Nigel Mansell

Nigel Mansell is a racing driver English born the August 8th 1953 with Upon-one-Severn (a small town of the English county of the Worcestershire). It in particular took the departure of 187 GP of F1, collected 482 points, gained 31 victories, taken down 32 pole-positions and gained the championship of the world of Formule 1 in 1992. He also triumphed in the championship CART in 1993.

Biography

Difficult beginnings

Nigel passes the major part of its childhood and its years teenagers and adult young person to Hall Green and Birmingham. He is schoolboy at the Roselyn school, then with Bilateral of Green Hall, before going to study technology with the college Matthew Boulton.

He begins all gently his career of pilot, using his own sums of money to climb the levels. Thanks to one good season of British Formula 3 1979, it manages to obtain a test with the team Lotus, most prestigious of the British stables. The test proves sufficiently conclusive so that Colin Chapman, the director of Lotus, makes of Mansell the test pilot of the team for the season 1980. Particularly satisfied with the work of Mansell, Chapman goes even further and allows him to take by twice the departure of a GP this year at the wheel of a third Lotus (titular pilots being Elio de Angelis and Mario Andretti). Its first race, in Austria, turns besides to the gag, an escape of gasoline causing unbearable burns with the buttocks to him.

Established as from the season 1981, Mansell cannot be highlighted so much the Lotuses are far from their gloss of antan. The situation becomes even more delicate as from December 1982 and the death of Chapman Hake. Chapman held Mansell in very high regard, while the new direction of Lotus does not hide its preference for the other controls stable, the elegant Roman pilot Elio de Angelis, whose style of piloting all in smoothness contrasts with that more in force of Mansell. In 1984, for its last year at Lotus, and thanks to the contribution of the engine Renault V6 Turbo, Mansell carries out some great hits of glare nevertheless, as in Monaco under the flood, where it takes the head of the Grand Prix by mystifying Alain Prost before leaving to the fault, or with Dallas where it signs his first pole-position and carries out the GP before crumbling (with the clean direction as with the illustrated direction) for the arrival.

Success in success

In 1985, Frank Williams calls it so that it leads to the sides of Keke Rosberg in the stable Williams. At the wheel of a car in constant progress throughout the season, Nigel finishes second with GP of Belgium, then sign its first victory in 72 departures with Brands Hatch with the the United Kingdom. It removes in the tread one second victory with Kyalami in South Africa. Whereas the small world of F1 had a long time regarded Mansell as a pilot of second plan, these successes contribute to inflect its image positively. Confirmation in 1986, where it takes the ascending one on its new team-member Nelson Piquet (however more famous than him) and lacks a breath the world title. It is lacking some a puncture for 19 turns of the arrival of the ultimate Grand Prix of the season in Australia so that Mansell lets escape Prost a title which seemed to him acquired. Mansell is hardly happier in 1987, where in spite of often higher performances, it is beaten by Piquet, more regular than him. In an ultimate effort to make up for its lost time with the championship on Stake, Mansell is even victim of a serious exit ramp during the tests of the last but one GP of the season in Japan, which obliges it to declare fixed price for the end of season.

In 1988, Williams loses the benefit of Honda V6 Turbo and must fold back on an engine atmospheric Judd CV V8. Follows itself from there logically a dull season during which Nigel finishes only two races out of the fourteen where it is engaged, chicken pox while having made him miss two others. However, it takes down under the rain splendid a second place and the fastest turn at the time of the Grand Prix of the United Kingdom.

In 1989, Mansell becomes the last pilot Ferrari to be personally selected by Enzo Ferrari. At Ferrari, where the tifosi call it “it leone” (the lion) because of its style of piloting aggressive and blazing, Mansell is essential as of its first appearance on Brazil. But the remainder of the season is marked by innumerable problems of gear box (Ferrari was developing a semi-automatic revolutionist gear box) and even by a disqualification followed by a suspension of one race at the conclusion of the GP of Portugal. This day, disqualified for an illicit operation in the stands (walk-back), Mansell was unaware of superbly the black flag agitated by the police chiefs before going themselves from there to hang Ayrton Senna. But it finishes all the same fourth with the championship thanks to one second victory in Hungary, success obtained in spite of a remote twelfth places on the grid, position normally crippling on a layout as tortuous as Hungaroring.

