Nigel Mansell - Mansell - My Autobiography

Having that kind of responsibility can be terrifying. Going into a Grand Prix weekend I would be aware that millions of people were looking to me to fly the flag and this would pile up on top of the expectations of the team, the sponsors and myself. But I have always maintained that pressure comes from within. You may be under pressure from all sides, but the secret is to control it, close your mind off to it and as you focus your mind on the job in hand, apply only as much pressure on yourself as you feel is required. A top sportsman must be able to control his emotions in this way and to keep all outside influences in perspective.

That said, I actually enjoy having a weight of expectation on me and it is something that I take very seriously. I rise to a big occasion and I thrive on the excitement of trying to win a major international race, whether it be the British Grand Prix or the Indianapolis 500. You can’t have the satisfaction of winning an event of this kind without having experienced the terror which comes from the possibility that you might fail and let down the fans. I have had so many years of carrying the flag successfully that I am now less terrified of failure. Although I would never rest on my laurels, I feel I’ve been there long enough that I should be allowed some leeway to get it right again.

Nowhere have I ever felt a greater weight of expectation than in front of the home crowd at the British Grand Prix. When you perform before your home crowd the sense of excitement about the whole weekend is even more intense than usual. Right from your first laps of the track on a Friday you can feel the energy of the crowd. All the way around the circuit, it is as if they are in the cockpit with you or adding power to your engine, It lifts you and gives you strength to push harder to achieve your goal. When race day arrives the atmosphere is positively electric.

Perhaps the most amazing atmosphere I ever experienced was the British Grand Prix in 1992, when over 200,000 people packed into Silverstone. We had set some quick times in testing before the weekend, but nothing prepared me for the speed which we found during that weekend. At every corner of every lap during qualifying I could feel an energy and a passion, willing me on to take pole position. It all came together perfectly. The car felt right, I felt right and I had this extra force on my side which seemed to put extra power under my right foot on the straights and extra grip in my tyres around the corners. I managed a wonderful lap, which put me comfortably on pole, two seconds faster than anyone else was able to manage.

Afterwards I was in the transporter with Williams technical director Patrick Head and my engineer David Brown when Riccardo Patrese, my team-mate came in. He walked over to where we were talking and grabbed hold of my crotch.

‘Hey, get off,’ I yelled. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Nigel,’ he said laughing, ‘I just wanted to feel how big those balls really are because that lap was unbelievable.’

That’s quite a tribute coming from your team-mate because he is the only one who knows what the car is capable of.

The whole weekend had that magic about it. After I won the race, everyone went crazy and the crowd invaded the track. It was an incredible spontaneous outpouring of emotion. On the podium I almost cried I was so proud of what we had achieved. I felt completely at one with the crowd. They had willed me on to win and I had won for them. Now we could celebrate together.

I triumphed on home soil five times between 1985 and 1992, including my first ever Grand Prix win, the European GP in 1985. The crowd was amazing that day too. During the final laps of the race people in the crowd were counting me down the laps, holding up four fingers, then three, then two … It had been two and a half seasons since a British driver had won a Grand Prix and they weren’t going to let this one get away. I have special memories of all my home wins and of the support I had each time from the crowd.

The fans have given me a great deal of spiritual support, but I have also been lucky enough to receive several prestigious awards which reflect wider public recognition and which are very important to me because I am intensely patriotic. I was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year twice, received the OBE from the Queen and I was sent a personal letter of congratulation by the Prime Minister when I won the World Championship. These are mementos that I treasure and they mean as much to me as any of my racing trophies. They symbolise something which goes beyond success in a sporting competition; they say that I have done something for my country, something of which I and the people of my country should be proud.

As I climbed up the ladder in Formula 1, I became increasingly aware of support for me in other countries, like Japan, Australia and Italy. I can’t begin to describe what it feels like when you realise that people from different nations are getting behind you and giving you their support. It is a strange feeling, but also a deeply moving one. It heightens your determination to succeed, but moves everything onto a much wider playing field. Where before you identified with your home crowd because of shared origins and shared culture, now you realise that you have a much greater responsibility to a much larger number of people.

When I signed to drive for Ferrari in 1988 I was given the nickname Il Leone (The Lion) by the Italian fans. It was the biggest compliment that I could imagine. The Ferrari fans, or tifosi as they are called in Italy, are one of the most powerful groups of supporters in all of motor racing. They have had several British drivers to cheer on over the years: in the fifties Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn were both Grand Prix winners and favourites with the tifosi, Hawthorn becoming Britain’s first World Champion in 1958 while driving for Ferrari, and in 1964 former motorcycle racer John Surtees won the title for them.

Obviously when I joined Ferrari I was aware of all the history and I had deep respect for the seriousness with which the tifosi follow the team. I was touched when they gave me that nickname. It was obviously significant to these passionate and committed people, so as the object of that passion I knew that it should be significant to me. It was certainly a flattering label. The lion is a symbol of power, strength and aggression. It has, of course, a strong historical association with England, which has a lion in its national emblem. It was also an appropriate nickname as, having been born in August, my star sign is Leo.

It was an honour to be able to develop a relationship with fans in Italy, Japan, Australia and many more far flung countries in which Formula 1 racing and its star drivers are celebrated. When I went to the States in 1993 to take on the top American stars, I received a warm welcome from the fans. As the season wore on and I won four oval races I became aware of a wider fan base all around the country. The American fans took to me and I took to them because I am a straightforward person, who is at heart what they would call a ‘pedal-to-the-metal racer’.

I am also a family man and when my children were on holiday Rosanne and I would bring them to races. IndyCar is much more family oriented than Formula 1 and I really enjoyed that. There was a lovely moment on the podium after I won on the oval at New Hampshire. I invited my three children, Chloe, Leo and Greg to join me as I held aloft the winners trophy. Emerson Fittipaldi, who finished second, brought his two daughters Juliana and Tatiana up on the podium as well. The American public appreciates moments like that.

For a professional sportsman in the television age, fame is something which comes with the turf, and being at the very top in Formula 1 means being famous all over the world. In terms of the size of its global audience, the sixteen-race Formula 1 World Championship lies behind only the Summer Olympics and Soccer’s World Cup and these events happen only every four years. In America, however, Formula 1 has only a cult following, while IndyCar and NASCAR racing rule the airwaves. Of course, when I moved to America I became more widely known, both through racing and through commercials and appearances on chat shows like David Letterman’s.