Formula for Success: Multilevel modelling of F1 Driver/Constructor 1950-2014

Yap...and usualy, Ronnie would pick up Mario's or Fittipaldi ca rand go faster then them, leaving them seriously pissed, lolololo

 

+1

Ronnie at his best was simply beautiful to watch.

Kinda like watching Gilles - They just made it look easy.

Then we'd grab the lap time(s) & many times it just didn't seem possible.... I remember questioning my stopwatch one time....

Cheers,
Ian

 

Agreed. There's good reason Alain is "the Prof".

I recall being in the Lotus pit one time when Mario came in & asked for "two more turns negative at the rear."

Colin didn't even question it - Just told the guys to do it. Generally, he wanted to be the one making those calls, but not with Mario.

Cheers,
Ian

 

This is why statistics don't mean anything when it comes to talent. It's not a spec series. When someone has it, you know. In my opinion....

Clark had it
Rindt had it
Peterson had it
Gilles had it
Senna had it
Haikkinen had it
Alonso has it
Verstappen has it

 

Not sure I'd go quite that far, but I certainly get your point.

No Michael!?

I think it's very early days for young Max yet, I'd say 'promising' as of today. Other than that, no argument from me on any of those guys.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Right below Piquet. Oh, I forgot Prost too

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_6gPTb1Q70[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqrFBs_OrVo[/ame]

 

The Brabham BT49 was the best car on the grid thanks to the self adjusting suspension that let the skirts do their magic and create the necessary downforce. The Ford DFV was not as powerful as the Ferrari or Renault engines but it was much more reliable and drivable, the turbo lag in the early turbos was notorious. Piquet was a great driver but he had the best car on the grid and still nearly lost the title to Reuteman, who just plain quit in the end.

 

I over exaggerated the "doesn't matter". No Michael for me. I just didn't see it. He's a legend in his own right, but for me he didn't have it. Prost didnt have it and I regard him as top 3(and would've been 5 time wdc if he didn't stop monaco). He was a genius like Michael and made himself the champion. Like Lauda, like Stewart. Different kind of talent. Raw speed and the ability to hop in and go vs brains to make the car suit you.

 

Piquet and Stewart pfft shouldn't even be in the top ten for either

 

Once again, I certainly hear you, & to a large extent agree. But Michael at his best was a wonderful thing.....

However, I'd have to say that Ronnie was pretty unique in his ability to drive any ol' POS. He didn't need it to suit him, he'd just wring its neck..... Think I've related this tale before; in Monaco one time he binned it on Friday. The guys built a new car overnight, but didn't have time to do any real alignment work ahead of qualy - They just 'eyeballed' it. Ronnie *loved* it!.... Wheels pointing all over the place, who knows what corner weights, and he went way quicker than with a 'real' car......

Cheers,
Ian

 

Yep and its an amazing story every time. He had "it". Watching footage of him around corners sideways is always a pleasure.

It's all subjective who is the "best"

 

I liked Piquer description about someother drivers...about Gilles:

"Gilles wore a helmet that was too small for his head,so it compressed his brain,and he went out on track doing all sort of crazy things!!!!!"

About Prost:
"Prost was very ugly,so in order to get girls,he made himself friends with other drivers so he could stea theyr women!!!"

DE Cesaris:
Being in the midle of the grid is very dangerous, you're in the car before the start,you look at your side and you see some ****ing guys like De Cesaris, you imidiatly lose all the will to race!!!"

Barrichelo:
The guy is just too slow, he's 1s a lap slower then the top guys,in one lap he can even hold his own but during the race he is simply too slow...

Mansell:
Mansell is ****...
I like pretty women,he likes ugly women

 

Having some fun...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhEtHhHz4kQ&ebc=ANyPxKo8UlytJY17KLDnnABqocZGISQTGOtF4Yad0iG7tqgyzhxMSztxPXXmFCnfj7nd3XcIgKQQwDD8HMktOpCnopV19XgLyA

 

Thank you Pedro, hope they release this in English and French so they can play it on the Jumbotron in Montreal. The folks I've met in Section 12 (Senna Curve) would enjoy it immensely.

As for the list, agree with those who saw Christian in position 11.

All that needs to be said.

