Huub Rothengatter

Nationality:	Dutch	Races Entered:	30
Date of Birth:	8 October, 1954	DNQ/DNPQ:	3
Teams:	Spirit (1984) Osella (1985) Zakspeed (1986)	Best Result:	7th, Australia, 1985

BIOGRAPHY

Before Formula One

From Bussum near Hilversum in Holland, Hubertus 'Huub' Rothengatter is better known these days as the manager of Arrows driver Jos Verstappen, but in his day Huub was a capable driver himself in lower categories, although (by his own admission) somewhat out of his depth in F1. Nonetheless, he hung around in F1 long enough, despite his limitations, to end up close to the top of the list when it comes to having driven in the most races without a single point. His racing career began in Holland where he drove for Frits van Amersfoort's team. Then, as early as 1977 Rothengatter was competing in F3 in both the German F3 and European F3 series, in a privately-entered March 863 Toyota. Despite scoring no points whatsoever in the German championship, he managed three points in the European title, to come equal 19th in the standings.

1978 saw this friendly Dutchman race in F3 events in Germany with a multitude of teams. In his privately entered March 763 Toyota, he won at Hockenheim from pole, and took pole at Wunstorf as well. When he entered as Rota Racing Huub Rothengatter in a Chevron B38 Toyota, he took pole and victory at Zolder. In an appearance for Alan Docking Racing in the same chassis/engine combination, he came 2nd at Hockenheim but set the fastest lap. He also made a number of appearances for Racing Team Holland, alongside the likes of Jan Lammers, in a Ralt RT1 with a Toyota engine. In these outings he came 6th at Zolder (whilst Lammers won), and took 7th at the Nurburgring having started 20th on the grid. At Kassel-Calden, he was 3rd in his heat and 5th in the final. Unfortunately, Huub saved his good results for all the races which didn't count for the German F3 championship, as he scored no points in the title chase.

For 1978 Rothengatter also raced his March and Ralt in selected rounds of the European F3 championship, securing 4 points to come equal 16th. Buoyed by his efforts, in 1979 he moved up to F2 in a Chevron B48 with a Hart engine. Coming 6th at Thruxton and 5th at the Nurburgring, he ended up equal 18th on 3 points with Juan Traverso, but he did beat the likes of Derek Warwick and Andrea de Cesaris. 1980, though, would be his most consistent and competitive year. In a Toleman TG280 with another Brian Hart-tuned motor, he scored two 6ths, two 5ths, two 4ths and a fine win at Zolder (where he beat Brian Henton, Siegfried Stohr and Warwick, all of whom had the same car/engine as himself), to finish 7th overall with 21 points, ahead of a certain Nigel Mansell.

On the back of this, he hoped to score an F1 drive in 1981. This was always his ambition, and he wanted to get there fast. But no offer was forthcoming, and in the second half of the year he returned to F2 in a March 812 with a BMW engine. His best result was 2nd at Enna behind Thierry Boutsen, and he ended up equal 13th with 6 points. Ever hopeful for his big F1 break, it appears as though he sat pretty much on the sidelines in 1982 and 1983 while he waited patiently for his opportunity in the top flight, although he had probably never shown enough talent to seize the imagination of F1 team owners. It would only be in 1984 when his patience finally paid some kind of dividends.

Formula One

In 1984, the Spirit team, which had reintroduced Honda into F1 as an engine manufacturer the year before, was an outfit in decline, forced to use Hart 4-cylinder 1.5 litre turbos in their 101B chassis. With Pirelli tyres, Mauro Baldi started the 1984 season for them, but half-way through, for the Canadian GP, Baldi left the team and Rothengatter was brought in from the wilderness. Not surprisingly, with virtually nothing on his CV for the past two years, some wondered what on earth Huub was doing in F1. Not the least of whom was the great Niki Lauda, who was never afraid to take a cheap shot, as this little story related to us by Alex Van Steenbergen shows. When asked what he thought of this new driver, Lauda apparently replied: "Who, Rattengott?". For all you non-Deutsch people out there, 'Rattengott' roughly translates as 'god of the rats'. High praise indeed from the man who would become 1984 World Champion.

Perhaps this was a little cheap, since Rothengatter knew he wasn't Fangio, and on the whole he would enjoy his bit-part on the F1 stage, knowing fully his own limitations. He set the tone for his F1 career at Montreal, when he qualified ahead of both the struggling RAM cars, but over 7.5 seconds off the pole. And, after encountering engine problems, he finished 14 laps down and not classified. It wouldn't be the only time he had an 'NC' next to his name. The confines of Detroit saw the one time when Spirit did not use a turbo engine, going with a 3 litre Cosworth V8 instead in a revised 101C chassis. But it only slid Huub down to an ugly DNQ, over a second slower than Piercarlo Ghinzani in 26th spot. Reverting to the Hart turbo and the 101B, Rothengatter managed to qualify 23rd in Dallas, even beating Jacques Laffite's Williams!

