1992 F1 Season

There are dominant seasons and then there is 1992. Nigel Mansell won the first five races of the year, finished with nine wins from sixteen and took fourteen poles. Fourteen out of sixteen: across the whole season there were only two Saturdays when the fastest car was not his.

The title was settled in Hungary, round eleven of sixteen. Mansell arrived there with 92 points to his closest rival's 40, with five races and fifty points still available: he finished second and there was nothing left to count. Five Grands Prix to spare, which is about as rare as anything gets in this sport.

And here is the figure that really describes that Williams FW14B, because it looks not at the champion but at the man next to him. Riccardo Patrese drove exactly the same car and ended the year on 56 points against Mansell's 108. Precisely half. The car won the constructors' championship with 164 points to McLaren's 99, so the machinery was good enough to sweep the board; what decided which of the two steering wheels took the title was who was holding it.