RETROSPECTIVE - 1989 Hungarian Grand Prix

1988 was totally dominated by the McLaren "dream team" with their drivers Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna winning 15 of the 16 races, only an unusual incident with a backmarker in Italy prevented Senna from giving McLaren the clean sweep. 1989 though proved to be far more open despite McLaren winning 10 of the 16 races on offer, this race though did not feature a McLaren win, infact it was one of the finest drives by one of Britain's best and bravest drivers, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest overtakers in the sport, Nigel Mansell.

Going into the weekend, the dropped scores had yet to take affect which as a result, Prost had a substantial 17 point lead over his teammate Senna (53 to 36) with Mansell in a Ferrari in a share of 3rd place with Williams's Riccardo Patrese on 25 points, and with Hungary being one race away from the final "gross score" race before drivers would have to begin dropping their worst points finishes, it was crucial for both McLaren drivers to win this race in order to attain a substantial lead going into the final 5 races.

One feature of the 1989 season was the huge entry list, the biggest entry in F1 history at 39 cars fielded by no less than 20 teams, this was when F1 was a very cheap formula and practically anybody could build an F1 car, for the smaller teams, simply qualifying for a race would be an achievement. And in qualifying Patrese suprised everyone by taking pole for Williams ahead of Senna, the big shock was Alex Caffi in his Dallara taking a superb 3rd place, Prost was only 5th while Mansell struggled and considering the nature of the Hungary track, his race looked shot after qualifying down in 12th.

STARTING GRID
ROW 1: 1. Riccardo Patrese, 2. Ayrton Senna
ROW 2: 3. Alex Caffi, 4. Thierry Boutsen
ROW 3: 5. Alain Prost, 6. Gerhard Berger
ROW 4: 7. Alessandro Nannini, 8. Stefano Modena
ROW 5: 9. Derek Warwick, 10. Pierluigi Martini
ROW 6: 11. Jean Alesi, 12. Nigel Mansell
ROW 7: 13. Mauricio Gugelmin, 14. Ivan Capelli
ROW 8: 15. Martin Brundle, 16. Eddie Cheever
ROW 9: 17. Nelson Piquet, 18. Andrea De Cesaris
ROW 10: 19. Jonathan Palmer, 20. Satoru Nakajima
ROW 11: 21. Bertrand Gachot, 22. Piercarlo Ghinzani
ROW 12: 23. Luis Sala, 24. Stefan Johansson
ROW 13: 25. Emmanuele Pirro, 26. Michele Alboreto
DID NOT QUALIFY: Rene Arnoux, Olivier Grouillard, Christian Danner, Volker Weidler
DID NOT PRE-QUALIFY: Nicola Larini, Philippe Alliot, Gabriele Tarquini, Yannick Dalmas, Bernd Schneider, Roberto Moreno, Gregor Foitek, Aguri Suzuki, Pierre-Henri Raphanel

At the start, Patrese managed to hold off Senna while a hard charging Gerhard Berger stormed from 6th to pass Prost and nearly take Caffi. Berger managed to overtake Caffi later on in the lap as the Dallara's lack of pace began to show by holding up a train of cars including Prost, Nannini, Boutsen and Mansell who had gained 3 places from the start line. This was looking good for Patrese he was matching Senna's pace really well in the early stages and with overtaking opportunities on the Hungaroring numbering almost zero coupled with the ever improving pace and reliability of the Renault powerplant, it looked like Patrese would coast to his first race win in 6 years.

Prost and Mansell managed to break ahead of the Caffi train and join the 3 way battle for the lead, which would be reduce due to Berger taking a impromptu tyre stop on lap 29. Now it was a 4 way battle which was intensifying by the lap. and the first real move in this 180mph game of chess came courtesy of Mansell on lap 41, coming out of the fat exit of Turn 3, he got the sort of run out of the corner that resembled commitment seen on qualifying laps, he then used Prost's slpistream to close up at an alarming rate and then use his V12 engine to power past Prost's McLaren and up into 3rd place.

From there on each driver held station until lap 52 when Patrese suddenly began to lose pace and on the start finish straight, Senna saw a chance on the inside of turn 1, Patrese tried to defend but his now sick sounding Williams could'nt cope with Senna's pace down the straight as the Brazilian finally took the elad of the race, Mansell also followed Senna's path and took Patrese down at the next corner, the unlucky Italian would park his car later on that lap into retirement due to a broken radiator. Now it was a straight fight between Senna and Mansell to win the race

5 laps later on lap 58 came the breakthrough Mansell was waiting for. Senna had defended releltlessly from Mansell who was clearly faster and then part of the way through lap 58 they came across the Onyx of Sweden's Stefan Johansson, he was busy trudging slowly back to the pits with gearbox issues but for Senna the slowing Onyx came too soon for his liking, way too soon infact, as they came out of turn 3, not knowing Johansson's troubles, Senna took his normal racing line expecting the Onyx to move out of the way but it didnt and Senna was slowed for a fraction of a second. Mansell had got a better run out of the exit of the corner and saw his chance with Senna stuck, he manouvered as far to the right of the track as he could muster to avoid Johansson and the manouvering Senna, Mansell took advantage with the early move to sweep past the pair of them into the lead, that pass would go down in F1 folklore as one of the greatest ever attempted.

From then on, Mansell simply drove away from the rest of the field as if they were standing still posing a succession of fastest laps to win by an astonishing 26 seconds from Senna and Boutsen in 3rd who passed a fading Prost late on. After this race, the Italian fans (Tifosi) took him to their hearts and dubbed him Il Leone (The Lion).

RACE RESULT - TOP 10
1. NIGEL MANSELL - Ferrari ................ 1h 49m 38.650
2. Ayrton Senna - McLaren Honda ................ + 25.960
3. Thierry Boutsen - Williams Renault ................ + 38.354
4. Alain Prost - McLaren Honda ................ + 44.177
5. Eddie Cheever - Arrows Ford ................ + 45.106
6. Nelson Piquet - Lotus Judd ................ + 1m 12.039
7. Alex Caffi - Dallara Ford ................ + 1m 24.255
8. Emanuele Pirro - Benetton Ford ................ + 1 Lap
9. Jean Alesi - Tyrrell Ford ................ + 1 Lap
10. Derek Warwick - Arrows Ford ................ + 1 Lap