32 replies to this topic

[Ross Stonefeld]

My #1 pick is a tie between Penske, Team Joest, and Mclaren International

Not sure where I'd put the other F1 and CART teams, but Manor Motorsport (Formula Renault/Formula 3) and Super Nova (F3000) would definately be up there. TTE, Prodrive, and WSR would definately be in my top 15

anyone else?

[Pikachu Racing]

F1:
Ferrari - the legend
McLaren
Ligier in the late 70's and early 80's
Williams

NASCAR:
Hendrick Motorsports - they ran near the top; they dominated, but have lost some of their composure. Jerry Nadeau is likely to carry the team. I see Gordon out to drive for his former crew chief in a Dodge in the later future.
Robert Yates Racing
Rousch Racing
Richard Childress Racing
Joe Gibbs - this former football coach won in it's second year of existence and the championship nine years later
Woods Bros - back when Pearson was driving for them
Junior Johnson - like many great teams they fall

IRL:
Menard - they got the car to win but no reliability
Hemelgarn - used to race just at Indy, but with Lazier they are pretty good.

CART:
Chip Ganassi - four championships in five years. They even took a unreliable Toyota engine and made it a winner
Newman/Haas
Team KOOL Green
Penske Racing - from the famed Penske chassis and the combinations they used to now use of a Reynard-Honda in one of best team comebacks in racing

[MichiganF1]

While McLaren is very well run, I'd pick Williams as the best run F1 team. Even though their driver relations skills are terrible.

Ferrari? Disagree. It took the genius of Schumacher to make them look good.

Penske - definitely the best US team in any series.

[tim]

I'd agree that Williams are the best-run team in F1. They don't get involved in political squabbles like Ferrari and Mclaren and they don't have distractions of other non-F1 projects like the new Merc that Ron is building for his engine partner. Ferrari took 21 years to win a driver's title and that was only because they finally assembled the dream team of Schuey, Byrne, Braun, Luca di and Todt. FW and PH's "people skills" may be crap but they in F1 because they are racers and like drivers to go at it hammer and tongs. Could you imagine them getting on the radio to Ralf to ask him to move over for JPM who made a pit stop when he shouldn't (Melbourne '98) or ask JPM to move over for Ralf the #1. No, I couldn't either. I was playing F1 Championship 2000 on my Playstation 2 and I was M Schumacher, in third place, in front of me was Rubens and Mika H and Rubens moved over out of my way completely! Ridiculous! (Then I crashed into Hakkinen in order to get first place... )

In CART, a toss-up between Ganassi and Penske. Chipster seems to have lost all his key components that made his team good: Montoya, Zanardi, Vasser, Nunn, the team manager (Tom something-or-other (?))

[Alien]

Originally posted by MichiganF1
While McLaren is very well run, I'd pick Williams as the best run F1 team. Even though their driver relations skills are terrible.

I know what you mean, the Berger comment: "we don´t want a love story" seems stupid, winning is what matters and if the drivers at least talk to each other it would be helpful for the whole team. It´s not only the driver´s job to make things work, but the manager´s also. Berger is BMW´s man in Williams, he´s the first one to be fired if Schumy Jr. and Montoya don´t work together for the team.

I think that the best teams nowadays are McLaren, Ferrari, Gannassi and Penske. They are the dominant ones, and the winners in the past few years.

[RiverRunner]

According to the scoreboard I'd have to put in an honorable mention here for John Force's FunnyCar team.And for those of you who would sneer at a drag team as far as "teams" go,try changing out an engine in a 300mph car in 45 minutes,complete(I have).
In some cases it requires more than just the engine-tranny and rear ends as well the way Force beats up his toys.

As far as Formula racers go,gotta go with Ferrari(of late) and Penske with another honarable mention going to the IndyLights team of Dorricott/Mears.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Lots of allegations of...'creative interpretation of the rules' at Dorricot, one of the reasons i left them out

[Paste]

In F1, I'd choose Williams, simply based on them being more of an engineering firm (I like that). NASCAR would have to be Hendrick racing, probably one of the most easily recognizable names when it comes to NASCAR. For CART it'd be Penske, simply because he's been there from the start and has been pretty competitive for almost all of the years.

[RiverRunner]

....and that's why I put 'em on it,Ross...;)

Seems Mears learned a little sumptin' from 'ol Rog,eh?

[argos]

F1:

1) Lotus (Other teams have more wins, WDC's and WCC's but with Colin Chapman at the helm easily the most inovative team in all of motor racing.)
2) Ferrari (Since 1950 more WDC's and WCC's than anyone.)
3) Williams
4) McLaren


USAC/CART:

1) Penske
2) Foyt (In the USAC days, not CART or IRL.)
3) Patrick
Time will tell if some of the successfil new teams (Gannassi, Green, Newman-Haas) deserve to be considered among the best.


