Mansell vs Senna: greatest battles of the drivers 'born to compete'

In terms of vintage F1 rivalries, Senna vs Prost often comes to mind for many Formula 1 fans as the ‘greatest’.

Mansell vs Piquet was another bitter feud that provided much entertainment to fans, culminating in Prost ultimately taking an ’86 title which should have belonged to one of the Williams boys.

However, despite going toe to toe many times on track, the Mansell/Senna rivalry is less revered. It might be because there was less sniping in between races, less for the press to write about.

Occasionally the fighting spilled over into the pits — as in Spa, 35 years ago — but Mansell and Senna generally did their talking on the track (most of the time), creating great battles which have lived long in the memory. “Ayrton and I were born to compete with each other,” Mansell has said previously. Here are six of their best battle:

 

Spanish GP 1986

Jerez played host to a three-car battle in 1986, as Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost went head-to-head in the second race of the season.

Senna started on pole, having secured it with a typically emphatic 0.8sec margin, and converted this into a race lead as Mansell passed his Williams team-mate Nelson Piquet for second.

He managed to box in Senna’s Lotus behind a backmarker to claim first on lap 39 but couldn’t pull away, as Prost in the McLaren also closed up.

Senna fought back, managing to eventually muscle back past Mansell 23 laps later, who ceded second to Prost also as he lost momentum.

Williams brought its man to the pits in a last-ditch attempt at the win, and Mansell began a momentous fightback on fresh rubber.

He gained 19sec over the remaining ten laps, quickly passing Prost in the process and soon having Senna in his sights as the Lotus driver struggled for grip.

As they rounded the final turn of the last lap, Mansell took advantage of a monstrous slipstream to pull alongside, but Senna held on – by 0.014sec, the third closest finish in F1 history.

 

Belgian GP 1987

The next season saw a confrontation which was over much quicker on the track, but went into a second round in the pits, where Mansell admits that the red mist descended and fists flew.

The Williams driver had taken pole by a huge 1.3sec from his team-mate Piquet, who was still suffering the effects of his horrifying Imola shunt that year.

But after a red flag due to the Tyrrell of Jonathan Palmer smashing into his team-mate Phillipe Streiff, Senna got a rocket getaway to lead at the restart.

Mansell, never on to be cowed, gave chase to the Lotus, gaining a sizeable draft out of Pouhon into Fagnes later that lap.

Mansell opted for the outside, but a tightening corner meant his rear-right hit Senna’s front-left wheel, sending both spinning off in an almost beautiful choreography.

Both ultimately retired as a result, but Mansell wasn’t going quietly. “I had a red mist, I’d never experienced it before in my life,” he said many years later. I thought. ‘I’m going to see my friend Ayrton’.

He headed for the Lotus pits, grabbed Senna by the overalls and pushed him up against the wall. “We had a very good communication. It was very lively and, to my amusement, because I had four people holding me, he stood in front of me and hit me quite a few times,” said Mansell. “The FIA didn’t do a thing. It was 2 big guys going for the world championship and we were threatening one another’s lives on the track like there’s no tomorrow and they thought, ‘let the drivers sort it out’. Sometimes the drivers need to sort it out.”

“Mansell fans will blame Senna, and Senna fans will blame Mansell, but the Brummie does make a (bad) habit of tangling with the hard Brazil nut,” commented our very own Jenks at the time.

 

Hungarian GP 1989

One of Mansell’s greatest wins which sealed his reputation as the beloved Il Leone of the Scuderia, and of one his most famous tussles with Senna.