Nigel Mansell once admitted he ‘didn’t respect’ one F1 champion he was teammates with

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Nigel Mansell raced in one of the most competitive eras of Formula 1 and was never someone who kept his opinions to himself about his rivals.

Although Nigel Mansell only won one drivers’ championship, he had spells at arguably all four of Formula 1’s most iconic teams.

Mansell started his F1 career with Lotus, racing for Colin Chapman’s team before joining Williams in 1985.

A spell at Ferrari followed, before returning to Williams, where Mansell claimed he would have destroyed Alain Prost had they raced together in 1993.

Mansell’s F1 career ended with two races at McLaren, but not before he left immediately after winning the 1992 title to win the IndyCar championship.

The British driver raced against some of Formula 1’s greatest drivers, including Prost, Ayrton Senna and Keke Rosberg.

However, there was one driver he ended up being paired with during his time at Williams that he never saw eye to eye with: Nelson Piquet.

READ MORE: ‘Energised’ Lewis Hamilton compared to Nigel Mansell after his first Italian Grand Prix for Ferrari

Nigel Mansell didn’t ‘respect’ Nelson Piquet when they were Formula 1 teammates at Williams

Mansell was recalling the 1987 season when he was teammates with Piquet during a live interview with Motorsport Magazine.

He explained why he never worked closely and recalled his frustration with Honda when he looked at his data compared to Piquet’s, as it appeared the Brazilian was receiving far more power down the straights than he was, blaming the electronics in the car.

Mansell said: “There were a lot of things that happened that year. I made some mistakes; I was under a lot of pressure.

“Nelson never worked as a team with me, with his engineer, and I never got the memo that I was supposed to support him, so he didn’t like the fact that I was quicker at times.

“I think it was the year before, in 1986, I really didn’t make friends, although Nelson and I are great friends now, I just didn’t respect what he did as a race car driver for his teammate.

“When poor Jacques Lafitte had that terrible accident at Brands Hatch in 1986, when he broke his legs at the start, we had to have a restart.

“My car broke a driveshaft, so I had to go in the T car, which was always set up for Nelson, so it had his gear ratios in it, had his seat in, it had his pedals, his steering wheel, his gearshift, and it was really alien to me.

“The only thing they had time to change was the actual seat. I couldn’t really sit in his seat; he was a bit smaller than I am.

“The biggest thing that happened, he made one mistake in the race. I got past him and won in his T car. He could choose the best car for the race, and I beat him in his own T car.

“So, he didn’t enjoy that experience either.”

READ MORE: How Nigel Mansell felt Williams had ‘torpedoed’ his title chances before Ferrari F1 move

Who came out on top between Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet during their as F1 teammates?

Piquet and Mansell were teammates in 1986 and 1987, with the British driver coming out on top in their first season together before his Brazilian colleague won his third and final championship during the second campaign.

Mansell missed out on the title by 12 points in 1987, despite dominating qualifying that year.

Four retirements and a premature end to his campaign at the penultimate race in Japan ended Mansell’s hopes of beating Piquet, who also failed to score a point during those final two races.

In an interview with Playboy, via UPI, in 1988, Piquet was asked about Mansell and said: “I discovered that the Englishman (Mansell) knows absolutely nothing about setting up a car.

“The difference between me and Mansell is that I’ve won three world championships and Mansell has lost two.

”I don’t say he’s a coward, but he saw that it would look better losing the championship this way (sitting out the final races) than getting worked over on the track.”

Piquet called Mansell ‘argumentative and rude’, and in 1988, Williams decided to retain Mansell while his nemesis joined Lotus.

Mansell only finished two races that year due to unreliability, but Piquet never truly fought for a title again and was eventually retired by a young up-and-coming driver at Benetton called Michael Schumacher in 1991.