I first got into Formula One in 2007 as my dad used to watch the races and I got more involved with each race that passed. It was Lewis Hamilton who really got me addicted to the sport and by the 2008 season we booked tickets for Silverstone. Seeing the cars in the flesh for the first time really fuelled my passion for the sport and is why I’m writing this.

We were unbelievably badly organised, not knowing what to take, we ended up with a pitch black tent in the evening. But that didn’t ruin our weekend. We drove up on the Friday and had heard the news that 2009 would be Silverstone’s last race. As we arrived and started to put the tent up, it started to rain, and we hoped for more of the wet stuff in the race.

We were enjoying the weekend loads and bought Red Bull umbrellas, everything was expensive, my uncle was ripped off by £13 for some McLaren ear plugs. But after our walk around the track, it was time for qualifying. Qualifying was a mixed affair, Heikki Kovalainen scored his first and only pole position, which for a Heikki fan like me was great to see. My idol, Hamilton could only manage 4th but even so I had a good feeling for the race. Webber also set Red Bull’s best qualifying result in 2nd.

That night, we got back to find our tent half collapsed, then at 5pm we decided on a quick nap before we went out. That ‘nap’ turned out to be 14 hours long! At least we were up and raring to go for the race.

The rain poured all morning and we were looking forward to a wet race, we bought some overpriced rain Macs and got our seats. We watched the Red Arrows fly past and before we knew it the race was about to begin.

The track was damp and so the cars all started with intermediates. At the start Raikkonen tried to pass Webber, causing Hamilton to steam past to be behind Kovalainen. Unfortunately Webber couldn’t keep his weekend going well when he spun out and continued at the back of the pack. Felipe Massa had a similarly bad race, I recall him spinning out about 8 times. Nick Heidfeld and Rubens Barrichello really impressed, Heidfeld making up 3 places for second and Barrichello making good a good tyre choice to leap up an incredible 13 places.

There are two standout moments during the race that I remember as if it were yesterday. The first is Hamilton’s overtake of Kovalainen on the outside of Stowe, which happened to be right in front of us. Then, about halfway through the race, during the round of pitstops, Raikkonen got the gap to under a second, and it came down to the speed of the pit crew. We saw Raikkonen come out his pit box and watched the screen, whoever came out the pitlane first would be likely to win. To our relief Hamilton came out in the lead, in which he continued to the chequered flag.

I will remember the race for the absolute chaos, with probably every car going off track at one point, and for Lewis Hamilton’s win. But most of all, the pure atmosphere of being at the track with 150,000 other fans, the noise of the cars, the crowd and just ‘being there’. I’d definitely recommend the experience to any F1 fan.

The race may not have been the most exciting or the best race ever, but it is certainly one of the races I remember most and is the race that really made me love F1. I could have easily chosen other exciting races for this, but for me, Silverstone 2008 was just that little bit more special.

Image © Bridgestone Corporation

Formula One fans are a passionate lot! I didn’t develop that passion until I was much older than others who have written of “My Race”. I remember hearing of Jim Clark: of course I knew he was champion but I didn’t know, or care too much about the details, maybe that’s because I was only 8 when he secured his final title. Moving on a few years you’d think I’d remember Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart, but no, they’re also just a passing blur. It wasn’t until the mid seventies when James Hunt was the darling of the nation that I actually remember watching any racing, and that was probably because I thought he was cute (just like every other teenage girl). Sure I remember the headlines, like Niki Lauda’s horrific accident at the Nurburgring in ‘76 but Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost? I’d missed them all, only “the chain” remained in my memory.

I don’t quite know what changed, or exactly when my addiction to F1 began but it was sometime around ‘97, it just sort of snuck up on me unannounced. I’d seen that David Coulthard was doing rather well but it was Mika Hakkinen who really caught my eye; I loved watching him battle with Michael Schumacher and was overjoyed when he won his two titles, beating “that demon Schumacher”. With David and Mika team-mates at McLaren I was hooked! The race I’ve picked as my favourite isn’t because DC won or because some cracking overtaking manoeuvre had me enthralled, I loved it for the drama and suspense. I was in awe that Markus Winkelhock, a rookie in his first (and only) F1 race and driving for a back of the grid team had started last and now was leading the race…

Markus who?