NASCAR

1) Petty (when Lee and Richard were driving)
2) Childress (DE - the Dorian Grey of NASCAR)
3) Hendrick (needs a resergence from JG and TL - if JN improves much more he could be the #1 driver at Hendrick)
4) Gibbs (only one WC but with BL and TS they are loaded for bear)
4) Junior Johnson
5) Wood Brothers
6) Yates
7) Roush
8) Penske


Sports Car Racing (more factory oriented)

1) Porsche
2) Ferrari
3) Jim Hall (an inovator in the Colin Chapman mold)
4) Caroll Shelby (the word "Cobra" says it all)


The best overall:

1) Lotus (Two words: Colin Chapman.)
2) Ferrari (F1 and sportscar success)
3) Williams (WDC's and WCC's speak for themselves)
4) Petty (I don't like NASCAR but Lee and Richard dominated for more years than I can count)
5) Penske (Over the years nearly as dominate in USAC/CART as Williams and Petty)

OK, these are my totally objective(HA!) rankings. I've doned my Nomex so fire away!

[Ross Stonefeld]

I see you guys are doing it by racing division. My list was overall Teams that are race teams, not Formula 1 teams per se. For example I think David Sear's Super Nova team, even though its Formula 3000, is a lot better than the majority of the CART grid.

I dont know enough about NASCAR teams to place them, although RCR has an impressive record. The Hendrick success to me seemed to be down to the Gordon/Everenham relationship.

Bill Davis Racing and Penske/Kranefuss get the job done though, ditto for Joe Gibbs

[bleakuzs]

Team Joest, always a contender at Le Mans, no matter what they are running.

Williams, a toss up, when they ceased to have a top two engine, Honda and Renualt, they went off the map in 98 and 99.

As far as consistency goes, I would go with the Kinsers in USAC, their domination is uparalled at any level.

[desmo]

Penske had really lost the plot in CART for a while there, although they seem back up to scratch now. That, it seems, is a good illustration of how thin the line can be between domination and mediocrity in top-level racing today. How could a team of Penske's caliber and pedigree fall so far and so fast, and then come to the front again just as quickly?

[Ross Stonefeld]

I think it was down to the Mercedes engine and the Goodyear tires. Both were struggling and though each had flashes of brilliance (Moore at Homestead, DeFerran at Portland) having the two together ruined any hope Penske had. The minute Penske got equal equipment to everyone else, look what happened

The biggest shame was that he went to a customer Chassis

[RiverRunner]

What Penske runs anymore hardly resembles what Reynard sent them,which I as fan think is pretty neat.The only problem is that with Penske cars in England doing all the bits and bobs for his cars,running the customer chassis he has once again gained an "unfair advantage" over his fellow Reynard customers.I'm sure that fact makes neither Reynard nor the other Reynard cutomers none to happy.
Do any of our other overseas posters here know exactly what Penske Cars Ltd. has up their sleeves?
By not building their own cars anymore I would guess that Rog has:
A) laid off lots of staff
B) has taken on outside development/manufacturing for outside customers
C)doing other chassis for other series

I know that Dallara is making noises about entering the CART fray regardless of the irl chooses to do as soon as CART comes up with the new engine formula due to debut in 2003,perhaps Penske will rejoin the chassis fray at that point as well.

[Turbo]

This year (as opposed to all time) I was particularly impressed with:

Audi in LeMans & ALMS - can't believe they haven't been mentioned yet. I've never seem anything like the two complete rear end changes at LeMans in about 4 mins each. The P cars are some of the most beautiful I've ever seen in person. Can't wait to see Tom Kristensen drive full time for them in 2001. On board footage with Tom at Sebring and with McNish all year was riveting.

Also...
Ferrari in F1
Penske in CART
DSTP in Atlantics

[bigblue]

I agree with turbo, Audi was awesome--

[Todd]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
I dont know enough about NASCAR teams to place them, although RCR has an impressive record. The Hendrick success to me seemed to be down to the Gordon/Everenham relationship.

RCR's success in the top class was basically down to Dale Earnhardt and Andy Petree. Gordon/Evernham were a dynamic pair, but Hendrick's success also stemmed from being the first team to optimize the testing limit end around of multiple cars. Keep in mind that Terry Labonte won a Winston Cup title during the '90s driving for Hendrick too.

