Nigel Mansell Autobiography

by Nigel Mansell

  At Ferrari, he will find a new lease of life. As I write this page, he has just won the second race of the 2015 season, totally against the odds and faced with the utter domination of the Mercedes team. After the race he was tearful; it meant that much to him to be back on the top of the podium. Sebastian is an outstanding driver with such a lot to offer. When you have won four titles on the bounce then things don’t go your way, you have to draw breath. I think Sebastian has done that and he has now got a fresh challenge which I think will go very well for him. Some of you may know that he does a very interesting impression of me, which really makes me chuckle, as indeed does his version of Kimi Raikkonen and a few other well-known faces around the paddock. If he wants to have a bit of fun, then I don’t have a problem with that at all; it will probably be in very good taste because he’s a nice guy. He is fresh, he is honest and he will be champion again, for sure.

  Talking of Kimi, he has been around a long time now and is still a great talent. I think he can be incredibly outstanding at times and yet, by contrast, can go cold at other times. So for me he falls into the category of being a bit of a hot/cold driver. I am not sure what button has to get pressed to really set his race on fire, but boy, when he is on it he can be an astonishing driver. If he could be like that more often then what a force he would be.

  For his first year, Daniel Ricciardo was absolutely superb; I am thrilled and amazed he has done as well as he has and he deserves wholeheartedly the opportunity to lead the Red Bull team. Daniel is a future world champion in my opinion, again given the right opportunity.

  This brings me to my favourite driver of the current crop: Lewis Hamilton. Maybe that’s because his racing style reminds me a little bit of myself – haha! Seriously, though, what I like about Lewis is that he is an out-and-out racer. I love that Lewis wears his heart on his sleeve, albeit a little bit too much sometimes. He is a courageous, extremely talented driver who gets the job done spectacularly well.

  Lewis is a huge talent. Huge! He is already a double world champion and I don’t actually believe we have yet tapped into his full potential. I believe he will go from strength to strength; there is so much more to come. I know, for instance, that I never tapped into all my talent because I didn’t always have the elements around to help me achieve that. Lewis has an amazing team around him and an incredible car. From a driver’s point of view, that environment is fantastic, it is utopia. It gives you a wonderful feeling knowing you are with the best manufacturer, the best car, with a team who are working brilliantly – you are on top of your game.

  At the time of writing, they have just won both titles, they are on the crest of a wave; they have the expertise of people like Paddy Lowe and Niki Lauda and the might of Mercedes. I was and still am a big fan of Niki Lauda. During his career and since, he has been a tremendous ambassador for the sport. What that man has endured, what he came back from to win again, it’s just incredible. He is now, of course, a very successful businessman, truly fantastic. As a driver, he was a great thinker and planner; he could put it out there if he needed to, but he didn’t unless he had to, so he very cleverly played the percentages. Therefore, it is absolutely no surprise to me now that he is involved in the running of such a fantastically well-oiled machine as Mercedes.

  I would imagine that the team have been given the directive by the Mercedes board to be pathfinders and the leaders in F1 for years to come, so their drivers don’t have to worry about a lack of investment. Are they going to leave any stone unturned? No. Is the reliability going to be there? Yes. Who is your teammate? Nico Rosberg. He is a really nice guy; he is quick, he will fight hard but fair, he will keep you honest. I believe one day, if Nico stays the course and doesn’t have any lapses, he could turn into a great world champion like his father, Keke.

  Much was made of the long-standing friendship between Nico and Lewis and then how this was affected when they had their disagreements in 2014. It’s an interesting dynamic. Putting all the competitive rivalry aside for a moment, I had some great times with many drivers throughout my career. Elio and I had a good rapport, as I did with Keke. I had great times with Riccardo Patrese, too. However, here is the kicker to that fun part: race-car drivers are, first and foremost, rivals. Gilles told me this: ‘Try not to get too close to somebody for two reasons: one, you have to beat him on the track, and two, self-preservation will have to kick in when they get hurt.’ So, you form relationships with other drivers but there is always an element of feeling you need to hold back slightly.

  I think the person I got closest to, who I got to know and really admire as a human being, was Riccardo Patrese. What a lovely, lovely man, a very experienced grand prix driver, incredibly talented, very emotional in a positive way about his racing – enthusiastic, as he called it. We had some fun times together and I really enjoyed my time with him.

  When you are in the paddock, immersed in that cauldron of rivalry and intensity, although you don’t always realise at the time, it’s so easy in hindsight to see how things can go wrong, how small incidents or arguments can blow up into big confrontations. I think it’s also fair to say that over the years some teams have sometimes been guilty of actually promoting that kind of activity, because they think hostility and outright competitiveness is healthy for the team, because it pushes the car, the team and the individual and at the end of the day that is what you are paid for. Teams are not there to fuel lovely, warm friendships; they are there to win. That is fine as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. In 2014, just as I started writing this book, much was made of the rivalry between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, and it almost did get out of hand. But I have to say, hats off to Mercedes, they just kept a lid on it, for the most part, not in totality, but they did a fantastic job.

