surtees and senna for me..............

 

zanardi was awsome..i have his signed visor from his helmet

 

fisichella too..

 

cool

 

as per mr shead..

gilles villeneuve, there'll never be another like him again (although Jacques came close) with his do or die, never lift approach.. if im the fastest on every lap, then i'll be the fastest in the race..

 

lewis hamiltongota say that as hes coming in to my work to drive the f1 car about and meet folk to show he cares about the sponsors.om more hopin nicoles there.on a more serious note id say schumacher.

 

Senna, end of.

 

It was the whole team.

IMHO for the complete driver you cannot look any further than Schumacher, he was able to engineer the whole team around himself (similar to hamilton but not looking like as much of a cunt). He was a driven individual and that in turn helped drive the rest of the team forward.

 

but would never allow a team mate equal treatment or equipment.. this'll always be a shadow over his achievements as far as im concerned, as other greats beat there team mates on the track, not in their contract..

 

and that there is my opinion. a great f1driver is the one who candirve the car on its limit and put in the times but also make the team work round him,know the in and outs of a car and how its works and how to get what he wants and be ruthless on track.

all those saying schumy was nothing like senna are wrong.they both strived to know exactly what bit of a car did what and what the had to do to it to get the most out of it,they made the effort to learn.they were both very ruthless on track,and yes could be dirty at times.but imo thats what it takes.senna was naughty a few times as was michael and already lewis ahs been nice guys finish last,look at coulthard

shuey went from a winning team to the,frankly shit ferrari team.he had no chance of winning but wanted the challenge.who else would take that risk?(other than buttonpoor bloke)

 

Only 28 so can only comment on recent drivers.

Best all round technical driver = schumacher

Most exciting and best to watch = senna

Hopefully hamilton can rank amongst these boys in years to come, hes going the right way about it and is certainly good to watch

 

This for me is one of the biggest questions remaining over Schumi.
When people state Schumi's statistics and records they forget that the role of the second driver was a supporting one as such drivers like Eddie Ervine who has publicly stated this was his role, helped Schumi win championships without a doubt.
Drivers such as Senna and Prost most certainly would have won more championships in the Mclaren during the 80's if they were in such a position.
Shumi never competed against a driver of high quality in the same car as such this question remains unanswered.

One statistic that Schumi has which most people forget is he is the most fined/punished drive in the history of the sport which not only displayed his dedication to win which is the mark of a champion but his willingness to break the rules.

I personally believe this is why Schumi can never be classed as the best, he needed his team mates support and to be total number one status, the first years a team mate was visibly allowed to race him the championship was won by Alonso who sucessfully defended it again the following year, which speaks for itself.

Shumi is a great driver but not the best

 

You cant pick out Hamilton from the rest of the F1 drivers and slate him alone for moving to a tax haven, every damn single one of them has. And you bet your ass he spends the maximun permitted time back in the UK

If we werent stupid enough to tax them 98p in the pound then they'd all have stayed.


I'm not arguing with your other points as you are entitled to think as you wish but your point about him 'loving the lifestyle' and moving to swizerland as though he's living it up like a playboy is absurd, he'd be in Monaco if that was the case.....he's bored shitless in Swizerland and in a very quiet place and spends max time permitted in the UK. Which unfortunately revolves around testing!

 

I don't think you can determine who was "the best". I only know that I like Jim Clark most. Because back then race drivers were still humble guys. No silly wages, etc. They pretty much risked their life for a warm meal.... and because they were passionate about racing.

 

Best?

I dont think you can name just one.

You really need to split it into era's

I mean currently it say its lewis hamilton

but mansel in the 80's was the best.

same as senna early 90's and Schumacher in the late 90's early 00's.


If you mean Favorite, then probably Schumacher. Senna was great, but i think a lot of his awe is due tho the persona created buy his tragig death.
I like hamilton, but his obsessive father really dampens his appeal/status for me!

 

Graham hill?

