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View Full Version : Who do think is the greatest F1 driver



Ferrari Tifosi
04-24-2004, 03:41 PM
So who gets your choice as the greatest in the greatest race car series.

Choices:
Alberto Ascari
Jimmy Clark
Juan-Manuel Fangio
Emerson Fittipaldi
Graham Hill
Stirling Moss
Niki Lauda
Tazio Nuvolari
Alain Prost
Michael Schumacher
Ayrton Senna
Jackie Stewart
Gilles Villeneuve
Nelson Piquet

I believe Ayrton Senna is the greatest. I seen him do some amazing things in a race car, that I've never seen anyone else do.

ZeTurbo
04-24-2004, 04:04 PM
you just cant say who is better than who.... i mean can u really compare the kind of racing clark did with the speed and nerve wreking formula 1 senna exewlled in? its like 2 absolutely diffrent series...

but if i was to choose... no doubt about it Michael shumacher!
now... i know how many of u are gona say that he is only good cause ferrari has shit loads of money... but hey, williams had shitloads of money before and a far better car than the rest of the pack and nobody say squat! so spare me of the comments. no man With 6 world titles and evry single record (ok all but one of them left) beat can be said to be lucky!

DarkPhenix
04-24-2004, 04:06 PM
i agree with you Ferrari Tiffosi, i like michael schumacher too but i voted ayrton senna..

Matra et Alpine
04-24-2004, 04:19 PM
I believe Ayrton Senna is the greatest. I seen him do some amazing things in a race car, that I've never seen anyone else do.
Jim Clark was equally as good in the pinnacle of F1 of his day AND he was as good in saloons.
There are some great Shell films showing Clark racing the Lotus Cortina and four wheel drifting the car on power through every corner in drya and wet.
A genius.

Ferrari Tifosi
04-24-2004, 04:24 PM
Jim Clark was equally as good in the pinnacle of F1 of his day AND he was as good in saloons.
There are some great Shell films showing Clark racing the Lotus Cortina and four wheel drifting the car on power through every corner in drya and wet.
A genius.

Jim Clark was truley a great driver.

Any idea on where I could find these videos of him?

Cotterik
04-24-2004, 05:15 PM
Ayrton Senna because his character,his ability, his determination and his death changed Formula One forever. If he was still racing Michael Schumacher wouldnt be so widely accepted as F1's greatest driver. I agree with ZeTurbo; the amount of technology in the sport these days means that the driving skills required of today are a far cry from the likes of Juan-Manuel Fangio and Clark. Many say Fangio is the greatest, upto last year when his record was beaton for most Championship wins by Michael Schumacher. But if Fangio was racing in schumachers car, there would be no competition.

Matra et Alpine
04-24-2004, 05:59 PM
Ayrton Senna because his character,his ability, his determination and his death changed Formula One forever.
Jim Clark's was doubly tragic as he was racing in an F2 race on the day.
His was as big an impact in the world of racing ( perhaps more as he competed in more types of races anbd had a wqider fan base )

Somehow it seems worse when they lose their life NOT competing in the pinnacle - like Joey Dunlop, greatest bike road racer EVER.

Matra et Alpine
04-24-2004, 06:08 PM
Jim Clark was truley a great driver.

Any idea on where I could find these videos of him?

Here's the man being as humble and unassuming as ever ... http://www.isanski.worldonline.co.uk/clark.avi

http://www2.eis.net.au/~bramwell/jim.htm is a good site with history and photos , but not those videos.

They occasionally turn up for sale at specialist motorsport shows in the UK.
I keep my eye out.
In the 50s-70s Shell and BP made many motorsport movies promoting their products.
They make great viewing.
UNFORTUNATELY, *I* don't have any in my collection and they are hard to get a hold of.

Friend has dropped me a line back, he remebered the name of the videos that we see at motorsport shows ....Check out http://www.32fullthrottle.freeserve.co.uk/single.htm and go down to "Motorfilms Quarterly vol 5", as an exmaple, it includes an Esso film on Clark.

lfb666
04-24-2004, 07:37 PM
My vote goes to Ayrton Senna.
May he rest in peace, we won´t forget him.

Ferrari Tifosi
04-24-2004, 09:46 PM
Here's the man being as humble and unassuming as ever ... http://www.isanski.worldonline.co.uk/clark.avi

http://www2.eis.net.au/~bramwell/jim.htm is a good site with history and photos , but not those videos.

They occasionally turn up for sale at specialist motorsport shows in the UK.
I keep my eye out.
In the 50s-70s Shell and BP made many motorsport movies promoting their products.
They make great viewing.
UNFORTUNATELY, *I* don't have any in my collection and they are hard to get a hold of.

Friend has dropped me a line back, he remebered the name of the videos that we see at motorsport shows ....Check out http://www.32fullthrottle.freeserve.co.uk/single.htm and go down to "Motorfilms Quarterly vol 5", as an exmaple, it includes an Esso film on Clark.

Thank you for the links, some very interesting information that I never knew of. I appreciate it.

Matra et Alpine
04-25-2004, 03:58 AM
Thank you for the links, some very interesting information that I never knew of. I appreciate it.
No problem.

