The story of Mansell's 1994 comeback

Nigel Mansell's return to Williams in the middle of 1994 as a 'guest driver' was as remarkable as it was unexpected, given the circumstances that surrounded his departure at the end of his '92 world championship-winning season.

As ever, drama and excitement accompanied Mansell's comeback, and that is of course why Bernie Ecclestone engineered the second coming of one of the F1s biggest box office draws in the first place. And like much else that happened in '94, it was a direct result of the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.

Mansell was enduring a difficult second Indycar season with Newman/Haas and was about to head into the 'Month of May' at Indianapolis when his long-time rival Ayrton Senna was killed.

"It was catastrophic," he recalls. "I almost retired on the spot. Ayrton and I were very close, we'd raced a lot of hard races together, we had a lot accidents and incidents together. He was a proper racer. He was extraordinarily talented, and put it out there, like I did.

"Winning the championship was the most brilliant feeling in the world, and Ayrton said some incredible things to me in Hungary on the podium. Some were very unflattering to him, but were very poignant to the moment of winning the championship - he said, 'Now you know why I am the way I am!'

Senna had some special words for Mansell when he won the 1992 title © LAT

"I honestly thought Ayrton was bulletproof. So when he had the tragic accident at Imola, and it's important that everyone remembers Roland Ratzenberger lost his life too, I don't think there's a racecar driver on the planet who didn't feel vulnerable. I felt very, very vulnerable. I was incredibly upset."

After Imola there was no world champion on the F1 grid, and Michael Schumacher was absolutely dominating for Benetton. Understandably concerned about the potential impact on viewing figures, Ecclestone tried to find a way to bring Mansell back to Williams. The sport was in turmoil, and it would represent some welcome positive news.

Given the way things had unfolded at the end of 1992, the prospect of ever seeing Mansell in a Williams had seemed unlikely. But with the support of Renault, Bernie agreed with Indycar team boss Carl Haas that a gap in the US schedule would allow Nigel to compete in the French GP on July 3. After the Laguna Seca finale he could then return for the last three GPs at Jerez, Suzuka and Adelaide. Senna's regular replacement, rookie David Coulthard, would step aside.

From the Williams side, part of the motivation of bringing Mansell in was to get more input on what even Senna had found to be a very difficult car, and he would also serve to inspire not just Damon Hill but the rest of the team.

The assumption at the time was that Mansell was a motivating force behind this wheeler-dealing, and of course he was to be very well paid for his four appearances. However, he insists that he had no part in it - and was simply told one day by Haas that he would be heading back to Europe. At the time his family was settled in America, and he had made a long-term commitment to Indycars.

"I'd just signed contracts for another three years or so, I'd signed through to 1997. He said, 'I'm sorry, if you want to drive again, you'll have to speak to someone else. I've just sold all your contracts'.

"It was all done, I had no knowledge of anything, and really even now I'm not able to say what happened. I was a total passenger. You go transatlantic, you have all your family settled in schools, and then a tragic accident happens and it can change your life forever. And it did change our lives forever."

It was all smiles when he tested the FW16 on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit - the day was open to the public and attracted a healthy crowd - before he made his much-trumpeted return at Magny-Cours. Nigel says that underneath, the emotions were swirling.

"It was horrible, it was absolutely ghastly," he adds. "Other than reviving a great relationship with [race engineer] David Brown and the Williams team I can't tell you how horrible the feelings were getting into that car, driving a car after someone's just been killed in it. There's no pleasure or excitement in it at all. It took probably every ounce of my mental strength to try and concentrate on the job. I just had to blank out everything. If I let my emotions come in, I couldn't have done it."

In the end he qualified second to Hill in France, and then after Schumacher passed them both at the start he ran third before his gearbox failed.

French GP was tough but Mansell nearly took pole for his comeback race © LAT

"I got engaged and focused," he continues. "When you get in the car you have to get everything together, because if not, you'll end up killing yourself. These things are not toys. First race back getting on the front row was not bad, and almost on pole position. Damon said, 'That's the first time I drove my balls off to get the pole,' and I think David Brown said 'Nigel does that all the time...'

"It focused Damon, because getting back in the car after two years, I shouldn't have been anywhere near [pole]. Damon was a very, very good driver. He sometimes didn't come across as strongly as he should. What I was able to help Damon with was to give him confidence, so what he felt, I could draw it out of him. 'Do you feel this?' 'Yes I do.' All of a sudden it was confirmation, and you're going forward. I think Ayrton struggled with it because it was a different philosophy of going racing than what McLaren had. Later on I sampled a little bit of McLaren..."

After France, Mansell returned to the USA to complete his disappointing Indycar season. He was back on Williams duty for the European GP at Jerez on October 16, where he spun out of fourth place after an eventful race.

"It was a very tough end to the year, I was flying backwards and forwards across the Atlantic pretty much every week to fulfil my obligations, and arriving spaced out to drive an F1 car. Obviously we had some great racing, and it was fun."

Mansell really caught the eye in the rain at Suzuka, where after a red flag he drove a superb race to beat Jean Alesi to third on the road - only to find that on an aggregate he had dropped back to fourth: "If I could have seen just a little bit more, and I had a really good car, I probably could have done a lot better, but I wasn't prepared to risk it at that time. It was really dangerous. It was one of my favourite circuits, although I never won there."

