Nigel Mansell Autobiography

by Nigel Mansell

  The problem with vibration still exists today. When you hear a modern driver shout on his team radio, ‘I can’t drive the car!’, it is often due to vibrations. It might be a flat spot on one of the tyres from locking up the brakes, or it might be another fault or failure. Sometimes in a car like that it feels like you are bouncing all over the place.

  If you recall Silverstone in 1987, my wheel weights had come off and for the first number of laps I could barely drive the car. Then I made a pit stop and caught Piquet with only a few laps to go, moving at over a second a lap quicker than him. That was a particularly extreme example, but it wasn’t unusual for wheel weights to detrimentally affect your performance quite substantially. Sometimes they weren’t fitted properly; sometimes it was just bad luck. I have got to be fair to the tyre fitters now, they do a fantastic job. The recent changes concerning tyre degradation have generated much debate, with some critics suggesting drivers have to preserve their tyres more than they race their rivals, so it will be really interesting to see what happens with this in the future.

  Another area that has seen monumental change is testing. I’ve mentioned before that in the early days at Lotus, if a designer had an idea, they’d draw it on an old-school draughtsman’s board; then those drawings would be used to fabricate the one-off part, they’d stick that new part on the car and we’d go out and thunder round at 200mph. If the stopwatch said we were faster, then great; but if not, that new part would be binned.

  Certainly in the earlier part of my career, we were always out on track trying out ideas. We weren’t limited as far as the number of tyres, gearboxes or engines we could use in a season was concerned, which was a plus compared to nowadays. In the earlier years, we didn’t have any of the computer processing power, so no simulators, no computer testing, no wind tunnels, shaker rigs – it was all done first-hand in the real world, on track. The lap time told us everything.

  I loved testing. Yes, it was tiring, but it was exciting to be at the forefront of new technology in such a dramatic way. At times, in fact most of the time, there was an element of ‘finger in the air’ in terms of our tests, especially with brand-new technology. However, that was exciting. I’ve mentioned it could sometimes be scary too, like when Colin wanted us to try that bendable steering column, but mostly it was fantastic. If someone had an idea about some new aero, they’d build a one-off, or maybe one for each car, strap it on and we’d go out flying round the track. Like I said, lap times were everything.

  What I enjoyed so much about testing in the old-school era was that you were essentially a test pilot. You were more than just a grand prix driver. You were working hand in hand with the engineers and it was always a small team (now a top driver will have a whole team of engineers, each with very specific responsibilities). In my early years, the engineer team was very small, two or three at the most. I spent many years working with the lovely, very smart David Brown as my engineer; he is a wonderful gentleman and I have a real soft spot for him (as I do for Maurizio Nardon, my Ferrari engineer. I liked working with both these men immensely).

  I really enjoyed working with my engineers. Yes, I would be demanding of them at times, but that’s because I wanted the very best car and they knew that. They were very clever individuals, amazingly adept at providing you with what you wanted. You’d work with the engineer, all the time; he’d throw ideas at you, you’d throw ideas at him, then you’d come to an agreement about what to try, have an order of things to try to make it better. It often went further than that. If there was an issue with the springs, the driver would come back in, tell his engineer and then the engineer might change the springs himself, there and then. If the job was difficult and there were not enough resources, then often the driver would help change the springs too. You can’t get much more direct input than that!

  Testing in my era seems prehistoric compared to testing nowadays. Testing started to change dramatically during my career but, in the modern generation, the testing and simulation technology have reached astounding levels. Technology such as computational fluid dynamics can tell teams how a part will perform before it is even bolted on to a car.

  Wind tunnels did start to come in during my career (in the late 1970s), but they were very early incarnations of the technology and, like all innovative ideas, there were flaws. Back then, the racetrack was categorically more important than the wind tunnel. The wind tunnel might tell you that a specific part worked, but out on track you might get an altogether different reaction because the correlation between hypothetical and actual wasn’t yet refined enough to be reliably accurate.

  Initially, they didn’t even have rolling roads so their accuracy could be quite limited. This is one area where Adrian Newey was an incredible perfectionist. His approach to wind-tunnel work was so particular, so meticulous. Other teams would be dealing with a calculation that was accurate to hundreds of pounds of downforce, but Adrian wouldn’t be happy if the calibration wasn’t accurate to within a few pounds, maybe 20 or so at the most. Back then, that was a big ask, but he knew that without accuracy the wind tunnels were effectively rendered only partially helpful, and potentially misleading. Some teams made big mistakes by not being as particular as Adrian with their calibration. This technology has improved immeasurably in recent years and now the wind tunnels are spectacular pieces of kit; their accuracy is astonishing and this is why teams use them so much. Some teams have two or three wind tunnels operating in different countries.

  The testing technology doesn’t stop once you take the part out of the computer world and bolt it on to a car. Whereas in my early career it was all analysed trackside in the garage, now the teams have telemetry that tells them every aspect of a new part’s performance. They have engineers who aren’t even in the same country as that new part! When we came in from a test lap, the engineer would be in the pit lane with his oily fingernails, pulling and prodding the part, looking at the lap times. Now, they can be thousands of miles away, reading telemetry off a computer screen and feeding that information back to the team at the circuit on a different continent. They can do a lap, get the feedback regarding, say, loads, temperatures and forces; then there will be interface between the remote factory team and the actual engineers at the circuit, after which the necessary alterations can be made on site. It’s just remarkable.

