"I'm a sportsman, not a politician": When Nigel Mansell highlighted how his return from IndyCar to F1 went wrong

Nigel Mansell is an icon of both the IndyCar and F1 worlds. While the Briton remains the sole driver to have won the IndyCar championship in his debut year, he made a return to the European championship, revealing decades later how the tides had changed since he had left F1.

Mansell's 1993 Champ Car season is one of the most talked-about topics in the motorsport realm. He had won the F1 drivers' world title the year prior and looked set to put up a stern title defense the following year.

However, the shift to IndyCar came as a shock to many. With Michael Andretti's jump to F1 falling over the same time frame, the 1991 IndyCar champion had once revealed how the F1 realm was drenched with politics.

A similar case happened with Nigel Mansell as the Briton revealed in June 2024. The 71-year-old explained the sequence of events in how his three-year IndyCar contract extension became null and void as politics surrounding him and F1 peaked.

Witnessing this, Mansell was unable to continue for long in F1 as he ended his brief stint with just two races to his name in 1995 and "stepped aside". In an interview with The Race last year, he recalled:

"I signed another three-year contract in IndyCar and I would have been there racing. But the powers that be of Formula 1 wanted me back because of not having a world champion racing. Then politics got in the way, and then circumstances changed and in the end, I'm a sportsman not a politician. I didn't like the politics so I stepped aside."

"It's disappointing that we got the end of our career messed with in the way that it was," he added.

Mansell also mentioned how he ended up switching to IndyCar and what influenced his shift.

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How did Nigel Mansell end up in IndyCar in the first place?

Nigel Mansell at the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain - Source: Getty

Winning nine races out of the 16 held, Nigel Mansell's 1992 F1 championship campaign was one of the historic ones. This sparks a question on why the 71-year-old decided to leave F1 at seemingly the peak of his career.

Opening up on the whole saga, Mansell revealed how he found himself without a seat for the 1993 season on the F1 grid, urging him to switch to the open-wheel world in the United States. He said:

"I was looking forward to defending my title, I was looking forward to a great year in 1993. Whether Prost was my team-mate or not. Then, less than 24 hours after winning the title, I learned that I didn’t have a drive for the following year! If I really wanted to race, it was on half the salary of 1992. It wasn’t really a good offer, was it!" [via Planet F1]

Decades after the frenzy initially broke out, Mansell now maintains cordial relations with both the series and enjoys his post-retirement life.