BBC: Formula 1's Greatest Drivers of All Time (Top 20)

+1

The only caveat I was gonna add, was, of course, Gilles.

The only guy fit to carry Jimmy's jock IMO.

Both gentlemen in eras when gentlemen were (quite literally ) dying......

Cheers,
Ian

 

And if they raced in today's cars on today's tracks they'd have died in bed.

 

Viagra overdose?

 

Exactly, that is why I rate JS overall a great man, he had the balls to stand up and say enough is enough, when everyone around him was telling him he had no balls, like it or lump it style.

And as he mentioned, him and his wife were attending far too many driver funerals.

 

Jim Clark is clearly at the very top... and he was a winner in almost everything he touched.... and was for a time te winningest driver.... I never got to see him drive but my Dad met him several times at Watkins Glen, and always said he was a perfect gentleman. I have his autograph with my collection hung in my garage.

 

Which "professionals" might these be? And no crap he's better than I am or ever will be, it's absurd when people say things like this. It's like when you criticize your football team's QB and some guy pipes up with "well he's better than you!" No kidding! Doesn't mean they are immune to criticism. How boring would the sporting world be if only the professionals were allowed to have an opinion on anything with the rest of us meekly nodding along...

Senna was clearly annoyed by Stewart's holier -than-thou approach to everything he says. Unfortunately this approach has only worsened as he has gotten older (and seen other, better drivers come along and far surpass what he achieved). This clearly burns him up. He still thinks he's relevant but he really isn't anymore. Even Grosjean wanted nothing to do with him because he knew that working with Jackie would be like and how much it would accomplish.

I respect Jackie's achievements as a driver, but his seething jealousy for guys that are better than he ever was is obvious and sad. I have little respect for him now as he has become a boring cynic.

PS - anyone that is on the record as saying Michael Schumacher is "not a real racer and never was" is, quite frankly, an idiot or has an agenda to push. Stewart has an agenda to push, and that's to attempt to belittle the achievements of better drivers than himself, which is a shame.

The fact that he made a statement like the above about arguably the greatest of all time (and a much better driver than himself) shows he should probably step away from commenting on the sport as his jealousy has eclipsed his ability to be rational.

 

^^^ You are not alone in your opinion regarding JS's arrogance and condescending attitude/opinion ie "my shat don't stank". All he has ever done since he started commentating is criticise drivers and how he would have done better.

Maybe he should have jumped into one of his own F1 cars ie put up or shut up?

ps, Thank your "Lucky Stars" you name is not Paul.

 

this is what makes Nuvolari , Stewart, Brabham, Moss and Hulme some of the VERY best, as they raced in eras when the mortality rate was high (particularly for Tazio !) and apart from Hulme (died of heart attack) and Nuvolari (he DID die in bed), will all probably die in bed

For Tazio to have died in bed after all the scary racing he did is remarkable in itself, he definitely made a pact with the devil.

The one blot on Senna's skill is he knew that an accident would win him the WDC and he would probably not get killed doing it, whereas roughly from Stewart's era back a crash was fraught with a possible life-ending result.

90% of today's drivers are brilliant and have to deal with a lot of information while driving at insane speeds, I often wonder how Tazio would have handled all those knobs on the F1 steering wheel

 

We'll never know but I suspect that he'd excel in any era.
While I would never suggest anything that would compromise safety there should be greater consequences for going off track.
Fewer and fewer fans (and drivers) remember what drivers of earlier eras risked. You don't have to go back to Paris-Madrid, as recently as the sixties fatalities were a matter of course in all forms of racing.

 

in the sixties the driving was dangerous and sex safe, totally the other way 'round now

 

Miss the days when the tires were skinny and the drivers weren't?
I'd like to see the return of drivers taking a swig of whiskey during pit stops.

 

Professionals= current drivers. Your critique I belive just shows your lack of understanding.
-

There is an interview with Stewart in the most recent F1 magazine... Stewart is right that people need coaches and the Grosjean does not want to listen, is to his detriment. its not that Stewart is going to show him how to drive the lines... but more about being consistent, mental management etc... regardless of of when he raced - he's won 3 WDC Grosjean - 0

I dont see where he is Jealous? of what?


