Nigel Mansell Autobiography

by Nigel Mansell

  ‘Ah, well, I touched the wall in Phoenix in testing, Jim. It wasn’t a big crash, just a nudge, but I have pulled a muscle near my ribs.’

  He narrowed his eyes and looked at me suspiciously.

  ‘Testing? In Phoenix, eh? Really?’

  Later on, I was getting really hot and sweaty and I needed to take off some layers. As I pulled my top layer up over my head, Jim came over again.

  ‘Nigel, let me see your side, just to check it out.’

  ‘No, it’s okay, Jim. I’m fine . . .’

  ‘Nigel, let me see your side.’

  I lifted up my shirt and he looked at my bruised ribs, which had been the source of all this pain and grumbling.

  ‘Nigel, I am not an idiot. If you did that when you had that shunt on track in Phoenix, how come the bruises are shaped like someone’s knuckles and a handprint?’

  I had to own up – I’d done my brown belt karate grading the week before, which was a full-contact session and the sensei had lathered into my ribs. I later found out that I’d actually cracked two of them.

  Jim just shook his head, said, ‘You have got to be kidding me,’ then tried to hide a smile and walked off, still shaking his head. As he walked away, I half-heartedly shouted after him, ‘Hey, Jim, I got my brown belt, though . . .’

  He didn’t seem too impressed.

  Did I tell you about the time my wife caught me kissing a supermodel? Oh crikey. When we were in Australia in 1992 with F1, I was in the garage and, as usual, there were a lot of people milling around. One of these was an invited guest, the supermodel Elle Macpherson. We were introduced and she was a lovely lady with very long legs, I have to say. Rosanne wasn’t there at the time. Elle chatted with me for just a few moments really and then, out of courtesy, she planted a kiss on my lips, just a little peck. Just at that exact moment Rosanne walked into the garage. You can imagine, can’t you . . . this went down like a lead balloon.

  Now, my Rosanne is the most wonderful, warm, beautiful human being I have ever met, but boy, let me tell you, she knows how to exact revenge! She was in no rush either, as I will explain. A full year later (yes, a year), we were back in Australia again, this time with IndyCar, at Surfers Paradise where they had a resort called Sea World. This one particular trip we were invited to do a photo call. By coincidence, who else was there for the photoshoot that day? Elle Macpherson.

  I had started the day doing all these tricks with dolphins, riding on them and being photographed by the media – it was great fun. Then they said to me, ‘Nigel, shortly Elle is going to be doing a photoshoot with some other models in swimsuits. She has requested, would you mind going on stage and being involved in some way, please?’ Rosanne was in earshot at this point and I was thinking, Oh crap! However, I do remember Rosanne agreed it was a good idea and, in fact, looked pretty relaxed about it for some reason, which I thought was weird.

  Anyway we got over there and they said, ‘Look, we want to do a little bit of a fun sketch, so the plan is to take you on stage blindfolded – we don’t want you getting too excited with all the women in bikinis and all that.’ So I got up on the stage, in front of loads of people; they introduced me to this big crowd and everything was sounding great. Then they said, ‘Nigel, Elle would really like to give you a kiss,’ and I was like, Oh, my word, not again!

  Next thing I know, I am being given the biggest, sloppiest, most disgusting kiss ever! The breath stank, it was rancid. The slobber was all over my face – it was the most horrendous kiss ever.

  That’s when they took off the blindfold and said, ‘Nigel, please meet Elle Macpher-Seal!’ It was a two-tonne elephant seal.

  Rosanne had exacted her revenge.

  What could I do except laugh? Brilliant fun.

  CHAPTER 17

  BOUNCING BACK AND MOVING ON

  The 1994 season in IndyCar proved to be much less of a fairy tale, as our cars were well down on performance compared to the might of the Penskes. Early testing suggested our car was even faster than the ’93 Newman/Haas that had won the title. Driving with a number 1 decal on your car’s nose was special, something I had always dreamed about but which had eluded me to date, because it meant you were a defending champion.

