Nigel Mansell

Personally, I'd be very keen to know what people here think of Nigel Mansell - who had a very similar record in some ways to Button.... Autosport ran a very interesting article a few weeks about some of Nige's stats - did you know that Mansell only outqualified his team-mate 87-83 over his entire career? Yes Mansell did win 3 times as many races as Button has during his career, but you have to just compare their careers - Mansell won in his 6th season of F1, Button his 7th, but whilst Mansell then had the best car on the grid the following year, Button had just about the worst!

Mind (And I know this is off topic) - Mansell regularly gets tarnished for his time at Ferrari as team-mate to Prost - but did you know that the qualifying record was 8-8 between the two of them - and that was even given the fact that Mansell was never the greatest qualifier out there!
 
Hill was in contention for the world championship at the time so he was winning races. He also soundly beat our Nige.

Mansell soundly beat Berger actually and Patrese. Patrese I would say was the weak link as I never really rated him. Frank Williams seem to love him - think he was Williams longest serving driver but was always number 2 - even in the days of partnering Boutson.

You say Andretti was on the decline but he still had enough speed to be challeging for the Indy Car title when Nigel went over there in 1993 becoming his team-mate again!

Oh and lets not forget Nigel won the Grand Prix Masters in 2005 with a hell of a battle with Emerson Fittapaldi!
 
Actually Mansell didn't beat Berger all that comprehensively. Gerhard was often faster in quali but less consistant in races, and had an atrocious run of poor reliability (he didn't finish a race in 1989 until the 11th time of asking!).
Gerhard was also affected by his Tamburello fireball crash, he said at the time it took him half the season to feel at ease in the cockpit again.

I think Berger was one of those really understimated drivers. Consistancy wasn't his forte but on his day he could be unbelieveable quick.
 
actually 1 race in 2005 - but he was 52 at the time

He did win 1 of the 2 races in the championship for 2006 though as well
 
Not forgetting that Patrese outpaced him for the first half of the 1991 season either.

While he didn't need to do very much to win in the FW14B in '92, his margin of superiority over Riccardo is worth remarking upon. The car's fully active suspension required a different driving style - or rather, a different level of commitment - to its predecessors. Essentially the driver had to present the car to a corner at high speed - much higher than they had been used to - and rely completely on the electronics to 'lean' the car and balance the cornering forces. Once you turned in, though, there was a millisecond's delay while the system activated, in which time it felt to the driver that he was going to understeer straight off the circuit. Keeping the right foot planted when all his senses were screaming at him to brake was something that Patrese found very difficult (as one might imagine!). Whether it was bravery or lack of imagination, Mansell had no such problems, and got far more out of the system as a result.
 
To be fair to Nigel in the first 8 races of the 91 season he retired from the first 3 races, had 2 seconds, 2 wins and a classified 6th in Canada(we all knew what happened there). Its correct he was beaten by Patrese in Mexico but to say he was outpaced by him for the first half of the season is a little unfair.
 
To be fair to Nigel in the first 8 races of the 91 season he retired from the first 3 races, had 2 seconds, 2 wins and a classified 6th in Canada(we all knew what happened there). Its correct he was beaten by Patrese in Mexico but to say he was outpaced by him for the first half of the season is a little unfair.

There were issues with the gearbox, but he was outqualified in all the first seven races.
 
Rasputin - have a closer look at qualifying in 1991 - it tells quite a story....

USA Patrese 3rd, Mansell 4th
Brazil Patrese 2nd Mansell 3rd
San Marino Patrese 2nd Mansell 4th
Monaco Patrese 3rd Mansell 5th
Canada Patrese 1st Mansell 2nd
Mexico Patrese 1st Mansell 2nd
France Patrese 1st Mansell 4th
Britain Patrese 3rd Mansell 1st
Germany Patrese 4th Mansell 1st
Hungary Patrese 2nd Mansell 3rd
Belgium Patrese 17th Mansell 3rd*
Italy Patrese 4th Mansell 2nd
Portugal Patrese 1st Mansell 4th
Spain Patrese 4th Mansell 2nd
Japan Patrese 5th Mansell 3rd
Australia Patrese 4th Mansell 3rd
*In Belgium, Patrese had all of his Saturday times disallowed due to no reverse gear being available. He had been faster than Mansell though.

