Formula 1 in the 1980s was a world away from the spectacle you see today. The cars were much slower but much louder, the drivers mostly had nicotine addictions and safety peaked with hay bales lining the track. You could also find an ABBA drummer lined up on the grid alongside the likes of Mario Andretti, Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost.
ABBA found fame in 1974 after winning the Eurovision Song Contest with their track “Waterloo.” The competition, which pits mediocre pop acts from across Europe against one another, catapulted the band to fame and their ensuing career made them one of the most well-known bands in the world.
Along their meteoric rise, the band’s name was plastered across all kinds of merchandise and memorabilia and even found its way onto the Formula 1 grid on the side of the ATS cars that competed in the 1980s. That’s not because the band was plowing millions into Formula 1 sponsorship, it’s instead because their session drummer Slim Borgudd was at the wheel.
Like many drivers of the time, Borgudd’s rise to Formula 1 saw him compete in the lower formulas, including F3 in which he raced his own Swedish race team, reports Motorsport Magazine. As the site explains:
After failing to fund a Formula 2 programme when Marlboro pulled out in 1980 Borgudd managed to scrape together the budget to join the ATS team run by the idiosyncratic wheel magnate Gunther Schmid in 1981. When he arrived at the Bicester workshops for a seat fitting a few days before this first race, he only found two people there, the rest had walked out.
He managed to persuade his old F3 team boss Roger Heavens to join along with a few mechanics and somehow made his Formula 1 debut at the ripe old age of 34 at the 1981 San Marino Grand Prix. He outqualified his team-mate Jan Lammers and eventually finished 13th. There was better and worse to come. He missed out on qualifying for the next four races but then finished a very solid sixth at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The rest of the season was scruffy, a tenth at Zandvoort in the Dutch Grand Prix the only finish.
Sixth in Silverstone proved to be the Swede’s best result in Formula 1 and he concluded his first season in the sport with just one point to his name, meaning he finished in joint 18th place in the 1981 drivers’ standings.
As well as racing around the world in F1, Borgudd was a prolific drummer in the Swedish music industry. He provided the beats for bands like the Lea Riders Group and Made in Sweden, which even earned Borgudd a Swedish Grammy award. While drumming in various outfits across Sweden, Borgudd became friendly with ABBA founding members Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson and became a regular session drummer for the band.
Borgudd made friends with Ulvaeus and Anderson before making the step up to F1, so ABBA lent its support to Borgudd to raise the profile of his racing career. It was this move that prompted the printing of ABBA’s logo on the side of the ATS cars in 1981 and, although no sponsorship money ever exchanged hands, Motorsport adds that the “association was useful in his quest for sponsorship money and publicity.”
Sadly, ABBA’s ties to F1 were short-lived as Borgudd’s F1 career didn’t extend to a full second season in the sport. After a few races with the Tyrrell in 1982, the Swede was dropped and went back to drumming.
Borgudd is far from the only racer to have hobbies away from the track. Extreme E racer Catie Munnings is also mad about music and all kinds of racers have also thrown their weight behind a passion for drinks in recent years.
