Nigel Mansell predicts a brutal battle at the Formula One arena in 2011
Nigel Mansell, the former Formula One world champion predicts another very tight and exciting battle between the 24 drivers and 12 the teams in the upcoming 2011 season.
The current year has seen one of the most intense and nerve tickling battles in the sports’ history of 60 years. The top three teams of this season, Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren and the top five drivers, Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso, Lewis
Hamilton and Jenson Button, stayed engaged in a very brutal battle, until the very last race of the season. It was only at the season decider, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that suspense for the title finally came to an end, as Vettel bagged the title becoming
the youngest champion.
Now, as Mansell recalls the past season, he admits that it had been an incredibly enjoyable season for the fans while a very demanding and challenging one for the drivers and the teams. Nonetheless, the old British racer believes that the next season is
going to offer an equally thrilling and nail-biting fight to the drivers, with the further addition of Mercedes GP in the competition. He said, "I really foresee an incredible 2011 developing. With four or five world champions on the grid together you've got
to go back to the early 80s where you had something similar when we had seven one year.”
He believes to see McLaren with a very strong car next year, as the British team is going to come again with their KERS system. Earlier in 2009, they had one of the best systems on the grid and this year not only it will further improve but also it is to
be handled by two great racers and world champions, Hamilton and Button.
At the same time, Red Bull is also expected to come back more forcefully as Adrian Newey, their chief car designer and one of the cleverest men in the field, is working as hard as ever to come up again with a great car for the Austrian squad. Last year the
team had an exceptional pace with its RB6, and all the rival teams were simply not able to chase all through the year.
Moreover, Mansell also believes to see the new world champion, Vettel even better than ever as being a champion increases the confidence and strength of a driver manifolds. The former racer also does not want to underestimate Webber, who might come back
as fierce as an ‘injured old lion,’ after having lost this year’s championship.
However, he expects to see the McLaren duo as the two most aggressive men on next year’s track. According to Nigel, "They are both world champions, they're both hungry, both young and in one of the best teams in the business. They have an incredible power
plant with Mercedes and I think the great thing this year was that I don't think there was a team or driver that didn't make a mistake and I think what I foretell in 2011 is that teams and drivers will learn a lot of lessons and I think you'll see fewer mistakes
in 2011 and you'll see another titanic championship battle."
Finally, Mansell does not even see Michael Schumacher’s decision of coming back to the sport as a wrong one. The 57-year-old believes to see the 7-time world champion bagging more race-wins next season, if he is given the right car. However, he says that
in case the team does not provide him with a competitive car, and he is not able to bag a few race-wins by the end of 2011, he must leave, although he already has a contract with the team until the end of 2012.
However, he concluded saying, “But I think now he should be back with all the same feelings he had before he left, the development over this winter has given Ross Brawn the time and the team to energize everything they need and they have had a couple of
showings where the car has demonstrated a better turn of speed. So they could be the joker in the pack next year and do something very special."
Tags: