Mansell

[Lord Steve]

Just my thoughts........

If you watch the footage, that is linked above, you can see that one of the marshals seems very concerned and repeatedly looks into the face of Mansell, and makes no attempt to get him out of the car, plus is beckoning the medics very enthusiastically.

Also, there appears to be no movement from Mansell either. You don't see his helmet moving about round the side of the intake (but that could be the hans device holding his head up / restricted).

At the time I suspect they reacted as they thought necessary, it is easy for us to sit behind our TV screens fuelled by little green bottles and comment on footage that only shows the tail end of the accident. Has anyone got a link to footage of what led to the first impact on the other side of the track?

When McNish had his big one in 2004, that put him out of the race (but not the car), was it perhaps a case of him simply getting going before the marshals could react properly, or was it a case he was not suitably concussed at the time of impact to prevent him from driving.

All too easy to criticise whingeing Nigel when we don't know the full story.

 
Christopher, Think you've got that spot on!

[Perdu]

Just my thoughts........

If you watch the footage, that is linked above, you can see that one of the marshals seems very concerned and repeatedly looks into the face of Mansell, and makes no attempt to get him out of the car, plus is beckoning the medics very enthusiastically.

Also, there appears to be no movement from Mansell either. You don't see his helmet moving about round the side of the intake (but that could be the hans device holding his head up / restricted).

At the time I suspect they reacted as they thought necessary, it is easy for us to sit behind our TV screens fuelled by little green bottles and comment on footage that only shows the tail end of the accident. Has anyone got a link to footage of what led to the first impact on the other side of the track?

When McNish had his big one in 2004, that put him out of the race (but not the car), was it perhaps a case of him simply getting going before the marshals could react properly, or was it a case he was not suitably concussed at the time of impact to prevent him from driving.

All too easy to criticise whingeing Nigel when we don't know the full story.

 
 

Christopher, Think you've got that spot on!

I agree

I saw this live on tv, ( ) but the one marshall was very clearly wound up about this

Its a shame tv didnt catch the first part of his "off" but they did describe it as nasty and the commentaor who has driven the race (dont know the guy's name) was clearly of the view that there and at that speed was a very bad place for it to happen

Too easy to take the pee with Nige, self loading comments machine really

I'm glad he wasnt hurt and maybe he'll be back, no doubt the boys will

edited to try to tidy it up a tad

[Stu]

Just my thoughts........

If you watch the footage, that is linked above, you can see that one of the marshals seems very concerned and repeatedly looks into the face of Mansell, and makes no attempt to get him out of the car, plus is beckoning the medics very enthusiastically.

Also, there appears to be no movement from Mansell either. You don't see his helmet moving about round the side of the intake (but that could be the hans device holding his head up / restricted).

At the time I suspect they reacted as they thought necessary, it is easy for us to sit behind our TV screens fuelled by little green bottles and comment on footage that only shows the tail end of the accident. Has anyone got a link to footage of what led to the first impact on the other side of the track?

When McNish had his big one in 2004, that put him out of the race (but not the car), was it perhaps a case of him simply getting going before the marshals could react properly, or was it a case he was not suitably concussed at the time of impact to prevent him from driving.

All too easy to criticise whingeing Nigel when we don't know the full story.

 

I'm another one to agree. While I think Mansell does sound like hes whining more than a gearbox,(think thats down to his 'nasel accent' more then anything) they did spend most of the time repairing the righthand side (track view) barrier of which we didn't see the first bit of his shunt. I for one was looking forward to a whole race from him and hope he comes back next year. There's plenty of people who knock him but for me , hes british and as wikipedia says,

'Mansell was the reigning F1 champion when he moved over to CART, being the first person to win the CART  title in his debut season, making him the only person in history to hold both titles simultaneously.

His career in Formula One spanned 15 seasons, with his final two full seasons of top-level racing being spent in the CART series. Mansell remains the most successful British Formula One driver of all time in terms of race wins with 31 victories, and is fourth overall on the Formula One race winners list behind Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost, and Ayrton Senna.'

[smokie]

The TV commentator I heard was Johnny Herbert who said that particular spot was common for blowouts as the car took off coming out of a corner - it had happened to him - and when it did that, you'd end up with exactly the accident which Mansell had. Eurosport were very quick and sure that it was caused by a blow out at high speed.

While their coverage overall was good, Eurosport actually managed to miss quite a few "incidents" or at best just catch the tail end of them.

[Brad Zarse]

Please don't get me wrong - Nigel Mansell is my childhood Idol, I was hoping to see a full race as well, in fact, I really hope he comes back next year - one last outing from our Nige, hopefully when the regs will allow him to shine, would go down VERY well thank you very much!

[Nick M]

The TV commentator I heard was Johnny Herbert who said that particular spot was common for blowouts as the car took off coming out of a corner - it had happened to him - and when it did that, you'd end up with exactly the accident which Mansell had. Eurosport were very quick and sure that it was caused by a blow out at high speed.