Triple Crown of Motorsport
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Triple Crown of Motorsport is alternatively defined as winning either:

the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix[1][2], or
the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Formula One World Championship.[3][4][5]
Under either definition, Graham Hill is the only driver to have completed the Triple Crown, as he won the Monaco Grand Prix in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1969; the Formula One World Championship in 1962 and 1968; the Indianapolis 500 in 1966; and finally the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1972.

 

graham hill wasn't as naturally talented as the 'greats' but worked much harder with the talent he had, and that brought the results.. he should get a mention, but will never be spoken of in the same way as senna/clark/gilles/moss etc

 

But there is the reason he achieved so much. He had the ability and the drive to be able to get the whole team to support him and in doing so he and the others turned ferrari from a failing team into world beaters.

Would any other drivers from the team have stayed at the test track late into the night, even staying over night at a house on the grounds? Could you see Massa, Kimi, Hamilton etc todays generation doing the same?

 

Yes lots of them did but for some reason you only hear about Schumacher

an example I can easily give of the top of my head is -

You'll notice Mansell worked long and hard at Ferarri in 90 to develop the sequential semi auto gearbox so he'd have a crack at the title in the following year ( as hed had huge experienc of developing Williams first attempt )......only to be the victim of Alain Prosts Political games...he sacrificed a whole year and thousands of miles of testing for that shot at the title only for Prost to do his usual and take it away from him.

Barichello also tested long and hard with the Stewart Ford

its just a matter of finding the info - some drivers dont feel its necessary to make all of their work public like some of the others.

We know all about Shuey because he created a global brand for himself to earn money and he and Ferarri had/have to keep perpetuating the myth

 

i'd never say he didnt work hard, the team was built around him therefore all his work was to his total advantage. he never had a team mate that'd also gain from his work equally..

 

I do not understand for one minute all the people saying Senna and how he would have gone onto win many more championships. Errrrm, no he wouldn't! He was way past his best when got killed. He was a great talent in his day, but the not a patch on Schumacher. Easily number one. Only other drivers ever in the same league were Prost, Gilles Villeneuve and Fangio.

 

Its unfortunate that many great drivers were killed, Jim Clark was one of those drivers, he was seen winning in a Lotus Cortina one day and a F1 car practically the next.

If it went to a vote, I'd vote,

1. Clark
2. Villeneuve
3. Senna

 

For the benefit of the misguided Mike C

Prost

If the thread was "Who was the best politician and slyest bastard"

Ask anyone who was in F1 if Prost could extract the maximum laptimes from a a car over a lengthy 'stint' and you'll get the same answer. No

He was at best a mediocre overtaker and a poor tester/developer of cars. He preferred to ride off the back of everyones hard work and walk into a team with a car ready to win.

His forte was as a strategist.....probably a better one than Shuey as he didnt rely on Ross Brawn tellling him what to do.

He was good but not anywhere near great. He'd get hammered in a enqual car straight fight with the other names in this thread

 

Schumacher for me, although I am a big Senna and Mansell fan, back in the F1 golden days.

People who think Schumacher is arrogant really dont know him at all and are just being presumptious (sp). I think Turbocabbie brings up a good point in that Schumacher was never really challenged by his team mate (wether it was contractually or that they were second rate at that time for instance Herbert was not really going to take him on was he) but people easily forget the true great races from Schumacher, putting a Jordan 7th on the grid on his debut, although a nice looking car it wasnt a Mclaren at the time was it. Then you have races like Barcalona when the Benetton got stuck in 5th gear, countless times coming from the back to gain podiums or even wins, look at Imola a couple of years back with a dog of a Ferrari (the one where ITV messed up) Brazil on his last race, puncture, back of the feild, no hpe, what a stunning race, also france when he took on an extra pitstop and had to pull out so much time from alonso, there must be many more that I have missed out, but you get the idea.
Finally forget about "cheating" he had the killer instinct, thats why he was a champion, thats why Senna was champion and thats why DC was never champion, everyone disliked Senna back in the day for taking out Prost, but we as a fickle race seem to gloss over thses things sometimes.

