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Originally Posted by Saint Devote
You just hate Mansell. I am on the side of Chapman and Williams who recognized Nigel was a very special individual.
I dont actually hate him. I just think he is overrated by a huge amount these days and before are forgetting to look at the facts that for most part of his career he was not any better than the many teammates he had.
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And again, your fixation on titles rather than race wins is convenient - albeit that doing so axiomatically places Stirling Moss in the same category you do Mansell.
You are very wrong in this matter. For every argument you level against Nigel [and Jenson I might add] also erodes the status of other drivers that are recognized greats.
You may overlook this little abstract contradiction in order to attack using concretes. But it is illogical.
I dont care how many titles Mansell had or how many wins. My point is that he struggled against many of his teammates. But yes, titles are the most important things in F1. If you have the best car, you should win the title. Mansell had that for 3-4 years and only took 1 title.
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Originally Posted by Sonic
I don't believe Prost had a mega strong team mate stealing points off him. If only Mansell or PK had been in that Williams with a weak team mate yo back them up the championship would have been settled well before oz.
Who was Alain Prosts teammate? Keke Rosberg - a world champion. The same guy who in the year before beat Nigel Mansell in EQUAL cars (both in points and in Qualifying). That Rosberg was humiliated by Prost and shone against Mansell shows one thing, but I will let you decide what it is.
Still believe in your argument?
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Certainly Nige was bested in the early part of '91, but do bear in mind Patrese was the incumbent in that team at the time and it only took Mansell half a season to beat him, and by 1992 - by the time he really understood how to maximise the active ride - he totally wiped the floor with him to the tune of seconds per lap!
Patrese hated the car in 1992. He had no confidence in it at all. He himself has said so. That said, Patrese was not a very good driver. Schumacher kept lapping him in 1993.
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Even if you take away the 9 wins he scored in that dominant FW14B his record is still an impressive 22 wins. The man is a Leg End - end of story.
With his cars, he should have 3-4 titles and many more race wins. I maintain that. Prost or Senna would have. If he hadnt lucked into the crazygood williams in 1992 with a nobody as teammate (and instead had had Schumacher, Senna or Prost), then we would be talking about nigel mansell - 0 times world champion.
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Originally Posted by henners88
To be fair Garry there are some huge factors relating to some of the years you have mentioned. In 86 he suffered that tyre delamination whilst on his way to a certain championship win. These days the tyre manufacturer would be blamed for such an incident like in Indy 2005. Nobody blamed Toyota and Ralf for throwing away the race for everyone else. I don't see why Mansell should be held accountable for something out of his control.
What an awful example. The michelin tyres were never suitable for the conditions, the ones Mansell had were. You didnt see everyone else having tyre explosions at Adelaide, did you?
His teammate realized that he needed to pit to change them or they will explode, Mansell didnt. That the tyres failed after a long hard race and he didnt change them is the fault of one man - Nigel Mansell.
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In 90 Mansell was in a Ferrari which Prost described as a dog, and although the car could be fast, it was dreadfully unreliable to say the least.
Prost called the 1991 car dog, the car itself in 1990 was excellent and on many occasions, the best and fastest car in the field.
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In 91 the Williams was arguably the fastest car on the grid but again an unreliable gearbox contributed to him retiring from a third of the races that season.
16 races, 3 gearbox failures (the one in canada I am not sure was a gearbox failure, they say Mansell himself dropped the revs and let the car die. So it could be 16 races and 2 gearbox failures. Funnily, these were the only car problems he had during the year, besides a retirement in Spa due to electronics. So 3 retirements due to car problems out of 16 races. Not that bad for a car that enjoyed a massive speed advantage.
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Nigel was by no means the best driver of his generation, but he was a driver who was fast and could never be described as a quitter. An exciting racer to watch combined with his arrogant personality made him one of the greats of his time IMO. He has got 31 race wins to his name and that eclipses some triple and even 5 times WDC's. Whenever a great like Senna is discussed, there always seems to be a mention of Monaco 1992, or Silverstone 1991 so he is a big name from that era and also one of the most unluckiest IMO. :)
Mansell was one of the luckiest drivers of all time. He had awesome cars throughout his career, but on many occasions he did nothing with them.
Fact1 - Mansells all time qualifying record is 92:97 (so he lost to his teammate in Q more times than he beat his teammate in Q)
The only teammates out of the 10 he had that he had a positive Q record against were Patrese and Piquet (of course, it took the Imola crash after which Piquet was never the same for that to happen).
He finished behind his teammate more than he finished in front of his teammate.
Those are not good facts for Mansells greatness. As a driver of his generation, I would not rate him any better than Rosberg, Piquet, Berger, De Angelis. The opposite in fact.
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Originally Posted by Rollo
Mansell would have won the title in 1986 if that tyre hadn't blown itself to pieces 19 laps from home.
Ironically, if Piquet hadn't pitted, then Prost wouldn't have past him and then Piquet would have been on 72 points to Prost's 69.
Prost won the 1986 title because of 14mm of rubber.
Prost won the title because in an inferior car he took it to the williams guys all year long.
Mansells tyre did not last - it was only one mans problem. His. He used it too much and destroyed it.
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Originally Posted by jens
The discussion, arguments and ratings of Mansell remind a bit of that from the G.Villeneuve thread. And considering their "spectacularity", rather unsurprisingly. For instance in terms of performance Berger at least matched Mansell in 1989. A year later both of them got beaten by their new team-mates (Senna and Prost) in quite a similar fashion. But despite all that, how many people really rate Berger as an equivalent to Mansell? So again the rightful question can be asked - who is really over-/underrated?
excellent post.
