Nigel Mansell - Mansell - My Autobiography

Gilles Villeneuve was a great driver, but more than that he was a great friend. We got on really well. When I first arrived in Formula 1, he took me under his wing and showed me a lot of things about how the Formula 1 game worked. We shared a lot of confidences. Like me, he was a plain speaking man and he always said what was on his mind. I understood where he was coming from and respected his judgements on people in the paddock. My arrival in Formula 1 coincided with the power struggle between the governing body and the constructors and Gilles encouraged me to go to the drivers meetings and take an interest in what was going on. He helped me a lot.

We had a lot of fun together, both on the track and off. The racing was pretty raw and competitive in those days and it was always cut-throat. The best man and the best car won on the day, but we had some massive scraps and then we would talk and have a laugh about it afterwards.

His road car driving was legendary and there are some great stories about him told by people who travelled with him at enormous speed on road journeys. I also travelled with him in his helicopter and because he was so fearless and such an accomplished person he could carry out the most extraordinary dives and manoeuvres as a pilot.

Gilles was a very special man, who lived his life to the full and who always drove at the limit. Looking back, the best race I had with him was at Zolder in Belgium in 1981. It was my first visit to the circuit and I managed to beat him for third place to claim my first podium in only my sixth Grand Prix start.

The following year we returned to Zolder for a rematch, but we never had the opportunity as Gilles was killed in an accident during qualifying. It was an awful incident in an awful year. Driving past the scene of the crash, I could see that it was serious as bits of his car were strewn all over the track and the surrounding area. I didn’t stop because there were already a lot of people there and the emergency crews had arrived in force. I was practically in tears as I drove around the rest of the circuit, repeating over and over again to myself, ‘Please, please let him be all right.’ It was shattering blow when I found out later that he was dead.

Gilles has been sorely missed in Grand Prix racing ever since that terrible day. He brought a magic to it, a sparkle, which is what endeared him to Ferrari and the passionate Italian fans.

I was very happy when Gilles’s son, Jacques landed a drive for Williams having moved over from IndyCar, where I raced against him in 1994, straight into one of the two top Formula 1 teams. It’s a real piece of history and I’m happy for Jacques. I was slightly amused when I heard he signed because I remembered Patrick Head, Williams technical director saying something about IndyCar drivers being fat and slow … then all of a sudden he’s signed one up!

Another driver for whom I have great respect – and I believe the feeling is mutual – is Niki Lauda. He is a total professional, very analytical, with tremendous courage. He was a superb racing driver who won many races through his intelligent handling of the car.

Niki was very good at getting himself positioned within a team and he was one of the few drivers to get the best out of Ferrari. He told me that if I had used my head differently I would have won more championships and he’s right. If I had been more political I would probably have won two or three more championships, but that’s just not the way I am. I’m not the sort of political manoeuvrer that some of my rivals were. I’m more romantic than that. I like to think that I am what a racing driver should be. I like to win by having a fair race and a fair fight with someone. If there has been some skulduggery in the background which means that a fair fight isn’t on the cards then that isn’t my scene and I don’t think it’s worth as much. I’ve gained more satisfaction from what I have won and the things I have achieved. I do try to look after my interests a bit more these days. But when it comes to politics, I’ll never be on the level of Alain Prost.

Alain Prost is the expert political manoeuvrer. He has won 51 Grands Prix, more than any other driver in the history of the sport, and he has four World titles, one less than Juan Manuel Fangio. You have to respect Prost’s record, but at least one of his titles was won more by skilful manoeuvring away from the circuit than actually out on the track.

Prost almost always had the best equipment available at the time: he drove for Renault in the early turbo days, then switched to McLaren, who dominated the mid-eighties with their Porsche-engined cars and the late eighties with the support of the Honda engine.

He’s a bit of a magpie. He uses his influence to pinch the most competitive drives. At Ferrari in 1990, Prost worked behind the scenes pulling strings and getting the management of Ferrari and its parent company FIAT on his side. At the end of 1989, Ferrari was my team and I was looking forward to a crack at the world title. Prost came along and tried to ease me out. The ironic thing is that Prost himself was fired by the management of Ferrari at the end of 1991.

When we did race on a level playing field he would rarely beat me. That’s why he didn’t want to compete with me on equal terms. Getting himself into a position where he doesn’t have to compete on equal terms is part of his strength. That’s part of the game, but it’s more romantic and far more satisfying for everyone if you have equal equipment and say ‘Let the best man win’. You have to be clever to get the car in shape, but to use political cleverness away from the circuit to get an advantage is not good for the sport.

It was disappointing not to be able to take him on in a fair fight either at Ferrari in 1990 or at Williams when he took my seat at the end of 1992. But it’s not the end of the world because I know how good I am. I raced alongside him in 1990 and knew that the only way he could be quicker than me was when the equipment wasn’t the same. I’m not interested in political manoeuvring or in working to disadvantage my team-mate. Naturally, I want success for myself and to win, this is positive, but I don’t want to do it at the expense of the person with whom I am supposed to be collaborating. I am simply not motivated like that. It’s so negative.

In my early Formula 1 days we got on reasonably well and played golf together occasionally, but as soon as I began to beat him on the track and to pose a serious threat to him, he didn’t want anything to do with me, which was a shame.

Ayrton Senna was one of the best drivers in Grand Prix history. I was probably the only driver consistently to race wheel to wheel with him and there is no question that he was the hardest competitor in a straight fight; I wouldn’t say the fairest, but certainly the hardest. You knew that if you beat Ayrton you had beaten the best.

He was often described as being the benchmark for all Formula 1 drivers. I believe that whoever is quickest on the day is the benchmark and it can move from race to race. Admittedly, because of his qualifying record Ayrton was more often the benchmark than I was. But it tended to move between Lauda, Prost, Piquet, Senna and me.

Ayrton tried many times to intimidate me both on and off the circuit. Once, at Spa in 1987 I told him to his face that if he was going to put me off he had better do it properly. We even had conversations where we started to respect each other’s skill and competitiveness and agree not to have each other off. But he would then forget about the conversation or make a slip and have me off or hit me up the back. It must have been premeditated, because he was too good a driver to do it by accident.