There was to be no German Grand Prix in 2007: although the event was to be held in Germany the Hockenheimring, which held the naming rights to the German GP wouldn’t allow its rival circuit the Nurburgring to use the name. Situated high above sea level in the mountainous Eifel region, the Nurburgring is renowned for unpredictable weather and this race was to be no exception. Winkelhock a local German driver (one of 4 test drivers for Spyker F1) and the son of Manfred Winkelhock, who drove for several F1 teams in the eighties, had inherited the race seat from Christijan Albers, he’d lost out when his sponsorship funding had dried up. Winkelhock, with little experience in the car was to qualify 22nd and last on the grid, a full 1.5 seconds behind his team-mate Adrian Sutil.

Rain, pirouettes and synchronised sliding…

 
The parade lap was to start dry but dark rain clouds were looming, Spyker took the inspired decision to change Winkelhock onto full wet weather tyres at the end of his warm up lap, he had little to lose starting from last and it was worth the gamble, he would start the race from the pitlane. It seemed that everyone else apart from Winkelhock would be caught out by the sheer intensity of the rain, yes they’d anticipated a wet race but they’d been ill-prepared for what was to come as turn one would become a solid river of water. After several collisions and a few near misses on the first lap the majority of the field returned to pit for intermediate tyres, some even stayed out in the hope that the rain would quickly pass. That had been the wrong decision and the fun was just about to begin…

With Winkelhock the only driver on full wets, he rapidly gained a huge 30 seconds plus time advantage at the head of the field as others pitted again for the correct tyres, this was to be the only time in Spyker’s short history that one of their drivers would lead a Grand Prix. With “the river” getting stronger by the second, one by one the drivers slid (some more spactacularly than others) off into the gravel. First off was Jenson Button, followed soon after by Hamilton, Sutil, Rosberg and Scott Speed; when Anthony Davidson spun at the edge of the gravel partially blocking the circuit the safety car was deployed. As the safety car gingerly made its round turn one it was lucky to avoid being rear-ended by Tonio Luizzi in the Toro Rosso. He slid off, sideways into the gravel and came to rest by one of the rescue trucks.

Hoisted in the air!

I don’t know who allowed the rule (and I still think it’s a stupid one) but at the time if you went off-track but managed to keep your engine running, you were allowed assistance from the track marshals to return to the track. You have to admire Lewis Hamilton being astute enough to keep his engine running in those conditions. Though he’d beached in the gravel he was hoisted in the air by the recovery truck and gently plonked back onto the track to continue his race… much to my annoyance, I grumbled at the telly at the perceived injustice of it all, especially as I remembered the outrage in the press when Schumacher had been pushed from the gravel by the marshals at an earlier race. I seem to recollect that particular rule was ditched soon afterward by the FIA but the image of Hamilton’s car suspended above the track will live long in my memory (and yours if you check 7 minutes into the attached video).

An unfair advantage?

We didn’t have to wait too much longer until the race was red flagged; with drivers complaining that the track was dangerous Charlie Whiting took the decision to halt the race until the rain subsided. After all, with so few laps having been completed it wasn’t as if he could just call the result there and then! After what seemed like an age, the race was restarted behind the safety car with Markus Winkelhock leading the pack. Their re-start positions had been decided by their position one lap prior to the red flag being shown. At this point another of those silly rules kicked in, lapped cars were allowed to unlap themselves behind the safety car, and who was the only lapped car? Danned tooting, it was Lewis Hamilton! Grr, grr, grump, how blooming unfair, not only had he been winched back onto the track, now he was being given a second helping hand. My blood boiled.

End of the feel good factor?

Poor Markus retired with hydraulic problems a few laps later. In all he had led the race for six laps; one more than the eventual winner Fernando Alonso. To his credit, he is the only driver in F1 history to start last on the grid and lead the race in his debut Grand Prix, he’s also the only driver to start both last and first on the grid (due to the red flag) in the same Grand Prix. Sadly this wasn’t enough for Spyker and a fairy tale ending was not to be, he was replaced by paid driver Sakon Yamamoto (times don’t change much do they?) for the rest of the season and Spyker was soon to be no more, they were bought by Vijay Mallya and renamed Force India for the following season.

