The Silverstone F1 legend brought back to life

A feint left and then a dive to the right, down the inside. Nigel Mansell’s sublime Stowe pass on Williams team-mate Nelson Piquet at the 1987 British Grand Prix is one of the iconic motorsport moments and the home hero’s subsequent victory stands as one of Silverstone’s greatest highlights.

The car in question, Williams-Honda FW11B-03, has just been restored, thanks to the efforts of owner and McLaren boss Zak Brown, Williams Heritage, United Autosports and, in particular, Dickie Stanford. Mansell’s former chief mechanic and Williams team manager was involved in a long and, at times, tricky challenge to resurrect the car. In fact, it took seven years.

But, before Stanford tells that story, it’s worth revisiting the events of 12 July 1987 and a race that Autosport International fans voted as their sixth-favourite motorsport memory of all time earlier this year.

Mansell and Piquet, armed with the season’s best car, were locked in battle, but only fourth and third respectively in the points ahead of round seven of 16. Mansell had won the French GP the week before but Piquet took pole at Silverstone and led early on, once McLaren’s fast starter Alain Prost had been dealt with.

Mansell chased Piquet but became increasingly uncomfortable with a vibration, probably the result of a wheel balance weight coming off, and pitted on lap 35 of 65.

“When he came out of the pits we didn’t think he had much chance to catch Nelson,” says Stanford. Having completed his out-lap 28.4 seconds behind Piquet, Mansell famously smashed the lap record repeatedly on his fresh rubber, before pulling off that overtaking move with just over two laps to go. “All we could see was he was getting faster and faster,” adds Stanford. “After he overtook Nelson he lost it into the chicane. We thought it was all over, but he managed to save it.”

Mansell’s fastest lap was 0.8s quicker than Piquet’s best and 1.8s better than third-placed Ayrton Senna’s effort for Lotus. ‘Our Nige’ then ran out of fuel after crossing the line and the crowd erupted. It was Mansell’s third GP win on UK soil in two years.

Mansell chasing down Piquet on that famous afternoon at the 1987 British GP

“Winning Silverstone was the main highlight, the home GP,” recalls Stanford of his illustrious Williams career that began in 1985. And, while the Mansell-Piquet feud sometimes appeared toxic from the outside, the 67-year-old maintains the atmosphere within the team was better than you might expect.

“Nelson and Nigel from a mechanic’s point of view were fine,” he explains. “It was always in the press they were at each other, or Nelson was doing something to wind Nigel up, it was all part of the game. It never came into the garage. Frank Williams and Patrick Head drummed into us that we’re the team: ‘What they do is not your concern’.”

Nevertheless, there was still some friendly intra-team rivalry. “Mechanics want their car to win,” adds Stanford. “We used to try and stop Nelson’s girlfriend of the time walking around our car on the grid and touching Nigel’s tyres, a sort of superstition – we used to crowd her out to stop her doing it!”

"It’s really straightforward engineering. You only need about half a dozen spanners and you can work from one end to the other, though I do have a few scars and burns on arms and legs from removing the turbos" Dickie Stanford

Mansell, with FW11B-03 as his main race car, went on to win more battles in 1987 – six to Piquet’s three – but misfortune and a qualifying crash at Suzuka that prematurely ended his season meant the title war went to the Brazilian.

Then a fan, Brown has special memories of Mansell’s campaign. His impressive collection of racing machinery only includes cars with winning pedigree and this FW11B ticks many of his boxes. “Nigel was one of my favourite drivers, and in that particular chassis he won multiple races, the most famous being one of the most famous races in the world,” says Brown. “So it was special to me because it was Nigel Mansell, it was Williams, it was a race winner, and it won one of the most famous races of all time.”

To add the car to his collection was challenging but that wasn’t the only hurdle to getting it running, which is Brown’s aim for all his winners. “The hardest part of finding the FW11B was getting it out of the Williams collection, which was where it came from,” he says of chassis 3, which had spent time as a show car. “And the hardest part of resurrecting it was to get a Honda engine…”

Having worked on the Williams FW11B when it was a racer, Dickie Stanford's insight and knowledge has been invaluable

Photo by: Phil Hay Photography

“When Honda left [ahead of the 1988 season], they gave Williams one running engine for each year,” explains Stanford, who started the restoration when he was still at Williams before joining United Autosports in 2020. Of those 1.5-litre V6 Hondas, the 1985 car had no electronics, the 1986 machine had electronics that at that time didn’t work and Piquet’s 1987 title-winner was a runner. The last named was therefore crucial to the revival of its rival sister car.

“Zak found himself a block, the heads, the water pump system and quite a few bits, but Honda didn’t want to know about restoring the engine, so we took the engine out of the Williams-owned FW11B,” explains Stanford. “Then Cosworth stripped the engine and copied all the internals.”

Reverse-engineering the Piquet unit allowed the required parts to be made. With the help of Lanzante, modern electronics were also added and made to look like the original stuff, while the gearbox and suspension went back to Williams. “If you took the bodywork off, even the ECU looks right,” reckons Stanford. “The steering wheel is correct, it’s just missing the drinks button.”

Stanford says work on the chassis itself was relatively easy thanks to the simplicity of the design produced by Head, Sergio Rinland and Frank Dernie: “Williams has quite a few drawings for this, a really good archive, and it’s not a difficult car to work on. It’s really straightforward engineering. You only need about half a dozen spanners and you can work from one end to the other, though I do have a few scars and burns on arms and legs from removing the turbos when they were hot. Someone would be pouring cold water down your arms to stop the turbo burns.”

It probably helped that Stanford knows some of the tricks from the 1980s and even has his original screwdriver, with the end ground off and “a plate over the top to hook the body fasteners out”, a Williams tweak that dates back to the FW07.

“It worked and it was reliable,” continues Stanford of the car and its RA167E Honda engine, which produced 1200bhp in qualifying and 800-900bhp in the races. “In 1985 and 1986 the engines were thirsty but in 1987 Honda was on top of fuel consumption.”

So, what next? Even now, the project hasn’t quite been completed. Brown won’t drive his cars in the wet so never buys wet-weather tyres, which proved tricky when it rained at the Pembrey shakedown after only one lap. “Rob Garofall did one lap and the skies opened, so we packed it up,” says Stanford. “We need to go to a circuit to finish the mapping.”

But having got this far, the car will make it out again. “I will drive it every once in a while, and on very special occasions – Goodwood, the British Grand Prix, celebrations of Nigel Mansell or Williams – I’d be happy to put it on display,” says Brown. “Maybe Nigel could drive it again…”

Mansell's Williams FW11B will roar once more

Photo by: Phil Hay Photography