With his car stopped on the final lap, Senna found an unexpected ride back to the pits.
Ayrton Senna’s McLaren began to splutter on Hangar Straight just as second place seemed secure. He glanced at the dashboard: everything looked normal. But near the end of the 1991 British Grand Prix, the fuel was running out. Senna would lose places and, on Nigel Mansell’s victory lap, catch a ride on his rival’s Williams.
The battle begins at the start
On July 14, 1991, Silverstone hosted the eighth round of the championship. Mansell had taken pole after a close fight with Senna. The Briton lined up at home in a Williams-Renault for a 59-lap race.
The start changed the order. Mansell got away poorly, and Senna took the lead. But the Brazilian did not stay ahead for long. Mansell switched off the rev limiter to find more power and passed his rival at the end of Hangar Straight. He reclaimed the lead and set off toward victory.
Two problems on the same straight
In the final ten laps or so, Mansell’s race also came under pressure. The Williams gearbox began having serious problems. He later recalled starting to panic, but he did not tell the pits. Renault telemetry detected the fault, and Patrick Head and the team followed the danger.
At McLaren, a reassuring reading concealed a different problem. The onboard computer said Senna had enough fuel to finish. Changes in fuel specification contributed to inaccurate consumption readings. When the McLaren began to splutter on Hangar Straight, the dashboard still did not reveal what was happening.
With sixth gear engaged, the engine died. Near Club, on the final lap, the tank ran dry. Senna could not get the car to the finish under its own power. Yet the onboard display still showed fuel to spare.
A ride on the victory lap
Mansell took the chequered flag, winning at home for the fourth time and at Silverstone for the second. Senna, who had been running second, ran out of fuel and lost places. On the victory lap, Mansell spotted the stranded McLaren and pulled his Williams alongside.
Senna climbed aboard, put one leg into the cockpit and sat on the bodywork. Mansell drove him back to the pits, carrying his rival as a passenger on his own victory lap.
The final classification still earned Senna points: he finished fourth, despite not completing the last lap in the McLaren. Gerhard Berger came second and Alain Prost third. For Mansell, it was also his second consecutive win.
An image that endured
The ride brought the two rivals together in an unlikely scene after a race that tested both gearbox reliability and the accuracy of fuel calculations. The photograph of Senna on Mansell’s Williams became an iconic Silverstone image and one of Formula 1’s most famous.
Senna did not cross the finish line at the wheel of his McLaren. He still scored points. And he returned to the pits sitting on the car of the man who had just won the race.