As for the rest of the race? Fernando went on to win but not before making a few ripples (pun fully intended) of his own. On lap 56, whilst passing Massa their cars touched, Massa blamed Alonso for the incident and vice versa, leading to a televised “handbags at dawn” battle of words in the ante room prior to the podium ceremony (drivers are passionate people too, te he). Red Bull who’d thus far been having a dismal season finished with both cars in the points and Webber third place man on the podium, a satisfying end to a very satisfying race.

 
Unfortunately the video is not in English so you may like to turn the volume down. I’ve such happy memories of this race, I hope you enjoy it too…

Image © Spyker F1

It’s more about the place than the race if I’m honest.

I’m still pretty young and admittedly Formula One is a sport I have only picked up in my mid teens on the back of a Fernando Alonso lead revival after the Schumi years. But thankfully it is a sport where it’s relatively easy for someone with a small interest to be fully sucked in and become a religious follower of the goings on relatively quickly. Along with this, after seeing Hamilton’s heroics and the unpredictability of Spa in 2008 I had no doubt that I wanted to go and see for myself the testing circuit and join the hordes of fans that flock to the Ardennes year after year at some point.

Following Felipe Massa’s now infamous accident at the Hungaroring in mid July 2009 rumours rapidly began to circulate of a Schumacher return. Soon a hastily prepared announcement confirmed that the Ferrari advisor would step in and fill the breach left by his former team mate at the Italian outfit for the remainder of the season. What better excuse for a trip to the iconic course than to see a legend take his final bow at his favourite track in Ferrari Red, especially for my first ever race. My brother and I searched around and booked our seats on a coach excursion to Belgium with great anticipation. What could go wrong?

As we all by now know the announcement was premature, and ill advised. A bad neck for the seven-time World Champion caused a sudden withdrawal, but we headed to the Belgian Grand Prix over the August Bank Holiday weekend still full of enthusiasm as I was going to my first F1 race, and I was not to be disappointed.

Day of firsts

I got my first glimpse of the track as the coach pulled through the forests and fields that surround the circuit to the south, and through the many small villages and hamlets where we joined the remains of the old track, now a public road, a couple of turnings before the Masta Kink.

Parking up at the circuit, now slightly later than expected, just beyond the brow of the hill and the campsites at Les Combes the sound of final free practice was our greeting. What a sound. Getting louder as we made the short approach to a fans entrance at the end of the Kemmel Straight, my excitement grew. My first sighting of a Formula One car in full flow was Mark Webber’s Red Bull (which by the next lap was at cruising speed after an engine problem). It’s just a sight that you couldn’t forget.

We watched the remainder of the session from a vantage point half way down the straight, and sat in awe as car after car passed at high speed then inch perfectly finding their breaking point and hitting the apex at Les Combes with absolute precision. Mesmerising for most, but for a lad in his last teenage year it changed something, and I think I haven’t missed a session since (with endless thanks to the BBC red button).

In the short break between FP3 and qualifying, whilst the supporting formulas were running, we made our way to the exit of Rivage where we set up and waited for qualifying. Many may remember that the Force India of Giancarlo Fisichella secured pole, with Hamilton, Button and Alonso going out in Q2, but in all honesty our viewing point tried its best to hide this from us. It was hard to see any difference between cars on their exit from this turn, and without a large screen, only their absence in the next section of qualifying showed their failings. But it was still fascinating for me to see these machines working at full capacity.

After qualifying we made the walk around the inner confines of the track open to the bronze level ticket holders such as us viewing the modern parts of the circuit; Pouhan, Fagnes and Stavelot, before heading under the track near Blanchimont. It was at the older parts of the circuit, despite its modern front, where it became easy to remember the history of the course, viewing the track from deep within the trees but still just meters from the tarmac itself. It was easy to see why Formula One was such a dangerous sport throughout its history, when modern safety standards weren’t as stringent as they are today. Back under the track near the pits, and towards the bottom of Eau Rouge, this really is as steep as they all say. And towards the exit as our day was over.

Race day

An early start on the Sunday guaranteed a decent spot on Pouhon, a great place to watch an F1 car as it sweeps away from view. The race itself is somewhat a blur. Kimi Raikkonen taking the lead shortly after a safety car caused by the exit of Button, Hamilton, Alguersuari and Grosjean in the first lap at Les Combe.The rest of the race really passing without drama, other than Vettel’s movement up into third and the retirement of Alonso in the pits.

