The story behind DRIVER61
Videos about the technical side of F1 and extraordinary machines, made by a small team and presented by me, Scott Mansell.
The original DRIVER61
My love for motorsport started with my dad, Kevin (not Nigel). I grew up around the circuits of the UK, watching him throw his Lotus Cortina around with finesse and style, always to the delight of the spectators and commentators.
He did it while running his own team, Mansell Motorsport, engineering and developing customers’ cars. His racing number was 61, taken from the year my mum was born. He was the original DRIVER61.
He passed his motorsport knowledge on to me. Now it’s my turn to do the same, with the help of the internet, for a much bigger audience.
Karts, single-seaters and an F1 car at 18
I got my first kart at four and started racing at eight. I loved every second, without realising my dad was teaching me how to drive, race and prepare mentally, and how to engineer the machinery to reach its potential.
After karting I raced lower-level single-seaters for a couple of seasons, then took an unusual route: a seven-year-old F1 car in the European BOSS GP series, at 18 years and 4 days old. Back then Formula Renault and BMW were the accepted paths, and putting anyone under 20 in an F1 car was rare.
I won the championship and broke five outright lap records. That raised a few eyebrows: I was nominated for the McLaren Autosport Young Driver Award, tested with Christian Horner’s Arden team in GP2, and met a couple of interested F1 teams.
The long way round
As is all too common in motorsport, the budget ran out. After a couple of years in and out of Indy Lights and European F3000, I focused on developing race cars and coaching drivers.
I’ve coached in more than twenty countries, helping hundreds of racing and track-day drivers get faster, safer and more consistent. Along the way I’ve tested or raced over 30 different F1 cars for private owners, bookended by 1982 and 2012 Lotuses, and more recently a Formula E car.
Why videos
In 2015 I started filming to share what my dad taught me with a much wider audience. Racing technique first, then the technical side of Formula 1, then the stories of the people and machines that changed the sport.
Our videos have now been watched for more than 3 billion minutes. That’s over 5,000 years. We go behind the scenes with F1 teams and suppliers, and spent the whole 24 hours of Le Mans in Ferrari’s garage.
1.5M+
YouTube subscribers
3B+
minutes watched
30+
F1 cars driven
Giving back
In 2024 I drove a simulator for 24 hours straight, streamed live, and our community raised more than £35,000. That money built a school in Cartagena, Colombia, which I visited in July 2025.
