Lewis Hamilton's F1 world title not as credible as mine, says Nigel Mansell

Nigel Mansell, Formula One’s bravest Brum, has claimed that his world championship is more valuable than Lewis Hamilton’s because he raced against more rivals.


“No disrespect to Lewis,” the 55-year-old Mansell said. “But what’s the point of a championship when you only have 18 or 20 cars running? When I won the title, I beat 25 other cars. That makes Lewis’s title 20 per cent less credible than mine.”
Mansell never lacked credibility on the track, where he was widely regarded as one of the most courageous competitors ever to sit in a car. But his swipe at Hamilton does little for his dignity in retirement.
As “Our Nige” would no doubt admit if he took a sensible pill, the comparisons between his championship year in 1992 and Hamilton’s win last year do not really hold up.
Mansell’s Williams-Renault, in which he won the first five races of the year, was, technologically speaking, the class of the field, further ahead of their main rivals (McLaren-Honda) than Hamilton’s team was ahead of Ferrari last year.
Proof? McLaren’s Ayrton Senna, one of the most gifted drivers of all time, managed only three wins all season to Mansell’s nine. The only other team to get a look-in were Benetton, for whom a young Michael Schumacher won a solitary race.
Both Hamilton and Mansell enjoyed dominant relationships with their respective team-mates, Heikki Kovalainen and Riccardo Patrese respectively, who each took just a single win in the title season.
But Hamilton faced a much more competitive rival team in Ferrari, with BMW, Toro Rosso and Renault also scoring victories.
Mansell’s point about sheer numbers on the grid is undeniable, but some of his “rivals” were feeble by current standards of competition: does anyone recall great performances by Fondmetal? Venturi Larrousse? Scuderia Italia? The tragi-comic Andrea Moda? I could go on: both Brabham and Lotus were on their last legs, Jordan had hopeless Yamaha engines, Footwork never amounted to much, and Ferrari were scraping the barrel with Ivan Capelli. In 1992, quantity did not equate to quality.
So stow the sniping, Nige, and get back to the golf course.
Telegraph.co.uk