  This is all astounding, fabulous technology. My only concern with this rapid evolution is that it shouldn’t be allowed to dilute the importance of the driver. Previously, the driver’s input after a test lap was everything; they were the human feedback, flesh and blood telemetry, if you like. The engineers would listen to that opinion being voiced and act on the information. If a driver was poor at picking up faults or potential issues, then that team’s performance would suffer as a result.

  Now, there are many instances in which the engineers will tell the drivers what is going on – and sometimes that dilutes the impact of the driver’s expertise. There are control systems that know that a certain part is going to fail long before the driver does. That’s why the cars have so many adjustments on the steering wheel. Of course, technology is something of a genie’s bottle; once you open up an idea, you can’t put the lid back on. However, I do feel that the sport would benefit by focusing on the driver’s skills and making sure it is the racers who are doing the racing.

  The FIA are constantly trying to boost the spectacle and there has been criticism over the years about tracks with little overtaking potential. With this in mind, I think the introduction of KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) was a fabulous idea. KERS is a great piece of technology and I enjoy watching the clever racers utilise it. If the car in front has used his KERS and you haven’t, then you come on to the straight and blast straight past, that benefit is due to your clever management of the car and the race.

  I am less of a fan of DRS, if I am being honest. This drag reduction system is purely an overtaking aid, but it is something that, once enabled, you can use every lap in the specified zone on
the track. The issue I have with it is there is not enough driver skill involved. If you have fought your way to the front, or at least ahead of your rival, but then he is allowed to do 20kmh faster down the straight, every lap, where is the skill in that? Is that really a fair way to win a race?

  When I was racing we had a so-called ‘overtake boost’ button, which you had to manage in a similar way – different technology but similar management. We had a button that you could press on the steering wheel which for three seconds gave you an extra 150bhp or 100bhp. Everyone had it. At that particular moment the system would allow the boost to jump up another couple of bars of pressure, so that when you put your foot down it fed in a lot more fuel and BANG!

  The caveat was that you could only use it maybe five times through the race (not nearly every lap like DRS), because after that it was probably borderline whether mechanically you might damage the engine, or possibly even blow it up altogether. So you would use it wastefully at your peril. Used within the parameters and sensibly, it was a wonderful tool. The overtake boost was definitely an aid, but it was like brinkmanship. If you were racing hard with someone on the last lap, you wouldn’t know if they had any boost left, so it was really exciting. If you’d already used your button, then you’d be history!

  The start grid is another area where the driver’s input should not be diluted. In the modern era, provided the driver has followed the instructions from his engineer on the lap to the grid and effectively prepared the car for launch, there’s little chance of stalling the car. You release the clutch levers on the steering wheel, the bite point of the clutch is controlled by computer and the difference between a good start and a bad start is 0.2 of a second. In my opinion, that is too sterile. In my day, if you didn’t get it quite right at the green light, the difference between a good start and a bad start was a full second or more. Get a really bad start and you could completely mess up your whole race. If you stalled on the grid, it was your error (unless the electronics had failed) and everybody knew. That’s no longer necessarily the case, so in a number of ways I think we need to be careful that technology doesn’t diminish the driver’s importance.

  The FIA are aware of this dilemma, of course, and the desire to keep the racers at the forefront of the performance was reflected in 2014 by a new regulation that forbids two-way communication that is perceived to offer performance information – for example, the lap times of competitors or remarks about other teams’ strategy. That was a great idea. In my era we managed the car; we did not have the pit watching out for problems in advance to such an extreme degree, tipping us off so we could twiddle a dial on the steering wheel for an ailment that we might not even have noticed ourselves.

  For me, there should be a complete embargo on two-way radio during a race unless it is a matter of driver safety. For example, if there is a fault developing with the brakes or tyres that could endanger the driver, then in that instance, absolutely, of course, allow two-way radio to alert them to the danger (in our day we had no such luxury); but otherwise, in my opinion, it should be left to the driver to race alone. I’m not sure how easy it would be to take away something from the drivers that they are used to, but it is a dynamic that I think would benefit the sport if we could just ensure there isn’t too much help. The technology is incredible but we just need to ensure that the drivers are still the most important element of the story.

  Arguably the biggest – and many would suggest single most important – change in Formula 1 since I was racing is the safety element. The evolution and development of safety standards in Formula 1 in the modern era is absolutely astounding. Frankly, I run out of superlatives when I am talking about safety in the modern era. The FIA have done the most remarkable job in making what could potentially be a hugely risky sport relatively safe. You only have to look at the massively lower number of injuries and fatalities since that terrible weekend at Imola in 1994. There was a 20-year gap before so many things conspired to cause the tragedy of Jules Bianchi’s accident in Japan in 2014. Back in 1994, those accidents sent shock waves through the sport in so many ways, and I would suggest that those dreadful deaths ushered in the modern era of Formula 1 safety. Many lives have most likely been saved as a result. Easy to say and that’s absolutely no solace for the families of those two fabulous drivers, of course, but since that dark weekend, the sport has changed immeasurably in terms of safety.

  There are a number of ways in which F1 has massively increased the safety of the sport. Let’s start with the circuits. In my very early racing days, if you came off a corner at high speed, there might be a metal mesh catch fence supported by wooden poles only a few yards from the track. There were sometimes trees nearby. The barriers were often just lumps of concrete. If you hit a concrete barrier or catch fence at high speed, you were in big trouble. This is what killed or maimed many drivers during my era.

  Naturally, the solution was to remove the dangerous barriers and safety fencing. Install large run-off areas so that if a car loses control, there is a big area where the energy can dissipate and the car can come to a gradual stop. Hats off to the present-day circuits; by and large, if someone loses it on an incredibly fast corner, there is usually a really healthy degree of run-off before they hit something. If they do hit a barrier, these have been improved immeasurably over the years; now there are sophisticated tyre walls and cushions and so on.

  The kerbs of yesteryear were much higher. When I was racing, some kerbs at certain tracks were massive. If you went over them at speed there was a very good chance you would break your suspension (and sometimes your back!). Some kerbs would even possibly write off monocoques, which could be very expensive. The kerbs were just like a cheese shredder under the car, ripping the guts out of the machine in a split second.

  Fortunately, in the modern era the kerbs have been lowered, although this wasn’t just motivated by reducing the cost of repairing damaged cars. At times drivers were hitting kerbs at high speed (often through no fault of their own) and their cars were being launched into the air, which resulted in some fairly horrific airborne accidents. Admirably, the governing bodies then moved to reduce kerb heights. Today, kerbs have been shaved down massively. They still batter a car and certainly shake the driver, of course, but they are thankfully so much more benign.

  The FIA’s relentless quest for increased safety has also seen all manner of less obvious safety measures introduced. Non-slip paint on the kerb, the HANS device to protect against neck injury, wheel tethers, larger mirrors, detachable steering wheels, raised front wings and plates, fire extinguisher improvements, higher cockpit sides, more sophisticated racing suits and protection clothing, helmet technology, massively evolved tyre wall specification . . . the list is long and ingenious. Another big part of the improved safety of Formula 1 cars is the materials and crash structures used. Take, for example, when Kimi Raikkonen hit Felipe Massa sideways-on at the British Grand Prix in 2014. Kimi crashed off down the Club Straight and it was very lucky there weren’t more serious repercussions. Felipe’s reaction time was a massive part of that incident not being far more serious; he must be given huge credit for putting the car into a spin to avoid a colossal impact. In addition, the incredible strength of the Ferrari meant that Kimi was relatively protected from the massive impact when he hit the barriers. I couldn’t believe he walked away from that; in years gone by, his legs would’ve been smashed and his career would’ve possibly been over. It was just amazing that the Ferrari was able to withstand that impact so, again, full marks.

  The medical expertise on hand is another area where safety has improved hugely. The faster the experts can get to a driver at an incident, the better his chances of recovery. The regulations now state that for a race to commence, the helicopter ambulance has to be able to fly above the circuit. Further, there are extensive emergency vehicles on site and more highly qualified medics for helping with driver extraction from the car in the event of an accident, including very particular rules about how the injured
driver must be removed from his vehicle.

  The racer in me sometimes wonders how much this necessary drive for safety has diluted some parts of the F1 spectacle. Don’t get me wrong and I want to be very clear on this, at no point should drivers’ safety be compromised in order to increase the racing spectacle. However, there are certain elements where I think the safety could be maintained – as it should – but the drivers challenged more. Specifically, as we have discussed, if you lose control of a modern F1 car on a fast corner, most likely there will be a large run-off area and you will be able to slow down, regain control then rejoin the circuit, often without penalty in terms of lost time. As a racer, I don’t think that is entirely right. With the caveat that safety comes first, if a driver runs off through error, there should be some element of time penalty; he should know that if he makes more errors than his rivals, he will not win the race. In days gone by, on many corners, if you went off that was your race over. Certainly, you’d suffer a substantial time loss, at best.

  Gravel traps were one idea aimed at slowing cars down if they slid off a track. There were specific reasons why gravel traps were discontinued, though: they can exhibit a number of disadvantages, such as pitching the car into a roll if it enters at a particular angle and speed; paradoxically, if a car entered at a very shallow angle at high speed, it sometimes skimmed over the surface, losing little speed and leaving the driver exposed to the risk of hitting a barrier at high speed. The large tarmac run-off areas in use in the modern era combat this by ‘scrubbing off’ speed more effectively and predictably.

  It would be great to see some element come into play that meant a driver making mistakes and going off the circuit was negative in terms of his race position (not, I repeat, in terms of his safety, though). To be fair, the stewards are increasingly penalising drivers when they feel an advantage has been gained by running off the circuit, so it is clear they are aware of the need for vigilance.