Phillipe Massa put in a dominant display during yesterdays Turkish Grand Prix, coming first in front of Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari team mate Kimi Raikkonen. It is the third time Massa has triumphed at Istanbul Park in the last three years. However, it was not all plain sailing as he had to content with a sustained challenge from Lewis Hamilton, who was on a three stop strategy to cope with the tyre demands of the anti-clockwise circuit.

The lighter McLaren allowed him to overtake Massa in the middle part of the race, however Massa was still able to reclaim the lead and take the chequered flag. As the race progressed, Hamilton came under pressure from Raikkonen and only narrowly beat him to second place. Further down the field, the BMW team carried on their quiet march into the big league with a solid fourth and fifth for Kubica and Heidfeld respectively.

By clinching victory, Massa underlined just how good he is on his day. The problem for him is to sustain that performance over the course of a season, something that he has previously not been able to do. It is not unlikely that after yesterdays performance, he'll be wedged in the barriers on the Monaco harbour side at the next race....

                          

This is the first of an occasional series of articles about people who have made their mark on motor racing, whether they be heroes (Clark, Peterson, Fangio, Moss), villains (Pironi, Balestre,) or sources of pure entertainment (Taki Inoue). Funnily enough, my first subject could be placed in all three of the categories, depending on who you talk to.

Nigel Mansell can claim, quite rightly, to be one of the all time greats of Formula One. He won thirty one Grand Prix, the 1992 Formula One World Championship and the 1993 CART Indycar Championship at his first attempt.

Like Marmite, you either love him or you hate him. He is a man of whose sometimes odd behaviour out of the car had left him labelled with the tag of the 'whining Brummie' (melodramatically falling to the floor after pushing his car over the line in Dallas; declaring his intention to retire in 1990, then signing for Williams the next season; flouncing off to race in America after a pay dispute with Frank Williams, the list goes on ). However his nail-hard determination and jaw dropping speed gained him much admiration and even the nickname of 'Ill Leone' (the lion) by the partisan Ferrari fans. His relentless, aggressive driving style won him a legion of British fans off the track and a fair few enemies on it.

One of Mansell's main calling cards was his mastery of the overtaking manoeuvre, if there is any doubt, check youtube for his dummy on Senna at the Hungaroring in 1989, or the 180mph move he made on Gerhard Berger around the outside of the banked Peralta corner at the 1990 Mexican Grand Prix. In an era where most drivers seem to be trained to wait for the pit stops, instead of going for broke and getting past the guy in front (admittedly, the aerodynamics do tend to discourage this), watching footage of Mansell going wheel to wheel with Senna, Prost and Piquet seems a real breath of fresh air.

Despite his undoubted talent and determination, success was slow to come to 'Our Nige'. Before starting F1 with lotus in 1981, Mansell had quit his job as an Aerospace Engineer and remortgaged his house to continue racing. In Formula Ford, he won the 1977 British Formula Ford Championship, despite braking his neck during a race at Brands Hatch. After graduating to Formula 3, he suffered a broken back and had to stuff himself full of painkillers to make his first test with Lotus.

Where others would probably thought that things weren't meant to be and pursued some other avenue in life, Mansell carried on. Even after making it to Formula One, things were still tough. The death of Colin Chapman left him without many allies in a team which was by then past it's best. He would have to wait until he was 33 before he won his first F1 race, the 1985 Grand Prix of Europe, driving a Williams-Honda.

Once he'd took his first scalp, there seemed no stopping him. 1986 saw him hammer team mate Piquet and almost claim the championship, until he suffered a massive tyre blow-out during the final race of the year. Piquet took the title the next year due to his more consistent point scoring and yet another big accident for Mansell. Over the following years he would drive for Ferrari, then Williams again; chalking up the wins, falling out with other drivers, playing golf, comparing injuries with Barry Sheene and always coming close to the title yet leaving without the cigar.

In 1992, he did it. After a dominant season in the Williams Renault and almost reducing Murray Walker to tears, he took the title at the Hungaroring beating Ayrton Senna. Never had a moustache been worn with such pride since Graham Hill in the 1960's.

Since then, Mansell has left F1, returned and left again. He has driven a Ford in the BTCC, an Audi in the DTM, set up his own golf club, won races in the F1 Masters series and is now masterminding his two son's racing careers. At 54, he probably thinks he could wipe the floor with Alonso, Hamilton and Raikkonen even now.