Your Andretti quote - If everything's under control, you're going too slow ~ reminded me of a Roger Clark, one of Britains great rally drivers. He used to walk over the prqactise forest roads AFTER he'd been through to look at the wheel tracks. He always beleived if a rally car rear wheel were ever in the sime lines as the front then he wasn't going fast enough !! The theory was that maximum braking on the loose meant pitching the car sidewasy while slowing to maximise grip and set up the corner. Maximum acceleration on exit would always mean the car was pitch sideways having applied power as early as possible in the corner. Roger Clark was one of the most spectacular rally drivers of the day. But a prime example of how technology changes thinfs. Current WRC cars aremuch faster driving the near-classic racing line and trying ther bets to keep the wheels all in line :)

Falcon500
04-25-2004, 04:43 AM
Ayrton Senna because his character.
all very good points other then that one...he was a strange person at best who believed it was his god given right to win...undoubtly one of the worlds best driveing talents...but indeed a very strange person....

IBrake4Rainbows
04-25-2004, 05:00 AM
My Vote went to Gilles Villeneuve.

The greatest driver never to win the Championship. His tenure might have been short at the pinnacle of Motorsport, but his Impact was great, even though he went out with a grudge against his teammate, i think he deserves our thanks. He took Ferrari Racecars that were uncompetitive and Undriveable (According to James Hunt) and beat cars which were much, much more technologically advanced. although i happen to think if he didn't die he would have dominated like Shumi.

Heres to the Little Canadian that could.

Also I think if Micheal Shumacher was killed at Imola during the Next race, would we miss him as much? we knew he could be dominant, and probably had more left in his career, like Senna, but the man doesn't seem to have a personality, and is quite often a sore loser.

Suka
04-25-2004, 06:45 AM
I voted for Jim Clark! He was superb!

Cotterik
04-25-2004, 01:27 PM
all very good points other then that one...he was a strange person at best who believed it was his god given right to win...undoubtly one of the worlds best driveing talents...but indeed a very strange person....
I agree but when i stated 'character' i meant his emotional attatchment to F1 itself and how differently he approached each race compared to other drivers, like running along the beach and lying on the pier exercising. Senna was also great fun to watch during close races when he used hand gestures towards other drivers, it filled you with adrenaline. Ive never seen anybody drive around a track so fast yet so relaxed..amazing

porscayen
04-25-2004, 02:44 PM
Shumacher is the best today, Senna it was 12 years ago the best, Fangio, the best in its time, is very difficult to compare an ago 30 year-old driver or an ago 40 year-old car with one of today.

Foxbat
04-25-2004, 06:52 PM
Also I think if Micheal Shumacher was killed at Imola during the Next race, would we miss him as much? we knew he could be dominant, and probably had more left in his career, like Senna, but the man doesn't seem to have a personality, and is quite often a sore loser.

[Knocks on wood] I shudder to think of such things, but as a comparison it's not valid either. A better comparison would be MS having a career-ending accident at Imola in 1997 (or even Silverstone 99, as so nearly happened).

As for MS's character, he may not have Senna's charisma but I sure like him a lot better then I ever liked Ayrton. He is a family man, more like a regular Joe Schmuk who happens to be a very good driver. That to me makes him more sympathetic than Senna with his larger-then-life aura.

2fastand2dumb
04-25-2004, 09:41 PM
not trying to be a smart ass but the pool is wrong i was bored so i started conting all the percentages. i doulbe checked and it only equals 99.98%

Foxbat
04-26-2004, 05:31 AM
not trying to be a smart ass but the pool is wrong i was bored so i started conting all the percentages. i doulbe checked and it only equals 99.98%

There are 31 votes, meaning that each vote is 3.23% of the total... and the total percentage is 100.13% :eek:
Rounding differences, in reality each vote is approximately* 3.22580645161290% but rounding it to the nearest tenth and then adding up will always give a total percentage that is close too but not exactly 100% :D




* 31x3.22580645161290=99.999

Falcon500
04-26-2004, 05:49 AM
I agree but when i stated 'character' i meant his emotional attatchment to F1 itself and how differently he approached each race compared to other drivers, like running along the beach and lying on the pier exercising. Senna was also great fun to watch during close races when he used hand gestures towards other drivers, it filled you with adrenaline. Ive never seen anybody drive around a track so fast yet so relaxed..amazing
Youd like autralias craig lowndes then...you see him post some cracking times(not so jmuch nowas his team is still sorting things out) but you see him relaxed in the cockpit one hand on the stearing wheel while resting on the rollcage and his other ahnd resting on the gearstick....
But yes your totally right he was a calm individual in general but he really didtake some serious risks behind the wheel...it looked like his throttle was a switch either it was on or it was off....

Deckard
04-26-2004, 08:57 PM
C'mon folks. You should know better than to try and compare drivers from different eras.

I'll be honest and say that I don't know much about Jim Clark, which most people seem to think that he was the greatest.

Personally, I think Senna was overrated. (ohhhh, that's going to upset a few people....) He may have been fast, but he was also brash, reckless (not just to himself) and extremely arrogant (on and off the track). Off the track he had punch ups with people and was a complete zealot when it came to his religious beliefs.

I didn't vote for anyone on the list, because I don't know enough about all the drivers. I remember Senna, Fittipaldi, Prost etc... but for Nuvolari, Ascari etc... only by the reputation.

I know that most people on this board are fairly young, so I wonder how many of you that voted for Senna actually saw him race at the time. Or if you did whether you had a good enough understand of F1 at the time?

I've been watching F1 for over 25 years now, so I don't mean to sound like 'an old fart', it's just that polls comparing drivers gives me the sh*ts. :D