𝑨𝒚𝒓𝒕𝒐𝒏 𝑺𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒂 🇧🇷

Nigel Mansell turned down a reported £12 million to £13 million from Williams in 1992, because it would not put him level with Ayrton Senna. Then Senna told Frank Williams he would drive for the team for nothing. Mansell says that within 24 hours of winning the world title he had no seat for 1993, unless he took half his salary. In the video below, from an interview out this month, he is asked if Williams let him go 2 days after he became champion. "No, first day," he says. Alain Prost had already signed, "and they didn't want me in the car with him." He had asked for a three-year contract and never got one. Senna answers in the second half of the video, filmed days after the announcement. He admits "I've been trying to negotiate with the Williams team," and that many people think it is why Nigel is retiring. "I can tell you it is not." He puts it down to Mansell's "own problems with his own team," built up over "months and months." The talks had run since March. Motor Sport magazine reported at the time that Mansell refused the £12 million to £13 million before the Spanish Grand Prix in May. He then won 9 races that year and took the title in Hungary with 5 rounds left. Days after he thought the new deal was agreed, Senna's free offer landed and the money came down. On 13 September at Monza he read a statement to the press: "Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have decided to retire from Formula 1 at the end of this season." Williams' marketing director Sheridan Thynne tried to step in, saying Frank had now accepted the original terms. Mansell said so out loud and retired anyway, calling it "fair play or the lack of it." I think Mansell lost the money on the day he won the title. Until Hungary, Williams needed him to win it. After Hungary, Williams owned the car that had won it, and Senna was asking to sit in it for free. If your value runs through someone else's machine, fix your price before you deliver, because afterwards the next man in line sets it. Senna did not get the seat for 1993 either, because Prost's contract reportedly kept him out, and Mansell went to America and won the IndyCar title as a rookie. If you were Frank Williams in August 1992, would you pay the man who had just won you the title, or take the man offering to drive for nothing? I post one story like this every day: a famous name, the money they made, and who ended up with it.