At the end of the race we were in no rush to leave and after seeing many people flooding onto the track, via the big screens, we made our way back towards the Kemmel straight to investigate. Here we found a small hole under a the fence which others were using as an entrance to the tarmac despite the event stewards at various gates advising against going on a track walk. I’m not usually the sort of person to go against the rules or leap over or under fences, but this was (at the time at least) a once in a life time opportunity. And so we made our way onto this historic track.

It’s a magical thing to be walking where such an event has just taken place, even when you forget the history, and something you cannot do in any other world class sport. It is also another moment that I will take away from this weekend and remember forever.

Walking the wrong way towards Eau Rouge, there’s a point where the forest closes in to conceal the view, then magnificently opens up to show the track falling away and leading back to a hive of activity nearer La Source. The sun shining over-head making it like a picture post card, and another sight to remember from a fascinating weekend.

Portal Image © Force India F1

My background as an F1 fan began in 2000, at the tender age of 6. During the 2000 Belgian GP, I found myself channel hopping in the hope it would quell my Sunday afternoon boredom. The moment I flicked to the F1 Mika Hakkinen was putting the extraordinary move on Michael Schumacher at Les Combes whilst lapping Ricardo Zonta. I was hooked. Hakkinen’s humility in the press conference was astonishing. I was in awe of Hakkinen. He was my first sporting hero. His McLaren replacement, Kimi Raikkonen (Another Finn) amazed me with equal awe. Because of these 2 drivers, I am a massive fan of all Finnish Athletes in any sport. Fast forward 5 years for the greatest race I have ever seen.

The 2005 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka was without doubt the greatest race I have ever seen. For me it was the perfect race. As a massive Kimi Raikkonen fan, I was dejected to see Fernando Alonso take the title in Brazil the race before, but with 2 races to go the constructors championship was still at stake for McLaren and Renault.

A remarkable wet qualifying session meant it was a mixed grid with Ralf Schumacher on pole for Toyota and Jenson Button 2nd; Fisichella was 3rd for Renault. Team Mate Alonso was 16th after getting affected by the heavy rain, so to were Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya, who qualified 17th and 18th. I’d anticipated before the race was that Fisichella would have the measure of Button and the 3-stopping Ralf Schumacher and that While Raikkonen, Alonso and Montoya would fight back to score some points on a track that’s notoriously hard to overtake.

Race day was dry and sunny. The race was primed. I woke up expected a processional race where Fisichella won by a mile. I dragged myself to turn on the TV ready for the race and had my usual pre-race nerves for my idol Raikkonen. The 5 lights went out and Fisichella got a good start and got past Button. Alonso got a flying start and was up to 8th after the first lap, with Raikkonen not far behind. But Raikkonen dropped back after missing the Casio chicane. Montoya moved in front of Raikkonen, but at the final corner tried to pass Jacques Villeneuve around the outside, but went wide and hit the wall. He was out. The Safety car was deployed. All this action on lap 1! I suddenly thought it was going to be an immense race.

Montoya’s retirement meant McLaren had only one driver who could score points, and he was in 13th. Soon after the restart, Alonso passed Christian Klien around the outside and missed his braking point cutting the chicane. He let Klien back past on the final corner and then re-passed him into turn 1, much like Kimi-Lewis at Spa 08. The FIA said Fernando had to let Klien regain the place so Fernando had to pass Klien a 3rd time, but this had allowed Raikkonen to catch up with Alonso who passed Klien into turn 1 soon after.

Up at the front, Ralf Schumacher had pitted on the first of his 3 stops and ended up 8th, behind the charging Raikkonen and Alonso. They were being held up by Michael Schumacher, who had banked on a wet race and had a wet setup and was therefore woefully slow down the straights. Alonso had been looking menacing behind Michael for many laps and made his move into the 180mph 130R around the outside. I couldn’t believe he had done that. That was one of the best passes I had ever seen. Alonso pitted earlier than Michael Schumacher and Raikkonen, who both pitted on the same lap. They came out ahead of Alonso, who had passed David Coulthard for 6th. After the pit stops the top 6 was Fisichella, Button, Webber, Michael Schumacher, Raikkonen and Alonso.