And, in a race where 13 people either spun or crashed, including Cheever, Warwick, Patrese, De Cesaris, Tambay, Piquet, Alboreto, Boutsen, Prost and Lauda himself, Huub was able to stay off the walls for the 15 laps he ran before he had developed a fuel leak in his cockpit. Britain saw him beat both the Tyrrells and the RAMs in practice. His 22nd spot out of 27 would be, relatively speaking, the best qualifying effort of his career. But a pit stop to change a nosecone in the race dropped him to 9 laps adrift, and once again he was not classified. On the whole, there was improvement, and in Germany he was 10th across the line, albeit 2 laps down on Stefan Johansson's Tyrrell in 9th. Upon the retrospective disqualification of the Tyrrells later in the year, Huub was bumped up to 9th, 4 laps down. But improvement was also followed by more disappointment.

Exhaust problems in Austria, where he beat both Tyrrells to the last grid spot, saw Rothengatter finish an amazing 28 laps down, having completed 23 of the 51 laps. Even five cars which retired managed to beat him! Then on home soil at Zandvoort, by being 27th in qualifying Huub actually DNQed, but being the first Dutch F1 driver in yonks, the officials allowed him to start. However, he would retire with a broken throttle cable. Still, in the spirit (excuse the pun) of patriotism, when the weekend started his car was pure white, but by the time the weekend finished, it was predominantly Dutch orange! Italy was Rothengatter's best race for Spirit. Starting 25th, he came home 8th out of 10 finishers, albeit three laps down. But despite this effort, for the last two races of the season, Baldi came back, and Huub descended into obscurity once more. I'd suspect money had something to do with this exchange.

Unable to find a drive in 1985, the Dutchman once again waited in the wings until Ghinzani joined Toleman for the second half of the season, and Rothengatter took the vacated seat with cellar dwellers Osella. The FA1G chassis with an Alfa Romeo V8 1.5 litre turbo and Pirelli tyres was an aging car, and not very good. For the German GP at the new Nurburgring, Huub put the car in 25th spot on the grid, over 9 seconds off Teo Fabi's shock pole time in the Toleman. However, he was faster than Martin Brundle's Tyrrell, as well as Pierluigi Martini's Minardi, which was over 23 seconds off the pole! In the race, Rothengatter retired with gearbox problems. Austria was an encouragement when he qualified 24th and finished 9th, four laps down, but ahead of Patrick Tambay. But once again, things turned sour in Holland. Although Rothengatter beat Kenny Acheson's RAM to the last grid spot, problems in the race left him unclassified, having finished 14 laps adrift.

At Monza, Huub started 22nd, albeit over 3.2 seconds behind Ghinzani who was 21st, but amazingly ahead of Alan Jones' Lola! An engine problem on the Sunday was followed by yet another non-classification in Belgium, where had he been one less lap down he would have been considered a finisher. Rothengatter then failed to qualify at Brands Hatch for the European GP, when he was over two seconds adrift of Martini in 26th. He rounded his 1985 efforts off, firstly by qualifying 21st out of 21 in South Africa, and then starting 20th when Jones did not start, before suffering electrical problems on lap 2. Then in Australia, he recorded his best ever finish, just outside the points, when he came home 7th, and four laps down. But to put this in perspective, only 8 cars finished, and Gerhard Berger, who was 6th in his Arrows, was three laps ahead of him!

n 1986, Ghinzani took his Osella seat back, and although the Italian team ran a second car, Rothengatter was not asked back. He got a reprieve three races into the season, though, when Zakspeed decided to run a second car alongside that of Jonathan Palmer, and Rothengatter got together the necessary funds. But the Zakspeed 861, with the German team's own 1.5 litre 4-cylinder turbo and Goodyear tyres, was no better a proposition than the Spirit and Osella Huub had driven before. Indeed, for most of 1986 Rothengatter was closely matched with the Osellas in qualifying, though Huub tended to have the upper hand. 10 times he was either 23rd or 24th in qualifying. An early turbo-induced retirement at Imola was followed by stiff luck at Monaco, where Rothengatter was 23rd fastest but only 20 were allowed to start.

An alternator problem forced him out at Spa, but he brought the West-sponsored car home in 12th place in Canada, where he was 6 laps down and the last runner. Detroit would have been a bit embarrassing when Huub was over 11 seconds off Ayrton Senna's pole time, and even slower than newcomer and expert slow-coach Allen Berg! Perhaps fortunately, to save him from further humiliation, his electrics failed on the warm-up lap. France saw Rothengatter retire after hitting Johnny Dumfries' Lotus, followed by three more retirements in Britain, Germany and Hungary. In Britain he avoided the big first lap shunt that ended Laffite's career, but succumbed to engine problems. In Germany a gearbox problem sidelined him, and at the Hungaroring it was a holed radiator. In Austria, Huub finished 8th and 4 laps down (ahead of Keke Rosberg's McLaren), but the unreliable Zakspeed caused further grief in the remaining races.

An engine problem struck at Monza on lap 2, and a transmission failure at Estoril on lap 10. A practice accident in Mexico meant Rothengatter did not take the start, since there was no spare car for him, and a rear suspension failure at Adelaide finished off his season in less-than-glorious style. Unwanted for 1987, in 30 F1 entries, Rothengatter failed to qualify 3 times (4 if you count Holland 1984), but on the whole just managed to keep his head above water. As Rene Andriesen has pointed out to us, he had largely secured his drives without great financial backing - to the point where he once took out, at great expense, a double-page advertisement in a Dutch newspaper, hoping to entice the Philips company to sponsor him. At this stage, at least, Philips rejected him.

