Nigel Mansell Autobiography

by Nigel Mansell

  Although the volume of emerging talent is becoming restricted, one remarkable aspect of recent years is the way the drivers just keep getting younger and younger. In the modern era, you are now able to leapfrog into F1 at a remarkably young age. This means some of these very young drivers have not had as much race experience as in previous generations. The reason very young drivers are able to clock up ‘hours’ racing is because of the astonishing accuracy of the simulators. They really are incredible pieces of kit.

  Moreover, I would suggest that there is no simulator as accurate as real-world laps, especially if you are in a race situation with other cars around you; but in terms of mirroring the car and the circuits, these simulators are astounding. They allow drivers still in their teens to rack up thousands of laps of experience. So, yes, they have these remarkable simulators but that is not the same as the white heat of a battle on track. Nonetheless, the debut drivers keep getting younger and younger. Case in point, pertinent to the start of the 2015 season as I am penning this book: Max Verstappen, who tested for Red Bull aged just 16 and made his full Formula 1 debut aged 17. Funnily enough, his father Jos debuted in F1 when he was also relatively young, albeit 22.

  In yesteryear, there were a number of drivers who got seats at 19, but most were into their twenties before they had their chance. In my opinion, to have a 17-year-old debut in an F1 car in my era would simply not have been viable. Physically, they would not have been able to handle the car and, if they had managed to get around, they would be so far off the pace it would’ve been embarrassing.

  Red Bull have brought Max through their young driver programme, which is fantastic for him. Of course, some people say if you are fast enough you are old enough. That is a fair point, I accept that. However, these young drivers will be up against seasoned racers who have got track presence and track craft, but they haven’t had those years of training and experience. They might make some simple mistakes which could turn into a big problem. To be fair, judging by Max’s start to the 2015 season, he is obviously a very talented young man. It is all interesting stuff and many things can be debated, so I shall watch with great interest how his team develop this young driver.

  As another example of the dramatic changes in the sport since I was racing, while I’ve been writing this book, Max was involved in a heavy accident at Monaco. In yesteryear, two things would’ve happened. In my opinion, there is no question that at the very best he would’ve broken his legs and feet. Seeing him get out of that car and walk away was very surprising and delightful to watch. It was amazing to see that he could hit the back of a car at such speed and then smash straight on into a barrier and just jump out of the car. Max will recover and learn from his mistakes.

  However, in my era, there would’ve been a severe physical penalty for that incident. In my opinion, it was wholeheartedly Max’s fault, as he didn’t give enough room to pass the car – had he given enough room, he would’ve made the pass, made the corner first and it would’ve been a great manoeuvre. Secondly, again in terms of my era, there would’ve been young talent waiting in the wings for their opportunity to fill in for a few races while Max was recovering. Even these small opportunities don’t exist anymore.

  There are a great number of what I call really promising – and possibly great – drivers out there. The future of Formula 1 could well be incredibly exciting. I have really enjoyed thinking about these comparisons between my era and the modern generation of cars and drivers, and what is absolutely clear is that these young guys are hugely talented and need to be unleashed just to show how great they can be. If the sport of Formula 1 can get that right, then we have some fabulous, wonderful times ahead.

  PART III

  ISN’T LIFE WONDERFUL?

  CHAPTER 19

  ONWARDS TO WOODBURY

  You might think that retired racing drivers find life out of the fast lane quite pedestrian and even mundane. Certainly, you never get to drive cars on the road that feel particularly fast, but in terms of my life since retiring from motorsport, I have had periods when I’ve never been busier.

  After I stood down from McLaren in 1995, my involvement with motorsport did not stop completely just because I was no longer racing in F1. I enjoyed a brief spell with British touring cars in the 1990s. I had been back to race in the UK fleetingly on the last day of October 1993, making a one-off appearance at Donington in the TOCA Shootout in a Ford Mondeo, in front of 90,000 people. It was a painful day out. I was very disappointed with another driver who crashed into the back of me, pushing me into a concrete wall at very high speed, something in the region of 120mph. It was totally unnecessary, I hit the wall really hard, and had to be cut from the wreckage. The incident broke some ribs and concussed me. One commentator said it was ‘one of the biggest saloon car accidents I have ever seen’. I was seriously lucky to not be more badly injured.

  Touring car racing is very different to Formula 1, immeasurably so, to be honest. Touring cars back then were based on proper road cars, albeit with a souped-up suspension and engine (they are somewhat more sophisticated now, but still nowhere near the technology of an F1 car). It is a different way of racing altogether; you can’t compare the two. For starters, you don’t have any sizeable G-force in a saloon car; you might get a little bit but nothing too troubling. The acceleration and deceleration are good but not savage, unless, of course, you hit a wall. I call them Dodgem cars because the drivers are allowed to lean on other cars and push one another about, which can be a lot of fun if it’s done in the right way. Racing saloon cars just made me realise how brutal and ferociously hostile driving an F1 car can be. It was a very sharp comparison.

