NIGEL MANSELL - an unsung hero...........
Nigel Mansell is one of the anonymous hero of F1. But Mansell's skill as a test driver, including setting the fastest time around Silverstone in a Lotus car at the time, was enough to impress Chapman to give him a trio of starts in F1 in 1980 driving a development version of the Lotus 81 used by the team, the Lotus 81B. In his Formula One debut at the '80 Australian Grand Prix, a fuel leak in the cockpit that developed shortly before the start of the race left him with painful first and second degree burns on his buttocks. An engine failure forced him to retire from that race and his second, however an accident at his third event at Imola meant he failed to qualify. Team leader Mario Andretti wrote his car off before the final race of the season and Mansell had to give up his car for Andretti to compete in.
From an early stage in his career, opinions about Nigel Mansell among motor racing pundits (a word which includes influential team personnel as well as the press) began to be divided. About his ability as a driver there was little argument, for he was brave, committed and always entertaining to watch, but the arguments tended to be about his personality. This was both unusual and unfortunate, because it was not long before Mansell's driving began to be overshadowed by the shortcoming in the personality. It is difficult to admire a man who had just spoiled the effect of a superhuman drive by being ungracious and complaining about his team and his track rivals. Nor did it help that he had a tendency to make childish mistakes and to sustain mysterious injuries that never happened to other drivers. He also tended to fall out expensively, with a number of his personal managers.
Mansell was awarded the title of BBC Sports Personality of The Year in both 1986 and 1992. Only two other people have won the award twice, one of which being fellow racing driver and former F1 World Champion Damon Hill. Mansell was inducted into the International Motorsport Hall of Fame in 2005.
Mansell would stand on the gas and wring every ounce of speed from a car, racing wheel to wheel with the fiercest rival and exhibiting the tenacity that prompted the selective Italian fans, 'the tifosi', to bestow upon him the sobriquet II Leone (The Lion) during his days with Ferrari. Yet take him from the cockpit, and while he might be ebullient with good humour, equally he might complain about perceived slights and see plots against him at every turn.
Even so, few experts rated him initially, despite sporadic promise, and it was not until 1985, on the 72nd attempt, that he succeeded in winning his first Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. Yet from that moment onwards he blossomed into arguably the most competitive Englishman ever sit in a Formula 1 car (certainly the most aggressive too). His 31 Grand Prix successes placed him behind only arch rivals Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna in all time rankings when he finally quit F1, and even today only Michael Schumacher has overtaken him (infact all).
Going into 1986, the Williams-Honda team had a car capable of winning regularly, and Mansell had established himself as a potential World Championship contender. He also had a new team-mate in Nelson Piquet. The Brazilian publicly described Mansell as "an uneducated blockhead" and had also criticized his wife, Roseanne. Unperturbed by Piquet's mind games, Mansell went on to record five Grand Prix wins in 1986 and also played part in one of the closest finishes in Formula One Grand Prix history, finishing second to Ayrton Senna in the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez by a mere 0.014 seconds. The 1986 Formula One World Championship went right down-to-the-wire in Adelaide, Australia for the '86 Australian GP, with Prost, Piquet and Mansell all still in contention for the title. After aiming for a third place finish which would guarantee him the title, Mansell would narrowly miss out on winning it after his left-rear tyre exploded in spectacular fashion on the main straight with only 19 laps of the race to go. Mansell ended the season as runner-up to Alain Prost. His efforts in 1986 led to his being voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
1992 would be Mansell's finest season. He started the year with five straight victories (a record equalled by Michael Schumacher in 2004). At Monaco the sixth race of the season, he took pole and dominated much of the race. However, with seven laps remaining, Mansell suffered a loose wheel nut and was forced into the pits, emerging behind Ayrton Senna's McLaren-Honda. Mansell, on fresh tyres, set a lap record almost two seconds quicker than Senna's and closed from 5.2 to 1.9 seconds in only two laps. The pair duelled around Monaco for the final four laps but Mansell could find no way past, finishing just two tenths of a second behind the Brazilian. Mansell was named Formula One Drivers' Champion early in the season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, the eleventh round of that season, where his second place finish clinched the Drivers' Championship, securing the title in the least number of Grands Prix since the 16-race season format started. This stood as a record until broken by Schumacher in 2002 . Mansell also set the then-record for the most number of wins in one season (9) and highest number of pole positions (14).
That 1992 race at Silverstone was a sell-out, and it was as easy to see why the fans loved him. With his bristling moustache, his down-home manner and his never-say-die approach, Mansell represented all that was best in the stereotypical British sportsman. But he spoiled his career in F1 at the very hour of his World Championship triumph in '92, becoming involved in an unnecessary disagreement with Williams over money and his allocation of hotel rooms.
Mansell raced in GP masters series and signed a one-off race deal for the Scuderia Ecosse GT race team to drive their number 63 FerrariF430 GT2 car at Silverstone on 6 May 2007. He has since competed in additional sportscar races with his sons, Leo and Greg, including the 2010 24hrs of Le Mans. He is the current President of one of the UK's largest Youth Work Charities, UK YOUTH.
The attitude, the whining, the stunning drives, the '92 world championship and the moustache- Nigel Mansell was the darling of the British fans and one of the most eccentric drivers around. A curious ragbag of contradictory emotions, Mansell was a determined driver whose character shortcomings sometimes obscured his achievements. It says everything about him as a driver that he was one man Ayrton Senna knew he could not intimidate.
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