as just going through youtube as i was bored watching some vid's and thought i'd ask who in your oppinion was the best f1 driver?

to me it was senna, schumacher wouldnt have had as many champonships if he was still alive i dont think,

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh0voO...eature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OrpYIq...next=1&index=1

 

Jim Clark
Senna & Mansell
Fangio
Jackie Stewart
Schumacher - despite persistent cheating
Piquet

I cant bring myself to count Prost as he could never ever consistently extract 100% from the car over a weekend

 

Previous drivers,Senna,Hakkinen,Shumacher.This post i a can of worms imo,lol.

 

followed f1 for years,im a big senna fan,but schumacher is better.i dont think we got enough of a glimpse of the toe to toe we wanted with ayrton but i do believe he wouldve lost out to michael

 

schumacher,mansell,prost&senna

 

Been watching since 1954 so can judge most of F1 great drivers.
Not much doubt of the best that was Jim Clark, simply a genius, closely followed by Fangio & Senna. Moss also ranks up there being able to win despite driving inferior machines. Schumacher can also be mentioned in the same breath as those but few others can.
Moss didnt win a championship & most agree he was amongst the best when people with very little talent like Hunt & Damon Hill did win it so statistics dont always tell the whole story because the car plays a large part.

 

Different generations, Senna was at his Peak when tussling with Mansell, his powers were waning by the time Shuey was at the height of his cheating.

IMO, Shumacher wouldnt have been better than Senna as Shuey has never coped that well with prolonged presssure or someone being robust when overtaking or resisting being overtaken.......hell Button bullied him out of the way a few times in Honda's good season. Senna was a lot meaner and had incredible concentration and preciseness.

We'll never know and of course i'm sure it would be close......would have been fun to see Senna, Shuey, Our Nige and Piquet all together in competitive cars in the turbo days.

 

They dont overtake like this anymore
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nAn_om...DF2979&index=9

Mark

 

Ive watched F1 since 1992 and the best ive seen is M Schumacher, even if he was a dirty cheat at times. His ability to get trhe best out of any machine was out standing as was the way he worked with the team pushed them to the limits. Also some of his drives in the wet were amazing especially spain in 1996.

In 2004 he was the first f1 driver I ever saw live. First hot lap of friday practice and he was fully sideways through Copse corner at around 150mph, awesome

 

There were some really really good drivers never to be champion or not become a famous driver like some !!!

My favourites are: Senna, Fangoi, Moss, Nouvalari, Phil Hill, Ronnie Peterson, Hakkinen, Lauda

 

senna all the way.i cant stand the arrogant schumacher but he was a great driver just a shame he cheated so much.
but i honestly think lewis hamilton is gonna just get even better , hes so young and has many years in the sport to go.nice to have a british champion,bollocks to all u lot who cant stand him,u cant deny his talent.

 

Agree apart from Hill, not the greatest but still a talent. Won a championship under huge pressure but more importantly he was consistently faster than his teammates which is one of the main ways of judging a driver. He wasnt shit


Glad you never mentioned Prost!

 

but my top 3

1/ Fangio
2/Schumacher
3/ Senna

 

 

Best Quali lap I've ever seen is Mansell at Silverstone in 92. Goes out and does 'one more for the crowd' when he's already well clear in Pole and goes Almost a full tow seconds faster than his team mate in second place. It was awesome commitment and its the reason Mansell was so loved by racing fans, he had balls and tenacity and he tried for his fans. Williams Judd in 2nd place at Silverstone....it had no right to be so well up

 

Schumacher. No one will beat the records or galvanise a team around 1 man like that EVER again.

Senna was good, but Michael did beat him in those first races of 94 when they were both in winning cars.

Hamilton, good as he is won't do more than 3 championships. His motivation isn't the same as Schumis. He's more about the "lifestyle" hence his choice of GF, living location and the money. Which is fair enough I guess.

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=V2g1yrGputA

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iHf-Ru...eature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8n5LII...eature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=L8nGaXoxaHI

Maybe not the best ever, but by god he is the most exciting driver i've watched

Helped by the fact that IMO he was in the Golden Era of F1

 

u reckon he will only get 3 championships??
we will see.hes got years ahead of him yet.heikki has exactly same car as lewis and cudnt do anything with it so it aint just the car is it.

 

Utter horse shit


If it was all about the lifestyle he'd be in Monaco with Coulthard, Button and all the other drivers from the last 25 years


Do you think he likes being in Switzerland?

 

would love to have been alive to watch racing in that era, that is proper racing and how it should be! that would never happen now day's, as much as formula 1 is about the pinnacle of technology it should be about the driver, if they put car's back to how they were in those day's then we would see who is the best driver out their,

i cant comment on fangio and their likes as i wasnt alive, i've followed f1 since i was 2 my dad would take me to brands hatch when it was their and i grew up with mansell who was my hero, prost senna, piquet and it's only my oppinion but if you put senna and schumacher together in a car from the early 80's senna would have won, i think the on board video i put up is a perfect example, senna in a manual f1 v's schumacher in his miles more advanced car and senna isnt really much slower, the way he fights the car is amazing,

keep this as a discussion and not an arguement

 

I was watching it then, I was at Zolder the day he died.

