F1 ventures behind the Iron Curtain

This, as it turned out, referred to a different diff, which Nelson - having the luxury of two cars to play with - had been able to try. On the new and slick surface of the Hungaroring it proved considerably superior to the standard item, and the Brazilian knew this was what he needed for the race.

It was not reflected in his qualifying times, for Nelson is a sandbagger without peer. Through the practice days, indeed, his team mate seemed clearly quicker. Only in the last session did Piquet edge out Mansell, and there was what seemed a logical explanation for that: on his single run on qualifiers Nigel had been badly held up.

During the race day warm-up Nelson tried both his Williams-Hondas, recording similar times in each. Afterwards he confided in his Italian friend. Somehow he forgot to tell Nigel.

"When Piquet passed me," Mansell muttered afterwards, "I could see how his car was working - how my car could have been working ..." And he left it at that.

Striding back to the motorhome afterwards, face set, he was unwilling to elaborate much more: "Just let's say there was a problem with my car, which ... there needn't have been. I'm going to talk about it right now.'

A little while later the intrepid approached the Williams area in search of further enlightenment. And quickly withdrew. The buzz of Formula Easter cars out on the track was no match for the frank exchange of views from within the motorhome.

When Piquet joined Williams at the end of last season, he did not envisage much in the way of opposition from his new team mate. And Rio, the opening race in 1986, served to fortify his self-belief. There he won, while Mansell crashed.

At Jerez, though, Nigel was the team's star, failing by inches to beat Senna. It had been his turn to have two cars here - and it was not to happen again. "After the race in Spain," Mansell told me during an interview in Detroit, "Nelson stamped on that arrangement. It's a bit restricting, because you can make a lot more progress if you've two cars to work with, but still ..."

Nigel's amazing sequence began at Spa, where he won after Nelson retired. In Montreal he trounced the Brazilian, at Ricard left him behind, at Brands Hatch beat him in a straight fight. It was now four wins to one in Mansell's favour, and Piquet was starting to look like poor value for his $3.3m. Currency exchange rates vary, of course, but you get the picture. At around £42,000 a week, he's nicely fixed. And then there's the £10,000 bonus for every World Championship point.

It is argued, with some validity, that a man's past record has its price. When the contracts were drawn up at the end of 1985 Nelson had two World Championships and 13 Grand Prix victories on his tally sheet, Nigel just a couple of wins. No one could reasonably dispute Piquet's entitlement to top dollar, but there have been races this year - Monaco, Montreal, Detroit, Ricard - where his performances were, at best, lukewarm.

In Germany he won, and won well, Mansell a distant third after a troubled race with damaged rear underbody. No arguments there, but next came Hungary.

You can say, if you wish, that I am biased towards Nigel in this matter, and I won't argue. I will take issue, however, with anyone who claims that my attitude stems from chauvinism. Yes, Mansell is 'a Brit' and all that, and of course I would like to see the World Championship come here for once. But Nigel has solidly outdriven Nelson for the bulk of this season, and the man most shaken by that has been Piquet.

More than that, Mansell has never forgotten he is driving for a team. "When Nelson's been in trouble getting the set-up right in practice," he said in Detroit, "he and his engineer have sometimes looked at my car and transferred the settings to his. That doesn't bother me - after all, all it means is that Piquet finishes up with a car set up for me. I've noticed we talk about the cars only when he wants to..."

Call me naive, if you like. After all these years I am well aware that Grand Prix racing is a dog-eat-dog trade, and as James Hunt has correctly pointed out, your main rival in any race is your own team mate. He is your yardstick as the world watches, the man with identical -or supposedly identical - equipment. But holding out on him, discovering an advantage and keeping it quiet, is a short term policy. A team progresses only when all information is pooled, when both cars go to the grid each Sunday in as competitive a state as possible. Then is the time for the drivers to get to it.

It cannot have escaped Williams - or Honda - that if Piquet had retired in Hungary, Senna's Lotus-Renault would have won. Just as it obviously did not escape Nelson that, in equal cars, Nigel might well beat him.



"No," the lady said firmly (in Hungarian), "you can't telephone Budapest from here." But look, we protested, it's important. We have to call the Hilton, tell them to hold our rooms, we're going to be a little late ... "No," she was adamant. "Impossible."

At this time we were en route from Vienna, about 30 miles from Budapest, having hung around at the border for nearly an hour while they did something to our passports. And we had put in at a service area to make the call, made for the tourist bureau - who couldn't help us.

How could this be? I demanded of our Austrian colleague, who conducted the negotiations. "Her telephone operates only in a 15km radius of here," he replied. "You can't be serious," I said, in my innocence. "Why?"