Audi must be the racing team of the year, but they were so good as to be a bore. They raised the bar for anyone that wants to race prototypes in the future.

[TNSFH]

I agree with Todd, (I didn't actually say that did I?)

The Audi LMP's were the best team in racing for 2000 and watch for them to continue their winning ways in Adelaide this Sunday. Hope to see the team back for 2001 and I hope the Panoz LMP's give them a run for the money.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Audi = Team Joest




This year's Audi was obviously quite impressive, but I'd like to see them with actual competition. Panoz, as much as I love them, is just too small, and everything else is privateer cars. The customer Cadillacs are beating the works Cadillacs because GM doesnt know how to run a racing team. They do get a tip of the hat for that gearbox change though, I cant even check my oil that fast

[Todd]

Excellent point about Team Joest's importance in the Audi program's success. Joest has shown that they know how to win Le Mans again and again. I think that Audi's people get some credit for the modular car though. In aerodynamic concept, it was almost a development of BMW's LMR, but the modular construction has even greater significance than the fact that they ran such an impressive pace.

[Ross Stonefeld]

I think it was actually almost all Joest. in 99 they had the Open top run by Joest, and the coupe run by Audi Sport UK/RTN. Joest's car finished third. In 2000 I heard they basically said to the Joest guys "what do you want on the car?"

Joest used to beat the factory Porsches with customer cars didnt he? Now there's a good way to get factory backing

[Todd]

Ross,

There was a year that Porsche ran in the GT1 class for 'street legal' supercars while Joest ran warmed over 962s and won overall. I'm not sure that Joest cars beat Porsches for the overall while running in the same class. Porsche also has a history of only running new cars as factory entries for one year. The next year, they sell production versions to teams like Joest and let them do the winning. Porsche is really in the sports car business. They aren't just using racing to sell road cars. They also sell racing cars at a profit.

[Maldwyn]

Originally posted by MichiganF1
Ferrari? Disagree. It took the genius of Schumacher to make them look good.

:yawn:
Believe it or not Ferrari history began shortly before 1996.

[Ross Stonefeld]

While we're on 962's, I quite liked the Gunnar-93, the long 911 with the 962 engine

[Todd]

I'm not familiar with it. Is it like the 911GT1? I thought that the GT1 had a new water cooled block, while the 962s only had water cooled heads on aircooled cylinders.

[Ricardo F1]

"Believe it or not Ferrari history began shortly before 1996."

But Maldwyn I think the point was that for a 'great racing team' not to have won the WDC and WCC in long long time surely makes them less than a great racing team . . . more of a great legend.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Gunnar Racing took a 911 race car, made it a big longer and stuck a 962 engine in it. Effectively what the Porsche 911 GT1 was, but that was a ground up effort. the G-93 was a bastard child It looked just like your standard 911 GT2/3 car, Nissan protested and it was banned I beleive

[Nathan]

The Scurdia (Im including Ferrari as a company as well)
Porsche (Their factory teams)
Mercedes Benz (again, whatever their factory teams do turns into gold)

For the more privately owned teams...

McLaren
Penske
Williams (only behind Mac and Penske because they have more than F1 experiance)
Joest

[Todd]

Ross,

thanks for explaining. I missed that car somehow.

[Ross Stonefeld]

It was painted up like the Tiger, with the Exxon sponsorship. Paul Newman, Bill Adam, and some other guys tested it and apparently it was a fierce bit of kit because as mentioned Nissan protested and it never did anything. I think it went back to being a standard porsche and kept the tiger livey. There was lots of info at fastdetails.com just two days ago but now its strangely gone


How about All American Racers? Gurney won in F1 (with Anglo American Racers) Eagles won some USAC/CART stuff but was that AAR? I think Gurney at least won some transam, then there was the AAR GTP CART and Atlantic teams (all Toyota)

[Pikachu Racing]

More on Rick Hendrick legacy in NASCAR.....

the team been winning since their first full season which was in 86. They are most recognized with Gordon and Everham, but other drivers made it as the top team. Geoffry Bodine and the no. 5 Levy Garrett car; the late Tim Richmond with the Folgers car; even ol' DW was part of the team for four years. Terry Labonte won the championship in 96. Drivers that won with the team includes Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader, now Jerry Nadeau. Greg Sack, Wally D and Ricky Craven drove for the team with limited success. Some of drivers that drove for team for few races includes Lil' Al, Sarl van der Merwe, Hut Stricklin, Rob Moroso, Tom Kendal.

[Ross Stonefeld]

is Sarl Van Der Mewe the father of South African Alan Van Der Mewe who races in the British Formula Ford championship?