 

Piquet's very personal insults and attacks towards Roseanne Mansell marked him out as a complete sh:censored:t as far as I was ever concerned! - What did she ever do to him?

It was pathetic!

After he made those comments I never rated him as a person ever again!

 

It was very tongue-in-cheek and destined to annoy Mansell. I can see the funny side of it.
There was something odd about the Mansell couple.

Mansell wasn't really the most endearing guy, and Roseanne seemed to shadow him everywhere. There were whispers that she was the reason behind the sudden break-up in negotiations between Mansell and Williams the year he won his WDC.

Personally, I like Piquet, and I think he was a really good driver, in the Lauda and Prost league. Piquet was a character; Mansell a stick in the mud ...

 

Err.... I think you're remembering things with the rose tinted glasses this time!

Piquet on Mansell (From: Formula 1's greatest drivers. Number 16: Nelson Piquet - BBC Sport ) :

"an uneducated blockhead with a stupid and ugly wife"

One of his comments about Rosanne Mansell (From: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nad8CAAAQBAJ&pg=PT99&lpg=PT99&dq=what+did+nelson+piquet+say+about+roseanne+mansell&source=bl&ots=jmsyuDGXVw&sig=WDCrFwevZZgGM-sUsaIHORT83fQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjsJn0hKXMAhVbF8AKHZp8D-k4ChDoAQgbMAA#v=onepage&q=what%20did%20nelson%20piquet%20say%20about%20roseanne%20mansell&f=false)

"She shouldn't be allowed in the paddock because she is too ugly!"

How is calling another man's wife ugly just being: "tongue in cheek"?

I can remember very well reading the comments he made about Roseanne Mansell at the time, and they were in no way, shape or form humorous. lightweight, or "tongue in cheek" - They were despicable, nasty comments made by someone who showed himself to be a nasty piece of work!

You can idolise him all you want! - To Me he will always be a low-life piece of sh:censored:t for the comments he made!

Here you go, have a good read from back in the day about your hero Piquet and his "tongue in cheek" comments!: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19880410&id=KzBWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=huQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2589,7224248&hl=en

 

I am not surprised that you and me also disagree on this subject.

I liked Piquet, and I didn't like Mansell.

Period.

 

Well, let's see what Alain himself had to say about that:

"Gilles was the last great driver. The rest of us are just a bunch of good professionals." - Alain Prost

Not results? At the 1979 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, the Friday practice had rain and extremely wet conditions. Drivers went out and pushed their limits, scared themselves silly, went as fast as they dared... then watched as Gilles went out in even worse conditions, ran lap after lap, ending up 11 SECONDS faster than anyone else. His teammate Schechter said "I scared myself rigid that day. I thought I had to be quickest. Then I saw Gilles's time and I still don't really understand how it was possible. Eleven seconds!"

"When we saw him going out in the rain, we said, 'This we've got to see'," renowned F1 journalist Dennis Jenkinson recalled. "Some members of the press, who think they know it all, don't bother going out when it rains. But I was on the corner watching him and all the hardball members of the press were with me. We had to see this. It was something special. Oh, he was fantastic! He was unbelievable!"

Nigel Roebuck was another 'hardballer' who braved the elements and saw the performance first hand.

"Gilles was the one bloke who made you go and look for a corner in a practice session, because you knew that where everybody else would go through it as if on rails, Gilles would be worth watching. That day in the rain at Watkins Glen was almost beyond belief. It truly was.

"You would think he had 300 horsepower more than anybody else. It just didn't seem possible. The speed he was travelling at didn't bear any relation to anybody else. He was 11 seconds faster. Jody was next fastest and couldn't believe it, saying he had scared himself rigid! I remember [Jacques] Laffite in the pits just giggling when Gilles went past and saying, 'Why do we bother? He's different from the rest of us. On a separate level'."

On returning to the pits Villeneuve whipped off his helmet and beamed at the assembled members of the paddock, who were looking on in disbelief. "That was fun," he said. "I was flat in fifth on the straight, about 160mph. It should have been faster but the engine had a misfire and was down about 600 revs. But for that I could have gone quite a bit faster, but then maybe I would have crashed."

