THE CAR I LOVED AND THE CAR I LOATHED – WITH NIGEL MANSELL

Nigel Mansell's favorite F1 car wasn't the Williams FW14B that delivered his 1992 championship—it was the 1987 FW11B, a 1,500-horsepower monster he both loved and feared. "It was a car that wanted to kill you on every corner," Mansell recalls, echoing Martin Brundle's assessment. The Honda-powered machine ran the full 4-bar turbo boost before regulations tightened, making it arguably the most powerful F1 car ever built on qualifying rubber.

On the loathed side: the Lotus 92 and 81B. The '92 introduced F1's first active suspension in 1983, but the system was so unreliable it threw Mansell off track in straight lines before being scrapped after two races. The '81B stretched seven inches longer than the standard car in a failed aero experiment, creating a ground-effect car that refused to turn. The contrast says everything about Mansell's career arc—from battling unraceable Lotuses to taming the fastest car F1 ever built.