As an aside to Keith’s series, I thought it might be fun to determine the best driver who never won a world championship. Because a few of them are obscure, I’ve decided against a round-robin format decided by voting and gone for a simple list. You can have a first, second and third choice vote. If no-one gets a majority of first-choice votes, everyone but the top three are eliminated and second-choice votes will be allocated. If there is still no winner, the third-placed driver is knocked out and third-choice votes will be allocated to determine the winner.
The only criteria are that a driver must have finished within a win of the eventual champion and never have become champion himself. That gives us just 15 names:
Luigi Fagioli
Jose Gonzalez
Stirling Moss
Tony Brooks
Bruce McLaren
Wolfgang von Trips
Jacky Ickx
Clay Regazzoni
Gilles Villeneuve
Carlos Reutemann
Didier Peroni
John Watson
Eddie Irvine
Felipe Massa
Mark Webber
I’m open to including wildcards like Heinz-Harald Frentzen too. For the sake of allowing people time to vote, to bring up new names and to generate debate, I’m keeping the vote open until the January 31st. You can change your vote but the last ones will be considered final. Hope the idea catches on!