While their coverage overall was good, Eurosport actually managed to miss quite a few "incidents" or at best just catch the tail end of them.

One of our group who was listening to Radio LM mentioned something about a suspension pick-up pulling out of the tub - something they'd had issues with before.  Not sure if that was speculation or fact, but could explain the seemingly unexpected nature of the shunt.

Personally I'd rather they checked drivers were properly OK before allowing them to drag wounded cars back to the pits, particularly if it was a high speed impact.

[LuxExpat]

the 24 minutes of le mans.drowned his sorrows in rasberry ripple

Did they tow his car away or just cone it off

ba-dum-tish! 

[mal]

The headline on Sunday in one French newspaper was:

'Mansell - Le 17 minutes du mans!'

[lofty]

always taken piss over his size but a good racer.saw him win first g.p. in 85 at brands.and blindin catch up and overtake at silerstone in 87.gave nelson a kick up the arse.but in the sand at estoril with missing wheel standing next to a load of brummies was great.also the driver who overtook senna the most.great driver bit of a twat.

[lynxd67]

As regards the behaviour of the marshals, they acted completely correctly. If you remember Marc Gené last year, when he destroyed the Pug at Porsche Curves, the marshals were quick to get him out of the wreckage. The result was that they were summarily thrown out of the circuit and will never marshal at Le Mans again. It is strictly forbidden to help a driver out of the car unless he/she is in mortal danger, which is what happened with the 61 car at Mulsanne when it caught fire. As regards the suspension pulling out of the tub, that was Sebastien Bourdais' Pug, not the Mansell car.

[Boorish Grobian]

On TV they didn't catch the initial impact so its hard to tell just how big of a hit it was, but the car did look fairly undamaged as it was being taken away.  As for Mansell, was anyone seriously expecting anything other than hysterics and drama?  Remember the days of falling down in Dallas, or cutting his hand on the trophy at Rio, or staggering all over the place in front of the royal box at Monaco?  The biggest drama queen the sport's ever known.  I've made my feelings about Mansell known many times on this forum.  I thought he was a very good driver, not as great as some would believe (most of his success coming in equipment that a monkey could have driven to victory, in ordinary cars, he looked very average)  But for me his ability & success has always been overshadowed by being one of the most obnoxious, complaining, paranoid, persons to ever sit in a racing car.
Fax

[Robbo]

I thought he was a very good driver, not as great as some would believe (most of his success coming in equipment that a monkey could have driven to victory, in ordinary cars, he looked very average) 
Fax

Change the freakin' record - I don't think anyone really cares what you think of him!

He mostly kicked the arse of any team mate using the same equipment including Mario Andretti & Alain Prost who stole his Ferrari chassis only for Mansell to still beat him!

Your missing the point and the spirit of the Mansell's doing Le Mans - British family using a relatively small British company's chassis and engine and investing their own money to enter the greatest race in the world. One could argue that an LMP2 would have been the better route but hindsight is a wonderful thing!

I and many, many British fans hope they will be back to do it again!!

[Boorish Grobian]

Robbo, last time I checked Prost has four world titles to Mansell's one, and during their year together at Ferrari (1990) Prost won five races to Mansell's one, Prost finishing second in the final standings, Mansell fifth.  Hardly blowing Prost into the weeds there Robbo.  And how the f**k do you believe Prost "stole Nigels' car"?  And yes, Mansell won the '93 CART title, fortunately for him in a car largely tested and setup by teamate Andretti, since Nigel rather than helping out with the development was largely preoccupied with playing golf with buddy Greg Norman.
Good for Nigel, he blew a sh*t-pile of money to buy his kiddies a ride at Le Mans, since they couldn't actually earn one on merit, only to stuff the car in the first hour, made me laugh one we realized he was okay...
Fax

[Martini...LB]

Just a little bit of a dilemma here as I actually agree with a lot of what you both say and no I am not sitting on the fence, perhaps just a bit. Good stats Fax but a lot of what Robbo says is pretty right as well. I thought,at the time, that NM was pretty good and being a little patriotic, at the time I did not realise that I had no English blood but was more French and Canadian!
Well Jacques was Canadian and raced withe the number 27 as I did, pure coincidence.

Back to dinner...

>Martini...LB

[geoffd]

Your missing the point and the spirit of the Mansell's doing Le Mans - British family using a relatively small British company's chassis and engine and investing their own money to enter the greatest race in the world. One could argue that an LMP2 would have been the better route but hindsight is a wonderful thing!

British Family, British chassis and engine,  yup thats great to see, but Mansell money?  I doubt that very much.  Nigel doesn't part with his money easily, in fact he does like to charge for absolutely anything and everything, witness the prints on sale at the Beachdean-Mansell merchandise truck, £100 without signatures £150 with!!!

Yep, I would like to see the team back next year, but with a decent pro-driver in the line-up, they've done the father and sons thing now.