Brabham-F1 at that time. Mark Blundell and Martin Brundle drove there - but without good results. The gentlemen from Middlebridge sent me to Montreal to take a look at what was going on in the team. My diagnosis was clear: they were still somehow living in a "championship intoxication” of what they had achieved 10 years ago - but everything else no longer corresponded to a top team. They offered me to take over the team and I would develop a plan for how to do it. My main point was to extend the cooperation with the engine manufacturer Yamaha. They had potential - and they were free. Well, that's exactly what didn't happen… They bought engines from John Judd and we didn't stand a chance. In the summer, Brabham finally collapsed. I still remember the last qualifying in Hungary. Judd already knew that the team would soon fold and allowed us to rew his V10 only up to 12,750 rpm. Damon couldn't qualify and so I begged John on the phone during the session to raise the limit to 13,200. He agreed - and Hill squeezed into the starting field...

This wasn't Ray Boulter's last adventure in Formula 1?

No, I had a surprising chance with Lola in 1997. Eric Broadley wanted to race in Formula 1 with the factory team. Someone from Lola called me to ask if I wanted to lead their team and unfortunately I accepted. They had the car painted, but they were waiting for a definitive "yes" from a sponsor. They received it in October 1996 and commissioned me to build the cars for the Melbourne race and set up the team. We only had four months and worked every day except Christmas Eve. I'm proud that we managed it. After presenting the car and sponsors and a short shake-down, we transported everything to Australia. It was a feat that never received recognition. Sospiri and Rosset of course didn't qualify. But we had a plan of tests and modifications that should bear fruit from the European part of the season at the latest. But it soon turned out that the "yes" from the sponsor was a "misunderstanding"...

Who impressed you the most as a driver during your career?

I would like to name three. Alan Jones, Manfred Winkelhock and Jochen Mass.

And who was the worst to work with?

I don't want to be unfair to him, but I would name the Finn Mike Kozarowitski. In 1977 we tried it twice with him and it was always a disaster. But it wasn't just his fault. We were also still F1 greenhorns. 

What did you do after your "active sports career"?

I had my own company and worked for various people. I managed Nick Mason's collection, then Bernie Ecclestone's collection.

What is it like working for Ecclestone?

Excellent. He rarely shows up at the workshops, which is a clear proof that I have his full trust. No, I'm not moving to Austria now that he's sold all the single-seaters to Mr. Mateschitz. I'll just "accompany" the cars here like these two Ferrari-F1s. I'll stay with Ecclestone - he still has a huge collection of road-going supercars. Interestingly, I've never seen him driving himself...