Jones: "Ecclestone paid me to pull a sickie for the '85 South African GP"

1980 Formula 1 World Champion Alan Jones has claimed he was paid to feign an illness to get out of competing in the 1985 South African GP. The Grand Prix in question was held in the apartheid era of South Africa, during P.W Botha’s state of emergency and was seen as highly controversial at the time. Teams such as Renault and Ligier boycotted the race in protest, and Jones has now said he was paid off to miss the race.

Jones was driving for the Haas-Lola team at the time, which was partially bankrolled by American company, Beatrice foods at the time and was said to be in real danger of a strike if the car raced in South Africa because of the high amount of black workers for the company. This meant that they were in a quandary as the team did not want to be seen to be backing down to the will of the perpetrators of apartheid.

In an excerpt from the Australian’s autobiography he says: “During the Friday I was summoned to see Bernie Ecclestone in his penthouse. Not sure what I had done this time, I fronted up, as I went in the door Bernie said, ‘How do you feel?’ Standard greeting, although he had a look in his eye, I gave him a standard reply, ‘Pretty good, thanks.’

‘What do you think your chances are of winning the race tomorrow?’ he asked again, I felt no need to be subtle: ‘Bernie, I think you know the answer to that question. If I start now, probably pretty good.’ ‘Well, I’ve got a bit of an idea. If you pull up sick and can’t run again this weekend, we’ll give you first-place prize money. Go home and visit Australia.’

Jones went on to explain: "Beatrice car raced in South Africa he was going to get all of the black workers - thousands of them - at Beatrice around the US to go on strike. Beatrice couldn’t be seen to be backing down to an individual like him, but if they didn’t back down there was a chance of the strike. So Bernie came up with an idea. ‘If the driver falls crook and can’t drive, then the Beatrice car doesn’t race. It’s a force majeure. Jesse Jackson can’t get on his soapbox and say, ‘I forced that company to withdraw,’ and he also couldn’t call a strike because the car didn’t race.'

The extract finishes with him saying how he would make a fake miraculous recovery for the next race, saying: "The idea was that I would wait until Saturday morning when everyone went to the circuit. I would quietly check out, and jump on a plane to Harare to get home (because Qantas wouldn’t fly to South Africa). And so, on the Saturday morning I was gone. I just didn’t turn up. They had the car out ready to go, when they were told, ‘AJ’s been struck down by a virus and we are not racing.’I made a miraculous recovery for the Australian Grand Prix, which was just as well."

Sam Gale