I think you are referring to when schumacher did a few illegal - un ethical moves... Stewart was / is right. perhaps because cars are safer today, drivers think they can push things more- and have more contact & accidents and walk away... but still ifyou are so great you should not have to drive people off the track... Schumacher had a record of not so subtle and agressive moves & contact. I Think Schumacher is one of the all time top 3 but his accidents ( that he caused) detract from being the best.

 

remember the Italian Count who use to race in a suit and drank all the time he was racing ?

What a role model he was

 

Family had a textile business if I remember right.
Ran the MM with a copilot even cuter than Jenks.

According to a recent Motorsport article today's drivers sign two contracts. One for driving the other for PR. One of the reasons Lewis jumped ship is that MB allows its drivers to do much more individual marketing than Macca does.

Somehow I don't see Black Jack selling tee shirts and kissing sponsor's azzes.

 

You think Stewart at 70+ years old is better than some of the current field? Come on, you can't be serious. Like in what way? Best at wearing a plaid hat?

Grosjean has already been told all this. There is nothing that Jackie could have told him his own handlers/team principal haven't. It would just be dead weight on the kid to have the old man hanging around looking over his shoulder criticizing his every move (and most assuredly running his mouth to the media about Grosjean's progress or lack thereof). Very smart move on Grosjean's part to decline, IMO.

Nope, Stewart point blank labelled MS "not a real racer." His is tremendously jealous of Michael's achievements and it shows. I recently read another article where he was attempting to undermine Schumi's wins total by saying "look how many more races he raced than me." Sorry Jackie, but his career win % is > yours.

We could go tit for tat all night on here, but the fact is, Stewart has a big mouth and he's jealous of a few other drivers that have outdone his career. We will have to agree to disagree about him being a top 5 great but what I have on my side is nearly every F1 opinion piece on the best drivers ever that I've seen leaves him out of the top 5 (and top 10 in many).

Food for thought.

 

Ha why's that?

 

Guys, here's my take on Juan Manuel Fangio, with a little on Stirling, a piece I wrote a while ago for a different readership.

It is always interesting, though not necessarily meaningful, to compare and try to rank the truly great athletes from different eras. One has to recall that circumstances differed, most often dramatically. I was lucky enough to watch in person a good deal of international motor racing in the 1950's, 60's and 70's. Jim Clark is surely in the pantheon of the greatest motor racing drivers in history. I was at his races at Monaco, Silverstone, Zandvoort (Netherlands G.P.), and Spa. As to Stirling Moss, I attended the race that he says is one of the two best he ever drove, the 1961 Monaco G.P., where in a seriously underpowered 4-cyl Lotus-Climax he beat the far more powerful V-6 Ferraris of Phil Hill and Richie Ginther. I also personally saw Juan Manuel Fangio race and if I had to pick one driver for one race, Fangio would be the man. Recall that he started motor racing in Argentina in a hot-rod Chevie, over mountain dirt roads that were more traces than roads. He was already almost 40 years old when he first came to Europe to race and 46 when he won the last of his five World Drivers Championships in four different cars for four different teams. His win on the Nurburgring Nordschleife in 1957 in an outclassed Maserati was truly epic. He led by 30 seconds over Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins in much faster Ferraris, had a disastrous pit stop on lap 13 (of 20) that put him almost a minute behind Hawthorn (the next year's world champion) and Collins and on the next 7 laps of the most treacherous circuit in racing history, broke the lap record on each succeeding lap, passing both Hawthorn and Collins to win the race and the world championship. P.S. if you click on his name you can find a Youtube URL of Fangio driving laps at Monza. Check it out, notice how rough the road surface is, how the suspension is constantly working, how the curbs are 6 inches high - no possibility to mount the curbs, and how infinitely close to each apex Fangio places the wheels. It is unbelievable. The man won 24 of the 52 Formula 1 races he entered! Also recall how many drivers from that era died racing, except Fangio and Moss who sustained almost fatal injuries at Silverstone and Hawthorn who died in a road accident. Moss, Clark, Schumacher, Prost and Senna were truly great, Alonso and Vettel are in the process of writing their own remarkable histories, Moss the best ever not to be world champion and surely the best ever in true open road races, a format Fangio hated. But Fangio was in a class by himself. Just my 2c.

