F1 Fanatic

Who do you think are the top 10 drivers from 1980-1989? I My inspiration for this topic obviously came from “Top 10 Drivers of the 21st Century”. So what’s your list?

1. Alain Prost
2. Nelson Piquet (Senior!)
3. Nigel Mansell
4. Ayrton Senna
5. Niki Lauda

Now it starts to get tricky…

6. Keke Rosberg
7. Gerhard Berger
8. Carlos Reutemann
9. Alain Jones
10. Didier Pironi or Elio di Angelis

What’s your list?

1. Alain Prost
2. Nelson Piquet
3. Gilles Villeneuve
4. Niki Lauda
5. Ayrton Senna
6. Nigel Mansell
7. Keke Rosberg
8. Gerhard Berger
9. Elio De Angelis
10. Michele Alboreto

@George, not trying to disrespect with others opinion, but how can you put Laffite, Bellof and Tambay ahead of Rosberg? Keke was the first driver to take Eau Rouge flat out, his epic qualifying lap record at Silverstone, and he won the 1982 title in the 5th best car. He was my uncle’s childhood hero, you know!

Ooooh, liking this! :D

1. Alain Prost
2. Nelson Piquet Sr.
3. Ayrton Senna (as much as it pains me to say it, Senna did win just 1 title this decade)
4. Niki Lauda
5. Keke Rosberg
6. Alan Jones
7. Nigel Mansell (outside of 86-87, his best years were in the 90s)
8. Gilles Villeneuve
9. John Watson (he almost won the title in 82!)
10. Michele Alboreto

Close but not quite: Elio de Angelis, Gerhard Berger, Rene Arnoux, Jacques Laffite, Riccardo Patrese

@kingshark I put him in as number 8 originally, he gradually got filtered out though. Bear in mind I was only born in ’89 so all I know is reputation and the odd grand prix I’ve seen. From those grand prix I’ve never been very impressed by Rosberg, which is why he doesn’t make the list.

just a question: are we talking about who were the best drivers in the 80s or who achieved more? i thinks it’s the first, since the second we can just gather data. this is why i would put senna first, since he destroyed both piquet and prost in different seasons and with different cars, showing that he was superior to them even in the 80s.

1. senna
2. prost
3. lauda
4. piquet
5. rosberg
6. mansell
7. villeneuve
8. berger
9. laffite
10. jones

@Cristian, Senna was doing better than Piquet in an inferior car. And Piquet was simply not as good as Senna, he would be the first to admit it. You do remember how he got one of those titles… . Mansell was better than Piquet in a few seasons, too.

@Cristian 1986 is a good example. i don’t mean beating with more points, i mean showing superiority dispite inferior equipment, which doesn’t always mean having more points. i would make a strong case that 86 piquet had a championship car and senna didn’t, but piquet still ended up behind senna in quite a few races and both were involved in the title race for quite a long time. comparable to, say, schumacher x patrese in 92, when schumi finished third but was clearly the better driver compared to the italian with the much better car.
and in 87, senna challenged piquet repeatidly, with an inferior car. even with nelson champion that year, most observers would agree that senna was, in fact, the better driver.