Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
Nigel Mansell was an improbable Formula 1 star. After paying his way through lower formulae, with little encouragement from his family and less from sponsors, suffering a broken neck and back, Mansell finally impressed at a test with the Lotus F1 team. Although he was not generally well thought of in the F1 paddock, he had impressed Colin Chapman, who finally gave Mansell a very rich contract. After Chapman’s untimely death, Mansell was again almost friendless in the paddock, but the value of an aggressive English driver was not lost on sponsors. Even so, his time at Lotus was frustrating and unsuccessful.
Fortune changed when Mansell moved to the rapidly-improving Williams in 1985. In this car, Mansell took a pair of impressive wins, and became somewhat of a favourite among fans, if not among his peers. The following year, Mansell removed any doubt about his talent, missing out on the championship only because of a tire failure in the season finale. An injury in 1987 handed Nelson Piquet the title in the last Williams with the mighty Honda engine.
After a dismal 1988, fortune seemed to smile on Mansell again when he was chosen to join Ferrari. Indeed, he was a natural fit for the team, which at that time seemed to value style over results. Mansell had loads of style, and was enormously popular among Ferrari fans. But the car itself remained hopeless.
Happily for all concerned, Frank Williams welcomed Mansell back in 1991, where he enjoyed three very competitive seasons (interrupted by two in CART, where he was successful if unpopular), winning the World Drivers’ Championship convincingly in 1992. His final full season was 1994, in which he was unable to match the performance of the relatively inexperienced Damon Hill. After some embarrassing performances in 1995, the writing was on the wall — Mansell’s always exciting F1 career came to a close, with a single World Drivers’ Championship and a very impressive 31 race wins. An unlikely champion who fought his way into F1, loathed by Mario Andretti, despised by Nelson Piquet, schooled by Alain Prost, but supported by Colin Chapman, Frank Williams, and millions of fans. He showed that a driver who drove every race like he was running from the police, and never saw an overtaking opportunity too improbable to try, could enjoy enormous success.
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Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
With his 41 wins, Ayrton Senna ranks third behind Michael Schumacher (91) and Alain Prost (51). The Brazilian started his winning in 1985 at Estoril, when he won the rain soaked Portuguese Grand Prix in his Lotus. Later in the season he added a second victory when he dominated in Spa, where conditions were again rainy.
In his second year at Lotus, Senna again scored two victories, in Jerez and Detroit. In 1987, his final year with Lotus, the Brazilian scored the first of his six Monaco victories and his second straight victory in the streets of Detroit, showing that he was something special on tight and turny street tracks.
For 1988 Ayrton Senna moved to McLaren and had the best season of his career. Eight victories helped him win the championship. The next year was a step back with only six wins. However, the same number of wins gave Senna his second World Championship in 1990. The year after, the Brazilian scored seven wins to claim his third championship in four years. However, that’s where the McLaren domination ended and in 1992 Senna had to settle for just three wins against the nearly unbeatable Williams. The next year McLaren and Senna were without the Honda power that had brought them so many victories, but Senna performed strong nonetheless and secured five victories to bring his tally to 41. Arguably his best win came in Australia that year wining in an inferior McLaren MP4-8 around the tight street circuit of Adelaide.
In 1994, Senna moved to what had been the strongest team in the past two years in order to make a run for his fourth championship. Three pole positions didn’t lead to success and on 1 May 1994, Ayrton Senna was killed at Imola, while leading the race.
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Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
A driver may be quick, may have great car control, may make witty remarks in press conferences, and may date a string of underwear models. But the real name of the game is winning races and championships. In the history of the Formula One World Championship so far, only 45 drivers have won five or more Grands Prix. While it is possible for a “number two” driver to hang about on a top team for many seasons and win a handful of races (or more for Coulthard and Rubens), the vast majority of these 45 drivers are the cream of the F1 crop.
What is surprising is just how difficult it is for even a very talented driver to pick up five career victories. The list of drivers who didn’t make it includes Dan Gurney, Bruce McLaren, Mike Hawthorn, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Carlos Pace, Jean Alesi, and Olivier Panis. Most F1 drivers find even a single race win eludes them through their careers. Button and Trulli each have one, but very good drivers such as Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber do not, even after more than a hundred attempts. Lewis Hamilton is already only one win away from joining the group of 45 and talking his place among a very exclusive group, which is astonishing. Only time will tell if he is a Jim Clark or a Jacques Villeneuve.
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Wednesday, April 26th, 2006
After almost 18 months (since the Japanese GP 2004) Michael Schumacher finally won a race. I know he won the United States Grand Prix last year but that hardly counts.
The last two seasons have been difficult years for Ferrari as they’ve seen their dominance of Foruma One slide to the point where they struggle to finish races in the top 8. The first races of this season showed an improvement over last years performance but that improvement hasn’t translated to any race wins or dominating performances. But the fourth round brought us into the heart of Tifosi country. Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrai at Imola might not be the home of the national Grand Prix of Italy but there is no mistaking that it is Ferrari’s home race.
Last year Schumacher and Alonso thrilled everyone with a final 12 laps or so which saw Schumacher pressing hard to overtake a slower but determined Alonso. Alonso won that race but this year in a copy of last years excitement, albeit for many more laps, Schumacher was able to hold of Alonso to win the San Marino Grand Prix and give the Tifosi reason to cheer for the first time in a long time. Schumacher looked like he was running away with the race in the first stint. He secured pole position the previous day, breaking Ayrton Senna’s pole record in the process, and got a good start on Sunday to lead Jenson Button through the first few laps. Everything looked good for Ferrari’s fans until the first pit stop. Schumacher was forced to use some worn tires which seemed to be graining and causing him to lap slower and slower until it was obvious that Alonso, in second place at that time, was going to catch him. Well the old saying in F1 is that ‘catching someone is one thing, passing them is another thing entirely’. To the delight of the home town crowd that old saying proved true as Schumacher went on to hold of the charging Alonso through the second stint as well as the third stint which he ran on different tires but with the same slow results. In the closing laps of the race Alonso looked like he didn’t want to settle for second and fought hard. He made a mistake with 3 laps to go which gave Schumacher the breathing room he needed to enjoy his first meaningful win in 18 months as he crossed the finish line.
I don’t usually post race reviews, readers can visit any number of websites to get a race summary but this win was special. Schumacher showed his greatest talent isn’t in driving a car fast, he showed he can win when his car is slower than the guy behind him. He showed amazing racecraft managing those two slow stints without giving up the lead. He didn’t put a wheel wrong and soaked up all the pressure from Alonso without cracking. The most compelling fact is that on his in-lap for his second tire change he put in a lap which was 1.5 seconds faster than the average of his previous 10 laps. Think about that. He was obviously having a problem with his car, he just saw Alonso go into the pits and he decided he needed to get everything he could out of the car so he put in a blistering in-lap just before pitting himself. When he came out of the pits he was still in the lead and the race was his to lose.
I’ve been thinking about that in-lap a lot trying to figure out if he was sandbagging or had some other tactic but none of it makes sense considering that any tactic which puts Fernando Alonso nipping at your heals for 30 laps is a bad tactic. The only conclusion I could draw is that since the first pitstop he sensed he had lost some speed so he decided to just drive fast enough to hold off Alonso and keep something in reserve for when he really needed it - such as an in-lap. I think many other drivers would simply put their left foot down and go as fast as the car would let them but Schumacher’s experience and racecraft gave him the confidence to drive the car at or below its limit knowing that passing at Imola is impossible and he gave himself a chance to win the race when the opportunity presented itself. Basically he pulled of the equivalent of a Formula One rope-a-dope!
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