Nigel Mansell: ‘Astonishing’ F1 safety makes drivers ‘feel superhuman’

Jon Wilde
Zhou Guanyu crashes on the opening lap of the grand prix. Silverstone July 2022

Alfa Romeo driver Zhou Guanyu crashes on the opening lap of the grand prix, sliding upside down. Silverstone July 2022

Nigel Mansell admits he finds it hard to believe drivers can walk away from big crashes, such have been the advancements in F1 safety.

The 1992 World Champion, whose Formula 1 career began in 1980, raced at a time when, sadly, serious injuries and even fatalities still happened far too frequently.

Mansell moved on for a season in IndyCar in 1993, also winning that series, and the following year made a one-off appearance for Williams at the French Grand Prix – four races after his former rival Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger had lost their lives during the Imola weekend.

Now, the 69-year-old watches F1 and although from a racer’s perspective he is sorry to see some circuits have become “sterilised”, he nevertheless feels a sense of relief when he sees a driver emerge unscathed from a big accident.

 

All hail the Halo after Zhou crash

Without the Halo on his car, Zhou Guanyu's crash could well have had tragic consequences.

“The shockwave went through all the circuits throughout the world and they were sterilised,” said Mansell in an interview with Adrian Flux.

“So all the fast, dangerous corners were taken away – they were obliterated, which was a great shame. A lot of the fast corners now, you’ve got these enormous run-off areas, the kerbs are very small. You can make a mistake and drive off the circuit and drive straight back on.

“When we used to make a mistake years ago, we paid a penalty. We hit something – the Armco, the concrete wall.

“You say about people dying, there were [also] so many people injured out of the sport – broken leg, broken arm, broken back. They just weren’t physically able to drive a Formula 1 car for the rest of their lives.

“In 1994, a month or so after the terrible double fatality, the whole Formula 1 perspective changed for ever more.

“From a driver’s point of view, it’s Christmas on sticks. They feel like they are superhuman. They can have the most heinous accidents with the cars presently and walk away from it. It’s astonishing.

“Sometimes the old drivers wince and go ‘oh, it’s going to be terrible’, but then the driver just hops out of the cockpit and off back to the pits and they’re fine, which is fantastic.”

Nigel Mansell poses with Carlos Sainz. Silverstone July 2022.
Nigel Mansell poses with Carlos Sainz after British Grand Prix qualifying. Silverstone July 2022.

How much has Formula 1 driving changed since the Nigel Mansell era?

Continuing on the theme that F1 in the 2020s is a very different sport to how it was in the 1990s or earlier, when he, Senna and Alain Prost were at the top, Mansell said the physical demands of driving the car are now much reduced compared to his time.

“They get out at the end of some of the races and it looks like they have just come out of the barber’s,” joked the former Ferrari driver, whose final two F1 races were for McLaren in 1995.

“There’s no sweat, there’s no nothing because the biggest thing that’s been designed in a Formula 1 car is power steering. We needed to have really strong arms and catch the car in a corner, and if you didn’t have the physical strength to hang on to a Formula 1 car you went off and had an accident. Now you drive it with one finger.

“It’s opened the sport up to a lot of drivers that didn’t actually have the physicality. You had to be strong, you had to be a bit of a brute years ago. If you were, you could make up some speed during a race because you used to get physically whacked out, like really whacked out, like ‘I can’t drive anymore, I just can’t breathe anymore’, especially with the ground-effects.

“Now, with the seats and the technology, you’ve got 30 to 50 engineers balancing the car for the driver telling them to keep the car in balance, do this.

“We had one engineer, a designer and a head analyst but we did it ourselves. It’s changed beyond all belief and it’s amazing where the sport is today.”

The Classic will be held at Silverstone across the weekend of August 26-28 and will feature a host of attractions, including Mansell’s F1 world title-winning car from 30 years ago being part of an interactive display.