Mansell: I'm the top man, Lewis
Nigel Mansell: “No disrespect to Lewis but what’s the point of a championship where you only have 18 or 20 cars running? When I won the title, I beat 25 other cars. That makes Lewis’ title 20 per cent less credible than mine.”
Lewis Hamilton's F1 world title not as credible as mine, says Nigel Mansell
"Mansell’s point about sheer numbers on the grid is undeniable, but some of his “rivals” were feeble by current standards of competition: does anyone recall great performances by Fondmetal? Venturi Larrousse? Scuderia Italia? The tragi-comic Andrea Moda? I could go on: both Brabham and Lotus were on their last legs, Jordan had hopeless Yamaha engines, Footwork never amounted to much, and Ferrari were scraping the barrel with Ivan Capelli. In 1992, quantity did not equate to quality."
Senna talking with Mercedes DTM team
"Bruno Senna is talking to Mercedes with possibilities remaining that the Brazilian could switch to German touring car series DTM after missing out on a Formula 1 opportunity with the ex-Honda team."
Sato scotches Red Bull third driver rumours
Takuma Sato: ""I am no longer in negotiation with the Toro Rosso or Red Bull teams about their third driver positions."
Renault threatens to withdraw from F1
"Renault's chief operating officer Patrick Pelata said at the Geneva Motor Show that Renault must reduce its F1 costs beyond what has been agreed by the teams."
Ferrari driver Felipe Massa explains to Donald McRae why he believes in fate
Massa on what he did after losing the championship last year: "I went out and got pissed – in the circumstances what else are you going to do?"
Jenson Button keeps Ross Brawn on side with his decision
"It became clear yesterday that Button was determined to play his part in the success of a management buyout of Honda and agreed to give up half his salary plus bonuses, which could amount to as much as £5million a year."
Kovalainen: McLaren ready to race KERS
Heikki Kovalainen on KERS: "I think we are now hitting a stage where we can run it all day, reliably, without any problems, at the maximum powerSo unless somethings goes dramatically wrong, I don't see a reason why we shouldn't run it."
"It is quite tight. It looks like Toyota is there but BMW is always hard to read. Last year they went to Melbourne and were there with a bang, but they had never shown much in practice. And for sure Ferrari and McLaren – you can never discount them. It seems to be so tight, which is remarkable considering all the regulation changes that we’ve gone through. It is impressive, as everybody seemed to have a different idea of how to interpret those changes, but the lap times are pretty similar. And never forget that teams will have different packages from here to Melbourne."
Montreal goes on but F1 future is unlikely
"F1 has not just lost its greatest asset in North America, it has also unwittingly handed it over to NASCAR, in much the same way as the Long Beach GP was handed over to CART back in the 1980s when the Americans refused to pay the money being asked. The problem, it seems, is that F1 is not willing to cut special deals in order to keep the sport in North America. This is presumably because of the fears that such action would result in calls from other promoters around the world to reduce the fees being paid."
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Scott Joslin
4th March 2009, 23:33
Lame argument from Mansell!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
4th March 2009, 23:44
Yep – I don’t recall the MP4/23 being three seconds per lap faster than the opposition as the FW14B was!
Chalky
4th March 2009, 23:55
Mansell could have been joking, but it’s hard to tell when he’s joking. Same old monotonous tone. :D
Rob Wilson
4th March 2009, 23:56
yea that comment does seem big headed from Mansell
Loki
5th March 2009, 2:23
I like the interview with Massa, cheers Keith :)
Rob R.
5th March 2009, 5:00
I’m so glad to hear something out of the mouth of a British former F1 driver that isn’t just the usual sucking up to Lewis…
scunnyman
5th March 2009, 5:45
Now i am speaking as a HUGE nigel mansell fan, but his comments do seem a little silly. Like Keith said, his car was very dominant in 1992. But at the same time i think he may have been making a point about the lack of teams and competative teams to boot.
Saying that he beat more drivers to his crown is a little lame. It is easy to beat 25 other drivers when you are at the front to start with, so beating 19 others (in hamiltons case) isn’t really any easier or harder.
DG
5th March 2009, 8:18
Good old Jenson, backing his team leader….isn’t this just another way of saying that he’s been given a pay cut? And he still has to be competitive…..
Hounslow
5th March 2009, 8:43
I don’t read any humour into Mansell’s remarks, just stupidity.
I wonder what he will say when Hamilton wins another World Championship. Could these asinine comments have anything to do with an intended comparison with Mansell’s sons?
Robert
9th March 2009, 18:43
What are his sons doing, last time I read they where testing Le Mans cars together.
Chaz
5th March 2009, 9:19
Button seems to be putting a lot of faith into Ross and I hope he wont regret it.
As for the Mansell vs Hamilton spat, I’m with Mansell at the moment that is until Lewis has cut his teeth a little longer in the sport. That’s not to say that I don’t admire Lewis’s skill and achievements thus far in F1 in the slightest…
Chaz
5th March 2009, 12:39
BBC seem to have semi relaunched their F1 sport page…
diseased rat
5th March 2009, 9:37
Mansell’s argument is silly. Sure he worked hard for his WDC but using those extra 5 cars on the grid as a reason why his was harder? Check the starting grid in that year, that last 5 or 10 cars were always tanks driven by jokers with no chance of doing anything.
PJA
5th March 2009, 9:56
I agree that Mansell’s argument doesn’t work as it is quality vs quantity, and in this case quality of opposition wins. I am sure everyone would prefer a full grid and close racing but we don’t seem likely to get that any time soon.