"To prevent communication," he said, simply. "You are in an Eastern bloc country now, remember..."

That was the first eye-opener of the trip. The second came within minutes of our arrival at the hotel. At reception I tried to make another call. "It's busy," said the clerk. "The Law of Murphy, huh?"

This last, perhaps, should not have surprised me at all. In this socialist country they quote you a room rate in dollars, and I quickly came to realise that this currency - symbol of filthy capitalism and all that carry on - can buy you anything in Budapest.

Architecturally, the city is stunning, its two halves parted by the Danube. The shops, though, remind you of Uxbridge or Oldham in 1947, and the restaurants of my acquaintance suggested food of a similar vintage. The wine, by way of doleful contrast, appeared to have been pressed only the day before.

The people, though, were kindly and polite, and their enthusiasm for this new world of Grand Prix racing was rather touching. On race day 189,000 paid to come in, and for most the price of admission was close to a week's wages. In the paddock they hovered close to the drivers, but were careful not to interrupt conversations. Finally, when they thought the moment right, they approached for autographs with carefully rehearsed English, addressing 'Mr Warwick', calling Rosberg 'Sir'. Monza it most definitely was not.

The engaging duel between Piquet and Senna apart, the Hungarians had no sort of vintage Grand Prix to watch, but their enthusiasm remained. Two hours it lasted, and there was none of the usual heading for the car parks to get out before the rush.

I mean no disrespect when I say that the high point of my trip to Hungary was the ending of it. There were no flights out of Budapest to London on the Sunday night, and a colleague and I gratefully accepted the offer of a lift on Ford's private aircraft. I now understand why so many in Formula 1 choose to spend so much of their gelt on Lears and Citations. Freedom from commercial airlines is not to be sneezed at.

For one thing, you escape the pressure of rushing to meet a departure time (although, in my experience, the only flights to leave on time are those for which I am late...). In the world of private aviation, of course, the aeroplane leaves at your behest.

In Hungary the chief problem appeared to be reaching the airport, for the monumental crowd would obviously take a lot of dispersing. Enter the police escort.

Picture the scene, if you will. We are in a Transit with such as Walter Hayes (Vice-President of Ford Europe) and Keith Duckworth, and ahead of us is a single motorcycle cop. Down the long dusty road to the Budapest motorway we simply pass by the line of overheating Trabants and Ladas on the wrong side of the road. Anyone in the way gets a blast of siren. The motorway, though, is packed. All three lanes are congested, and there seems no way through.

I had always thought of the hard shoulder as an emergency lane, an area for pulling off when your head gasket went or whatever. Our uniformed guide saw it instead as a fourth lane, ploughed off down it at some unimaginable rate and signalled us to follow.

Into the outskirts of the city now. Red traffic lights? A thing of the past for this man, who clearly saw himself as some kind of Magyar Wayne Gardner. At the onset of any such impediment to our progress, he put on the siren, stood up on his footrests and vigorously waved his arms. Skodas and Wartburgs to a halt. In deference to others in the crowded Transit I refrained from smoking. Never have my manners been more sorely tried.

Once at the airport, there was barely time for more than a quick drag, so speedily were we ushered through. No check at Customs for such as washing-up powder, Lego games, loo paper, socks, panties and rustproof cutlery (all items, for reasons best known to the Hungarians, which may not be exported from their country...) It was onto the aircraft, and swiftly away. All told, a day I shall remember.



The Italians call him 'the Regazzoni of the eighties', and you can see why. Alessandro Nannini is far and away the most promising of the 1986 intake of Formula 1 drivers, and he brings with him an easy and laid back charm we see too seldom these days.

At Detroit his engine ceased within a few hundred yards of leaving the pits in the final qualifying session. When he failed to come round no one in the Minardi pit was too surprised, because Minardis quite often fail to come round. But when he hadn't reappeared half an hour later they did begin to wonder. At the end of the session he turned up, however, immaculate in shirt and jeans!

"Where have you been?" they said, and Sandro explained. He had known his car was finished, that the T-car was de Cesaris's, so his session was over. He had come to a halt, fortuitously, near the entrance to his hotel, had collected his key, showered and changed in his room. Where was the problem?

This season, invariably with inferior equipment, he has been consistently quicker than de Cesaris, among whose many shortcomings has never been a lack of pace. Nearly every circuit has been new to him. He very rarely shunts, has good circuit discipline. In the opening laps of the Austrian Grand he sat very confidently on the tail of Brundle's Tyrrell-Renault. And he even looks as if he enjoys the whole thing!

This is a star in the making, and I hope he finds a drive worthy of him in 1987.