So up until the British GP, Mansell had failed to out-qualify Patrese once!

If we count Belgium as Patrese out-qualifying Mansell - that's 10 times out of 16 that he was faster!
 
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!
 
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?

Absolutely not! Berger in 1989 has a 3:3 podiums:finishes ratio, thus 100% of his finishes were podiums.
Andrea de Cesaris in 1987 had a 1:0 podiums:finishes ratio, thus an ∞% rate.
 
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![/quote]

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But look at the cause for so many of their retirements though... that's the price they paid for pioneering that little there on the steering wheel...

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Here's a question for the Ferrari-era Mansell historians:

Was Mansell's 'retirement' from F1 at the end of 1990 merely a ruse to get out of the Ferrari contract?

Or was Mansell genuinely 'retiring'?

I'm sure it was an inticing prospect returning to Williams as a contracted Number 1 given how they were gelling with those lovely Renault engines.
 
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
 
Here's a question for the Ferrari-era Mansell historians:

Was Mansell's 'retirement' from F1 at the end of 1990 merely a ruse to get out of the Ferrari contract?

Or was Mansell genuinely 'retiring'?

I'm sure it was an inticing prospect returning to Williams as a contracted Number 1 given how they were gelling with those lovely Renault engines.

No the press conference afterwards he gave said it was the perfect time to make such an announcement at the British GP...I think I still have the video of the Nigel Mansell Story featuring it

I think the emotions got to him that day where he felt he should have won the race and he believed his car was sabotaged
It was genuine apparently Senna quoted he should reconsider

I should point out at the time Mansell was only an option to back to Williams as other drivers interested were

Capelli for his performances in the March
Martini for his drives in the Minardi
Alesi - the sensation of the season then and who mistakenly signed contracts with Ferrari, Tyrell and Williams and in the end chose Ferrari which proved to be a big mistake
 
As I recall it was a genuine, if somewhat emotional, announcement, but what was going on behind the scenes we can only guess. Nigel wasn't the most subtle operator where contracts were concerned, though, as Frank would subsequently discover.
 
As I recall it was a genuine, if somewhat emotional, announcement, but what was going on behind the scenes we can only guess. Nigel wasn't the most subtle operator where contracts were concerned, though, as Frank would subsequently discover.

Frank Williams would rather his money be spent on the car than the driver otherwise he would have signed Schumacher when he offered himself on the market at £16m a year .

Mansell got shafted in 1992 when renegotiating for 1993 and it actually hurt Williams and Renault badly in terms of reputation but then he had already signed for Indy when a second chance was on offer to deal at the table

One only wonders what was going through Mansell's head when he knew in the background Prost was signed for 1993
 
....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?....

In 1950 Fangio won three races and had retirements due to mechanical failures in the other 3. Farina beat him by winning the races where Fangio broke down and then gaining a 4th in Belgium.
 
I love Nigel Mansell. One of my top 5 all time favourite drivers. Maybe not the most naturally talented, but amazingly brave, and one of the few men who gave as good as he got with Senna, especially in the later years. Some of the battles they had are ingrained in my F1 memory bank. 3 moments that define Mansell for me are;
Him and Senna wheel to wheel at Catalunya 90/91 (can't remember which)
Him and Senna at Monaco '92. Mansell would have won that race if anyone else was in the lead on those last laps
Him flying round the outside of someone (Berger I think) at the Peralta in Mexico in the Ferrari. One of the bravest (or potentially stupid :)) moves I've ever seen

Oh, and his 3 'taches deserve respect. (including eyebrows here) What does he feed those things? :)
 
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