“Why I survived, I have no idea. It's just luck and circumstances”

Thierry Boutsen reflects on a career that mixed success with some huge crashes at the highest levels of single-seater and sports-car racing

- AARON MCKAY

At first it's hard to imagine a 12-year-old Thierry Boutsen sneaking the keys to his mother's Fiat 600 for a joyride, such is the Belgian's calm, pragmatic demeanour.

With an earnest smile and a lithe figure that still fits his 1985 Arrows A8 Formula One car, Thierry has a professional yet approachable air that seems at odds with the sort of renegade behaviour that could be associated with some drivers. Yet he took that Fiat out across the fields and now, aged 67, is letting loose 900bhp at Imola - before pushing the car across the line in a slightly cheesy re-enactment of his second-placed finish at the '85 San Marino Grand Prix.

"I was caught by the police, who brought me home," he reminisces. "My father was laughing to death because he knew what I was doing - there were a lot of fields around. My mother waved her finger, telling me never do it again. I said 'okay, okay, okay'…" The smile turns into a grin: "The next day I did it again."

It was the first tangible step towards a decade in F1, at Arrows, Benetton and Williams, and more than 20 years in sports cars, including a win alongside Bob Wollek at the inaugural Group C outing: I was so motivated. I was going with my bicycle from Brussels on the train to Spa and Nivelles-Baulers to watch the racing, then riding back.

"But there were two problems in Belgium. First of all, to race you had to have a pilot's licence and a driving licence, which meant being 18 years old. Second, karting set a really bad example there. François Goldstein was a five-time world champion in karting but he never succeeded in car racing. So I thought to myself, 'If I do karting, then I will end up the same as him - and I want to go to Formula One.' So I started from scratch when I was 18."