Harvey Postlethwaite, who was hired by Ferrari to design the follow-on and much more successful 126C2 that won the Constructors' Championship in 1982, later commented on the 126C: "That car...had literally one quarter of the downforce that, say Williams or Brabham had. It had a power advantage over the Cosworths for sure, but it also had massive throttle lag at that time. In terms of sheer ability I think Gilles was on a different plane to the other drivers. To win those races, the 1981 GPs at Monaco and Jarama — on tight circuits — was quite out of this world. I know how bad that car was."

 

I am not disputing that Gilles Villeneuve was not spectacular, very talented, combative, charismatic and "special", but I do not agree that he was the BEST of his era as someone claimed.

The WDC results agree with me.

 

I suppose if you just go by the results, then Schumacher is the undisputed best...

GV's record does not match what he would have achieved... he dutifully ran as #2 to Scheckter in 79, when he could have won the title himself that year if he was a character of lesser integrity. The Ferrari of 80 and 81 was pure crap. In 82 he had a good car again, and was in with a great chance to win the title that year. He was also set to move back to McLaren again for 83, and looking at the cars McLaren had through the 80s, it would have been shortsighted to bet against GV to have won another title, or two, or three.

The fact that his career was cut short before he even hit his prime is what prevented him from posting more impressive numbers, not a lack of skill, determination, or capability.

It's actually rather crass to claim the facts prove that GV was a lesser driver - the facts actually say that GV did not have the same opportunity to prove himself over a full career.

I'll close with referring back to Prost himself, who stated that GV was the last of the great drivers, in a class above the rest of them.

 

Piquet was a joker and shouldn't be taken seriously. He admitted numerous times that he did all the antics and insults he could think about in order to provoke anger from Mansell and to try to divide the Williams team. He did so because he didn't want to share any of his set ups with the other side of the garage.
Remember that Mansell tested the active suspension first and said it was crap. Piquet, on the other hand, brought the responsibility for himself, patiently developed the system with the engineers and after some races was winning by huge margin. Then later Mansell got it for granted and Piquet decided to start the mental war.

+1

"Mansell is fast, a fast idiot" :-D

 

I never liked Mansell - I just supported him whilst he drove for Ferrari (as I do for all of the drivers: Whilst they drive for Ferrari they get My full support, once they leave Ferrari for another team then they're just another rival that needs to be beaten!).

Whilst Mansell was often a brave, hard driver, there was far too much moaning, whining, whinging and complaining that went with him, along with all the pathetic collapsing from the effort of driving the car nonsense - Made to look worse by the fact that other drivers had no problems whatsoever when they got out of their cars! (Someone should have told Mansell that if it was taking that much effort for him to drive the cars then he simply wasn't fit enough!)

So william and Flavio_C, You both think that publicly insulting another man's wife in the national press, saying that she is ugly, is perfectly acceptable? (and in the case of william, you actually think it's funny?).

You both think that disparaging, ridiculing and publicly humiliating another man's wife is a worthy action from an F1 World Champion?

I take it then that if someone came along and publicly said that your wife was ugly, putting it on facebook, twitter, Fchat or wherever, then you'd just laugh it of as being a joke and "tongue in cheek"?

I can only assume then that if your wife took major offence at what had been written about her, you'd simply tell her: "Oh behave yourself woman - It's only a joke!"? - I'm sure your wives would love to hear that!


All I can say is that My own personal standards must be a bit higher than both of yours!

Publicly (or privately for that matter), insulting, offending and ridiculing another man's wife for a "joke" is a cheap shot that is pretty low as far as I'm concerned, and not the actions of a Gentleman!

Your lack of disgust at Piquet resorting to that sort of thing and feeling that Mansell's wife was fair game to be publicly attacked tells Me a lot about you - And it's not good!

 

This post has been reported.

 

Good for you! - You've still haven't answered the questions though:

Are wives and girlfriends fair game for public humiliation and insults, in the manner that Piquet did to Roseanne Mansell?

I think Piquet was out of order, but Your previous posts on the subject seem to imply that you think he wasn't! - I'm just trying to find out why you think it was okay for Piquet to do it.

To Me, resorting to those sort of "tactics", lowers his standing as being one of the great drivers!

(I can't remember any other driver having to resort to insulting other drivers wives or girlfriends in order to gain an edge! I'm pretty sure Stirling Moss, Jim Clarke, Gilles Villeneuve, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, or even James Hunt never felt that they had to do it!)