Nigel Mansell

Interesting facts

In 1977, during Formula Ford qualifying at Brands Hatch, he broke his neck, and doctors warned of possible paralysis - yet he discharged himself and was back racing within three weeks, just after quitting his aerospace engineering job and selling most of his possessions to fund his racing dream. At the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix his gearbox failed on the final lap in blistering heat while leading; he pushed the car toward the line on foot, collapsed from heat exhaustion, but still finished sixth and scored a point. At Lotus he was relegated to second fiddle behind teammate Elio de Angelis, with team boss Peter Warr openly favouring de Angelis. At the 1986 season-ending race in Adelaide, with the title within reach, a rear tyre blew and forced him out - in a 2012 interview he revealed that had he hit the wall instead of coasting to safety, the race would likely have been stopped, handing him the championship. Ahead of his first Ferrari race, the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix, he joked he'd booked an early flight home, certain the team's new semi-automatic gearbox would fail - instead he won, becoming the first driver ever to win a Grand Prix with a semi-automatic transmission. At 57, in 2010, he raced the 24 Hours of Le Mans alongside his two sons, Leo and Greg, and crashed after a puncture just five laps in - he credited learning magic with helping his recovery, later joining the Magic Circle. Nigel Mansell raced in Formula 1 from 1980 to 1995, across 15 seasons as a British driver. He won the World Championship once, in 1992. He scored a total of 480 championship points over his career.