  However, as the season unfolded it became apparent that a defence of my title was unlikely. Although I snatched two pole positions, I was unable to win a single race, with a combination of reliability issues and bad luck gradually eroding our chances of defending the title. Worst of all was a horrific accident at Indy in late May. Dennis Vitolo did not slow down enough under a yellow flag and smashed into a line of cars going into the pits. I was at the front but his car went airborne and ended up on my roll bar. I was lucky not to have been killed. Eventually, I would finish eighth in the title race, which was won by Al Unser Jr in his Penske.

  However, any disappointment I felt over my 1994 season was overshadowed by the awful deaths of the great Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at Imola, on that fateful weekend in 1994. Ayrton’s death sent shock waves around the world of motorsport as well as the world in general. The terrible double tragedy also started a safety revolution in the sport I love, which I will come to later. At the time, the deaths had a massive impact on the world of Formula 1 and, although I was racing in America at the time, there were massive repercussions for my family too.

  Ayrton was blessed to be, if you like, what I call in the elite category, so whatever was the best car, the best engine, he could get it. Racers like that have the ability to be in the right place at the right time and are able to utilise that for even more wins. Add that to his fantastic talent and you have a very powerful combination.

  Obviously, Ayrton and I tangled on the track a few times and, on occasion, off it, too! I didn’t agree with some of the things he did on track against me at times, a few of which I have already spoken about. However, over time we came to respect one another and there was a dignified, healthy acknowledgement of each other’s skills and passion to win. Part of that was because we both tried to intimidate one another more than once, but it just didn’t work.

  When we were hammering down the main straight at the Spanish Grand Prix just a few centimetres from each other at approaching 200mph, that mutual respect was evident. Ayrton and I had many vivid moments on the track, and there were times when we disagreed very strongly about what had happened. In that instance in Spain, we both knew exactly what we were doing: he was trying to intimidate me and I was trying to intimidate him. It was brinkmanship of the highest quality and intensity.

  And there was the race I lost in Monaco in 1992, when Senna was chopping and changing in front of me all the time. With the present-day regulations he would’ve maybe had half a dozen stop-go penalties for blocking, but the point is I could’ve quite easily run into the back of him and punctured his tyres or broken his rear suspension. Maybe I’d have broken my front wing but I could’ve perhaps had that changed and still won the race. However, sportsmen don’t do that. To drive at Monaco like we did and not touch one another was pretty impressive on both our parts, although, in hindsight, perhaps I should’ve just tapped him! Seriously, though, it was another example of the respect drivers had – even the most intense rivals.

  We earned that respect for one another because invariably we were having accidents together and winning races from one another; and – this works both ways – when you realise that the intimidation factor doesn’t work on a driver, you gain a healthier respect for them. I always had a respect for him but initially that wasn’t reciprocated. On a few occasions, he thought it was his right to push through but he started to realise he couldn’t do that.

  Racing against Ayrton was never dull and I am proud that I was able to beat him on numerous occasions. As I mentioned earlier, I still rate my overtaking manoeuvre in my Ferrari, when I boxed him in behind Stefan Johansson, as one of my best ever, and part of that pride is that it was executed against one of the sport’s all-time greats. Ayrton was not an easy man to overtake! Once I got t
o know him, he said a few things to me that were really telling about his total passion to win and his fascinating personality.

  When Ayrton died in 1994, it was a huge shock. Someone I cared about and looked up to as one of the best drivers ever had just been killed. The shock was compounded by Roland dying too, and then a few weeks later Vitolo’s car smashing on to mine in America. It all felt so incredibly dangerous.

  I’ve got to align myself with the rest of the world here – I was one of the many people, racers, fans, the general public, who thought Ayrton was bulletproof. I honestly believed he was untouchable and indestructible. When you have got the immense natural ability that Ayrton possessed, it is possible to feel that way; he had the talent to back it up. The problem is that if Lady Luck is not on your side and destiny takes over, you can get hurt. What happened to Ayrton was a completely freak accident, a one-in-many-millions chance. The possibility of that terrible accident being repeated is so minuscule that it can’t even be calculated. Lady Luck, destiny, call it what you will, was tragically not with him that day and that was just terrible. When his fatality happened, it rocked all the drivers in totality. More than that, Ayrton was a global figure in sport, so his death was felt way beyond the confines of the paddock. Ayrton was a complete driver, a racer, a thinker, a politician, an incredibly talented man who would leave no stone unturned to find a way to win. His death was one of the single most monumental events in modern racing, a terrible tragedy and a massive loss to the sport and the world.