  I came back to the British Touring Car Championship in 1998 with Ford for three races. This time, my beloved Red 5 was taken so I raced under Red 55. Oh, and by the way, contrary to popular opinion, my car was not called Red 5 because that is the number of Luke Skywalker’s X-wing (although I actually really like Star Wars). It was initially my racing number years ago; I had a kart bearing the number 5, for example. I have also been flying (and playing golf) with the Red Arrows (in Red 5), plus Red 1 was taken by another driver. Red 5 was different, available and it seemed to go down well. Anyway, my career in touring cars was relatively short-lived, but I did experience some great races. The Donington Park race that year is regarded by many people as one of the great touring car races ever, which is pleasing to hear.

  Another very enjoyable experience came in 2005, when I raced in the Grand Prix Masters series, a fantastic opportunity for F1 drivers to race again, in places such as Kyalami and Qatar. It was brilliant fun but, sadly, after the Silverstone race the sponsorship dissipated, so it came to an end.

  Around the time that we moved back to England from America in the mid-1990s, we became involved in a golf course in Devon called Woodbury Park. When we first bought the site, it was still in its infancy; so, for example, the clubhouse was pretty much a 60ft by 20ft Portakabin. We set out on an intensive 16-year development programme that ultimately transformed the fledgling club into what I would argue was the best golf complex in the southwest, if not one of the best in England. We built a complete clubhouse, a sports centre, a hotel, a driving range, tennis courts and a Premiership-standard soccer pitch (I will come to that later!), all from scratch.

  It was an enormous amount of work but certainly in the early days I found it very calming to go to Woodbury, do the work and play some golf. We were lucky enough to have some amazing golfers help us tweak the course, players such as Greg Norman, Frank Nobilo and Gary Player. These fabulous players came in and gave their input, which was incredible. The course would eventually become one of the qualification schools for the PGA in Europe. It was very relaxing to go down to Woodbury and play a quiet round of golf, surrounded by the beautiful countryside, the deer wandering around, the nature. It is so beautiful down there. I found it had such a peacefulness about it.

  Rosanne and I were excited and driven to make a success of the complex. It was ve
ry much a hands-on project; we weren’t absentee landlords. We were intimately involved in the running of it, the operations, the building, management – we had to be but we also wanted to be.

  When the famous Dutch footballer Ruud Gullit took over at Chelsea for a couple of years in the mid-1990s, the team stayed with us at Woodbury for one night when they came down to play a friendly against Exeter. Some of them played golf; obviously we entertained the squad and looked after them, and it was a really nice time.

  We got chatting to some of the players, who said they enjoyed coming down this way for friendly matches, but it wasn’t realistic to do so very often because there was no football pitch in the southwest up to the high standard that top players require. They were either too small or too bumpy, and what a Premiership side can’t afford is to get a load of injuries in pre-season friendlies. These players are precious commodities. It wasn’t just the pitches; the facilities elsewhere were not up to standard either. For example, after each game top footballers will want to have a physio session or sports massage straight away, or maybe take an ice bath. They are very particular about their training and fitness. At the time, the southwest just didn’t have facilities that were up to scratch.

  I listened to Ruud and his players chatting and later that night I had a brainwave. In a couple of weeks’ time, we were due to have one of the biggest earth-moving companies in England bring some of their vehicles to a field we owned opposite the hotel, which we had agreed they could use to exhibit and demonstrate their state-of-the-art caterpillars and diggers. They were bringing 15 or so vehicles, so I thought about this and called them in for a chat. At the meeting I said, ‘I have got an idea for you. How about if I let you dig the entire place up? Really dig it up with all your kit?’

  They said, ‘Well, that would be great, of course, but it would really mess the place up!’

  ‘I understand that but if you build me a full international soccer pitch, 120 yards by 80 yards wide, flatten it, prepare it, do everything, then we would have a deal.’

  They loved the idea. So we had the land levelled and prepared, then laid with top-of-the-range turf and grass seed. It was situated in a natural amphitheatre, surrounded by woodland. Then I did a deal with a company to get a high-tech computer irrigation system installed throughout the whole pitch, so that you could manipulate the ground to be hard or soft, depending on what you wanted. There was a brick entrance built with gates right opposite the hotel. We even bought in international-standard soccer goals. The pitch was like a carpet; there wasn’t a ripple on it.

  Without further ado, three months later I rang Ruud up and asked him if he had any spare time to come down to the hotel to play a round of golf, as I had something to show him and wanted his opinion. As you approached the hotel, you couldn’t see the pitch, so he was in for a surprise. When he turned and went through the gates to find this international-standard football pitch unveiled in front of his eyes, he was dumbfounded! He wanted to know how we had done it so well in such a short period of time. That was a proud moment.

  We showed him all the facilities and he wandered around with his chief trainer and a couple of players for quite some time. They couldn’t believe how wonderful it was and soon after they booked the facility to use for training purposes. From that moment, they used to come to Woodbury every year for a week or ten days, take over the hotel, use different rooms. The Colin Chapman Suite was their meeting room; they had their own breakfast room, everything they could possibly want. They loved it. Word soon got around the various top teams and so Woodbury has welcomed Manchester United, Liverpool, and many other Premiership clubs. From that, we then had various high-profile women’s teams visit too; cricket teams, rugby teams – it became excellent business. The only downside was that Sir John Evans, the ex-chief constable of Devon and Cornwall and president of the Woodbury club, plus the head golf pro, Alan Richards, were massive Everton fans, so when the Toffees came to train you couldn’t do anything with those two. Everything stopped!

