102 replies to this topic

[AJCee]

Perhaps we should be asking people, "Who are your favourite F1 drivers?" and then we shouldn't get any 'wrong' answers.

That’s not such a bad idea as there are many interesting stories behind many favourites: things that reveal the human side.

[William Hunt]

I did a huge poll where people had to send me by email (or PM) their top 12 favourite (not best so you could nominate Inoue for example) per era ('30s, '50s, '60s etc...) approximately 15 years ago (yes I am this long on this forum already, actually already 20 years a member here). And I did this at several fora, at the time there were other major autosport fora that are now gone or less populated.

And I had received a huge amount of responses. Even from some autosport journalists like the great author Karl Ludvigsen. I then gave their top 12 points according to the old IndyCar system and then made up a ranking per era. The resulst were very interesting, unfortunaterly I don't have those files anymore (maybe I can still find the results in the archives of this forum) but I do remember that Jim Clark was number one in the '60s and Ayrton Senna in the '80s (of was he in the '90s era? I've allocated driver to the era in which they had competed the most number of seasons. Senna die 5 seasons in the '80s and 5 in the '90s but off course he didn't complete '94 so should therefore be in the '80s era).

 

Could be a good idea to do it again (will try to find the old results first, it was quite a lot of work since a lot of people had submitted lists). I personally find it much more interesting to know who the most popular drivers per era are from forum members (the ones they like or supported the most) instead of the ones who they rate as the best ones.

My favourite driver of all time is  Riccardo Patrese. Not because I believe that he was the best driver of his era but because he (and also Elio de Angelis) was a childhood hero. I always used to support underdogs a bit more and he certainly was an underdog but also a very underrated and talented driver but he became my favourite driver when I was a child (he still is actually) because I liked his personality so much.

 

I'm Belgian (with Dutch roots) and you would think that I was a Thierry Boutsen supporter but to be honest I really wasn't. I never really supported a driver because of his nationality (not a fan of nationalism) so when he was driving next to Patrese I was actually supporting against Thierry and for Riccardo. And at Benetton I think I liked Alessandro Nannini more as well lol. In hindsight looking back at his carreer Thierry was a fantastic driver off course: very clean and superb in the wet and probably one of the finest drivers of his era (to this day Boutsen is still very underrated, in best off lists he is almost always rated significantly lower as his talent, he even scored a 2nd place in an Arrows) but I just liked some other drivers, like Patrese, more.

I basically stopped supporting Thierry when he had Patrese as his team mate and was almost against him then as strange as that may sound. Just like I was strongly against Mansell (hated him) when he was Patrese's team mate. Haven't really supported anyone as strong as I had with Patrese (apart from maybe Damon Hill but that probably also had to do with that he was up against Schumacher whom I strongly disliked) but I guess it was also the age: I was still a child then so everything is more black & white.

 

I was a Boutsen fan when he was at Arrows and still suported him at Benetton but already a less because I liked Nannini's charisma a lot in '88. And from '89 onwards I almost became anti Boutsen, and that was only because Patrese was his team mate to be honest.  Another driver I supported strongly was Nigel Mansell up until '86. Afterwards I started to dislike him. I thought he was always complaining and he didn't seem to me like the most sportive driver but the one I disliked the most was Alain Prost. So I always supported who ever was his team mate. I really hated Prost as a child, now I respect him much more but at the time I couldn't say anything positive about him.

 

I also was a huge Martin Brundle fan in those days. Why specifically him? Well sometimes you just can't explain it, there was something about Martin I really liked when he entered F1.

I must say that I'm not such a fan anymore as when I was a child in primary and high school. I've had the same with Damon Hill too, was already a huge fan of him when he did F3000. Why? I don't know, maybe because of his dad? He just seemed like a gentleman and expecially as an underdog. His dad might have influenced me since I was also a big Nico Rosberg fan, maybe because I had liked Keke so much when I was a child. As an adult you tend to be more nuanced and the magic is also a bit gone. As a child F1 was like a magical world to me. 

 

And then you had drivers like Piercarlo Ghinzani. I liked him too: he had a lot charisma and was a stylish gentleman, a classy Italian. He wasn't a very quick F1 driver at all but I liked him because he never gave up and came back every year even if he had the slowest car. So I respected that he just kept on trying at the back of the grid. When Ivan Capelli entered F1 I also became a huge fan of him so maybe I did have something with nationalities but it was more the Italian one instead of my own nationality. I loved the look of his March car as well, beautifull car with unique colours.

 

I still remember the day when I found out that Elio de Angelis, who was also one of my favourites as a child (I tended to like Italian drivers, still do) died, it still gives me emotions today. It was 6 weeks after my 10th birthday but I was already obsessed about F1 and cars since I was 4-5 years old (my earliest memory was getting a photograph of the McLaren with Watson & Lauda on it getting signed by both drivers, I was just 4 or 5 years old then but I remember it). At 10 years old I already knew all drivers who ever drove an F1 race by heart, that's how obsessed I was.

And I loved the look of the new Brabham for '86, the very low Gordon Murray designed car (and predecessor of the McLaren of '88 in many ways) and it had 2 of my very favourite drivers in it with Patrese & de Angelis so this was my favourite team.

De Angelis did have troubles adapting to the team change so when Patrese was supposed to go out and test the car at Le Castellet he asked Riccardo if he could go instead so he could get used to the car better. Riccardo said you can take my place and Bernie agreed. 

Then one morning my dad woke me up, I had to get ready for school but he said 'something very bad has happened, I just heard on the radio that an Italian F1 driver has died yesterday'. I loved Italian drivers and my 2 favourites of the F1 field were Italian (Patrese & de Angelis) so I asked who? 'Was it Alboreto, Nannini, Ghinzani or de Cesaris, etc...?' But he didn't hear the radio message clearly.

 

Later that day I found out it was Elio. My world collapsed for a moment that day. But it hasn't stopped me from loving the sport.

Sport is about emotions and I'm missing that a bit today, it feels lees magical and doesn't give me the same emotions as it used to back in the old days. F1 feels more like a business than as a sport today.
 

So yes maybe it could be a good idea to organise such a poll again the way I had done 15 years ago. And if you ask me who will be the number one of my list from the '80s era, well I can tell you already that Riccardo Patrese will be number one on my list, he always will be.

Edited by William Hunt, 28 September 2021 - 17:03.

[KWSN - DSM]

I would have to do some heavy listing in grading the 200 best, I would not be ranking them 1 through 200, however personal likes from time I remember F1 in the early 1970ies not normally on top 10 or 12 lists.

Regazzoni
Patrese
Ghinzani
Surer
Rosberg
Rosberg
Giacomelli
Gasly
Latifi
Badoer
Bellof
Alboreto
de Cesaris
Panis
Reutemann
Martini
Diniz
Stroll
Stevens
Magnussen
Magnussen
Ickx (may have been more Le Mans than F1)
Merzario
Nannini

Maybe I could come up with 200.