Mark

 

really? that must have been a day to remember (for the wrong reasons)

bet it must have been great to watch in those day's, my dad always tell's me about when he used to go, watching the vid's on youtube it's just so more exciting to watch than now day's, thats why i believe their true racing drivers!

 

schumacher wouldnt have won half as much without ross brawn imo.

 

and jean todt ! they were the dream team of f1 imo

and ronnie the thread will stay sensible

 

Can only comment on the drivers i have seen this is the reason no Fangio etc.

Senna, Hakkinen, and Schumacher.

People say Schumacher wouldnt have won as many World Championships if Senna hadnt died. I feel the other way tbh, Senna wanted to move the Ferrari for 1995 and then retire at the end of 96. Senna would have made the car/Team like Schumacher did but 2 years earlier. Schumacher would have then got into a superb car straight away instead of having to build the team up etc.

 

Has to be Senna for me.
Shame we didn't get the chance to see him get to grips with the Williams as I'm sure he would have done as the season progressed. He was awsome in the wet, better even than Schummacher in my opinion.
As for future greats, I think that Kubica will be the man of 2009. Lewis won't have it easy defending his title.

 

thats a good point never knew he wanted to do that, not saying schumacher was rubbish, far from that!, senna was u true great in my eye's the control he had was incredible, and the dual's he had were amazing, really wish f1 was still like that


jay;; hope it does would like to hear peoples oppinions

 

there strategys were amazing schumacher was the only man that could start last and still have a realistic chance of wining imo.used to love watching him race from futher down the grid.no driver or team has close to them since

 

to answer both senna was flamboyant and very skillfull and truly amazing to watch but what schuey had that no other drive seems to want to replicate is that he learned f1 backwards he was a mechanic and technical a driver all in one , so if the car was bad he could help 100% rather than fix this im off to the motor home lol

 

I was never a huge Senna fan as a kid untill this in 1993. My dad says after the race i came in and said 'Dad you know Senna?, hes the best out of them all isnt he?' He just said 'Yes Son!'.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqof-u...eature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cA3Hy0...eature=related

Hakkinen one of the most underrated ever imo, this is the one i remember the most:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GAmbIdwcmSo

P.S. Life of Senna is a good read, lots of things from Gerhard Berger who was Sennas very close friend. Berger says about the Ferrari side of things and how Senna kept asking should i move etc?

 

Ok Guys, lets change the question, now we have a full page of 'Favourite Chammpions'

Who is your best 'Non-Championship Winning' driver?

Its a hard one, but I believe Rubens Barichello never had a square go in a sensible car, without Schumi dictating his race position. Also does anyone remember his pole at Spa, 1994 in the Jordan? Awesome lap, albeit in the wet. Also, he was very strong in the 1993 Jordan.

I also feel that we are currently watching the two best non champs (yet) in Vettel and Kubica, both of whom I feel are certainly faces of the future. I reckon both will outstay the likes of Raikkonen, Hamilton and possibly Alonso

And, of course, my current 'Man of the moment, Massa'






Discuss

 

Only one man has held both the F1 and Indy titles at the same time.... Mansell

Mark

 

couldnt add more to that statement

think coulthard suffered bad things both at williams and mclaren not really released to show his potential

 

i agree, rubens never got a fair go in the spot light, always number 2

vettel proved he's skill this year especially in the wet, he will definately be a champion i think, also agree with kubica, he proved hiself this year with his concistncy in a car that was cleary not as good as the ferrari's and mclaren,

and massa shined this year was pleasently suprised and gutted he didnt win the championship for ferrari

 

yes indeed mansell was my hero growing up

john surtees was the only man to win f1 championship and bike so i think is due for him

 

with a nasty back injury to

 

Another great, never put in a decent car was Alex (Allessandro) Zanardi, who, due to a lack of a competetive F1 drive, went to the US and whooped all of them in the CART series, before returning to Williams at the low, mecachrome engined, post villeneuve / hill era of their competitiveness. Unfortunately, he lost both of his legs in an awful accident, in his first season upon returning to champ cars, the poor guy, while on course to win his first race, post F1. Ill always respect him for getting back into a modified champ car, back in germany, and completing those last 11 laps, with his prosthetic limbs, and lapping in a time that would have put him in 5th on the grid. He has also since tested a BMW F1.2006 at monza, and competed in the DTM (iirc also winning a few races)

A true champion

 

i remember that, very nasty, massive pespect for what he done, did he not do a race in the wtcc in the bmw too?

 

Yeah, I do. If he wanted to remain in the British Isles and pay less Tax theres several options.

He loves to wrap himself in the Union Flag, but hates/doesn't signing autographs for his fans and doesn't want to live here. I don't see why everyone loves him. I respect his ability, and I don't begrudge him the title. But I cannot STAND his "look at me I'm great" attitude. I don't recall Michael or Jaques or whoever making dumb comments like that.


I also think that if Heikki is a good number 2. Who also follows Rons orders well. Hell, that's why Alonso left a race winning car to go back to Renault. he was being deliberately made to feel uncomfortable. The Mechs loved him, but what Ron wants, Ron normally gets.



As for Driver who should of Won a WDC. Well, David should of but he chose to stay with McLaren. Rubens is not where near consistent enough.

 

Schumacher