  On a personal level, Ayrton’s tragic death would come to alter the course of my career and my family’s near future. The events of 1994 have been widely chronicled, but for the purposes of retelling the tale, Senna’s death led to a dramatic shift in my future plans. We were comfortable as a family in the USA; my children were enjoying school and it was a lovely life. My brand was strong and, although the 1994 season had not been as good as 1993, there were exciting times ahead. I felt like we had our future mapped out. There had even been talk of my own IndyCar team.

  However, destiny decreed that the route we thought we were taking as a family and in my career was not the one we were now going to follow. As I have said before, I thought I would be racing in the USA for some time, but circumstances changed and I was therefore available to race in Formula 1 once more. It was obviously very flattering that the pinnacle of motorsport, F1, wanted to see me racing again. It was not what we had expected but I was excited to see how the cars had changed in the two years I’d been away.

  Behind the scenes, I have to emphasise it was a massive effort for my family to relocate back to the UK – new schools, new friends, new home. Our children were still young so it was a really big deal. Of course, the ultimate perspective on this is that it could have been me sitting in that car that smashed into the wall in Imola. Fate decided that it was Ayrton. Mine and my family’s life was turned upside down in the aftermath of that awful weekend in San Marino. I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t a major upheaval in our life, because it certainly was. Ayrton, though, was terribly, dreadfully unlucky.

  Unavoidably, we were now faced with moving our entire family back to the UK but, as with all the other challenges Rosanne and I have faced, we grabbed it with both hands and went for it. You move on, you have to. As I keep saying, it is all about the bounce-back. You have to move on and work out how to extract the most positive outcome from your new set of circumstances, however unexpected they may be.

  In terms of my racing career, that meant being back in the seat of a Williams Formula 1 car. With the frightening experience of the Vitolo car almost landing on my head in Indy coming only a few weeks after Ayrton and Roland had been killed, I don’t mind admitting that I did wonder if I was tempting fate myself. I am sure in the aftermath of Imola most, if not all, the drivers in the Formula 1 paddock thought the same.

  However, as I have mentioned, I am a firm believer in fate and, to add to that, I still loved winning. I was, as you now know, bitterly disappointed at not being able to defend my 1992 World Championship title, so there was the feeling that here was a great opportunity to race again at the very top level. In a statement to the press, I said, ‘Formula 1 has gone through tragic times in recent weeks. Against that background and bearing in mind our successes in the past, it was perhaps inevitable that speculation would take place about the possibility of people trying to persuade me to return to F1 – despite all the problems that would cause. After all, I have often said that, in motor racing, anything can happen!’

  So it was that in the middle of the 1994 IndyCar season, I made a guest appearance for Williams-Renault at the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours. My plan was then to race the final three grands prix of the season and hopefully continue in 1995. I was overwhelmed by the size of the crowd that turned out to testing just before the French Grand Prix in July – more than 15,000!

  Getting back into a Formula 1 car was a bit of a shock, but I quickly familiarised myself with the Williams-Renault. Most notably the active suspension that I had worked with in ’92 was banned, as was traction control. During qualifying, Damon Hill drove brilliantly and nicked pole off me by less than a tenth of a second (0.077 seconds to be precise). When he came back into the pits, he said to the team, ‘I had to absolutely drive my balls off to do that!’ My engineer David Brown just laughed and said, ‘That’s what Nigel does all the time!’

