F1 Fanatic

I’m definitely expecting to see a bias (even if it is unintentional) towards drivers from recent times. Perhaps some of the crew have named only drivers they have seen since they started following the sport, which would be fair enough in a way, except that the list is claiming to profile the 20 greatest ever drivers. I don’t see how more than three of the current field deserve to be in the top twenty.

Chris, fair point about Vettel, but you can say the same about Button, Raikkonen and Hamilton as well and two of those four are going to be on the list…

There’ll definitely be an bias towards British drivers. I’m betting on Clark and Moss being extremely high, at the expense of Schumacher and Fangio.

If last time’s anything to go by Schumacher should be #1. Even with their bias towards British drivers (and Senna).

As for the 4 current F1 drivers that are on the list I think it’s Schuey, Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton. Rather shocked to see Brabham and Hill so far down, just like everyone else, but I don’t think that should mean that Vettel and Hamilton don’t deserve their spots in the top 20. But who are the 2 in #22 and #23? Kimi and Jenson? Seriously, I can’t think of many others that would fit…

EDIT: Looking at the intro I’d say it’s fairly clear that Vettel’s on the list.

One thing that people seem to forget is that the standard in F1 drivers is at its highest today. Alonso himself seems to agree – today’s grid is, overall, probably the strongest grid F1 has ever seen. If Seb or ‘nando were to compete in F1 in, say, the ’70s, chances are they’d have even more titles than they do now.

The fact that they have 2 titles each says a lot about them. And we can’t forget about Hammy, Kimi or Jenson! Hell, Massa would deserve some recognition as well.

@pamphlet

As for the 4 current F1 drivers that are on the list I think it’s Schuey, Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton. Rather shocked to see Brabham and Hill so far down, just like everyone else, but I don’t think that should mean that Vettel and Hamilton don’t deserve their spots in the top 20. But who are the 2 in #22 and #23? Kimi and Jenson? Seriously, I can’t think of many others that would fit…

I think you’re probably right there, although Kimi could replace Hamilton, given his current form.

Schumi and Senna will be top 2, they’re pretty much set in stone. I’d guess Fangio 3, Clark 4, Prost 5. Wouldn’t care to guess the rest :P

@cjpdk If Clark & Moss are on this list (as they both should be, and bloody high at that!) it wont be at the expense of Fangio or Schumacher.

The saying ive heard before is that the worlds greatest driver probably comes from some Siberian farm, but wont ever know of his talent due to his/her circumstances. I’d argue that he was a Scottish farmer who did. I hope Clark is #1, the guy could drive any car and wring every bit of performance from it. His racing statistics are just amazing.

I think if you looked at his percentage of wins from races he finished it would be better. He had particularly poor reliability. For instance one year his oil leak on the last lap at the last GP cost him the title as he only came 5th in the race, and that’s even if you ignore the many other retirements that year that he had. A brief look at the years he came 2nd or 3rd suggests that had he not had such fragile cars he could have been a 5 time champion (although of course the pay-off would likely have been that the car was slower, and applying the same conditions to Fangio may have made him a 6, or possibly even 7 times champion).
Fangio retired 19.6% of the races he started. Clark retired 31.9%.
Clark won 51% of the races he finished (obviously this stat will ignore the fact that some retirements were his fault). Fangio won 53.7%, ignoring the shared drives as Clark was never allowed to try and win races like this. This shows them much closer. It shows that if you look at stats, you need to look at a range of them rather than the headline numbers.