Nigel Mansell's Time in CART - A History in Clips

XenMedio PRO © Jason Axelrod from 8WAYRUN.COM

Media Details

Aug 6, 2025 at 9:19 AM
Posted By John vd Geest

This "video" (movie) is a near complete history of Nigel Mansell's time in IndyCar, including all major events, news, rumors, and other random moments during his two seasons in CART 1993-94 (I'm not going to be ignorant, I am sure I missed one or two relevant things)

Context
Nigel Mansell announced a shock retirement from Formula 1 in 1992 right around the same time that Michael Andretti announced that he was going to be the teammate of Ayrton Senna at McLaren

Carl Haas and Paul Newman made the call, and suddenly, the Formula 1 champion would shock the world and join the championship-caliber Newman-Haas team in CART

The hype was real, the expectations for 1993 were high, and Mansell delivered. He would dazzle on the ovals, show tremendous bravery and cunning on road courses, and adapted to CART flawlessly

All eyes were on Mansell at Indianapolis, who was one bad restart away from capturing the Indy 500 as a rookie. It would serve as a glaring indictment of one of his biggest flaws as a rookie - starting and restarting from P1. Still, while the win was within reach, there was nothing wrong with a P3 on his oval debut

He would continue to show brilliant car control at just about every round and would capture the title with a race-in-hand, becoming the Formula 1 and IndyCar champion at the same time (until Alain Prost eventually captured the F1 title and became the new F1 champion)

One of my biggest curiosities is - what happened to Nigel Mansell between Laguna Seca 1993 and Indianapolis 1994? At Surfers Paradise and Phoenix (1994), Mansell looked pretty business as usual. He had a couple rookie errors in those races, but the pace was the there, the Penskes didn't appear to be unbeatably quite yet

But by time he got to Indianapolis, the rumors were already swirling that he was destined to go back to Formula 1. Was it the money? Was it the prospect of capturing the Williams seat vacated after the passing of Ayrton Senna? Did the alure of CART already wain? Did Tony George do some bullshit? (I like that answer)

Either way, once Dennis Vitolo crashed him under yellow, it felt like it was only a matter of time that Mansell would be gone from CART for good

It was a perfect storm at the wrong time for Mansell:

-Team Penske had built the most dominant engine / chassis combination in the history of the sport

-Penske also showed up to the Indianapolis 500 with maybe the great engine to ever run at the Indianapolis 500, rendering all other teams / engines uncapable of winning

-Political pressure from Tony George to have CART make wholesale changes left a dark cloud over the sport's future

-Mansell coming to CART served as a direct threat to the legitimacy to Formula 1, something the top brass there was none too thrilled with

In the end, Mansell went back to Formula 1, CART implode on itself, Tony George was an ass, and Formula 1 would remain king of the castle through... well, they still are today

Still, I appreciate Mansell's time in CART. Absolutely brilliant driver and brilliant ambassador for racing

Hope you enjoy this "video" (movie)

https://x.com/Hickey93

Timestamps
0:00 92 Indianapolis
0:43 92 Mid-Ohio
2:26 92 Nazareth
3:12 92 Laguna Seca
5:11 93 Surfers Paradise
14:38 93 Phoenix
16:58 93 Long Beach
23:32 93 Pole Day
27:03 93 Indianapolis
40:53 93 Milwaukee
46:01 93 Detroit
52:20 93 Portland
58:13 93 Cleveland
1:05:32 93 Toronto
1:08:17 93 Michigan
1:12:35 93 New Hampshire
1:19:39 93 Road America
1:20:29 93 Vancouver
1:22:06 93 Mid-Ohio
1:32:11 93 Nazareth
1:41:57 93 Laguna Seca
1:47:28 94 Surfers Paradise
1:53:39 94 Phoenix
1:58:14 94 Long Beach
2:00:34 94 Indianapolis
2:09:16 94 Milwaukee
2:11:55 94 Detroit
2:20:39 94 Portland
2:24:39 94 Cleveland
2:30:16 94 Toronto
2:33:20 94 Michigan
2:38:03 94 Mid-Ohio
2:40:19 94 Mew Hampshire
2:47:22 94 Vancouver
2:50:43 94 Road America
2:53:01 94 Nazareth
2:56:17 94 Laguna Seca
2:58:26 97 Fontana
2:58:56 03 St. Petersburg

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Nigel Mansell's Time in CART - A History in Clips