Nigel
Mansell

Nigel Mansell was born on 8 August 1953 in Upton-upon-Severn and grew up in Birmingham. After success in karting he moved up to Formula Ford, where he took the 1977 British Formula Ford 1600 title. He then raced in Formula Three from 1978 to 1980. Colin Chapman, the owner of Lotus, noticed him and made him a test driver.

Mansell made his Formula One debut for Lotus at the 1980 Austrian Grand Prix and became a regular race driver for the team in 1981. Up to 1984 he finished third five times, and he took his first pole position in 1984. He moved to Williams in 1985 and won the European Grand Prix at Brands Hatch, followed by the South African Grand Prix. In 1986 he won five races and arrived at the Adelaide finale as a title contender, only for a burst tyre to cost him the championship. He ended the year second behind Alain Prost. In 1987 he won six races, including the British Grand Prix, but a qualifying crash at Suzuka kept him out of the last two rounds, and he was runner-up again, this time to Nelson Piquet.

After 1988, a year in which Williams ran without a turbo engine, he drove for Ferrari in 1989 and 1990. He won his first race for the team in Brazil in 1989, making him the first driver to win a race in a car with a semi-automatic gearbox. He added a win in Hungary in 1989 and another in Portugal in 1990. He returned to Williams in 1991, won five races and finished second in the championship behind Ayrton Senna. In 1992 he opened the season with five straight wins, took nine victories and 14 pole positions in all, and secured the world title in Hungary at the age of 39.

He then moved to the American CART series with Newman/Haas and won the 1993 championship in his first year. As he was still the reigning Formula One champion, he was the only driver to hold both titles at once. In 1994 he entered four races for Williams and won the season finale in Adelaide. In 1995 he drove two races for McLaren. In total he started 187 Grands Prix, with 31 wins and 32 pole positions. Later he won the opening Grand Prix Masters race at Kyalami and raced at Le Mans in 2010 alongside his sons Leo and Greg.

Source: Wikipedia, “Nigel Mansell”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.