It was on this day in 1997 that Britain’s champion racing river Nigel Mansell was stopped by police on a country road in Somerset for the offence which would famously lead to a driving ban.

The then 43-year-old - winner of the Formula One world championship five years earlier - was caught breaking the 70mph speed limit in a brand new turbo-charged Bentley he'd purchased two weeks previously for £233,000.

As Mansell had already accumulated nine penalty points for previous speeding offences, the Somerset indiscretion saw Yeovil magistrates ban him from driving for six months and fine him £400.

Mansell's ban was an embarrassment for the RAC given that they had used the star only months previously to launch a new learner-driver training package.

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