Hadn't really paid attention to the quali's if I'm honest but you're right that does look like Riccardio had the legs over Mansell over one lap in 91 but at the end of the day he still finished 19 points behind Nigel(that was nearly 2 race wins back then) and only scored 2 victories to Mansell's 5 so as with all quali results its resigned to history and people forget about it.
Just looked back at the 89 season. Berger only finished 3 Grand Prix in the entire season and was second in 2 of them and won the other. That has to be some sort of record doesn't it? To be fair to Mansell he only finished 6 races that year and was in the top 3 for all of them. Thats 9 finishes out of a possible 32! thats blooming awful. Car was obviously competive though - If only Ferrari could have kept the dam thing from breaking we could have had a 4 way title battle between Senna, Prost, Mansell and Berger!
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Mansell was very disillusioned with F1 after emotionally retiring in 1990 at the British GP because of the politics at Ferrari because Prost was the master politician..the infamous shoving Prost to the wall was apparently down to slipping the clutch.
However it was rumoured as early as Monaco that year that Mansell was considering returning to Williams.
Boutsen had a few good races - Hungary and Belgium no doubt trying to remind Frank why he should be kept but he tailed off last season
It was at Portugal when it became more clear Mansell was going to rejoin Williams as James Hunt said at the time " He had the best shot of the world championship at Williams than at Ferrari with Prost The Williams Renault is the equal best car around" In other words Patrese and Boutsen were both journeymen and underachieving in the car.
After the Spanish GP Mansell announced from his home that he was promised by Frank that the team were challenging for the world title as Boutsen had signed for Ligier with Renault engines then.
Patrese was told that MAnsell was joining the team and he said he had to move his act up a notch.
Amidst the hype there were concerns around the form of Mansell because he was outqualified and outraced by Patrese first race and at Imola and Monaco . By that time it was 4-0 to Patrese with no points for Mansell. A 2nd place seemed to have got his season going finally...until that embarassing last lap stall at Montreal after waving denying him a win
BY France Patrese had secured 3 poles in a row and led Mansell 7-0...then further rumours circulated around that Frank was thinking about Senna or Prost as an alternative
The hat trick of wins meant he got his championship challenge going belatedly with Patrese asked by the team to play No 2 after Silverstone.
Still though MAnsell made sure in 1992 he got the spare car as a priority and had confidence in the active suspension Williams to compensate for his aggressive hustling driving style compared to much more gentle understeering style of Patrese. It was said that Prost might have found the Williams not to his liking due to his smooth sensitive driving style but off course Mansell could have made his point then rather than going to the US
) moves I've ever seen
