1992 Italian F1 Grand Prix Race Report & Results
Event: Italian Grand Prix
Track: Autodromo Nazionale Monza
Weather: sunny, dry, warm
Ayrton Senna won his 36th F1 World Championship race at the 1992 Italian F1 GP today. The McLaren driver started from second and won on the Monza circuit for the third time. It was also his third win of the season and the 98th win for the McLaren F1 team.
Honda goes, McLaren scrambles, Mansell explodes
Monza's paddock was wrapped in farewells before a wheel had turned. On Wednesday evening, Nobuhiko Kawamoto, president of Honda, announced that his company would withdraw from Formula 1 at the end of the season. After winning the world championship in five of the previous six seasons, taking fifteen of sixteen races in 1988, and partnering Senna to three drivers' titles, the Japanese marque had decided that motor sport no longer fit its corporate priorities. "We have achieved all our objectives," explained communications head Yoshinobu Noguchi. "After ten years, it is time to move on." Ayrton Senna, blindsided, was bleak: "It is a great loss. We have to say goodbye to one of the greatest competitors in F1. For me, this is a sad moment."
Ron Dennis was instantly hunting for an engine and Senna instantly hunting for a Williams seat that Renault would no longer offer him. McLaren announced Michael Andretti for 1993 in the hope of charming Ford; Ford politely indicated that Benetton remained their number-one customer and would get the better V8s regardless. Dennis tried the wildest gambit of all on 10 September, meeting Guy Ligier in TAG-Marketing's Paris offices and offering twenty million dollars to buy the Vichy team outright, purely to gain access to the Renault V10. Ligier could not believe his ears. Neither, when they heard, could Renault, who pointed out that they had no intention of supplying three teams and that Elf would never share with Shell. The dream lasted forty-eight hours.
That left Senna with a choice between McLaren-Ford-customer for 1993 or sitting out. And it left Frank Williams pressing the button on Nigel Mansell. The world champion arrived at Monza already exhausted and besieged, having not spoken to his employer since Budapest. On Sunday morning, after one final fruitless meeting with Williams and Patrick Head, Mansell called a press conference. Marketing director Sheridan Thynne tried to interrupt him at the last second, "Stop everything! Frank says your pre-Hungary offer is accepted!", but Mansell brushed him aside and delivered his line. "Due to certain circumstances which I cannot control, I have decided to retire from F1 at the end of this season." He gave his version: an August handshake on a contract, a phone call three days later informing him that Senna was prepared to "drive for free", a demand that he, the world champion, halve or third his fee on the spot. He thanked Williams and Renault, said he was not ready for full retirement, mentioned IndyCar. The room applauded. Williams replied by communiqué.
An angry pole and a brittle Ferrari
Mansell, perhaps with rather more incentive than his employer would have hoped, took his eleventh pole of the season at 1m22.221s on Saturday in an RS4 fitted with experimental variable-trumpet intake stacks. Senna was second on a McLaren reverted to passive suspension, Alesi a thrilling third in a Ferrari given every last ounce of V12 power Maranello dared squeeze out of it, with Patrese a frustrated fourth, Berger fifth, Schumacher sixth. Capelli was seventh in the other Ferrari, fighting both the new transverse gearbox and the certainty that the Scuderia had already shown him the door.
The starting grid told two stories. The Italian crowd was thin, barely 40,000, because there was nothing to cheer for from Ferrari. And Mansell and Patrese had reportedly come to a private accord: if Patrese could climb to second, Mansell would yield the lead and gift the Italian a home win that would lock up the runner-up spot in the championship. The Englishman was openly abandoning his pursuit of Senna's 1988 record of nine wins in a season. He had, by then, very little reason to chase it for Williams.
Patrese's chase, Senna's patience
Mansell led from the start. Alesi snatched second from Senna into the first chicane only for the Brazilian to come back at him on the long pull to the second; the Ferrari faded out two laps later when its fuel pump failed, and Capelli followed it into the gravel at the Parabolica on the same lap. Within ten laps the order had settled, Mansell, Senna, Patrese, then a thirty-second gap to Brundle. Patrese passed Senna with a beautifully measured pass on the outside of the start-finish straight on lap 14, switching at the last possible moment, and the two Williams were running first and second.
On lap 20 Mansell duly slowed at Lesmo and let Patrese through. As planned. What was not planned was Senna, who closed up rapidly. Through the middle stint the three cars ran nose to tail in lapped traffic, the gap between leader and third under four seconds. Stefano Modena's Jordan, Pierluigi Martini's Dallara and Eric Comas's Ligier all dropped the Williams pair into trouble. On lap 36, Comas chopped across Mansell at the Variante della Roggia, the world champion stood the FW14B on its nose to avoid a collision, and the Frenchman then spun himself out of the race at Ascari after blistering tyres on his own marbles. Senna, opportunistic and tactical, hung on.
Williams break down, Senna inherits a third Monza win
On lap 42 Mansell's car cried enough. The hydraulic pump that drove the active suspension and semi-automatic gearbox seized, the box jammed in sixth, and the world champion limped to the pit-lane waving sadly at the crowd. Six laps later it was Patrese's turn: the same hydraulic failure on the sister Williams, his box locking in fourth, Senna sweeping past on the Rettifilo Centrale without resistance. The Brazilian, with twenty-five seconds in hand over Brundle, controlled the last five laps of a race he had never expected to win, taking his 36th career victory and a third Monza success in three years. Brundle held off Schumacher for second, a perfect Benetton podium and a fitting two-fingered salute to the men who had decided to sack him for Patrese for 1993. Berger took fourth, Patrese fifth on his stricken car, de Cesaris a single point for Tyrrell. Eight cars saw the flag.
"Mansell retired, Patrese slowed down, I was there, that's all," Senna shrugged in parc fermé, hoisting a Brazilian flag for the few tifosi who had not left. "I overtook nobody. The important thing is that we were able to keep with the Williams pace at a small distance." Brundle, meanwhile, savoured a small revenge: "I had a bad start because I was held up by Michael's incident with Boutsen. I had to work hard early on. Then I realised I could not beat Senna and I decided to race on my own. The car worked very well." Niki Lauda watched Schumacher's recovery from 25th to third and nodded slowly: "This guy is driving better and better." Mansell, asked for his reaction on the BBC, said the most important thing was that his team-mate could have won. He packed his own bag. He left, alone, through the back of the paddock. The 1992 championship had been over for a month. Its drama, somehow, was only just beginning.
Classification 1992 Italian F1 GP
Fastest lap: 1:26.119 min by Nigel Mansell (Williams FW14B) in lap 39
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