Grand Prix Legends – Nigel Mansell

Like most Legends, Mansell’s schooling was in karting. With substantial success, in 1976 he moved into Formula Ford. His accomplishments there were also outstanding; winning six of the nine races entered that year.

With 42 races and 33 wins in 1977, he became British Formula Ford Champion, but an accident during qualifying at Brands Hatch saw him break his neck. This resulted in six months in hospital, with Doctors fearing quadriplegia, telling him he would never drive again.

Mansell made an astonishing recovery, and was later spotted by Colin Chapman’s Lotus, being given a tryout with the team. Shortly before that could happen, he was involved in another accident; he collided with Andrea de Cesaris, cartwheeling his car and suffering from broken vertebrae, resulting in another lengthy stay in hospital.

Masking his obvious discomfort with painkillers, Mansell performed well enough in his tryout to be offered the test driver role by Chapman. His debut was in the 1980 Austrian Grand Prix, but his car suffered a fuel leak in the cockpit, and was left with first and second degree burns to his buttocks.

During his four years with Lotus, Mansell suffered with reliability issues. Starting 59 races, he only finished a total of 24; his best being third place.

Throughout his Lotus career, Mansell developed an affinity with Chapman. Sadly, Chapman died suddenly from a heart attack in 1982; Mansell was understandably shattered; “the bottom dropped out of my world. Part of me died with him. I lost a member of my family.” He said in his autobiography.

Mansell’s relationship with Lotus after Chapman’s death was strained to say the least. Replacement Peter Warr and he never saw eye to eye, and Warr even contemplated letting Mansell go; but, Lotus’ sponsors at the time, John Player Special intervened and Mansell stayed. Warr was famously quoted as saying “he will never win a Grand Prix as long as I have a hole in my arse”.

However, after 72 Grand Prix starts, Mansell won his first race in the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in his first season with Williams; following that up with a win at Kyalami in South Africa. Six race wins followed in both 1986 and 1987; his efforts in 1986 saw him voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Williams lost the Honda deal to McLaren in ’88, and Mansell had an appalling season; but he was being watched by Enzo Ferrari and was in fact the last driver to be personally selected by Enzo to drive for Ferrari. Something Mansell was immensely proud of.

On his Ferrari debut, Mansell won the Brazilian Grand Prix; in doing so, he became the first driver to have won a race with a semi-automatic gearbox. Teamed with reigning World Champion Alain Prost in 1990, Mansell would again suffer with reliability issues.

Arriving for the British Grand Prix, Mansell complained his car was not handling the same as it had in the previous race. Making his feelings known to his mechanics, it turned out that Prost felt Mansell had a superior car and they were swapped without Mansell’s knowledge. He later retired from that race, and announced his retirement from the sport.

However, Frank Williams stepped in yet again at the end of 1990, bringing Mansell back into the fold. But he would only agree to return to Williams subject to a list of demands. The main demand being that he would be number one driver. By signing, Mansell became the highest paid British sportsman; earning a staggering £4.6m per season.

1992 would be the pinnacle of his career. With fourteen Pole Positions, and nine wins; the highest number of wins in a single season, he would be crowned World Drivers Champion at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Mansell fell out with Frank Williams after he omitted to tell Mansell he had signed Prost for the 1993 season. Not wanting to re-live the poor relationship they endured during their time with Ferrari, Mansell declared enough was enough and his retirement was sealed.

With no suitably competitive teams to drive for, Mansell opted to go stateside, joining the Newman/Haas CART team. With five wins and several podiums, Mansell won the 1993 CART Championship. He would be the only driver in history to hold both the Formula One World Championship and CART Championship’s simultaneously.

After a poor season in 1994, Mansell was said to have worn out his welcome in America, and decided to return to Formula One after the untimely death of Ayrton Senna; rejoining Williams for the last four races of the season.

In 1995, Mansell lost his Williams seat to Coulthard. He subsequently signed for McLaren, but did not get on well with Ron Dennis. But Dennis had to sign him as McLaren’s sponsors wanted a World Champion; Schumacher had already been signed, and Mansell was the only other option.

Having to miss the Brazilian and Argentinean Grands Prix because his car wasn’t right, Mansell finished at Imola in tenth. He retired at the following Spanish Grand Prix and also decided to retire from the sport for good.

He was quoted as saying that he didn’t want to ‘make up the numbers’, and with little hope of the McLaren being competitive that year, he would never race a Formula One car competitively again.

The amount of times he was written off medically, and came back from adversity; Mansell proved everyone wrong. He demonstrated he had what it takes mentally and physically to overcome all adversities. This truly is the epitome of a legend.

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