Mansell vs Piquet: Williams' most bitter F1 rivalry

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Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet joined forces at Williams in the late 1980's. The result? 18 race victories, one drivers' world title and a intra-team rivalry renowned for its bitterness and severity

Nigel Mansell Nelson Piquet

'White 6' leads 'Red 5': Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell clashed at Williams as team-mates

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It’s a well-worn F1 cliché that the first person any driver wants to beat is their team-mate. Although a few are more cordial about it than others, driving pairings in grand prix racing can sometimes become downright toxic.

One of the oldest – and most successful – teams in the paddock, Williams has its fair share of experience in this department. In 1981, no-nonsense Aussie Alan Jones couldn’t have seen eye-to-eye less with the enigmatic Argentine Carlos Reutemann, while Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher weren’t exactly best friends either.

However, as illustrated by Damien Smith in this month’s magazine along with seven other tempestuous team-mate pairings, Williams’ worst F1 feud came in the shape of Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, who shared the same garage between 1986-1987 — a period of both great fragility but also stunning performance for the Grove marque.

“He’s got all the ingredients to be a great person, it’s just that he chooses not to be.” That was Mansell’s pithy assessment of a Brazilian team-mate who was never backwards in coming forwards in expressing his own opinions also.

Nigel Mansell Nelson Piquet

Mansell and Piquet shared plenty of podiums but never saw eye-to-eye

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Having joined Williamns for the 1986 season after two years struggling behind the wheel of a declining Brabham, Piquet was a two-time world champion who saw himself as the team’s rightful No1. Mansell had joined the year before, moving away from a Lotus squad whose team manager Peter Warr had a particularly low opinion of him. By the end of 1985 he began to repay the faith at Williams, managing back-to-back victories at Brands Hatch and Kyalami ahead of Keke Rosberg.

With a youngster on the rise and a double champ finally back in a winning car — the Williams FW11 benefitting from the use of Honda’s increasingly potent turbo engine — it didn’t take long for the on-track fireworks to begin.

The 1986 season began with perhaps Williams’ biggest setback: its owner and founder Frank sustaining terrible injuries in a car crash that would confine him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Piquet managed to shore up team morale high while also cementing his claim as Grove’s No1 with a win at the season opener in Rio while Mansell crashed out on lap 1. But the Brit wouldn’t go down so easily.

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A stunning charge in Spain raised some eye-brows as Mansell finished just 0.014sec behind Ayrton Senna‘s Lotus while Piquet retired on lap 39. Could the young Brummy really have the measure of his title-winning team-mate? Mansell certainly thought so, and his continued success in Belgium, Canada, France and Britain quickly turned Piquet sour.

“Mansell is argumentative, he’s rude and he’s got a really ugly wife,” the Brazilian told Playboy in the late 1980s. “He’s arrogant, and after he started winning races he started treating everyone really badly. Besides which, he’s written off piles of cars. No one wanted him to win.”

Mansell’s latter win at Brands Hatch appeared to have angered Piquet the most, as while the pair battled for the lead, the Brit firmly shut the door on his team-mate in the closing stages and subsequently drove off into the distance. On the podium afterward, the pair refused to shake hands.

Additional squabbles off track were quickly converted into more wheel-to-wheel clashes as both Mansell and Piquet continued to perform and Williams found its development stride. Their battle at Monza was particularly fascinating, as the chasing Piquet was forced to drive courageously up the inside of Curva Grande to surpass his team-mate and take the race win. Once again, little admiration was shared on the podium.

Ultimately, the squabbles meant neither driver were able to claim the title by the end of the season – points taken off each allowed McLaren‘s Alain Prost to close in after the team famously suffered tyre dramas in Adelaide, fanning the flames of rivalry ahead of ‘87. It would be Piquet who would have the last laugh.

Although he would only score three victories to his team-mate’s six, Piquet’s consistency was ultimately the factor which enabled him to capture a third world title. He scored eight podium finishes in 15 races — even after suffering a horrifying crash at Imola‘s Tamburello wall which would cause him to lose 80% from the depth of his vision.

“I only told anyone at the end of the year,” he told Motor Sport in 2013. “Otherwise, they would not have let me race. That’s the reason why I was so bloody slow!”

Second-placed Mansell had pushed the ailing Piquet: pulling off a magnificent dummy on his team-mate at the British Grand Prix on his way to victory — which rendered even James Hunt slightly speechless in the commentary booth. Similarly impressive performances in San Marino, France, Austria, Spain and Mexico were enough to put a dent in Piquet’s reputation as the best driver F1 had to offer, but a back-breaking crash in Suzuka ended Mansell’s chances.

Nigel Mansell Nelson Piquet 1987

Mansell and Piquet race wheel-to-wheel in Austria 1987

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Several DNFs hadn’t helped his title challenge either, as well being found lacking in the F1’s extra-curricular areas.

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“Nelson was a very hard worker,” said long-time team engineer Frank Dernie. “There was a time when we had to have a test quickly, to check a new modification. We called Nigel, and he said, ‘I’m in the Isle of Man. I can’t come.’ Nelson was in Brazil visiting his mother. When we telephoned him he was on the next plane, did the test, then flew back to finish seeing his mum.”

The following year though, the duo parted ways: Piquet moved to Lotus while Mansell stayed with Williams ahead of another period of struggle when it lost engine supplier Honda. It’s perhaps hard to say who came out on top over their time spent together, as while the former captured the ultimate prize of a drivers’ title, the latter was arguably the more impressive performer; winning 11 races to Nelson’s seven, and out-qualifying him 17-12.

Nevertheless, their partnership is summed up nicely in Staying On Track, Mansell’s most recent autobiography.

“It’s fair to say that I didn’t exactly see eye to eye with my new teammate,” he said, looking back on Piquet’s arrival at Williams in 1986. “Let’s just say he is an ‘indifferent person’, to put it politely.”

“He played a lot of psychological games. He criticised me on many occasions. He would also go on to say the most insulting things, and was even once very nasty about my wife. That’s out of order.”

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