11/06/2015
NEWS STORY
There's no denying that any F1 fan asked to recall a couple of favourite F1 memories would include at least one incident involving Nigel Mansell, be it his wheel-to-wheel face-off with Ayrton Senna at Barcelona, his explosive tyre failure at Adelaide or his desperate, but inevitably futile, attempts to pass Senna at Monaco (pictured). There are many, many more.
A keen Tweeter, on a variety of subjects, but mainly F1, at a time fans are being surveyed for their thoughts on the current state of the sport, Mansell has delivered his own verdict.
"Some of the current rules need tweaking," he told Sky Sports News HQ. "DRS is a false overtaking aid because it doesn’t give the driver (a chance) to slipstream and to play a chess game to plan where to pass someone.
"Although Pirelli have done the job they’ve been asked to do, the tyres should go back to the old tyre size where they were very large and robust with plenty of grip. If a driver wants to deliver the car into the corner and brake really late and try to get sidewards, he then has the ability to do so with bigger tyres and more grip.
"There has got to be a rethink of certain things and a little bit of magic," he urged. "KERS is a very good situation because it can be managed by the drivers on a lap-by-lap basis for either attack or defence, but take some of the driver aids away and let the drivers drive and race the cars like they used to.
"The drivers are not being given an opportunity to express how great they are as a race-car driver because there are too many aids and too many engineers telling them how to balance the car. The great thing about years gone by is that they had to balance the car themselves."
Any chance he could replace the Strategy Group?