  You have a relationship with your team-mate, but at the end of the day you are still competing against each other like crazy. Many of my team-mates were world champions. As humans and competitors that champion breed has a different mind-set altogether. They are the best of the best and if you challenge them in any way, on or off the track, forget being a friend, you are the enemy. They are just outright competitors, winners, and if you go anywhere near being as competitive as they are, you instantly become a threat; you undermine their authority and that will be smacked down. So no Christmas cards from those drivers.

  The dynamics of being a Number 1 or Number 2 driver is a fascinating element of F1. In the case of Mercedes, they appear to have a policy of allowing their drivers to race, so in that instance the Number 2 is potentially able to beat the Number 1. That was something which I actually enjoyed doing throughout my whole career when I was a Number 2. Obviously, when it comes down to the wire, the team may well favour the Number 1 driver, but as a Number 2 you have to make sure you do a better job every race and maybe get an improved contract the following season.

  I’m not going to pretend it’s preferable to be Number 2 – being Number 2 in anything sucks! – however, there are certain caveats that make that position enjoyable. You are grateful to be with a strong team, you know that if the Number 1 driver doesn’t win and you put in a good race, then that may upset him but you have increased your status within the team. As a Number 2, everything you do is measured by your team-mate, but I always saw that as an opportunity to push him, I didn’t feel the pressure he was under.

  Of course, on the days when you beat the Number 1 it was fantastic. So being Number 2 is not necessarily as undesirable as you might think. I have to be honest, when I was Number 1 driver, I didn’t really feel the pressure from the Number 2. I was very confident of my ability and I didn’t really have any problems with my co-drivers. And when I was a Number 2, I was given the equipment to try to beat them. It is certainly a fascinating part of Formula 1.

  I am pleased to say that it seems Nico and Lewis have managed to remain friends, which is great. Lewis and Mercedes are going to be the ones to beat for many years to come. Add in Lewis’s enormous talent and you have got a spectacular opport
unity to collect numerous historical achievements. I have always been a supporter of Lewis and I think he will go on to be one of the most outstanding grand prix drivers of the future and make his mark in the history books. I have no doubt that if Lewis stays healthy and well and focused, then a hatful of World Championships will come his way. He will need to remain focused – the biggest challenge is not to lose your way when you are winning so well. You mustn’t rest on your laurels; you must always keep pushing, improving, moving forward. That’s when you need to have the right people around you and just stay focused on your job. If you don’t, then before you know it, the opportunity will be gone.

  I am pleased for Lewis that he had the opportunity to defend his world title – something that destiny ordained wasn’t going to happen for me. To be able to defend it in a car as strong as that Mercedes is even better. Both Nico and Lewis have the most fantastic opportunities in the future and it will be fascinating to see how it all pans out.

  In 2014, Lewis surpassed my record of the most wins by a British grand prix driver, which had stood since 1994 at 31. He kindly thanked me for my support over the years in press interviews at the time. A lot of people would be begrudging of him, but I thought it was wonderful. I was delighted for him! People asked me if I was a little sad, as the record had now gone, but how can you be sad that a brilliant young British driver has achieved something so wonderful?

  I might rib him that it shouldn’t have taken so long – he has 20 or so races per season and we once only had 14. I might mention the biggest factor, of course, that is the reliability of present-day cars which is massively improved – we nearly always had upwards of five DNFs per season, whereas now reliability is second to none. There are also far fewer accidents and injuries, obviously. I might even point out that there were 26 cars fighting for a win not just 18. But only with a cheeky smile on my face and a wink of my eye. I look forward to bumping into Lewis on the grid after he has won yet more world titles. He is some driver.

  So let’s move on to the future of Formula 1. This is a fascinating subject and one that I always enjoy reading or chatting about. As I have said, the FIA have done an incredible job keeping pace with the teams in so many ways and also with the changing demands of being a global sport. Their task is incredibly difficult because the guardianship of the sport, evolving and protecting the future of F1, is a constantly moving target.

  At the time of writing, the 2014 season ended with two teams struggling financially – Marussia and Caterham. The subject of finances in Formula 1, who gets what and how the lesser teams can afford to continue to go racing, is extremely topical. The FIA are aware of these issues, of course, and there are many opinions in the paddock about what should happen to remedy these concerns.

  In my opinion, you need to have some context when you are thinking about these matters. From right back to when the sport was in its infancy through to the modern era, many teams have been spearheaded by individuals, mavericks, entrepreneurs, lone visionaries like Enzo Ferrari, Colin Chapman, Ron Dennis, Frank Williams, Ken Tyrrell, Jackie Oliver, Gérard Larrousse, Emerson Fittipaldi and many other great names. These were all characters and, like I said, entrepreneurs; they were all incredibly driven and immensely successful people.

  What this meant for drivers was that if these individual team owners wanted to give you an opportunity, they could do so. If they saw raw talent, then a test could be arranged. As I witnessed at Lotus, they would often test four or five drivers in one day. Those personalities were able to do that.