Soon after, Raikkonen passed Michael around the outside at turn 1. I was hugely relieved as he’d being stuck behind Michael for a great deal of laps. Once he’d passed Michael he started chasing down Button and Webber at a rate of 1.5 seconds per lap. Second place now seemed at realistic target for Kimi as Fisichella was almost 20 seconds in the lead. Fisichella was the first to pit and came out a couple of seconds behind Raikkonen, who was now 3rd. Button, Webber and Alonso pitted a few laps later. Raikkonen ran 8 laps longer than Fisichella and 5 laps longer than Button, Webber and Alonso, ending up with a 14-second lead before he pitted. He came out around 7 seconds behind Fisichella with 12 laps to go.

The Top 5 was Fisichella, Raikkonen, Webber, Alonso, and Button. Raikkonen and Alonso had fought through the field sensationally, but their afternoons weren’t over just yet. Alonso passed Webber with an equally sensational move to the one he put on Schumacher through 130R. Webber covered both sides of the narrow Suzuka straight, but Alonso took 2 wheels worth of grass to give him the extra space he needed to complete the stunning overtake. More was to follow, as Raikkonen wasn’t settling for second. He closed the 7-second gap with 4 laps to go. But he was in his dirty air and took a couple of laps to get a move to overtake on Lap 51 of 52. He had a couple of looks on that lap but nothing serious, ontil the start of the final lap that is!

Fisichella had defended a bit too much in the chicane and had compromised his exit. Raikkonen pounced: he used the slipstream of Fisichella to reel him in on the pit straight. Fisichella moved right, Raikkonen left. Fisichella moved back to the left to cover off Kimi but Kimi jolted further left to avoid Fisichella. Bouncing off the rev-limiter at 200mph (7th gear was too short on Kimi’s car) Kimi turned into turn 1 taking 1st place on the final lap. I went mental! I was overjoyed with emotion, shouting at 6am in the morning. But it still wasn’t finished, I thought of Nurburgring earlier in the year when Kimi’s suspension broke on the final lap. It’s never over till its over.

But Kimi took the win, followed by Fisichella, Alonso, Webber and Button. Amazingly, Kimi had won from 17th on the grid. That fact helped numb the damage caused by Montoya’s retirement as Renault would go on to take the Constructors. Peter Windsor described Raikkonen’s move on Fisichella as “a sharp Finnish knife cutting through a tender piece of Italian Salami”. That move reminded me of what got me into F1, Mika Hakkinen’s great overtake at Spa 2000. Ron Dennis described the win as the greatest of Kimi’s career. Ron was clearly trying to show that the relationship between him and Kimi was good but what people didn’t know was that Kimi was fed up with McLaren. He had quietly signed a contract with Ferrari 3 months earlier for the 2007 season, and McLaren didn’t even know.

I first got hooked on Formula One in 1986 when I was just 10 years old (there you go, you do the maths) and I suppose the man who sparked that initial interest was Nigel Mansell, ably assisted of course by the infectiously enthusiastic Murray Walker. Indeed, it may have had more to do with the latter than anyone on the track. Others played their part, Alain Prost and Nelson Piquet would make it a three-way battle for the title with Mansell and for me it all started with Mansell’s duel with the black and gold Lotus of Ayrton Senna in Spain. Sure, he had ridiculous facial hair but by the time Mansell had won at Brands Hatch he’d become a national hero. It was turning into a vintage season but as a newcomer to the sport, I thought it was always like this. And the season finale was still waiting to serve up some final twists.

The Title Battle

With one race to go, Mansell was the favourite to clinch the drivers’ title, holding a six point advantage over Prost with the Englishman’s team mate a further point behind. This meant that either Mansell needed to only finish third or for neither of his rivals to win the race.

Operation Adelaide

The morning before the race I woke to find that Mansell would be starting from pole position. It felt like half the job was done and the stage was all set for Mansell’s moment of glory. Cue what I dubbed Operation Adelaide as I set my alarm to wake me in the middle of the night. With my parents unaware, I snuck downstairs – I was going to be watching with the volume turned down low but I had no plans to miss this race. Of course, the job was far from already half completed, as soon became evident as Mansell’s poor start saw him fall behind Senna and then Piquet and Keke Rosberg. However, the outlook started to improve as first Rosberg took the lead and proceeded to establish a gap and then Piquet spun and dropped back. Positions between the three title challengers swapped and changed but Mansell was still comfortable. Then Rosberg’s tyre failed – bringing home the reality of the situation with it.

