Nigel Mansell vs. Ayrton Senna and 5 Other Driver Bust-Ups

It's been 28 years since Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna collided on Lap 1 of the 1987 Belgian Grand Prix, but that afternoon is remembered for what happened after the incident rather than the crash itself.

After the race at Spa-Francorchamps was restarted due to an incident toward the back of the pack, third-placed Senna managed to jump the Williams team of Mansell and Nelson Piquet to claim the lead at the first corner.

Despite failing to capitalise on pole position, Mansell pursued the Lotus for much of the opening lap and, having benefited from a tow on the exit of the Pouhon corner, tried to pass Senna around the outside of Fagnes.

With neither driver willing to compromise, the cars made contact and spun off the track. Senna was eliminated immediately, and while Mansell got going again, he soon joined the Brazilian on the sidelines, where the fun really began.

"I went over to him, grabbed him by the overalls and pushed him up against the wall," Mansell is quoted as saying by ESPN. "He wore loose overalls in those days, and I pulled the zip up beyond his chin to just below his nose. 'Next time you do that,' I said, 'you're going to have to do a much better job.'"

Senna, for his part, seemed relaxed abut the incident, and was quoted by Tom Rubython's book, The Life of Senna, as stating: "When a man holds you round the throat, I do not think that he has come to apologise."

Spa '87 was just one of many close duels the two men would have over the years as Senna and Mansell fought relentlessly for world championships.

And to commemorate the lowest point of their relationship, here are five other driver bust-ups.

Michael Schumacher vs. David Coulthard

Having evaded the first-lap demolition derby, Michael Schumacher had established a lead of around 30 seconds at the halfway stage of the wet 1998 Belgian Grand Prix.

A winner at Spa-Francorchamps in each of the previous three seasons—the German had also taken his first F1 victory at the circuit in 1992—Schumacher was seemingly set to take another win when he came to lap David Coulthard on Lap 26.

Coulthard had endured a torrid afternoon in the conditions, sparking the initial multi-car pile-up on the run toward Eau Rouge and then colliding with Benetton's Alex Wurz on the first lap of the restart.

But as the McLaren team-mate of world championship leader Mika Hakkinen, whose points advantage would be overhauled in the event of a Schumacher win, the Scot had a job to do.

And so Coulthard failed to let Schumacher pass at the first glimpse of scarlet red in his rearview mirrors, enraging Ferrari—Jean Todt, the team principal, marched to the McLaren pits, according to ESPN's Laurence Edmondson and Chris Medland, urging the team's hierarchy to force Coulthard aside—before easing his pace dramatically as the cars approached Pouhon.

Failing to vacate the racing line, however, Coulthard left Schumacher with poor visibility in the spray and the German slammed into the rear of the McLaren, his front-right tyre catapulted into the heart of the Ardennes Forest.

With three wheels on his wagon, and with Coulthard's rear wing torn off on impact, both drivers were eliminated, coasting back to the pits to confirm their retirements.

As noted by BBC Sport's Murray Walker, it was over the course of that half-lap to the garage when Schumacher came to the conclusion that Coulthard had sacrificed his own race to aid Hakkinen's championship challenge, intentionally taking the German out of the grand prix.

Upon his return to base, Schumacher tossed the steering wheel out of the car and clambered out of the cockpit before storming toward the McLaren garage, ripping off his crash helmet and balaclava en route.

Coulthard, rather wisely, opted to keep his helmet on in anticipation of Schumacher's arrival, and only words were exchanged before Michael was ushered away by Todt and Stefano Domenicali among others.

The dislike between the pair, however, continued way beyond Spa '98.

Ayrton Senna vs. Eddie Irvine

Pascal Rondeau/Getty Images

Ayrton Senna was more of a lover than a fighter, but even Formula One's greatest philosopher found himself contaminated by the red mist on occasion.

The Brazilian was inclined to reprimanding drivers who stepped out of line—see him lecturing a young Michael Schumacher following their crash at Magny-Cours in the 1992 French Grand Prix—and most were receptive to career advice from a three-time world champion.

But in a debutant by the name of Eddie Irvine, Senna met his match at the 1993 Japanese Grand Prix.

