Gerhard Berger's decision to retire after next weekend's European Grand Prix at Jerez, formally announced in Vienna yesterday, will be met with a mixture of sadness and relief.

Sadness, because his departure will rob Formula One of a character more closely identified with the colourful image of a playboy driver than any of his monochrome contemporaries. Relief that, at the age of 38, having scored one of the best wins of the 1997 season, he has survived this potentially hazardous pastime to enjoy a fruitful retirement.

It is therefore worth dwelling on Berger's commanding German Grand Prix victory in August. It came at a moment when he seemed to be assailed on all sides by personal misfortune. It was his first outing after a three-race lay-off grappling with persistent sinus troubles, and he had just been told by Benetton's then-managing director, Flavio Briatore, that his services would not be needed in 1998. On top of that, his father was killed in a light aircraft accident only 10 days before the Hockenheim race.

Yet Berger's first win in three years was probably the best single dry-weather victory of the season. He qualified on pole and, apart from a fleeting challenge from Giancarlo Fisichella's Jordan, never looked under serious pressure.

"You need to be brave to be quick at Hockenheim," said Martin Brundle, the one-time Benetton driver who is now part of ITV's grand prix commentating team, "and there is nobody braver than Gerhard."

It was also a success greeted with effusive approval the length of the pit lane. Such generosity of spirit might seem slightly at odds with the unyieldingly competitive nature of contemporary professional sport, but it accurately reflected the Austrian's overwhelming popularity.

Berger's competitive focus is softened by the human touch. He has a sense of irreverence which many find appealing. After his Benetton blitzed the opposition to score a flag-to-flag victory at Hockenheim, the Williams technical director, Patrick Head, asked: "Gerhard, why can't you drive like that in every race?"

Deadpan, Berger replied: "Come off it Patrick. You can't expect me to drive like that all the time." And then he burst out laughing. Most drivers would have made selective excuses about the varying performance of their car. It said much for Berger's innate self-confidence that he could turn the exchange into a joke, at his own expense.

In 1984, with only Formula Three and touring car experience under his belt, this son of an Austrian road haulage contractor breezed into Formula One at the wheel of an ATSBMW. The following year, he raced for the Arrows team before switching to Benetton in 1986 when he scored his first F1 victory in the Mexican Grand Prix.

His carefree manner and determined driving style struck a chord with the Ferrari management, and he joined the Italian team in 1987. He stayed three years, winning four grands prix, and also escaped with superficial burns from an horrific fireball after an accident at Imola's Tamburello corner during the 1989 San Marino Grand Prix.

In 1990, he joined the McLaren team where he found himself partnering the dynamic Ayrton Senna. Berger was hired as a replacement for Alain Prost, the long-time McLaren driver who had literally been driven to the point where he left the team because he could not handle Senna's dominant influence.

Yet Berger proved to be different. Somehow he struck a chord with the ascetic Senna and the two men became deep personal friends. It was a real case of opposite poles attract, with the happy-go-lucky Berger encouraging Senna to develop a sense of humour, while Senna's obsessive attention to detail and total commitment taught Berger a thing or two about developing his abilities as a driver.

The two men also played a sequence of hair-raising pranks on each other, ranging from Berger throwing Senna's briefcase out of a helicopter at Monza to Ayrton trashing his team-mate's hotel room - and then being frustrated beyond belief when Gerhard never mentioned a word about it.

Berger was overwhelmed with admiration for the Brazilian driver. "You know, in his mind, the only thing which existed was himself," he said. "He had to be first and, by this thinking, I believe he was able to create a power. That is the only word I can use.

"He would be driving a car which, on paper, was a second a lap slower than the opposition and you knew, at that moment, that you could not beat the opposition. Ninety-nine per cent of the drivers would accept that and say `Well, next week we will have a new engine and we will be there.'

"For Ayrton, of course, it wasn't like that at all. Ayrton would think, `I have to be the quickest', and he would do it. It wasn't that he was dreaming. He just did it."

In 1993, Berger left McLaren and returned to Ferrari. Yet the two men remained close friends. Shortly before he died at Imola in 1994, Senna confided to the Austrian that he was worried that Michael Schumacher's Benetton seemed to be almost supernaturally quick out of the corners. Benetton were later cleared by the FIA, motor racing's governing body, of running an illegal traction control system.

Before climbing into his Williams FW16 on pole position for the San Marino Grand Prix, Senna's last words to Frank Williams were: "I've got to go and have a word with Gerhard." Four hours later, Berger would be the last person to visit Senna before he died in hospital at Bologna.

Senna's death had a profound effect on Berger, but after a week of tortured consideration, he shrugged aside thoughts of retirement and continued racing. He won the 1994 German Grand Prix at the wheel of a Ferrari, but would not win again until he triumphed in that same race this year. By then he had switched back to Benetton.

Alongside Jean Alesi, Berger found himself cast in the role of Michael Schumacher's successor at Benetton, a comparison which became increasingly uncomfortable as he failed to gain any worthwhile success in 1996.

If anything, 1997 was generally slightly worse, the win at Hockenheim standing out as a lone beacon of hope in a season of physical and competitive collapse.

Berger is shrewd enough to know that racing has not only brought him great satisfaction, but also great riches. Of the people he has met in F1, it is clear whom he most admires.

"Bernie Ecclestone is obviously one of them," he said, referring to the FIA vice president whose commercial inventiveness has secured F1's position as one of the biggest globally televised sports.

"How the hell can I complain about Bernie?" he asks. "In effect, I owe everything I have got to his success."

Another he admired was Frank Williams. He also makes it plain he has a lot of time for Giancarlo Minardi, the Italian team owner who struggles to keep going at the tail of the field.

"Minardi is doing it for all the right reasons," he said, referring to undimmed enthusiasm he displays despite all the commercial problems involved in his role as F1's underdog.

Gerhard Berger also did it for all the right reasons. That is why his presence will be so missed.