The End of a Goodyear

What happened next has been written about countless times before and so I won’t go into it in detail. Mansell’s exploding tyre and struggle to maintain control of the car became one of Formula One’s iconic images. It was heartbreaking but of course it wasn’t all over quite yet, Prost and Piquet could have picked up their own problems, either still had to win to claim the crown and so I was forced to watch until the bitter end. At the finish, it was Prost who claimed the win and the title with it, with Piquet trailing home just behind.

C’est La Vie

An unwanted end, then, to my first season of Formula One and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time Formula One would treat me this way – Adelaide again in 1994, Interlagos in 2007 and finally again in 2008.

What’s that you say, Hamilton passed Glock on the final corner? Well I missed that moment (by all accounts so did the radio commentary) but of course that only made the instant of realisation of the actual result that much better even if the shout of joy reduced my seven-month old daughter to tears (sorry, darling). Yet that was always the case with the other near misses. Being robbed by his tyre simply made Mansell’s later great moments all the more to be savoured and his World Championship, when it finally came, all the more deserved. The same was true with Damon Hill and Lewis Hamilton.

Final Thought

It occurred to me that this must happen to other fans of other drivers. We saw the images of Ferrari’s joy in 2008 turned to abject disappointment in an instant with the realisation that Hamilton had done enough on the final lap to clinch the title but what of all the Felipe Massa fans? One point, one corner, one track position away from everything they had hoped for. Yet there would be other days.

Or would there? Team politics seem far more important to Ferrari than what the fans might want…

Credit © Sutton Motorsports / Williams F1

I started watching F1 in 1986 at the tender age of 12, after my brother gave me a pre-season guide (for info it was The Daily Mail Grand Prix Guide- if anybody has a copy drop me a line!)

I’d never taken interest in the sport before but I was becoming a huge car enthusiast and I was captivated by the action on track. In particular a certain moustachioed British driver caught my attention, not least because the aforementioned publication contained an article entitled “Mansell: The Big Danger”. Now this may have been nationalistic hype in a British magazine, but winning two races the year before and having one of the strongest car/engine combinations at his disposal, it was a fair bet that he was on the rise and ‘86 would be the season that “Our Nige” made a challenge for the title. And for this patriotic near-teen-boy he became my focus, and remained so throughout his career and beyond. Even now he is a yardstick by which I compare other drivers and the way they are behind the wheel. And of course Murray Walker helped a lot here, his famous pants-on-fire commentary style helping to fan the flames.

Now it’s interesting to note that the patriotic side of me chose a driver and not a team to follow (in sharp contrast to most Italian F1 fans for example) but that was what my young mind centred on. Of course Williams, the team that Mansell drove for was also British, but it was the driver that I plumped for.

In fact when I looked at the picture of the McLaren – a British team who were reigning world champions – I never really considered them to be British, purely because their drivers were a Frenchman and a Finn. Also there were other British drivers in F1 that year (Brundle, Palmer, Dumfries, and later Warwick – only Palmer not driving for a British team) but I ignored them and made my choice to follow the guy with the ‘tache and the dull Brummie accent. Hey I was young and new to the sport; I can’t always back up my decisions with sound logic. That one article has a lot to answer for…

As it turned out Mansell was the big danger that year, winning more races than any other driver, missing out on the title with a dramatic high-speed puncture in the final race while running in a position that would have secured him the crown.

Almost… But Not Quite

That race took place in Australia, and therefore happened when I was asleep (visiting my Gran that weekend, so staying up all night wasn’t an option sadly), and when I saw the replay later I was nearly heartbroken. Whatever you say about Mansell, one of the many words people use is “exciting”, and this was no exception.

There’s no doubt that the image of that tyre blowing and taking Nige’s title hopes with it will live with me (and many others) for a long, long time.

So why have I not picked this as my memorable race? Two reasons really. Firstly, for me Mansell wasn’t about retiring from a race and leaving me disappointed, he was about battling and winning and – crucially – overtaking. Secondly it’s to do with another man: Nelson Piquet.

The Villain of the Piece…

Every hero needs a nemesis, and a good rivalry always helps to build the tension. Prior to the legendary battles of Senna v Prost we had Mansell v Piquet, in both cases it was a battle of team mates who would never give way to the other, and who drove each other on to give their absolute all.