I believe the current limit for the size of the grid is 24 cars. Does anyone know when this was introduced and why was it just so circuits knew how many teams they had to have space for? Also what is the most number of cars to have started a Grand Prix, I know there used to be pre-qualifying so not all cars made the Grid.
Adrian
5th March 2009, 10:23
I believe it has something to do with safety and the physical grid sizes at some circuits… Spa springs to mind with it’s grid on a bend…
Somers
5th March 2009, 9:58
LOL @ Mansell was there not 22 cars at the start of last season though ;)
ajokay
5th March 2009, 10:23
It also took Mansell his entire career to win his Championship. Lewis was a whisker from his on his first outing, and nailed it at the second.
John Spencer
5th March 2009, 11:46
I was never a Nigel fan, and this kind of comment illustrates why. F1 drivers are generally pretty low on humility but they usually have the sense to hide it. Nige can never stop sounding hard done by, even though he only had Ricardo Patrese to beat for the 92 championship (Keith noted above the Williams dominance that year). Lewis arguably had two genuine rivals, Kimi and Felipe, plus others there or thereabouts (Robert Kubica, and even Heikki if we extend that Ricardo Patrese analogy). So to use Nige’s logic, Lewis’s championship is worth twice or three times as much as Mansell’s.
Nobody disputes that Mansell was a good driver (although many would argue about where to place him in the hall of fame) but former world champions sound so much more dignified (think Hill, Scheckter, Lauda, Stewart) when they talk UP the sport nowadays, rather than continuously moaning about how things aren’t as good as in their day.
hamilton wc 09
5th March 2009, 13:51
typical mansell, hell of a driver but god hes up his own ****, he won the world tittle with probably the best car ever made in f1, how good was he in 1990 for ferrari?? thrashed by prost. he just always seems to want to make his 1 world tittle sound better than anybody elses even though it was the easisiet tittle ever won when you look at the standard of the competition in 92 and the fact that mansell was de facto number 1 driver in the team,
Ant
5th March 2009, 14:25
Everyone is bashing Mansell for having an easy Championship in 92, but everyone seems to forget that he did narrowly miss out on two other Championships that were very hard fought.
Whilst I don’t agree with his recent comments about Lewis either, give the guy a break – he was a good driver in his time and achieved a lot.
Mussolini's Pet Cat
5th March 2009, 16:46
oh Nige, you silly old sausage. Do you remember what you said about the Williams back then??? Something about a monkey could drive it and win?? We all now it’s impossible to compare drivers from different eras, so dont bother!
sumedh
5th March 2009, 17:30
This comment is more sillier than Massa’s testing championship comment.
Gezzy
5th March 2009, 19:19
Being bankroled by McLaren from schooldays could make many Lewis’s methinks
Gezzy
Paul Sainsbury
10th March 2009, 9:58
Yeah, totally wrong there. How do you explain the fact that he was in a league of his own from well before the MaClaren involvement. Mmm, and maybe that is why they bought him up, eh?
The Limit
6th March 2009, 14:28
One reflects on Mario Andretti’s comments on Nigel Mansell when reading these comments, non of it polite enough to print. Is this another case of Mansell showing off that legendary ‘chip on the shoulder’ that he has carried around for years?
He always seemed to be battling adversity did Nigel.
No rich team owners to help him at the beginning of his career, heavily in debt, yet making it anyhow. At the sametime he always got himself hurt in some strange
circumstances. Who could forget Nigel hobbling away from his Williams after crashing in Australia, or celebrating victory before braking down on the last lap, or cutting his hands to pieces whilst raising the
winners trophy in Argentina? All classic episodes, all filled with paranoia that others were out to get him!
His rough relationships with Piquet Snr and Prost attest to this theory perfectly, including allegations that Prost stole his pole winning car for a race whilst both were at Ferrari twenty years ago.
In stark contrast, Lewis Hamilton did have Ron Dennis and McLaren as backers from an early age, but that only
shows great foresight and intelligience from Lewis and his family. They knew they couldn’t make it alone, they needed Dennis and his team’s help.
In doing so, through great determination and a large slice of luck, Hamilton’s debut season was run in one
of the fastest and most reliable cars McLaren have
produced in the last ten years.
In the process, Hamilton has won a title and second place in just two seasons. At the same time, he has gone toe to toe with both Raikkonen and Alonso and has not looked too shabby. He does it with great style, at times almost ease, and has given the sport something
it has been lacking. Personality!
The real reason Hamilton is hated by so many is that he is not just fast and successful, but successful so early. To the exception of Jacques Villeneuve, Hamilton has to be one of the few rookies to win a title so early in their career.
He has not endured years of nearly winning titles as Mansell did, or Raikkonen for that matter, he has just blindsided everybody very quickly.
Nobody discounts that Mansell was and still is a great champion. He is one of the few to be an F1 and IRL champion at the sametime, and has made millions from his profession. He came along way from the gutters of
Birmingham, England, to one of the best racing drivers in modern open wheel history. He was always outspoken, opinionated, and arrogant, which he used to great effect to annoy his rivals. This time though, he has
shown this side of his nature to a negative affect.
This time, he is dead wrong!
pSynrg
6th March 2009, 23:14
Erm, classic Mansell?
Gezzy
15th March 2009, 21:06
How many potential drivers even had a chance,hence the reason Hamilton was “out on his own” also Hamiltons father made the approach to McLaren to give him a chance.