BBC: F1's Greatest Driver

[xpensive]

Being BBC, it wouldn't surprise me to find Ronnie Peterson in the top ten, 8th perhaps?

[SeijaKessen]

They may mark Schumacher down because of his 2nd career diluting his statistics.

But if they were going to consider only his first career, you'd be very hard placed not to put Schumacher on the #1 spot.
His 1st career statistics are incredible, and perhaps unbeatable. He had a win in every single full year of competing.

I think BBC might want to put Senna up there for sentimental reasons, but think that'd be more for emotion than anything else. The stats don't lie.

Yes his statistics are near unbeatable.

But when you look at his career as a whole, and not just a pile of numbers, he wouldn't be in any top 10 list.

No other multiple world champion was kicked out of the world championship once, and definitely not almost twice.

[SeijaKessen]

Being BBC, it wouldn't surprise me to find Ronnie Peterson in the top ten, 8th perhaps?

Sounds about right.

To be fair, I do think Ronnie should be on any list, obviously what's debatable is where he would be positioned.

It's a shame Chapman had such a hard-on for Mario, because frankly, like Emerson, he was no match for Ronnie Peterson on the track. Ronnie's problem was he was all-to-willing to be a good team player, and had he not been as willing, he might have had a WDC. Realistically, had he gone all out, he would have destroyed Mario in '78.

But such was not meant to be.

[xpensive]

But those were the days, when a deal was a deal, Mario had done all the development work and Ronnie was not hired to challenge or upset the apple-cart in 1978, his skill was seat-of-the-pants speed and not much else.

[SeijaKessen]

Good point.

Gentlemen's agreements used to mean something in F1.

In fairness to Ronnie, I always felt he received an unfair rap for car setups.

Yes he was not good at setting a car up, but the reason why he wasn't, is more telling.

Unlike most drivers, no matter what the deficiencies of a car were, he could adapt to them on the fly. Peter Warr talked about his ability to compensate for whatever the car was lacking, so it was difficult for him to pinpoint what was wrong/needed improvement. I don't know of any other drivers capable of adjusting so well to a car's deficiencies the way Ronnie could. Actually, I think the only other two off-hand that come to mind were Jimmy Clark and Ayrton Senna. But Senna alone could provide the input to improve the overall package whereas Jimmy Clark and Ronnie Peterson didn't have the ability Ayrton did on that front.

[Pierce89]

care to publish the list here?


Vettel, 2 WDC in 5 seasons, thats a projected rate similar to Schumachers so I'dsay he is more deserving of a spot in the top 10 than Alonso.
Senna took 3WDC's in his 10 year career and Prost took 4 in 13years.

I guess Moss is n this list too.....?

Alonso had the 2 out of 5 rate you're quoting for Vettel coming off of the 2006 season. Has Alonso gotten worse? So why should Vettel automatically be above Alonso? If they were teammates do you think Vettel would beat Alonso?

Apologies if my tone seems combative, I don't mean it that way.

[peteskar]

I am interested to see where Alan Prost sits.

[JimClarkFan]

They may mark Schumacher down because of his 2nd career diluting his statistics.

But if they were going to consider only his first career, you'd be very hard placed not to put Schumacher on the #1 spot.
His 1st career statistics are incredible, and perhaps unbeatable. He had a win in every single full year of competing.

I think BBC might want to put Senna up there for sentimental reasons, but think that'd be more for emotion than anything else. The stats don't lie.

Yes his statistics are near unbeatable.

But when you look at his career as a whole, and not just a pile of numbers, he wouldn't be in any top 10 list.

No other multiple world champion was kicked out of the world championship once, and definitely not almost twice.

I personally think that as far as all round ability he was the best ever; not the best racer nor the fastest driver, but he lead a team like no other, he brought people to his cause enabling him to build a team from the ground up so that come race day he was sitting in a highly competitive car.... he also brought fitness to a new level and several other things which I'm sure I could bring up if I had the time to sit and think.

That's why he is Top 3 for me, always, and probably No.1; it wasn't his ability inside the car, which was top drawer at any rate, but the combination of being such a great driver and being the best F1 driver outside of the car as well.

[clipsy1H]

Normally top 5 will be Schumacher-Senna-Fanggio-Prost-Lauda along side with Stewart But i bet 100$ BBC place Daemon Hill in top 7 and Schumacher out of top 2.

