Nigel Mansell

Nigel Ernest James Mansell, (; born 8 August 1953) is a British retired racing driver who won both the Formula One World Championship (1992) and the CART Indy Car World Series (1993). Mansell was the reigning F1 champion when he moved over to CART, becoming the first person to win the CART title in his debut season, and making him the only person to hold both the World Drivers' Championship and the American open-wheel National Championship simultaneously.

His career in Formula One spanned 15 seasons, with his final two full seasons of top-level racing being spent in the CART series. Mansell is the second most successful British Formula One driver of all time in terms of race wins with 31 victories, (behind Lewis Hamilton with wins), and is eighth overall on the Formula One race winners list, behind Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso. He held the record for the most poles set in a single season, which was broken in by Sebastian Vettel. He was rated in the top 10 Formula One drivers of all time by longtime Formula One commentator Murray Walker. In 2008, ESPN.com ranked him 24th on their "Top 25 Drivers of All Time" list. He was also ranked No. 9 of the 50 greatest F1 drivers of all time by the Times Online on a list that also included such drivers as Prost, Senna, Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark.

Mansell raced in the Grand Prix Masters series in 2005, and won the championship title. He later signed a one-off race deal for the Scuderia Ecosse GT race team to drive their number 63 Ferrari F430 GT2 car at Silverstone on 6 May 2007. He has since competed in additional sports car races with his sons Leo and Greg, including the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans, and was inducted to the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2005.

Early life and career

Nigel Ernest James Mansell was born on 8 August 1953 in Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire, where his parents, Eric and Joyce Mansell, ran a tea shop. He grew up in Hall Green, Birmingham.

Mansell had a fairly slow start to his racing career, using his own money to help work his way up the ranks. After considerable success in kart racing, he moved to the Formula Ford series to the disapproval of his father. In 1976, Mansell won six of the nine races he took part in, including his debut event at Mallory Park. He entered 42 races the following year and won 33 to become the 1977 British Formula Ford champion, despite suffering a broken neck in a qualifying session at Brands Hatch. Doctors told him he had been perilously close to quadriplegia, that he would be confined for six months and would never drive again. Mansell discharged himself from the hospital and returned to racing. Three weeks before the accident he had resigned from his job as an aerospace engineer, having previously sold most of his personal belongings to finance his foray into Formula Ford. Later that year he was given the chance to race a Lola T570 Formula 3 car at Silverstone. He finished fourth and decided that he was ready to move into the higher formula.King Nigel Mansell Statistics
. Nigelmansell.free.fr. Retrieved on 11 June 2011.

Mansell raced in Formula Three in 1978–1980. Mansell's first season in Formula Three started with a pole position and a second-place finish. However, the car was not competitive, as a commercial deal with Unipart required his team to use Triumph Dolomite engines that were vastly inferior to the Toyota engines used by the leading teams. After three seventh-place finishes and a fourth in his last race, he parted from the team. The next season saw him drive for David Price Racing. Following a first win in the series at Silverstone in March, he went on to finish eighth in the championship. His racing was consistent, but a collision with Andrea de Cesaris resulted in a huge cartwheeling crash which he was lucky to survive. Again he was hospitalised, this time with broken vertebrae.

His driving was noticed by Colin Chapman, owner of Lotus, and shortly after his accident, hiding the extent of his injury with painkillers, Mansell performed well enough during a tryout at the Paul Ricard circuit with Lotus, where he was pitted against a number of other drivers to determine who was going to take the second seat for the 1980 season alongside Mario Andretti, as Argentine Carlos Reutemann was leaving to go to Williams. Driving a 79, the seat eventually went to Italian driver Elio de Angelis, but Mansell was selected to become a test driver for the Norfolk-based Formula One team.

Formula One

1980–1984: Lotus

;1980 and 1981
Mansell's skill as a test driver, including setting the fastest lap around Silverstone in a Lotus car at the time, impressed Chapman enough to give him a trio of starts in F1 in , driving a development version of the Lotus 81 used by the team, the Lotus 81B. In his Formula One debut at the 1980 Austrian 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 in a start-line accident during the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal, so Mansell had to give up his car for Andretti to compete in for his home race, the final race of the season at Watkins Glen in the United States. Andretti announced he was leaving to move to Alfa Romeo at the end of the season leaving Lotus with a vacant race seat.

Despite Mansell being unpopular with sponsor David Thieme of Essex Petroleum, and much speculation in the press that Jean-Pierre Jarier would fill the vacancy, Chapman announced at the start of the season that the seat would be filled by Mansell.

Mansell's four years as a full-time Lotus driver were a struggle, as the cars were unreliable and he was continually out-performed by teammate Elio de Angelis. Out of 59 race starts with the team, he finished just 24 of them. He managed a best finish of third place, which he achieved five times during the four years, including Lotus's fifth race of the season, and only the seventh of Mansell's Formula One career. Teammate Elio de Angelis took a surprise win at the 1982 Austrian Grand Prix, and was frequently faster than his less-experienced colleague Mansell.

;1982

During the season, Mansell planned to race in the 24 Hours of Le Mans sportscar event in order to earn extra money. At the time Mansell was paid £50,000 a year and was offered £10,000 to take part in Le Mans. Chapman believed that by entering the Le Mans race, Mansell was exposing himself to unnecessary risk and paid him £10,000 not to take part in the race. Chapman extended Mansell's contract to the end of the season in a deal that made him a millionaire.

