Victory looked certain — and then impossible, as the McLaren began losing gears, leaving Senna stuck in sixth. Mansell had retired but Riccardo Patrese’s Williams was catching and the final gap was 2.99sec: too close for comfort but enough for an exhausted Senna to finally win in Brazil.
“In the closing laps I just had to leave the car in top gear,” said the emotional race-winner. “The rain didn’t help me, and I was really hoping they’d stop the race. In the slow corners I was pulling only 2000 rpm and the engine was nearly stalling. In the fast corners the car always wanted to push straight on.
“I saw Patrese coming and didn’t think I would make it, but I felt it was my duty to win here. I pushed the car regardless of the rain, but I was getting cramps and muscle spasms in my upper body. Partly that was because the safety harness was so tight, but also because of emotion! By the finish I had nothing left. God gave me this race.”
Fangio’s final home win might have been his greatest
El Grafico/Getty Images
Juan Manuel Fangio
1957 Argentine Grand Prix
El Maestro took four consecutive wins at his home grand prix, but the final victory in 1957 might just have been his best. In sweltering conditions which broke both man and machine, Fangio hared off into the distance and never looked back.
Maserati team-mate Jean Behra was the only other driver to finish on the same lap, 18sec further back. No mean feat for a field which also included Stirling Moss, Peter Collins, Wolfgang von Trips, Jose Froilan Gonzalez, Luigi Musso and Mike Hawthorn.
Nigel Mansell
1991 British Grand Prix
The Motor Sport report from Silverstone tells it best: “He made fastest time in the Friday morning test-session, fastest time in the Friday Qualifying period, fastest time on Saturday morning, fastest again in Saturday Qualifying, fastest in the Sunday morning “warm-up” session, and fastest lap in the race which set a new record for the new Silverstone circuit.”
There only ever looked like being one winner at Silverstone in 1991, but it was the atmosphere that made it a magical afternoon: the thunderous encouragement from the grandstands; the taxi ride that Mansell offered to Senna; and the crowd that invaded the track to celebrate the win, then calmly returned to their seats for the support races.
Michael Schumacher
1995 German Grand Prix
It looked like it was all going Damon Hill’s way, despite the crowd’s vocal support for Michael Schumacher. Pole position for the Williams driver, and searing race pace on the first lap made the race seem like a foregone conclusion… until lap two and a mistake that put Hill into the tyre wall.
Schumacher didn’t need a second chance. A two-stop race worked for the Benetton driver, whose superior pace left Williams’ David Coulthard well behind by the time he came in for a second stop,. He took the victory in front of Hockenheim’s stadium section, where thousands of German flags waving in unison.
Schumacher’s win was the first F1 championship win for a German driver on home soil, and the first of nine victories in Germany throughout his 91-win career.
Fernando Alonso
2012 European Grand Prix
Perhaps Alonso’s greatest win, it took place in front of a joyfully partisan home crowd on the streets of Valencia.
A tyre choice error in qualifying left the Asturian down in 11th, but that was only a red flag to the Spanish bull. The home hero used all his overtaking acumen to work his way up to 2nd before an engine failure for Sebastian Vettel meant a ‘Nando win became inevitable.
Cue an emotional Alonso getting out of his car to celebrate in front of his fans.
Louis Chiron walks through the Principality with Monaco GP founder Anthony Noghes after winning in 1931
LAT
Louis Chiron
1931 Monaco Grand Prix
For the best part of a century, just one Monégasque driver had won the Monaco Grand Prix, all the way back in 1931 when Louis Chiron’s Bugatti crossed the finish line first in only the third time that the race was held.
It’s not, we’ll grant you, an F1 win, but we’ve waved Chiron onto the list. He had championed the idea of a race through the Principality and came close to winning the previous year, in an exciting duel with Réné Dreyfus. Despite Chiron leading for most of the 100 laps, it was the Frenchman, a fellow Bugatti driver, who won by a margin of just two seconds.
The following year was nothing like as close. Starting behind Dreyfus and Achille Varzi, Chiron set the pace and took the lead on lap 27. The reaction was captured win the original Motor Sport report: “The public excitement was terrific for Chiron is a native of Monaco and a great favourite.”
From then on, Chiron was unassailable, eventually finishing almost four minutes ahead of Luigi Fagioli. He was the only Monegasque to win his home race until 2024, when Charles Leclerc secured victory in front of his his home crowd.
The dream come true: Leclerc victorious on the streets of Monte Carlo in 2024
Ferrari
Charles Leclerc
2024 Monaco Grand Prix
A young Charles Leclerc used to dream of winning the Monaco Grand Prix, while watching the race with friends, from their apartment balconies which had a view of the circuit.
In 2024, that vision came true with a victory that was charged with emotion. It wasn’t just Leclerc’s childhood ambition, but one that he’d shared with his late father Herve, who died from cancer a year before his son joined the F1 grid.
Our dream was to race and win Monaco in F1,” said Leclerc after the race. “I wouldn’t have imagined when I was younger I would race with Ferrari one day and win this race.
“I felt like I not only completed my own dream but also the one of my father. And of my mother, who has sustained me in everything I have done since then and who has been an incredibly strong woman when we all lost my dad.”