[JimClarkFan]

Normally top 5 will be Schumacher-Senna-Fanggio-Prost-Lauda along side with Stewart But i bet 100$ BBC place Daemon Hill in top 7 and Schumacher out of top 2.

If Damon Hill is in the top 10 I WILL find a table to flip in disgust.

[f1316]

I personally think it takes a British person/company to say that Moss is better than Ascari - I cannot see how you can possibly justify that.

I've been following this as it goes along and it's clear that any list involving Andrew Benson is not going to have Schumacher at number one. The Alonso entry refers to "Ferrari and Schumacher's typical dirty tricks" and, agree or not, there's not need for that kind of subjective, editoral tone in an article talking about a driver's biography. All his articles on Schumacher seek to explain his success with anything other than driver skill, so I'm certain MSC will be behind at least Senna and Fangio in the list. A lot of people may say that is fair enough, but it's certainly not a clear cut decision.

And Alonso behind Vettel? Not in a month of Sundays. It may well turn out that Vettel has the better career, but at this stage in their respective careers, Alonso is a Prost to Vettel's Mansell: one has consistently been able to deliver wins in a variety of cars, always delivering the maximum possible with the equipment; the other has had one dominant season with by far the best car.

[Gerhard Berger]

They may mark Schumacher down because of his 2nd career diluting his statistics.

But if they were going to consider only his first career, you'd be very hard placed not to put Schumacher on the #1 spot.
His 1st career statistics are incredible, and perhaps unbeatable. He had a win in every single full year of competing.

I think BBC might want to put Senna up there for sentimental reasons, but think that'd be more for emotion than anything else. The stats don't lie.

Yes his statistics are near unbeatable.

But when you look at his career as a whole, and not just a pile of numbers, he wouldn't be in any top 10 list.

No other multiple world champion was kicked out of the world championship once, and definitely not almost twice.

I personally think that as far as all round ability he was the best ever; not the best racer nor the fastest driver, but he lead a team like no other, he brought people to his cause enabling him to build a team from the ground up so that come race day he was sitting in a highly competitive car.... he also brought fitness to a new level and several other things which I'm sure I could bring up if I had the time to sit and think.

That's why he is Top 3 for me, always, and probably No.1; it wasn't his ability inside the car, which was top drawer at any rate, but the combination of being such a great driver and being the best F1 driver outside of the car as well.

For me, it is not really the statistics that made Schumacher so impressive. I found seasons like 95, 97 and 98 to be more impressive than 01,02 and 04. In the former seasons it was brilliant watching him take the championship battle to other drivers whilst he was in an inferior car.

Ross Brawn last year said that a good way to judge a driver is how well he does when he doesn't have the best car. Using that reasoning, i'd say Schumacher and Alonso are the 2 best drivers i've seen in my lifetime (started watching F1 around 94/95)

[beelsebob]

For all those criticising the BBC's bias in this... They did not construct the order, the teams submitted votes for who should be on it and where. Of course that might expose a different british bias – most of the teams are british!

[raymondu999]

For all those criticising the BBC's bias in this... They did not construct the order, the teams submitted votes for who should be on it and where. Of course that might expose a different british bias – most of the teams are british!

You sure?

This year, BBC Sport is profiling 20 of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time. The BBC F1 team were asked to provide their own personal top 20s, which were combined to produce a BBC list. Veteran commentator Murray Walker provides his own reflections in a video of their career highlights and chief F1 writer Andrew Benson profiles the driver. This week, number 10 - Fernando Alonso.

[Raptor22]

care to publish the list here?


Vettel, 2 WDC in 5 seasons, thats a projected rate similar to Schumachers so I'dsay he is more deserving of a spot in the top 10 than Alonso.
Senna took 3WDC's in his 10 year career and Prost took 4 in 13years.

I guess Moss is n this list too.....?

Alonso had the 2 out of 5 rate you're quoting for Vettel coming off of the 2006 season. Has Alonso gotten worse? So why should Vettel automatically be above Alonso? If they were teammates do you think Vettel would beat Alonso?

Apologies if my tone seems combative, I don't mean it that way.

There's a few reasons.
Vettel is the youngest WDC, the youngest DoubleWDC.
He manages himself. That takes some maturity
It took Vettel less time to get the first win.
It took him fewer years to get hisfirst WDC.

So despite a shorter career, he should rate higher. Gabish?