Greatest F1 driver?

[Chris Gibbs]

Hi,

Now that Micheal Schumacher has retired, I think it's time to decide his place among the Great drivers of all time.

Certainly the statistics showh him to be the best driver, but did drivers from earlier ages have more skill, do the modern machines do some of the driving?

Personally my favourite was Jim Clark, how about you?

Cheers

Chris

[Scottc]

For me, there's no question

Aryton Senna.

[ecosse]

From a purely nationalistic perspective either Jim Clarke or Jackie Stewart :p , old timers would be Fangio or Ascari :cool:
I find it hard to rate Schumacher due to his "take no prisoners" :eek: technique and the undoubted car advantage Ferrari held for quite a few of those winning years, but definetely a very skilled driver who might be appreciated more a few years down the line!

Cheers

Alex
PS
Good site, it should get busy as the book starts to sell ;)

[Neil P]

I go with Senna.

Schumacher is/was definately a very talented driver. He could win from the back row and somehow his strategies (or team strategies) seem to come together more often than not. He has won races that I thought he had completely blown with drive through penalties and spins, but he just kept coming back.

However, I'm with Alex on this - Don't like him, don't like his tactics. The way he won some of his races, and ultimately championships really stinks.

He did get to retire though and I wouldn't mind being a couple of quid behind him. The rich, cheating............

Neil

[UncleFista]

I suppose it depends on what you consider "best" IMHO probably the best driver was Schumacher, but the best to watch was Senna.

I amire Schumi, but you kinda knew what was going to happen when he was on pole, whereas with Senna there was the element of unpredicability, dunno how much of that is down to modern systems and F1 technology, but I'd prefer to watch Senna race :)


Tony Bond / UncleFista

www.bradford7.co.uk

Love is like a snowmobile, speeding across the frozen tundra.
Which suddenly flips, pinning you underneath.
At night the ice-weasels come...

[Chris Gibbs]

I'll see your Senna and raise you......

Juan Miguel Fangio.

Jim Clark' still the best though:)

Cheers

Chris:)

[andyps]

I have a feeling that Jim Clark has a very good claim to the best driver accolade, but I am not old enough to have seen him in action;) Certainly, when you look at his record, and ability to win in any category there can be no doubt that he is right at the top.

I guess you have to place an interpretation on "Greatest" - statistically it is the Cobbler, but when you consider the opposition (or more specifically at times, the lack of it) and the fact that he was largely in the best car available with a team mate who was not allowed to beat him I don't put him as near the greatest. Of recent drivers it would certainly be Senna, but even he had his faults in terms of ethics on the track.

If talking about "racers" drivers such as Nigel Mansell have to be considered - he may have lacked the natural talent of greats like Clark and Senna, but he would always put on a great performance because of his racer instinct (and pretty big balls) - wish we had more drivers prepared to take chances like he did at teh moment to liven up the show!

So who do I vote for - Jim Clark!

[sduncanson]

It may be controversial but I'd have to go for Mansell, he may not have been the most gifted but he was a hard worker who pushed himself to the limit and beyond and managed to show the Americans how to do it.

In terms of car control, you'd have to put Senna up there, possilby with Nelson Piquett, and definately Fangio.

There's also a large number of drivers who never really got the cars or the luck who could give any of the above a run for their money, I guess it's one of those arguments that will just go on and on....

[Renrut]

Slightly off topic, Im not gonna cast a vote on driving ability (cos I don't know anything much about F1 pre 1980), but worst personality has to go to Micheal Schumacher. Based on the things he is prepared to do to come first (Ferrari's engineered first, etc) but also I do know someone who has had dinner with some of the F1 drivers of 5-10 years ago. Their opinion of Schumacher is that he is as much of an arrogant c**t in real life as people often think he is. No language bias either cos she's Austrian.

[G-Man]

i have refrained from this thread so far due to very strong opinions on the subject of herr schumacher and his win or take off your nearest rival tactics, but i feel i must speak (or explode).
i have refused to watch a whole GP ever since he shunted Damon Hill to stop him finishing a race(thats a long time ago) i have had many arguments with people over his 'tactic', and some people see it as all part of racing (which i don't believe to be the case) and if that is the case why don't they just put them in bangers?




rant over

eeeer i seem to have rambled off track

[jroberts]

There can be only one....Gilles Villeneuve :cool:

[G-Man]

to be honnest anyone from the turbo era should be in the top driver list just because they piloted some of the most insane F1 cars going

[ecosse]

Gilles Villeneuve...who's he then? :p

I understand your feeling about Shumi G-Man, but I never liked Damon that much so it didn't put me off greatly ;)
And to be fair Shumi is not the first (or probably the last) to deliberately drive people off the track, although most of the other did it out of dislike for the person they took off, whereas Shumi would happily take anyone off without a second thought :mad:

Cheers

Alex
PS
but I can't remember an instance of a driver parking on a race track to deliberately impede others :eek:

[Chris Gibbs]

We seem to have forgotten Stirling Moss.

I've just been reading Robert Edwards' fantastic pictorial biography of Stirling and He was (and is) a remarkable character.

I was particularly impressed with his decision to quit motor racing when his accident meant he couldn't be 100% again, people were lining up to give him a drive, but he wouldn't compromise, a brave decision.

Cheers

Chris:)

[Scottc]

I completely agree with you G-Man. Whether its part of racing or not its not very sporting.
Damon didn't ram schuey at Monaco when he beat Graham Hill's record.

[bob]

Hello lads ;)

I would love to have seen a few years of schumi V senna,that would have sorted them out.

Unfortunatly though 1994 was a directional year with sennas death and i doubt if he had survived that damon would have collected his crown in 96.

Anyway

My vote goes with john surtees, probably the only person who will ever be world champion on two and four wheels.

[bozla]

I think someone needs to mention Prost...

[Land Locked]

Niki Lauda seems to have been fogotten in all the senna/shumi worship.

[rhys007]

Senna

Plain & simple:D

He over acheived in under acheiving cars, took on & beat all comers in his era (read Prost, Mansell etc) & drove with style, panache & skill.

Very often as awe inspiring as he was misunderstood, & I for one will forever be scarred by the image of the Tamburello (I think that was the corner?)robbing this world of the greatest driver to have graced the planet,:( finally in a car to show the young upstarts (read Schumi) just how to drive.

I'm not quite old enough to have been able to appreciate Clarke, Fangio etc & of course Schumi has every record under the sun but a machine inside a machine quickly got stale & boring. Senna was a combination of the best;

Flair- Fangio
Balls- Mansell
Tactician- Prost
Ruthlessness- Schumi
Skill- Clarke

Anyone I missed out.

[fabbyglass]

John Surtess, as the only geeza to have won both car championship and bikes.

[fabbyglass]

Hero worshipping is worrying though, bit like the footie bollix and making it's way to cars and bikes....:o

[Matthew]

Surtees - amazing car and bike control in an era where the machinery wasn't anything like as good as it is now so the drivers had to compensate.

I was at a bike race school many years ago at Brands (on Superdreams so that dates it) and we all thought we were doing really well until this old guy comes whistling past on some ancient single. Found out later it was Surtees doing some testing.

Matt

[shadowcaster]

It's a tricky question given the different eras and cars that are light years apart, but I think Jim Clark he had remarkable car control and could race anything with 4 wheels on it. My personal favourites were Graham and Damon Hill both suffered the loss of their team mates Clark/Senna but both went on to lead their teams to victory, real heros.

[flyerncle]

Jim Clark, I used to help prepare a super saloon race car for his cousin Dougie Niven in the seventy's/eighty's.