  In the race itself I retired through a gearbox failure. However, in my mind I knew I was fast and was therefore excited about the three races coming up later in the year, after the IndyCar season had finished. I was tired flying back and forth and those races were very challenging, but I really enjoyed myself. I was competitive, even though I was bumped by Rubens Barrichello in the European Grand Prix and later span out; this was followed by a very strong fourth in Japan. At this race, my main rival on track that day, Jean Alesi, affectionately told me I was ‘very quick for an old man’. Haha!

  The final race of 1994 was in Australia. I put the car on pole but all eyes were on the fantastic battle between my Williams team-mate, Damon Hill, and Michael Schumacher for the world title. Damon is a really nice person and I was thrilled to be able to support him to try to go for the championship in late 1994. He is a gentleman and was never afraid to say if another rival was pushing him about. Damon was a great driver. I wouldn’t describe him as a racer; there are very few people I would class as thoroughbred racers, but he was an absolutely excellent driver.

  I like Damon immensely. I think he has a cool head and he can sometimes be misunderstood, which is unfair. I love Damon and his family, and I think to have achieved what he has done in the shadow of his father, the great Graham Hill, is truly outstanding. The challenges I am sure Damon has had through his life and career, along with his mother and wife . . . they are a wonderful family and just outstanding examples of how to behave.

  In Australia that day, I was following Michael and Damon as they went into the fateful corner and I could sense Damon was aching to get past. I must have been in the best seat in the house! I was urging him not to get tangled up with Michael. When those two came together and Damon’s race and title hopes were ended, I was able to push through and go on to win the race. But, as pleasing as that was for me, I was devastated for Damon. Of course, there was much controversy in the aftermath about Michael’s intentions when his car hit Damon’s and took him out of the race. Two years later, Damon thoroughly deserved to win the title in 1996 and I was thrilled for him when he did. I really enjoyed those races, and Frank later said I was a lot of fun to deal with in Japan and Australia. This was to be my 31st and last grand prix win, a British record that would stand until Lewis Hamilton took it from me in 2014.

  I felt my performances in late 1994 had proven I was still at the top of my game, was still quick and still very hungry. Ultimately, however, Williams opted for David Coulthard, who had previously been a test driver for the team. I was obviously very disappointed. Adrian Newey was later quoted in the book Williams,
by Maurice Hamilton, as saying that, ‘If Nigel had been in the [FW17] for the whole of 1995, I believe he would have won the championship.’ That’s obviously wonderful to hear, but at the time I was bitterly disappointed not to be in a car that I knew was super-quick and capable of vying for the title. However, that wasn’t to be our destiny.

  Fortunately, I was able to bounce back straight away because there were a number of openings in Formula 1 available to me elsewhere. In the recent past, Ron Dennis of McLaren had expressed an interest in working with me and, when it became apparent I would not be driving for Williams, that interest was reignited. Previously we had been quite intense rivals, but once we met in person – as with other people I’ve told you about – we got on well and a deal was done for 1995. McLaren had had a poor 1994 but I was very excited to be driving for such a famous team, and Ron had been exemplary in all our negotiations and early work together.

  It has been well documented that the McLaren car that season was terribly uncompetitive. The car had inconsistent handling problems, and in testing I immediately found it very disappointing to drive. Worse still, the cockpit was tiny and it was difficult for me being bashed and crushed as I was driving. My detractors found much merriment in this fact. I had signed for McLaren very late, which didn’t help, but my team-mate at McLaren, Mika Häkkinen, also really struggled with the claustrophobic cockpit. In fact, he likened the car to running the London Marathon in a pair of shoes that were too small. Eventually, McLaren decided to redesign the seat and cockpit, which meant I had to sit out the first two races, with Mark Blundell being brought in to cover for me.

  At San Marino, I made my return to the track and the race was modestly successful. I finished tenth but I was two laps down on the winner, Damon Hill, and my concerns about the car continued. Two weeks later in Spain this was compounded when I retired on lap 18, as I felt the car was not driveable. That trust that I spoke about, the confidence you need in a car, was just not there. Watching Damon and David Coulthard driving the Williams in 1995 was hard, because my car didn’t even fit me. It was incredibly uncomfortable, very uncompetitive.