When Piquet joined Williams from Brabham for ‘86 he claims he was promised outright number-one status by Frank Williams. However this was seemingly never written down in the contract, and when Frank has hospitalised by his pre-season car accident it appears that nobody else at the team knew or believed that this was the case, if indeed it was true. After all it went against everything that the team stood for, and it’s still not clear to this day.

So instead of having a subordinate team mate giving way, Piquet had a rival who was challenging him, and the team seemingly not giving him the support he believed he was due. Naturally this created a lot of tension, and by the end of that first season relations between the two drivers had completely broken down.

The Tension Builds…

Come the start of the 1987 season and the mind games started again, Piquet even attacking Mansell via the media, notably calling his wife “ugly”. Of course this may have been misquoted and taken out of context, but for a 13 year old patriotic F1 fan it really helped confirm that I’d chosen the right Williams driver to support.

As had been the case the year before this was a closely fought season between the two Williams drivers (with Senna and Prost in there too). Nowhere was this more so than a sunny July weekend at Silverstone.

Going into the race Mansell was riding high from victory at the previous event, the French Grand Prix, where he had beaten his Brazilian rival. Despite this he was 4th in the championship, behind Piquet, Prost and then Senna who was leading the title race.

The home Grand Prix is always a special event for any driver and Mansell had won the race the year before, albeit at Brands Hatch. In qualifying Piquet had snatched pole but Mansell was alongside him on the front row just 7 hundredths behind. The Honda engines were powerful, the Williams cars were the class of the field, everything was set for a great race.

And We’re Off!

Prost made a great start to lead into the first corner but he couldn’t hold on for long, first Piquet and then Mansell getting by. The two Williams drivers then went off into the lead, free to race each other. It was likely one of them would win the race, reliability and fuel permitting, but which one would it be?

12 laps in and Mansell lost a wheel balancing weight, which gave him a bad vibration. Neither car had planned to stop for tyres, but on lap 36 Mansell could take it no more and pitted. He came out in 2nd place but 29 seconds behind his team mate. However he had fresh rubber, the crowd behind him, and 28 laps to do what he did best. Could he make the time up?

The Race is On!

Some drivers would have settled for second place and the valuable points, but Mansell wasn’t that kind of driver, and if course this was his home Grand Prix.

Over the next 25 laps he was on a charge, hunting down Piquet and breaking the lap record an incredible 11 times, reducing the gap every time he crossed the finish line. On lap 62 out of 65 he was right behind Piquet having made up more than a second per lap on the Brazilian, an incredible rate but one which put his fuel level dangerously low. He had just a few laps in which to make his move, or end the race knowing all his hard work had been in vain.

Sat at home in front of the TV I was on the edge of my seat. Mansell was giving it everything, could Red 5 take victory for the home crowd?

Now or Never…

One lap later and with just two laps to go, as they came down the Hangar Straight Mansell saw his chance. He sold a beautiful dummy as he first flicked to the left, let Piquet move across to cover it, then immediately flicked right to squeeze past on the inside as they moved through Stowe corner. A brilliantly opportunistic move that stunned us all, not least the Brazilian.

The crowd went ballistic, Murray Walker nearly exploded, and I leapt from my seat and screamed a massive “YEESSSS!!!!” at the top of my lungs, euphoric at the move I’d just seen. It may have been 23 years ago, but seeing that move still makes my hairs stand on end.

On the slowing down lap he ran out of fuel and was mobbed by the crowd, the passionate fans overjoyed at what they had just seen, their hero giving them the result they wanted in the best possible way.

This win raised Mansell up to second place in the championship, tied with Piquet on 30 points each but Mansell was ahead on race wins. Senna was now just one point ahead, and the season was set to be close and exciting. Mansell went to win a total of 6 races that season, twice as many as Piquet, although the Brazilian went on to win his third title through consistency and the dropped-points rule, and Mansell not taking part in the final two races through a back injury sustained when he crashed in practice at Suzuka. It took another 5 years before Mansell went on to claim the crown for himself and there were many memorable overtaking moves along the way, but this one is definitely one of the greatest – and the build up just adds to the spectacle and makes this my most memorable race ever.

Credit © Sutton Motorsports / Williams F1