  That has changed massively now, as the really successful teams are principally owned by manufacturers. So you can’t just come in and get a drive in the way we could back in the day. Mercedes, Renault, Honda, Ferrari – they are huge organisations and the path to a drive is not that straightforward, notwithstanding the enormous entry costs of the sport these days.

  In theory, you can throw an infinite amount of money at F1 and yet still always have something to spend it on: how many engineers do you employ, how many back-up systems do you have, how many wind tunnels do you need, how much R&D can you do each season? Naturally, the teams that spend the most money often, but not always, perform better. That’s why money does talk and also why the FIA have tried to put spending caps in place and keep the rules sensible, so that it doesn’t matter how much money you throw at a certain rule, there will be a limit of success you can have with it. And not only that – if you keep the rules stabilised it gives the lesser teams time to catch up. So it is a very fine balance.

  Without these manufacturers supporting F1, it’s hard to see how individuals would be able to fund the teams in the modern era. I remember Colin saying that about £2–3 million was what he needed to fund a whole season in the early 1980s; by 2014 several of the big teams have admitted spending £350 million, with one manufacturer rumoured to have spent nearer to £500 million. The FIA are trying; there are new regulations to keep costs down, but there seems to be a constant upwards pressure. The whole sport has changed beyond recognition from that perspective. I still believe there are individuals who can have their say, who can give people a chance – Ron and Frank, for example – and that can only be a good thing to preserve in the sport.

  This brings us to the issue of how many teams are on the grid. When I was racing, there would be 26 cars lining up on the grid – with sometimes as many as 36 trying to qualify – and many of those had a decent chance of winning (Keke secured his World Championship after winning only one race, that is how competitive the grid was in that season). It’s logical that the more cars there are on the track, the more likely it is there will be an exciting spectacle, with multiple drivers vying for the lead or having to overtake backmarkers and so on. The challenge is to attract manufacturers into the sport who feel they have a chance of competing. Who wants to go racing and know the best you will finish is tenth or eleventh? That’s not racing, that’s making up the numbers. So I do think the sport has to be mindful of keeping the grid healthily busy. More cars on the grid would be more of a spectacle for the fans, too. There would always be more to see on track, more backmarkers, more competitiveness, more chance for incidents and interesting situations to arise, more cars in testing, in practice and so on. Therefore, it would also be better value for money. In my humble opinion, Formula 1 would be enriched by that depth and diversity. I am F1’s most avid fan and in my view it is irrefutable that Formula 1 is the best motorsport, bar none, in the world. However, if some thought is given to hopefully attracting more teams and cars to the grid, that will enhance the sport in the most exciting and spectacular way.

  An offshoot of the discussion about how many teams are competing in F1 is the concern that young drivers are not necessarily getting the same chances to race as perhaps my generation did. The simple maths of the situation states that if there are 18 cars on the grid instead of 26, then it will be harder to get a race seat. There are more complex problems behind that simplistic equation, though.

  I believe there is a huge stagnation of emerging talent in motorsport, youngsters aching for a chance in F1 but unlikely ever to get a shot. In years gone by, if you completed, say, 180-plus F1 races, you’d had a great career, especially if you walked away with all your limbs intact and indeed if you were still alive. Then it was time to hand over and give someone else a chance. Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello each competed in more than 300. This has been helped by the fantastic safety measures introduced over the years, which means drivers are far less likely to be badly injured or killed. Drivers are coming into the sport younger and staying longer. That creates a bottleneck at entry level so, for example, super-talented drivers in GP2 are no longer guaranteed the chance of winning a seat in F1. I actually think whoever wins the G2 championship should be offered an automatic opportunity in F1. If they win GP2, in my opinion, they have earned a ticket to at least a test, or even maybe a couple of guest appearances in a race, an opportunity.

  However, for many brilliant young drivers, the
re is a ceiling on how far they can go. The money side of the sport is also well known to deter many young drivers; some come to the table with sponsorships that can help get them a seat above a racer who is widely considered to be superior but does not have the same financial backing.

  I was very pleased that I was able to make it in Formula 1 despite the background I had – the lack of money and the underdog status, which at times was very draining, of course, but conversely made the achievement feel all the more special. Would I have been given the opportunity to race in Formula 1 if I was racing as a kid today? In my view, probably not.

  People will point out that there are some fabulous driver programmes in F1, which is entirely true, of course. And, in fact, that is immensely impressive, but the reality is that there are only a very limited number of seats in F1. The young men coming through have got a tough road ahead and I really hope they can be given the chance to shine. Then some of these young drivers could win a seat in one of the lesser teams and that would be their apprenticeship, the learning years, their chance to put some hard yards in and learn their craft. If good enough, you would then graduate up the grid because better teams would want to employ you. That chance is still there but again, because of the smaller number of teams, to a much lesser degree. I am not playing down what it took to be an F1 driver in my era at all – it was very hard and demanding – but at least there were more doors that might open if you did have what it took. There are fantastic drivers out there at the moment who will never get a chance, the door will never open for them. I feel very disappointed and sad for these young drivers, who have spent their entire life dedicating themselves to their endeavours on track but will never get that shot. To keep the sport fresh and the new blood coming through can only be a healthy approach.