  Eventually, Woodbury became a rather large concern. At one point we were employing about 250 people. We had a way and a system of doing business: it was very important that we tried to treat everyone the same, with courtesy and professionalism. The team knew how ultra-professional I wanted them to be, especially courteous. It was a great culture for the business and it seemed to really work.

  My memories of Woodbury are wonderful, although there was one horrible incident when we were in charge there. We weren’t on site one day when we received a panic phone call from the club, which came straight through to me. ‘Mr Mansell, we have a problem and we don’t know what to do anymore.’ This member of staff was really agitated, talking very fast; she was clearly in a bit of a bother.

  She carried on, ‘What shall I do? They’ve played golf, they’ve had some lunch, they’ve had quite a lot of food and drink . . . Now they want to help themselves to quite a lot of clothes out of the club shop . . . What shall I do?’

  ‘I’m not a mind reader,’ I said. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Your mother and her friends, Mr Mansell.’

  I just went deathly silent.

  My mother had been dead about 20 years. I was absolutely shocked to the core. To be told that was so upsetting; it caught me completely off-guard. To hear the words was shocking enough, but then the instant realisation that there was someone at the club pretending to be my mother was sickening.

  ‘Try to act normal,’ I said. ‘Put the phone down, call the police from another room and try to keep them there until the police arrive.’ Unfortunately, the people in question had obviously picked up on this staff member’s nerves and made a swift exit. We never caught them. How sick is that? That was one of the worst moments of my life when I was told my mom was having a great time at my golf club . . . I would like to think that the woman who was pretending to be my mom reads this and realises how upsetting and awful it was that someone could stoop so low.

  Unrelated to Woodbury, but just to serve as an example of another unpleasant incident I had, in 2002 I confronted some youths who were on my property. I challenged them and suffered what was described in the press as ‘superficial injuries’ in the resulting altercation. We tried to play it down as much as we could, but it really knocked my confidence, I have to tell you. For some time I didn’t sleep particularly well, either. Then a wonderful thing happened. I found myself being supported by some young men who were actually in the Feltham Young Offenders’ Institution, where I had gone to do some support work with UK Youth. These individuals were in a terrible situation themselves, but they talked to me and reassured me and I found that very inspiring. There I was trying to help them and they completely turned the tables and actually helped me. Isn’t that fantastic?

  Anyway, getting back to that beautiful golf complex in Devon, Woodbury was very proud to host various business and academic events. One I am particularly proud of is the recognition of the hotel as an academy for degrees, master’s and doctorates. This came about initially as a way to create business in the winter off season. We were brainstorming as a team and a family when the name of a certain Dr Knezevic came up. This man is a world authority on the subject of reliability, in terms of the engineering world, including within Formula 1. He is asked by many aerospace industries to examine and predict the reliability of planes, engines, all sorts of hugely complex projects. He is also a professor at Exeter University, so this is a very impressive man. We knew of each other and he’d asked me to give some lectures at the university, then we had become good friends, so around this time we got chatting and he said, ‘Why don’t you start an academy at Woodbury Park?’ By academy, he meant hiring out the hotel so that he could organise lectures to high-powered individuals as well as various academic institutions.

  So that’s what we did. We set up an academy at Woodbury and hosted all manner of fascinating events and lectures. Woodbury Park became the first non-university in England where over a three-month winter period you
could study towards a PhD, master’s degree or bachelor of science degree. We had the most amazing people come to study there, including numerous captains of industry, an admiral of a nuclear submarine, all sorts. The academy is still running to this day and is a huge credit to both Dr Knezevic and Woodbury Park. Rosanne and I are both incredibly proud to have been a part of that amazing hotel and golf complex.

  CHAPTER 20

  LIFE ON A SIXPENCE

  It’s no secret that I love golf. I started playing in the early stages of my racing career when Rosanne bought me a lesson, and it has been a passion for me ever since. You might find this strange, given my racing career, but I really like individual sports. No F1 driver has ever won a World Championship in a bad car, with a bad engine or driving for a bad team. The whole package has to come together perfectly to win the title. Of course, the driver can show just how fantastic he is at his job when he has got all that in place, but no matter how talented he is, if his car is not up to scratch then it’s end of story. Obviously, that’s not a negative, it’s a crucial part of F1 – it is a team sport.

  Golf is the opposite, in my opinion. For a relatively modest amount of money you can buy a set of golf clubs and head out on to some of the world’s top courses. If you think about it, in theory you could go and win the Open (if you were really something special!) and you don’t need millions of pounds behind you, or a team that is perfectly aligned, or a set of clubs that is far better than the other clubs in everyone else’s bag. Indeed, if you have a handicap you can even play the world’s number one golfer and give him a game! It’s very blunt, brutal – you, the clubs, the course and a ball aiming for a hole that is just 4¼ inches in diameter hundreds of yards away. On paper, could it be any simpler?