Форум истории автоспорта > История
Найджел Мэнселл
Владимир Коваленко:
Из интервью с Фрэнком Уильмсом Interview - Frank Williams (Autosport - 2012.07.05).pdf.
--- Цитировать ---“Nigel was a fantastic, charging,
tremendously determined driver,”
Williams says, “and those home wins
were him at his best, tremendous
to watch.”
In a sense, Mansell and Williams
were bringing F1 to the masses, the
crowd that invaded the track in the
wake of the ’92 success, being more
Wembley than Wimbledon, sparking
a safety review at Silverstone.
The active FW14B was in a different
league, but to extract the maximum
from it you had to be brave.
“Nigel talked about a Silverstone
crowd being worth a second a lap and
I think he almost meant it,” Williams
smiles. “Certainly that pole position
in 1992 was quite extraordinary and
it had [team-mate] Riccardo [Patrese]
shaking his head and complimenting
Nigel on the size of certain parts of
his anatomy!
“The active car did not always give
the driver feedback in real time, what
with all the computer-controlled
software. The grip was always there,
but sometimes it did not feel that
way when you turned in. You had to
have blind faith and commitment –
and that was Nigel.”
For the record, Mansell’s ’92 British
GP pole was 1m18.965s, Patrese’s time
in the same car 1m20.884s, and that
was still good enough for second…
--- Конец цитаты ---
Владимир Коваленко:
Патрик Хед в Retro 1986 (Autosport - 2011.08.18).pdf, сравнивая с Пике:
--- Цитировать ---“But Nigel proved equally
as fast and maybe prepared
to commit in a way that was
sometimes uncomfortable. He
was very brave, not in a silly way,
whereas Nelson had a touch of
the Prost about him. He judged
the value of pushing hard and
certainly never got into that blind
rage that Nigel would fairly often.”
--- Конец цитаты ---
Владимир Коваленко:
Из интервью с Патриком Хедом:
--- Цитировать ---Nigel won 31 grands prix and 29 of them he won in Williams cars. I think anybody who worked closely with Nigel would realise that not only was be extremely brave but hee had a very, very' high level of skill as well. He was gritty but he was not overcoming a lack of skill, as the myth went. Out of the car he could be quite a difficult character. If you weren't for him, his view was that you were against him. So if there was anybody in the garage that walked up to Riccardo Patrese and treated him equally with Nigel, then Nigel's attitude was: That guy must be an enemy because he's on Riccardo’s side as well as mine." But then Juan Pablo Montoya was very much the same in character.
MH: So it's worth putting up with that sort of thing, then?
PH: Yes, it is. At the time Nigel was with us, he was living in the Isle of Man. Every now and then, if we had a bad race, Frank would get the phone call from Nigel, saying, "I'm coming over, I want to have a talk with you and Patrick.”
He'd come over on a Saturday in his helicopter and he would come out with chapter and verse, almost to whether he didn't have enough sugar in his tea, the cushion on his chair wasn't thick enough, and this and that. And I would say, "Oh come on Nigel, be sensible. Let's talk about the car."' Frank would look over at me and glare slightly and, after Nigel had gone, he'd say, ‘‘Patrick, Nigel's our strongest asset. If we need to go through two hours of complaint and say, 'Yes Nigel, well fix that Nigel,' or whatever - that's the price you pay." Frank's always been very astute in that way.
So yes, there was some baggage that came with Nigel. But, when he walked into the garage, everybody knew "The Man" was there. They knew that if he was in the car he was on it, every moment - wet or dry. That makes a team jump to attention. Everybody else is on it as well, So Nigel was really good for us.
--- Конец цитаты ---
Владимир Коваленко:
14 июня 1998 года Мэнселл с большой помпой стартовал в гонке британского легкового чемпионата (BTCC) в Донингтоне и чуть не выиграл её.
Рассказывает победитель Джон Клиланд (John Cleland):
--- Цитировать ---There were lots of cracking races... But the one for me is the 1998 Donington Park round, the ‘Mansell’ race.
There’d been so much hype about Mansell. It brought people through the gates, but I was adamant he wasn’t going to take over my patch.
I followed Nigel out of the pits in the warm-up. Every touring car driver I’ve ever competed against dabs the brakes coming out of the pitlane to make sure everything is OK, but he didn’t. As we went down into the Old Hairpin I dived down the inside of him and we touched wing mirrors. He chased me, but couldn’t catch me.
Afterwards he came stomping down into the garage and said, ‘What was all that about?’ I said, ‘Welcome to touring cars – that’s how it’s going to be all day’.
I got heaved off at Coppice at one point and I thought that was it, but managed to get back on. Before I knew it, Mansell was leading the race after the safety car period. There was a gang of us – Reid, Leslie, me, Mansell and Muller – and I radioed the crew and asked, ‘Is he leading this race?’ They said, ‘Yes’, so I said, ‘As long as I can breathe he’s not winning it’.
He was driving well, but as the track dried it was clear he wasn’t flicking the brake balance towards the front. He probably wasn’t aware, but t’s a big deal in a touring car. I could see he was getting lairy into the chicane. I thought the back-end was going to bite him and it did. He locked the rear up and I got through.
That race was a combination of the car not being that good and the Mansell hype. It would probably still have been a terrific race without Nigel, but him being there added an extra dimension.
--- Конец цитаты ---
Владимир Коваленко:
25:05
This Is Your Life - Nigel Mansell
Навигация
Перейти к полной версии