Nigel Ernest James Mansell,  (; born 8 August 1953) is a British former racing driver who won both the Formula One World Championship (1992) and the CART Indy Car World Series (1993). Mansell was the reigning F1 champion when he moved over to CART, becoming the first person to win the CART title in his debut season, and making him the only person to hold both the World Drivers' Championship and the American open-wheel National Championship simultaneously. His career in Formula One spanned 15 seasons, with his final two full seasons of top-level racing being spent in the CART series. Mansell is the second most successful British Formula One driver of all time in terms of race wins with 31 victories, and is seventh overall on the Formula One race winners list behind Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Alain Prost, Sebastian Vettel, Ayrton Senna and Fernando Alonso.

Nigel Ernest James Mansell was born on 8 August 1953 in Upton-upon-Severn, Worcestershire, the son of Eric (d. 1 April 1991), an engineer and Joyce Mansell (d. 17 May 1984).  He had a fairly slow start to his racing career, using his own money to help work his way up the ranks. After considerable success in kart racing, he moved to the Formula Ford series to the disapproval of his father. In 1976, Mansell won six of the nine races he took part in, including his debut event at Mallory Park. He entered 42 races the following year and won 33 to become the 1977 British Formula Ford champion, despite suffering a broken neck in a qualifying session at Brands Hatch. Doctors told him he had been perilously close to quadriplegia, that he would be confined for six months and would never drive again. Mansell discharged himself from the hospital and returned to racing. Three weeks before the accident he had resigned from his job as an aerospace engineer, having previously sold most of his personal belongings to finance his foray into Formula Ford. Later that year he was given the chance to race a Lola T570 Formula 3 car at Silverstone. He finished fourth and decided that he was ready to move into the higher formula.  Mansell raced in Formula Three in 1978-1980. Mansell's first season in Formula Three started with a pole position and a second-place finish. However, the car was not competitive, as a commercial deal with Unipart required his team to use Triumph Dolomite engines that were vastly inferior to the Toyota engines used by the leading teams. After three seventh-place finishes and a fourth in his last race, he parted from the team. The next season saw him take a paid drive with David Price Racing. Following a first win in the series at Silverstone in March, he went on to finish eighth in the championship. His racing was consistent, but a collision with Andrea de Cesaris resulted in a huge cartwheeling crash which he was lucky to survive. Again he was hospitalised, this time with broken vertebrae.  His driving was noticed by Colin Chapman, owner of Lotus, and shortly after his accident, hiding the extent of his injury with painkillers, Mansell performed well enough during a tryout at the Paul Ricard circuit with Lotus, where he was pitted against a number of other drivers to determine who was going to take the second seat for the 1980 season alongside Mario Andretti, as Argentinean Carlos Reutemann was leaving to go to Williams. Driving a 79, the seat eventually went to Italian driver Elio de Angelis, but Mansell was selected to become a test driver for the Norfolk-based Formula One team.

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