Race Summary
As usual, Honda powered cars dominated the qualifying sessions, with Nelson Piquet in his Williams FW11B beating his teammate Nigel Mansell by less than a tenth of second; Ayrton Senna was third in his Lotus 99T and fourth was the McLaren MP4/3 of Alain Prost. During qualifying, Piercarlo Ghinzani's Ligier JS29C ran out of fuel in front of the pits: his mechanics jumped the pit wall, refuelled him on the track and then push-started him. Being a clear violation of the rules, the stewards had no choice and Ghinzani was excluded from the rest of the event.
At the start, Prost was the quickest and got the lead, only to be passed by Piquet at the second corner; Mansell soon followed his teammate. The race then became a close fight between the two Williams drivers, as Senna and Prost were no match for them. Piquet led most of the race. By lap 12 Mansell was struggling with a vibration caused by a missing wheel weight, which had become detached and fallen from the car. By lap 36 he was around 5 seconds behind his team-mate and struggling. Both Williams drivers were scheduled to complete the race without a tyre change, but due to the worsening vibration and given a comfortable gap back to Senna in third place, Mansell and the team elected to make a stop in order to change tyres and solve the problem. Mansell rejoined the race some 29 seconds behind Piquet, with 28 laps remaining. On fresh rubber Mansell began an epic charge which saw the lap record broken 11 times. By lap 62 the two cars were nose to tail and on lap 63 Mansell performed his now famous 'Silverstone Two Step' move, selling Piquet a dummy on the Hangar Straight and then diving down the inside into Stowe Corner. Mansell ran out of fuel on the slowing down lap and was engulfed by the crowd. Unknown to the outside world at the time his fuel gauge had been in the red two laps before the finish, as he crossed the line it was still showing him to be two litres short.
Read more about this topic: 1987 British Grand Prix
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