GERRY BIRRELL

"Football is said to be a game of two halves. Motor Sport is a game of three thirds - a car, a driver and a back up team of engineers and mechanics. The interplay between the three thirds can play a major part in the success of a team and inter-team relations are not always easy with some of the stresses (and egos!) involved... But the inter-play within ANY team with which Gerry was involved was always easy because of his wonderfully warm personality. He was a fine driver, he was a fine analyist of a car's charcteristics and as such played a major part in developing some successful Ford competition cars. But above all he brought a friendliness and good humour to a team and, whatever the pressures, he could relax people with his smile and a sometimes dry comment... "Gerry was almost exactly my age - he was actually nine days older. Between 1966 and 1971 I was a young journalist on Autosport, the motor racing weekly news magazine, so I followed Gerry's career as he moved up the single-..

Primary location: United Kingdom