Hill had triumphed in style at Suzuka, setting up a dramatic final round showdown with Schumacher in Adelaide. Mansell had not read the script, and he beat them both to pole position.

"I was told all sorts of things by the powers-that-be. 'You will not be part of this race, don't get a good start, watch the race, do not interfere...' So I deliberately didn't get a very good start and I just sat there and watched.

"It was interesting and frustrating to see it unfolding right in front of me. I was actually shouting to Damon in my helmet, saying, 'Don't be suckered, don't do it!' He had a really good car, and I knew how much quicker my car was, just sitting there behind. Then of course the inevitable happened. The best thing to say is, 'No comment'."

With Hill and Schumacher both out Mansell found himself in the lead with 36 of 81 laps run, but he had a fight on his hands with Gerhard Berger.

"It's quite funny," adds Mansell. "People think I must have been happy, but I wasn't happy at all, I was upset. I was pissed off and upset, and I wasn't paying attention to driving the car, because I went off on the next corner and damaged the underneath of the car.

"I was just incensed, I wanted Damon to be world champion, I wanted Williams to win the championship as well, and it took me a few laps to gather my thoughts. Australia had a lot of memories for me anyway, with losing the world championship there [in 1986]. I had to re-engage myself actually, because I had Gerhard chasing me like crazy.

Mansell fell behind Schumacher and Hill at the start of the Australian GP © LAT

"I had a nice battle with him, and I started to put some laps together and concentrate. I decided it was best for me to win the race now, so I got my act together and went on to win it."

It was a dream way to end his season. At the time Mansell firmly believed that he would be staying on for 1995, alongside Hill, which was a big part of his motivation for returning in the first place.

"If you're only going to win one race a year, what are the two races ideally you'd like to win? Your home grand prix, and the next one is probably Monaco for the glamour and glitz, but for me the best one to win to go into the winter is the last race.

"To have the winter of training and focusing and knowing you've got the opportunity to do the job properly, it's very motivating. I thought things were fantastic, but it just goes to show your own perception doesn't mean anything. I got a phone call up at Gleneagles just before the new year, and shall we just say there was some confusion."

Mansell learned to his surprise that Williams had committed to keeping Coulthard. He eventually ended up joining McLaren instead.

"I don't know whether the truth will ever come out. I had contracts to drive for Williams in '95, so people have got to guess why I didn't drive for Williams, because I still don't know. What can I say? What opportunities I had, winning 28 races with them, I'm so grateful for.

"It's just truly amazing. I know full well that if they hadn't sold the Honda engines to McLaren in '88, if they had allowed me to stay in 1993-94, and obviously honoured the contract in '95, we could have won so much more, and maybe more world championships.

"But I'll put it into context for you - my wife says instead of Ayrton being in the car in '94, it could have been me. I live for today, not tomorrow any more. I'm very phlegmatic, so I'd like to go on record as saying I'm so grateful to the whole Williams organisation and their sponsors, especially the mechanics and engineers, Frank, Patrick and the late Ginny Williams, for giving me the opportunity to have the success I had."

First 'comeback' test with Williams was at Brands Hatch © LAT

The architects of Mansell's return

Bernie Ecclestone was the prime mover in getting Nigel Mansell back to Williams in 1994, and to make it happen he had to do a deal with his then-employer, Indycar team boss Carl Haas.

"We paid money to get him back," says Ecclestone. "We'd like to have him back now if we could! We need now, and we needed then, people like him. He's a character, so he's good to have. We got some help from Renault. It was good for us that he came back, and it was good for Renault as well."

He denies that it was a panic measure in the light of Michael Schumacher's domination: "I don't panic about anything. If there's something wrong I try to put it right, but I don't panic."

Frank Williams insists he was not forced into taking Mansell, and was pleased to have him on board. "We were big boys, and Patrick [Head] was around as well," he says. "Bernie just gave us a nod and wink. We were very happy with Damon, and in the next couple of years he won the championship. But DC wasn't quite there yet.

"Nigel was a very quick driver, and Patrick always had a very good engineering relationship with him, so it was a no-brainer in the end. It was needs musts, on both sides I would say. He gave the team a lot more self-confidence, and they learned more as they were going along."

For more stories from the remarkable 1994 season, take a look at the special August 7 issue of AUTOSPORT magazine, guest edited by Damon Hill.

The rise of Schumacher and Benetton
How the controversial Enstone squad took on and defeated the might of Williams

Hill lifts Williams in tragic season
The story of Damon Hill's rise to title contender after the death of Ayrton Senna

Tech Focus: Williams FW16
The difficult and unloved machine that turned into a championship winner

Why were there so many crashes in 1994?
The challenge of the non-gizmo cars and their part in the run of crashes

Brundle and McLaren: missed opportunity
Martin Brundle on the trials and tribulations of his season with the F1 superteam

Too injured to race
Why 1994 ended the F1 careers of JJ Lehto and Karl Wendlinger

Separated at birth: Benetton B194 and Pacific PR01
The best and worst cars of 1994 were more closely related than you might think

The final days of Team Lotus
Johnny Herbert remembers the day he could have saved a famous name

Safety legacy
Max Mosley on how the FIA turned tragedy into life-saving triumph