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

We must be brothers separated by an Ocean... my dad is the same way. He has a huge library at their home as well as a 70ft. slot car track that we used to use every sunday when I was a kid... so I grew up with all he famous names & marques... I knew more about Moss, and Clark, Gurney Hill, etc.. than I did about football... still do!

 

Friends, I just took another look at the first season of modern F1, 1950. It consisted of just seven races, including the Indianapolis 500. Of the six F1 races in Europe, my all-time number one, Fangio, and his Alfa Romeo teammate Giuseppe Farina, each won three. Farina finished fourth at Spa while Fangio had three DNF's through mechanical failure, not his doing as he was the gentlest on machinery of that generation of drivers. Farina's 4th place finish at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa behind ***ioli (Alfa) and Rosier (Talbot) !!! gave him the three points sufficient to take the first WDC from Fangio. It is noteworthy that Fangio had four poles to Farina's one and that all three of Farina's wins were in races in which Fangio retired and in two of which Fangio was on pole. Had Juan Manual finished one more race it is certain that he would have had another WDC, his sixth. And in the 1950 season, his first, Fangio was already 39 years old! He went on to take five world championships in four different manufacturers' cars. Incontestably the best.

 

Firstly, happy birthday Krafty! Have one from me. Cheers!

Indeed - 7 minutes is *forever* and that didn't happen often. However, I recall looking at results when there was 1-2 minutes between the first few guys quite often - Half a lap or so, with only 2-3 guys finishing on the lead lap wasn't that unusual. ["You tell that to the young people of today, and they won't believe you!" ]

+1 I think you may have a point there.

Cheers,
Ian

 

And, as the Viz likes to note, "if my grandma had wheels, she'd be a bus."

I'd say *arguably* the best........ Certainly in the top 2-3. However, and I'll defer to those more knowledgeable about his era, but the knock (for want of a better term) against him was he generally found himself in the best car and jumped ship regularly to ensure that. Winning with different marques is a double edged sword.

Dropped the love for Nigel it seems!?

Cheers,
Ian

 

Fangio's European record is stellar. When you add in his early South American racing (as hairy as it gets) he looks even better.

 

+1

I'm sure he'll be #1 in this poll, and I have no problem with that. Perm any of him, Ayrton and Jimmy in the top 3 and it's all good. Michael right behind of course......

Cheers,
Ian

 

Thanks Ian will do, the count down to the vino has now started.

 

Ya, know, I really wonder about Michael... 7 WDC's is super impressive the most winningest driver - by a large margin, BUT... he did have a lot of accidents, incidents etc... he was not shal we say the most gracious driver out there .... it will be interesting to see how posterity treats him.

cool, calculating - machine like - ultra fit, and always had THE best car... BUT he did turn Ferrari around from one of the worst droughts in its history:

racing on the day after his mother died...
Crying in the debrief room after winning ...
fake hitting the wall in Monaco quali
taking out Villeneuve in Spain
Swerving and driving people up to the wall at a start
Huge donation to tsunami victims...

so he does have a human face... it will be interesting to see where he is ranked in 20 years...

today the "agressive moves" are so regulated against... and that basically came from Schumacher...

 

1996 to 1998 he didn't.

Schumacher learnt this from Senna.
Pete

 

+1 I certainly hear you.

However, over a career as long as his, at that level, **** is gonna happen..... And how many of 'em can we really say were truly "gracious" over their winning years?......

Indeed - I suspect "we" tend to forget the bad and "enhance" the good as time passes - History will (and I think should) treat him kindly - I don't think his records will be broken.

Cheers,
Ian

 

I assume he was onlytalking about f.1...tazio was before that.

 

Funny thing about Fangio is that many seem to forget the other great driver of his era...Ascari!!! However, i´ve head Moss, who as we all know as an absolute admiration for his former team mate, rate Ascari as higly as Fangio...he said there wasn´t much to choose between the both. And just the other day, Nigel Roebuck said that D.Jenkinson rated Ascari higher than Fangio, saing that in equal cars, Fangio would not stand a chance against Ascari....Nigel said he also had this discussion with Jenks about Prost/Senna, saing that Jenks would put Senna above Prost without any doubts, while he had some doubts but, he would not argue the case Ascari/Fangio, because unlike D.Jenkinson he had not been there to actualy watch them race!!!

 

Jenks is /was the master of F-1 knowledge. The first time I ran into him at a race was in the brabham pit and I was thinking - "who is this dirty long beared guy ? " I mean he used to actually smell... and that was somehting over all the petrol in the garage... I think I first saw him in Mexico 87.

anyhow, Jenks was always rating Senna over Prost, but I'm the opposite. Prost was the "thinking" driver ... Senna was the gung ho natural talent...

Prost was very precise and deliberate - in his heyday you had to manage the car , conserve tires & fuel and nurse broken cars... and he was a master at that. Senna was just a wild natrual talent... but some time did not use his head- Monaco 88 as a good example... I cant think of any races where Prost lost it ( Imola 91 excepted ) because he was going to fast... either the car broke or he finished...

 

Dionysus and Apollo.
Not the first, nor last time we've seen that in F1.

 

I cant think of any races where Prost lost it ( Imola 91 excepted ) because he was going to fast... either the car broke or he finished...[/QUOTE]

...Hummm..Monaco 82...alone in front and slamed it in the barriers, Holand 83, trying to pass Piquet and hit him..puting nelson out and later he also had to park his car...but true, he made very few mistakes...

 

...Hummm..Monaco 82...alone in front and slamed it in the barriers, Holand 83, trying to pass Piquet and hit him..puting nelson out and later he also had to park his car...but true, he made very few mistakes...[/QUOTE]

I forgot the Holland one... good point ... Monaco i think was brakes going into the old Tabac corner... car just snapped to the right... I'll have to look that up to make sure... but still Prost has usually been a very neat and smooth driver... I think his reputation as a complainer really is un deserved, but at the time with JM Balestre & all the French in charge the UK press had a field day on him!

 

I was gonna let that little error slide.......

 

Not in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 (debatable), 2005, 2006 (debatable), 2010, 2011 or 2012.

In those years where he did not have the best car he still won 43 races and won 2 titles (narrowly missing out on 2 more).

Michael proved he didn't need the best car to win.

 

Like Mark Twain, reports of his demise were premature.

 

But Vettel despite 2008-2009 and start of 2012 still hasn't?

 

Uh first off, who said anything about Vettel?

Secondly, I'm not sure what your point is here. Vettel has yet to prove he can win in a car that isn't the best.

 

I repeat.... 2008-2009 and start of 2012.