Ah thanks, perfect opportunity:
Well, Nigel Mansell's example with his 1984 season compared to 1985 (with de Angelis sitting in both seasons as a reference) is as much a convincing point for Senna as it is for him regarding the comparison (Lotus: 1987-1988) with Piquet with an overlapping team-mate. The Lotusses of 1984 and 1985 must have been very very similar. Considering his technical issues were the same in 1984 and in 1985, de Angelis got nearly exactly the same amount of championship points in 1985 (33 points) as he did in 1984 (34 points) (and overall very similar results also in qualifying). Senna, however, did make the difference also compared with Mansell. Mansell also didn't have more technical issues in 1984 than Senna in 1985, I guess. And look what Senna achieved: only because mostly of his countless technical issues, he maybe even didn't become WDC in 1985. Come to think of that. As much as I admire Mansell... as I previously said: everybody loses big time compared with Senna. It's fascinating. [I mean even with a similar amount of technical issues, Mansell was unfortunately behind Senna in the WDC standings sitting in a Lotus... in 1984... while Senna was driving in a... uhm... T.o.l.e.m.a.n. ]
You are welcome. I'm going to stick to the Mansell aspects in view of the thread topic*. One could mention the different tyres between the 1984 and 1985 Lotus Renaults, but I think your summary is generally fair. The thrust of my point would be that this is also part of Mansell's record (like 1988 and 1989 is for Piquet). This makes it more difficult to elevate him to being the main person to challenge Prost and Senna (as another poster wanted to do). If we are happy to discredit Piquet based on his two years at Lotus, where does that leave Nigel? As far as the topic of the thread goes, I don't think Nigel's standing can be automatically elevated by association with the high reputations of Senna and Prost - he was only one of a number of challengers and not even necessarily the pre-eminent one (perhaps no-one was).
* I have posted plenty in previous Piquet topics on the Nostalgia Forum.
