Mansell mania.......almost

In response to his last minute heartache in the 1986 Australian Grand Prix, Nigel Mansell clearly wanted to win his first Formula One World Championship in 1987, and whilst I have had to revisit the years grand prix through books and searching the web to recall the details, I have several lasting memories of the season.

Firstly the gap between the front running Williams, and occasionally Senna's Lotus , the McLaren of Alain Prost, the very occasional Ferrari's of Berger and Albereto appeared to be significant. Looking back at the results during the season this is born out in races such as the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Most people remember the epic Mansell / Piquet battle which our Nige won in spectacular high speed fashion, and that all of the top four cars were Honda powered, but the third step of the podium was achieved over a lap behind the winner. Fourth place was a further lap behind, and this was very much a combination of the supremacy of both the Williams - Honda FW11B , the teams drivers at the very top of their game, but as significant the fact that the rest of the field were nowhere near as close to the title protagonists as anyone wanted them to be.

Piquet and Mansell fought throughout the season, the Brazilian over turning the early championship leader's lead (Ayrton would go on to win the crown in the very near future....) but in Japan the title race was over with a heavy crash for Mansell in Friday's practise. Nigel sat out the rest of the race weekend, which Gerhard Berger won in the stunning Ferrari F1/87, and which Piquet didn't even finish, winning the title without completing the race.

My lasting memory from 1987's Formula One championship was a growing sense that I wanted to find out more about the teams, drivers and for me importantly the history of the sport (as I'm sure most fans of sport do ). Once again the voice of Murray Walker (full of excitement) and James Hunt (a far more measured, critical view of the action) were the soundtrack to my tv viewing, and a growing sense of wanting to know who to support.

This felt like an option to support the obvious drivers or teams at the sharp end of the grid, but maybe finding an underdog team or up and coming driver to get behind.

In a world at the time unknown to me a certain Johnny Herbert won the British Formula Three championship, following in the steps of a number of previous winners who went on to Formula One.....our paths would cross in the next couple of years, but for now my passion for motor racing was about to be fed by an assault of the senses.