 

Thanks.
I've always been impressed how both Fangio and Moss recognized each others talents.
Fangio giving Moss the nod in sports cars, Moss giving Fangio the edge is open wheeled cars.

 

P.S. Thinking about posts on this thread about Gilles Villeneuve's greatness, I've taken another look at his record. Gilles Villeneuve is a romantic's dream, a blindingly fast driver when everything went well, but to place him as high as 11th in this list of serious Formula 1 racers is to me rubbish. Gilles was talented, enormously charming, and very quick. And Enzo Ferrari's darling precisely because he was who and what he was.

But the point of racing is not to be fast, not to be charming, not to be romantic, it's to win races. To be a champion one has to win races, lots of them. And to win races one has to finish races. In four full seasons and small parts ot two other seasons Gilles started 67 F1 races. He failed to finish 25 races and was disqualified in two more. He qualified in only 40 of 67 races, fewer than 2/3ds of the races he started. He had only 12 podiums AND HE WON JUST SIX RACES, IN JUST OVER FOUR SEASONS! And he was not a young kid when he killed himself, he was 32 years old.

To place him above the world champions listed below him is a very bad joke.

Almost everyone puts Nigel Mansell in the top ten F1 drivers - a world championship, 187 F1 starts, 31 F1 wins, 59 podiums (almost as many f1 race podiums as Villeneuve drove races), 32 poles and 30 fastest laps, 480 career points. Villeneuve ahead of Graham Hill? double F1 world champion, the only driver ever to triple crown: F1 World Champion, Indy 500 and le Mans 24 Hours winner. Ahead of Jack Brabham and Nelson Piquet, both three times world champions, and Emerson Fittipaldi and Mika Haakinen, both double world champions? Don't make me laugh.

One can be enchanted by his myth, enchanted by the romance of what might have been, enchanted as Enzo was by his speed and pure driving talent. But you play the game to win, You have to finish to have a chance to win. Gilles probably wouldn't be in my top twenty all-time F1 drivers. Much too little accomplished.

just my 2c

 

Very well said. I've posted similar in the past and was lambasted with "but but but he was 7 seconds faster than the rest in that wet practice session!"

The rose tinted glasses are certainly in full effect with many when looking back on Gilles V's career.

 

some of the stories I have read about his driving on public roads with other people's lives as passengers makes for good reading but is highly irresponsible ..... I know because I have done similarly stupid things

From an old motor magazine about Gilles and Jody :
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Good stuff!

 

Gilles Villeneuve is a romantics F-1 Driver. You are right that his results really dont point to the respect that his legend has earned... however:

In 4.5 seasons he had really only 2 competent cars and really only 1 worthy car...312t4 and could have been WDC in 79, but followed team orders... he could have easily beat Scheckter at a couple races...

in 1982 he was tipped to be WC as was Pironi after wards but really hard to say.

he was a ragged and wild driver, as well as pilot, had he gone to Williams or Brabham he could have been WDC at least 1 if not 2X.

For car control and sheer bravery - he would be up there with Nouvalari ....

 

When Grosjean is a 3x champion then he can say all he wants. I guess why I'm so perplexed by your comments is that I've never heard Jackie Steward say anything about any drivers that was not deserved, and really have not heard him compare him self against Schumacher or any current drivers and say that He was better????

does he call a spade a spade - yes! does he call guys out for sloppy or poor driving yes. I think you should talk to Johnny Herbert, Rubesn Barichello, and Jan Magnussen for opinions on Stewart...

Herbert and Magnussen Sp? - did not really take his advice and they were out in F-1 and never really got top drives....

Barichello took his advice and coaching and was racing at the highest level for years.. same for Coulthard, Franchitti, McNish and many others.... just sayin.

As for being better than current drivers - well, perhaps not in an F-1 car, becuase of his heart condiditon today, however in equal road cars - I'd go with him 100% - smooth, concise, and easy on the equipment.... that's the way to go.

In the end - doesn not matter what we think.

 

TifosiUSA,

Stewart raced and won when F1 was dangerous. MS didn't ...
Stewart also retired at his prime, MS didn't (that would have meant retiring around 2002).

Pete