As a result of the gestures, such as described above, Mansell became very close to Chapman, who made him equal number one in the team with de Angelis, and was devastated by Chapman's sudden death in 1982. In his autobiography Mansell stated that when Chapman died, "The bottom dropped out of my world. Part of me died with him. I had lost a member of my family." Following Chapman's death, relationships at Lotus became strained, as replacement team principal Peter Warr did not have a high regard for him as a driver or person. Warr in his book titled ''Team Lotus – My View From The Pit Wall'' stated about the 1982 season:

"After carefully analysing the season just finished, it was completely clear who was the number one. It was Elio. He was faster, he had out-qualified Nigel ten times to three. Elio had seven points scoring finishes to Nigel's two and in addition to Elio's win in Austria, had a tally of more than three times the number of points gained by Nigel. What is more, the margin by which Elio eclipsed his team-mate in qualifying overall was a huge 4.5 per cent. And all this in the year when, as near as can be reasonably achieved, the two drivers were given equal equipment and treatment."

;1983
De Angelis was then promoted back to outright number one for the 1983 season. This was demonstrated by the fact that he had exclusive use of the quick but unreliable Renault turbo-charged 93T for the whole season, and Mansell did not get to drive a turbocharged car until the ninth round, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, a race where he climbed from 16th to second and eventually finished fourth in a brand-new, hastily designed 94T. Due to their tumultuous relationship and a lack of decent results, Warr was not keen on honouring the last year of the contract that Mansell had signed with Chapman. However, with encouragement from Lotus's sponsors, John Player Special (who allegedly preferred a British driver), and with the only other remaining top British driver (Derek Warwick, after John Watson's retirement) already confirmed to be joining the factory Renault team, it was announced Mansell would be staying with the team.

;1984

In 1984, Mansell finished in the championship top 10 for the first time, and took his first career pole position but still finished behind teammate de Angelis, who finished third, in the championship. At the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix Mansell surprised many by overtaking Alain Prost in a wet race for the lead, but soon after retired from the race after losing control on the slippery painted lines on the road surface on the run up the hill on lap 15. Late in the season, Lotus announced the recruitment of Ayrton Senna for the following year, leaving Mansell with no race seat at Lotus. After receiving offers from Arrows and Williams, and first turning down Williams's offer, it was announced before the Dutch Grand Prix that he would indeed be joining Williams.

Mansell was remembered by many that year when he collapsed while pushing his car to the finish line after the transmission failed on the last lap of the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix. The race was one of the hottest on record, and after two hours of driving in 104 °F (about 40 °C) conditions Mansell fainted while pushing his car over the line to salvage a sixth-place finish (and thus one championship point) in a race of which he had led half, having started from pole.

In his autobiography, Mansell claimed that his final race with the Lotus team—the 1984 Portuguese Grand Prix—was heavily compromised by Warr's unwillingness to give Mansell the brake pads he desired for the race. With 18 laps of the race remaining, and with Mansell in second position, the brakes on his car failed. On Mansell's departure, Warr was quoted as saying "He'll never win a Grand Prix as long as I have a hole in my arse".

1985–1988: Williams

;1985

In Frank Williams hired Mansell to drive alongside Keke Rosberg as part of the Williams team, Mansell later saying "We have the greatest respect for each other." Mansell was given the "Red 5" number on his car, which he carried on subsequent Williams and Newman/Haas cars and which was brought to the public's attention mainly through commentator Murray Walker for the BBC.

Rosberg, the World Champion who was heading into his fourth season with the team, was initially against Williams signing Mansell based on the clash the pair had at Dallas the previous year (Rosberg won that race and in an interview while on the podium publicly berated Mansell's blocking tactics while leading early in the race, which earned Rosberg a round of boos from the crowd who had appreciated Mansell's courage in trying to push his Lotus to the finish in the extreme heat). Other factors were what Rosberg later said in a 1986 interview was second-hand information about Mansell which ultimately proved to be false. The drivers found they got along well and from early in the pre-season formed a good working and personal relationship.

1985 initially appeared to provide more of the same for Mansell, although he was closer to the pace than before, especially as the Honda engines became more competitive by mid-season.

During practice for the 1985 French Grand Prix, Mansell unwillingly broke the record for the highest speed crash in Formula One history. At the end of the Paul Ricard Circuit's 1.8 km long Mistral Straight he went off at the fast Courbe de Signes at over in his Williams FW10. Mansell suffered a concussion, which kept him out of the race. Teammate Rosberg claimed the pole for the race and finished second behind the Brabham- BMW of Nelson Piquet.

Mansell achieved second place at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, and followed this with his first victory in 72 starts at the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in England. He achieved a second straight victory at the South African Grand Prix in Kyalami. These triumphs helped turn Mansell into a Formula One star.

;1986
Going into , the Williams-Honda team had a car, the FW11 which was capable of winning regularly, and Mansell had a new confidence that led to establishing himself as a potential World Championship contender. He also had a new teammate in twice World Champion Nelson Piquet who had joined Williams looking to be a regular winner and contender again after the Brabham- BMWs had become increasingly unreliable and uncompetitive. The Brazilian publicly described Mansell as "an uneducated blockhead" and had also criticised Mansell's wife Roseanne's looks, later retracting these statements following threats of legal action.

Mansell won five Grand Prix in 1986 and also played a part in one of the closest finishes in Formula One history, finishing second to Ayrton Senna in the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez by a mere 0.014 seconds (Mansell later jokingly said they should give himself and Senna 7½ points each). The 1986 season was led mostly by Mansell in championship points, and it went down to the wire in Adelaide, Australia for the Australian Grand Prix with Prost, Piquet and Mansell all still in contention for the title. The equation was simple, Prost and Piquet needed to win and have Mansell finish no higher than fourth. 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. In a 2012 interview for Sky Sports Legends of F1 Mansell revealed that, had he hit the wall rather than wrestling the car safely to a halt in the run-off area at the end of the straight, the stewards would most likely have red flagged the race. As the race was over two thirds distance, he would have kept his position and won his first F1 world title. Instead Mansell ended the season as runner-up