1992 Monaco F1 Grand Prix Race Report & Results
Event: Monaco Grand Prix
Track: Monaco Circuit
Weather: overcast, mild, dry
Ayrton Senna won his 34th F1 World Championship race at the 1992 Monaco F1 GP. The McLaren driver started from the second row and won on the Monaco circuit for the fifth time. It was also his 1st win of the season and the 95th win for the McLaren F1 team.
50th Monaco GP, two anniversaries and a war
The 1992 Monaco Grand Prix was the fiftieth edition of the race and the twentieth anniversary of the Marlboro World Championship Team. Michel Boeri and François Mazet organised commemorations bringing Hulme, Hunt, Lauda, Rosberg, Prost, Beltoise and Maurice Trintignant back to the Principality. Luca di Montezemolo dined publicly with Senna and Prost, fuelling the perpetual Ferrari-rumour mill, and ostentatiously ignored Capelli, whose Ferrari seat was openly under threat. Prost had settled with Ferrari for ten million francs in damages, was being seriously courted by Williams for 1993, and Senna was simultaneously trying to break into the same Williams seat.
Behind the scenes the FISA war was at full pitch. Mosley and Ecclestone wanted a single-fuel rule; the petroleum companies (Elf, Shell, Total, BP, Mobil, all except Mobil now back together) formed the FOFAP to fight it. Mosley wanted carbon brakes banned; Carbone Industrie said they cost 30% more than steel and lasted ten times as long. Balestre summoned a counter-faction at the Hôtel de Paris, the European Motor Sport Alliance, to obstruct Mosley's proposed elimination of national rallies in countries that hadn't voted for him in October 1991. The RAC, which had supported Mosley six months earlier, joined the rebellion.
Mansell's sixth pole, Senna's secret button
Mansell took the sixth pole of his perfect-start 1992 at 1m19.495s, pulverising his own circuit record, beating the 150 km/h average mark for the first time, doing it on used tyres. Patrese second, eight-tenths back. Senna third in the McLaren, with a new "downshift button" Giorgio Ascanelli had developed that allowed direct sixth-to-second or first selections, a small Monte-Carlo-specific advantage. Alesi fourth in the Ferrari (the team's best 1992 qualifying performance), Berger fifth, Schumacher sixth, Brundle seventh, Capelli eighth. The Patrese-Gachot Saturday-afternoon scuffle (Patrese ramming Gachot into the Sainte-Dévote barrier after he'd given Gachot the finger) was one paddock incident; Grouillard throwing his gloves at marshals at Portier and earning a $5,000 fine was the other.
Sunday opened mild and dry. The Goodyear no-stop strategy applied. Morbidelli stalled on the formation lap and started from the pits. From the lights Mansell led Senna, with Patrese being clinically squeezed by the Brazilian into Sainte-Dévote. Alesi got past Patrese on lap one but Patrese repassed. By lap five Mansell led Senna by seven seconds. Alesi-Schumacher contact at the Loews hairpin on lap thirteen put the Italian out with a sliced sidepod and a wrecked electronic module. Berger's McLaren gearbox failed on lap thirty-three. Brundle ran into the back of Berger on lap nineteen, pitted for repairs, and emerged a lap down.
Mansell's wheel-nut, the closing seven laps
Mansell led by thirty seconds with eight laps to go. Then on lap seventy-one his Williams developed a left-rear wheel-nut problem. The car began to feel unstable; Mansell rattled around for a lap looking for the cause, then pitted on lap seventy-one. The Williams mechanics found nothing visibly wrong (post-race investigation would reveal a tyre-blanket strap had been caught between the wheel and the hub, sliced by the wheel-nut, and slowly unravelled until the nut lost its torque). They changed all four tyres in 9 seconds. Mansell rejoined four seconds behind Senna with seven laps to run.
What followed is one of the most-replayed sequences in F1 history. Mansell, on cold new tyres, set the fastest lap of the race on lap seventy-four (1m21.598s), eight-tenths quicker than anything Senna could manage. By lap seventy-five he was on the McLaren's gearbox; by lap seventy-six on its exhaust; by lap seventy-seven trying every conceivable braking-zone move at Tabac, the Piscine and the Rascasse. Senna defended with what every observer present would later call the most disciplined Monaco-defence of the V12 era. The Brazilian's car was on dying tyres; his fuel was running thin; he braked perfectly every corner, took marginal lines that closed every door, used his special downshift button to keep the McLaren on its torque peak through the Casino-square hairpin.
On the last lap Mansell tried one last outside line at the Rascasse. Senna closed the door. They crossed the line 0.215 seconds apart.
Senna ties Graham Hill
Senna crossed the line for his 34th career grand prix victory, his fifth at Monaco, equalling Graham Hill's all-time record (1963, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1969 versus Senna's 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992), his first of 1992 and McLaren's 95th. Patrese third, Schumacher fourth, Brundle fifth, Brundle's first 1992 points but a quietly disciplined drive that he would build on through the season. Gachot sixth in the Venturi-Lamborghini, Larrousse's first F1 point of 1992.
Senna fell into his brother Eduardo's arms; Mansell sat on the ground beside his abandoned helmet, exhausted and visibly heartbroken. "I believe I drove beyond my limits," he said. "I'm in pain over losing a race I had under control. The car kept lifting at every throttle application. I had to slow. Then the steering failed and the brakes faded." David Brown and Patrick Head examined the Williams afterwards and could find nothing visibly wrong, leading to years of speculation. Twenty-six years later, in his 2018 autobiography, Adrian Newey revealed the actual cause: a tyre-warmer strap had been caught between the wheel and hub at the previous tyre change; the wheel-nut had sliced it; the remaining cord had slowly unravelled through the closing laps until the wheel-nut lost retention. "It was as silly as that," Newey wrote.
Senna: "I had spent all my adrenaline. I knew from the start I had no way to win straight up. I had to wait for an opportunity. The moment the radio told me Mansell had pitted, I had to attack to get to first place. I made it. Then Nigel came back at me like a missile. At that stage my tyres were dead, I was exhausted. I stayed on the good side of the track, where he would try to pass. On the straight it was drag-racing, second, third, fourth, foot down. That was enough." That evening at the Beach Plaza Hotel, in a 50th-anniversary commemoration, Senna received the Graham Hill Trophy from Patrese's hands and presented one of his yellow helmets to Prince Rainier, who was visibly moved. Mansell's championship lead held, 56 points to Patrese's 30, but the Williams's first non-win Sunday of 1992 had given the rest of the field a glimpse of hope. Montreal was two weeks away, and Williams's gearbox-electronics history with Canada was about to play its part again.
Classification 1992 Monaco F1 GP
Fastest lap: 1:21.598 min by Nigel Mansell (Williams FW14B) in lap 74
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