The season 1990 is more delicate. Regularly dominated by its new team-member Alain Prost, Mansell is depity and goes even until announcing its sporting retirement at the conclusion of the GP of Great Britain, marked by a cruel abandonment. But the British gives up quickly his inclinations of withdrawal and does not resist the call of the foot of its old Williams stable.

Dedication

Its second collaboration with Williams will be even more profitable than the first. Of return in the familiar marked car of number 5 red, Mansell gains five victories in 1991, whose most memorable obtained in Spain at the conclusion in particular of a famous swallowed straight line wheel against wheel with Ayrton Senna is that. But that does not prevent Senna from at the end of the year gaining a third world sacring, and Mansell of having to be satisfied for the third time with the honorary title with vice-champion with the world. Mansell takes its revenge in brightest ways in 1992. At the wheel of Williams-Renault it is true largely higher than competition (in particular thanks to particularly sophisticated assistances with piloting), it gains 9 races (a record at the time), takes down 14 pole-positions (another record, which always holds) and allocates the world title as of August to the GP of Hungary, of ever seen Formulates 1 of them.

But in spite of this perfect season, its relationship with its team turns to the storm. So much so that upset to have to undergo a wage cut (a roof for a new world champion) as well as the arrival at its sides of Alain Prost (a bad memory for Mansell, Prost it having dominated in 1990 at Ferrari), it opera hat purely and simply the door of Formula 1 at the conclusion of the season

Exile and return

Mansell finds refuge in 1993 in the championship CART in North America, within the stable Newman/Haas Racing. It is not long in being highlighted, gaining the first race of the season over the urban layout of Surfer' S Paradise in Australia. In spite of a first painful experiment (a very violent crash landing with Phoenix), Mansell is also made a speciality of the races disputed on oval layout and passes near to the victory to the 500 Miles of Indianapolis. With five victories in the season, it gains the championship for its very first participation.

Season 1994 proves more delicate, because of a less powerful material. To that a certain dispersion is added since Mansell is recalled by the world of Formula 1 after the death of Senna. With the request pressing for Renault and Bernie Ecclestone, Mansell takes again the wheel of Williams at the time of the GP of France, then gains the last GP of the season in Australia. But in spite of this success, Williams prefers miser for the season 1995 on the young British David Coulthard, also author of convincing performances on Williams.

For the season 1995, Mansell signs with the McLaren stable. But the business turns to the joke when the team announces at the beginning of season that the British pilot is too corpulent to slip into the car. After having had to make the dead end on the beginning of the season, Mansell takes again service with the GP of San Marino, at the wheel of a modified single-seater, but after two calamitous races, it puts an end to its collaboration with McLaren.

Mansell tries vaguely a new come-back in December 1996 while taking part in tests deprived on behalf of the stable Jordan - Peugeot for a possible engagement for the season 1997. But taking into account the disappointing stopwatches signed by the former world champion, the business remains about it there. It carries out a short return to the race into 1998 to the 24 hours of Chamonix (race on ice) then in the British Touring Because Championship at the wheel of a Ford Mondeo, for 6 appearances.

Since 2005, it is of return on the tracks, by disputing the new whole Grand Prix Masters, in company of old glories of F1. It gained besides the sleeve of opening of this championship, in Kyalami (South Africa), as well as the following sleeve in Qatar.

Results in F1

Victories in Championship of the world of Formula 1

Prize list

Victorious World champion of Formula 1 1992.
of championship CART in 1993.

Others

Mansell gained the price of the sporting personality of the year allotted by BBC twice, in 1986 and 1992. It is one of the three people to have received twice this honor.

Anecdotes

Nigel Mansell is also a pilot full with humor and blunders out of the car, which gives him a certain celebrity in the field.

With the Grand Prix of Austria in 1987, while going on the podium it is struck with a metal bar.
With the Grand Prix of Brazil in 1989, whereas it gained the race, it will notch a finger with its cut.
Indigné by the questions sometimes idiots of certain journalists who ask for the type of tires to him that it had chosen, he answers “Round and black”.
It will sometimes happen to him several times to continue journalists while running.

See too

Pilot of Formula 1: classification per year
Pilot of Formula 1: classification by better Pilot turns
of Formula 1: classification by Pilot podiums
of Formula 1: classification by Pilot poles position
of Formula 1: classification by Pilot victories
of Formula 1: classification by hat tricks

External bond

King Nigel Mansell

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