What was intended to be Nigel Mansell's final race (he competed in six more ill-advised grands prix in 1994 and 1995) at the Australian Grand Prix ended in acrimony and disappointment after he collided with Ayrton Senna while contesting the lead. He walked across the track to avoid a confrontation with Senna, and then slammed stewards for not taking action and his own Williams team for not backing his cause. "I'm glad I'm out of it," fumed Mansell, who was heading to the IndyCar series. "He just rammed me at 40mph faster than I was going. I ran across the track [otherwise] there would have been a big fight and I don't think that's the way to leave F1. Certain people can get away with what they want." Senna, whose McLaren team-mate Gerhard Berger won the race, was far calmer. "I have no bad feelings about it," he said. "I think he has been complaining but that's normal for him. He always complains."
2005
Red Bull announced designer and aerodynamics expert Adrian Newey would be joining the team as chief technical officer, luring him away from the McLaren team Ron Dennis had persuaded him to join in 1996. Ironically, the very thing that had been Dennis' weapon in 1996 - money - was his undoing with Newey reportedly demanding a salary hike from $6 million to $10 million to stay. "It's a massive recruitment for us," Christian Horner, Red Bull's sporting director, said. "Given the choice of Adrian or Michael Schumacher, I'd go for Adrian every time. It's of that kind of magnitude. I think that it sends out exactly the right message in that we are totally serious about what we want to do and what we want to achieve." In 2001 Newey agreed to join the Jaguar team as technical director only to reverse his decision days later after a series of highly-charged meetings with Dennis.
1933
Peter Arundell, born on this day in Ilford, Essex, raced in 13 grands prix for Lotus between 1964 and 1966 after winning the British Formula Junior Championship in 1962 and 1963. As second driver to the legendary Jim Clark, he was considered a real talent, but in the end injury curtailed his career. He made his F1 debut in 1964 and finished third in his first two races, but four rounds into the season he was seriously injured, sustaining multiple injuries including two broken legs, when thrown from his car in an F2 event at Reims. He was out of action for the rest of that season and all of 1965, returning to F1 action in 1966. However, he struggled to regain his earlier form and quit at the end of the year. He subsequently moved to Florida where he founded a software company.