Senna had taken the penultimate victory of his career at Suzuka but was less than impressed by Irvine's conduct, with the Jordan driver passing the Brazilian to unlap himself as he chased Damon Hill for fourth place.

An enraged Senna confronted Irvine after the race to make his feelings known, but the Ulsterman defended himself, offering some backchat to the McLaren driver, as detailed by McLaren.com here.

Before he left the Jordan garage, Senna threw a punch at Irvine, knocking him down.

Nelson Piquet vs. Eliseo Salazar

Whereas Senna managed to avoid making contact with a backmarker, his compatriot, Nelson Piquet hit one both on and off track.

After passing the Renaults of Alain Prost and Rene Arnoux in quick succession at the start, Piquet had established a lead of 26 seconds by Lap 18, when he came to lap the ATS of Eliseo Salazar.

Piquet had nudged ahead as the cars approached the Ostkurve chicane, but Salazar, who retained the inside line rather than filling in behind the Brazilian, failed to slow down sufficiently and his front-right wheel connected with the Brabham's rear-left wheel, forcing both cars into a spin.

So incensed was Piquet, denied a second win of a limp title defence, that he was already in the process of vacating the cockpit before his car came to a halt at the side of the track.

The Brazilian gesticulated frantically as he charged toward Salazar before pushing back the Chilean's head, throwing a right hand, trying to kick him and, after the pair had walked a few yards, throwing his gloves to the ground in a particularly theatrical manner directly in front of Salazar, who smartly opted to head in the opposite direction.

Piquet was accustomed to playing nasty—according to BBC Sport's Andrew Benson, he once called Nigel Mansell "an uneducated blockhead with a stupid and ugly wife" and labelled Senna "the Sao Paulo taxi driver"—but his reaction to the Hockenheim '82 incident was something else.

It remains the most iconic ding-dong in F1 history.

Luigi Fagioli vs. Rudolf Caracciola

Uncredited/Associated Press

Among the earliest bust-ups in the history of grand prix racing was between Luigi Fagioli and Rudolf Caracciola, who were team-mates at Mercedes in the 1930s.

But to refer to the pair as mates would not be entirely accurate.

An Italian driver in an all-German team, Fagioli was effectively not allowed to win by Mercedes, with team boss Alfred Neubauer ordering him to hand the lead of his debut race to Manfred von Brauchitsch, as per GrandPrixHistory.org, in 1934.

Appalled by the team's request, Fagioli parked his car in protest, leaving Neubauer outraged when he discovered the real reason behind his driver's retirement.

Despite his Mercedes career getting off to a dreadful start, Fagioli remained there for a further two years, leaving to join the Auto Union team for '37, when the frustration of his time with the Silver Arrows spilled over.

According to the same source, Fagioli was upset after being held up by Caraciolla at the Tripoli Grand Prix and attacked him with a hammer, with Neubauer and a mechanic preventing the Italian from doing serious harm.

Jarno Trulli vs. Adrian Sutil

In the modern era of Formula One, which encourages drivers to be squeaky clean, PR-friendly salesmen, good, old-fashioned bust-ups are increasingly rare.

Instead of thrashing out their differences in a trackside or paddock standoff, today's competitors meet in the controlled environment of a debrief, or use the tool that is the media, to express their anger and destabilise their opponents.

These changes mean you would have to go back six years, to the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix, to find the last time two drivers came remotely close to clashing off track.

On the opening lap at the Interlagos race, Jarno Trulli ran wide, as he challenged Adrian Sutil for fourth, dipping his wheels on the grass and spearing into the side of the Force India, who was simply minding his own business as he hurled up the hill.

While Trulli's Toyota slid along the outside barrier, Sutil's car careered across the infield and collected Fernando Alonso's Renault in a heavy shunt.

Although Trulli, in the eyes of most, was at fault for the incident, he ran over to Sutil to give the German a piece of his mind, pointing furiously as the Force India driver arm-wrestled the diminutive Italian.

The Toyota veteran, in fact, was so convinced of his innocence that he arrived at the FIA press conference for the next round, the Abu Dhabi GP, armed with photographs of the incident as the bickering continued.

They don't make 'em like they used to.

Follow @OllieHarden