After Formula One

One of the rare breed of gentlemen drivers probably more suited to the 1950s, once he had achieved his lifelong ambition of racing in F1 it's not surprising that he gave the motor racing game away. After 1986 he does not appear in international competition ever again. But it seems as though he must have continued to badger Philips, because by 1991, when the next chapter of his story begins, he was doing PR work for Philips with the Jordan team. By now, he was hoping to help young Dutch drivers through the ranks, and at the Belgian GP that year (where incidentally Jordan were introducing a German called Michael Schumacher to F1), he popped into the Hezemans Porsche team garage just as Jos Verstappen and his father Frans were doing the same.

At this stage, Verstappen was a kart champion looking to graduate into car racing. Jos and Huub nutted out a deal, and Rothengatter has been his protective manager ever since. The first step was to give Verstappen a drive in Formula Opel Lotus with the very same Van Amersfoort team Rothengatter had started in. A successful year there was followed by Formula Atlantic in New Zealand and F3 in 1993, where Verstappen would sweep all before him in a very dominant display. Thinking big, Rothengatter was now sounding out the possibility of an F1 drive for his protégé, telling F1 team bosses, quite simply, that Jos had fast lap times.

It worked. Over the 1993/94 break, Verstappen tested impressively for McLaren and Arrows, and Ron Dennis was dismayed when Jos ended up signing a test contract for Benetton. In truth, the professionalism of McLaren was probably a better environment than the volatility of Benetton regardless, but Verstappen was thrust into the Benetton race seat way too soon after JJ Lehto hurt himself in pre-season testing. Verstappen needed all the guidance he could get from Rothengatter in 1994. This was the year of his spectacular flip in Brazil, very public spins at Aida and Magny-Cours, and of course the horrific pit fire at Hockenheim, but also two podium finishes in Hungary and Belgium. When Benetton then loaned him to the struggling Simtek team for 1995, it appeared as though signing with Benetton was a bit of a mistake which had forced Jos to grow up too quickly.

Verstappen had speed, that was undeniable. He showed up well in the Simtek before that team folded, and also in the Arrows in 1996. He had to suffer a shocking year in the underpowered Tyrrell in 1997, before replacing Jan Magnussen at Stewart in 1998. Test duties with Honda in 1999 came to nothing when the Honda F1 project was abandoned, and a poor test with Jordan midway through 1999 did him no favours. However, Rene Andriesen tells us that team politics surrounding Damon Hill meant that Jos was never really given a fair go, resulting in his seemingly poor performance in that test. Only at the last moment did Rothengatter secure the Arrows drive in 2000 for his now not-so-young charger, thanks perhaps to his advertising Verstappen as a "Moving Billboard" in Dutch newspapers.

In short, despite Verstappen's abundant talent, perhaps it could be said that Rothengatter's mistake in going with Benetton in 1994 rather than McLaren has seen Verstappen lurch from one team to another without stability. However, he's no mug at the driver management game - he managed to get Jos the Arrows drive despite a strong challenge from Tom Coronel, who was managed by Willi Weber. Considering that Weber is also the Schumacher brothers' manager, Rothengatter's hard-sell must have been pretty good. What's more, Huub convinced Tom Walkinshaw to keep Jos in 2001, making it the first time in his F1 career that Verstappen stayed with a team for more than a season. And recently, in a bid for stability, Walkinshaw announced that the Dutchman would remain a part of the Arrows line-up for 2002 as well.

CAREER SUMMARY

Before Formula One
1970s	• Began racing in Holland for Fritz van Amersfoort's team.
1977	• German F3 in a March 763 Toyota. • European F3, =19th overall, 3 points in a March 763 Toyota.
1978	• German F3 in a March 763 Toyota, Rota Racing Chevron B38 Toyota, and Racing Team Holland Ralt RT1 Toyota. • German local F3 races, 2 wins in a March 763 Toyota, Rota Racing Chevron B38 Toyota, Alan Docking Racing Chevron B38 Toyota, and Racing Team Holland Ralt RT1 Toyota. • European F3, =16th overall, 4 points in a March 763 Toyota and a Racing Team Holland Ralt RT1 Toyota.
1979	• European F2, =18th overall, 3 points in a Chevron B48 Hart.
1980	• European F2, 7th overall, 21 points, 1 win in a Toleman TG280 Hart.
1981	• European F2, =13th overall, 6 points in a March 812 BMW.
Formula One
1984	• Spirit 101B/101C Hart turbo/Cosworth V8, 8 entries, 2 DNQs (but allowed to start in Holland).
1985	• Osella FA1G Alfa Romeo turbo, 8 entries, 1 DNQ.
1986	• Zakspeed 861 turbo, 14 entries, 1 DNQ.
After Formula One
1991	• PR work for Philips with Jordan. • Became the manager of Jos Verstappen.

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