Remeber just my opinion.

 

Found this

Biggest pile of bullshit ever written

Autocars top 10 of all time

http://www.bruce-mclaren.com/news/br...er-of-all-time

 

Sooooooo, how did Prost win as many races as he did then if he was only "mediocre"?

Senna was a has-been by 1994 anyway, so we saw the best he had to offer.

 

prost always joined a team with the best car and like i said was a good strategist.........in the car and out of it which is a skill for shure

but in terms of ability to make a car go fast, he wasnt close to the best

 

i think mediocre is pushing it a bit far, but prost got his nickname 'the prof' for a reason.. it was a time when f1 was basically a fuel economy run, and he was the best at that and making tyres last.

i'll throw another name into the mix that most probably wont of heard of cause he died early.. stefan bellof

 

You have to be good to have a win record of more than 1 and 4...

I still fail to see what makes Senna so amazing. Yes, he was great, but his record was no better than Prost's, and that's what really counts at the end of the day.

He certainly wasn't the genius that Schumacher was and didn't have the natural ability of Gilles Villeneuve

 

Any Nurburgring guys will have heard of Stefan. Problem was he directly contributed to his own death. No one had ever tried to overtake through Eau rouge before. Even Derek Bell said, he was a lovely guy but was way too brave/foolhardy. He needed someone to take him under their wing and teach him when to push and when to settle. Irony is he probably would of been more successful, but lost a little of the heroic antics that made him spectacular.

Obviously Jaques also going for the triple crown. Only driver still competitive enough to do it at the current time.


There's an element of folklore about Senna, if he'd petered out ala Jaques or Mika or Damon or even Nigel (remember those disasterous McLaren/Williams days in 95/96!) it owuld of done his image damage. Ultimately, I don't beleive the steering column failed (telemetry proved it) so people can't accept he was flawed and made a catastrophic mistake. What he did do, was raise the standard of all drivers. He knew technical, he knew fitness, he knew strategy. All things that Michael then improved again on. No current driver has taken that and raised it again. They don't need to.

 

Mansell Petered out in 95/96 with Williams/ Maclaren?


I think not

In 94 he Guested 4 reaces for Williams - this was the season Shuey and Hill were going for the title and Shumacher rammed him off to prevent him winning. Well at over 40 years old Mansell circumnavigated the title challengers by winning the race from Pole position. Shumacher who?


95, Maclaren knew two things about Nigel wich have remained consisten throughout his career, he is not small and he insists on a car with a sharp turn in to the point of oversteer. They produced a car he couldn't physically fit in with huge understeer. He had to miss the first few races whilst they built a bigger 'tub' then after two more races he retired pronouncing it impossible for him to drive it competitively - as a former World Champ still capable of beating the field ( remember a win from pole 5 months previously ) he felt it a situation he didnt need to be in, maybe worht fighting if it was the beginning of his career, but at over 40 and having proved himself against the best, he'd had enough. I dont blame him

Certainly didnt fade away.

96, I believe he played golf all season

 

i dont agree that he was past it,

in 1993 he finished second in the championship
1992 4th
1991 1st
1990 1st
1989 2nd
1988 1st


i cant see how them standings are by anyone who's past it, senna had a lot more in him i believe

 

In all fairness the McLaren was a Dog in '92 compared to the Williams that blew away everything in its path, which is why Senna wanted to go there so badly (to the point of telling Williams he would drive for free).

 

it was no where near as competetive as the williams but he still managed to win 3 races,

 

He wasn't way past his best lol! Even if he hadn't won another race he'd still be what he is today. To understand you need to look at what he did and how he did it. Virtually the whole grid was made up of proper drivers that could win championships not only races. Schumacher never raced in that sort opposition apart from maybe Hakkinen and Alonso and even then he never had the charisma or the passion Senna did hence him being what he is, a true legend. Prost is undeniably a great driver and easily in my top 5 along with Schumacher but again never had that something Senna had. He lived for the sport with passion not just like a computer driving a car with zero personality.