The Greatest Driver Never to Win the World Championship?

[the Interceptor]

I want to throw in Stefan Bellof, who unfortunately only had little chance to show what he was capable of.

 

[MustangSVT]

Kimi Raikkonen. Wait a second.

I'm gonna go ahead and say Gilles Villeneuve. He deserved the '82 title.

 

[Greycap]

Actually, I just came up with one more strong candidate for the title. Already mentioned by Muzaffar Muza but gone unnoticed, he was (and still is) probably the greatest sports car driver ever, the true Rain Master, the uncrowned king of race drivers emerging from the northern part of the Continent.

Nobody else than Jacky Ickx.

 

[Scaff]

There was a time there when both Scaff and I had McRae's Subaru as avatars, and I was seeing his posts and thinking, "I don't remember posting that."

I used to think exactly the same thing, anyway Moss gets my vote in this by quite a long way and for exactly the reasons Greycap mentioned. I could not put it any better than that.


Regards

Scaff

 

[TheBigMan045]

Definatly Sir Stirling Moss has to be the best driver to never win the world championship. closely followed by Gilles Villeneuve. Drivers today (in the last 10 years) have had to sit in the cars and steer them while drivers from their generation (ie Moss Villeneuve) didnt have things like traction control and paddle gearshifts and they had to deal with unsafe racetracks and cars ultimatly culminating in the end of both these mens careers

 

[tigermoth737]

Gilles Villeneuve was a brilliant driver. But there was no way I can imagine him being world champion. He was spectacular to watch, yes, but this style of his broke many cars and ended in many crashes. I do not doubt his ability but he could not have won the championship based on the consistency he lacked. Not to take anything from the great man though.

 

[Drift260Z]

Gilles Villeneuve. period. he's the best. to me, anyway.


Joseph.

 

[Muzaffar]

Actually, I just came up with one more strong candidate for the title. Already mentioned by Muzaffar Muza but gone unnoticed, he was (and still is) probably the greatest sports car driver ever, the true Rain Master, the uncrowned king of race drivers emerging from the northern part of the Continent.

Nobody else than Jacky Ickx.

Well yeah, maybe I forgot to mentioned the details on why he's so good. I read on Wikipedia about how Jacky Ickx and Jochen Rindt had a good battle in 1970. Its also a very sad and controversial race as Jochen Rindt died in Monza. However it is, Emerson Fittipaldi won the race in Watkin Glen that denied Ickx of the title. Was really amazing how the story was, the only driver to posthumously win the Formula One World Drivers' Championship. If he was still alive, I think he would have been up there with Fangio and Schumacher. Just shows how incredibly unfair how all the good drivers died unexpectedly....

I also think that Peter Collins should be up there as one of the great drivers, given a good car of course. But somehow its like almost how Eddie Irvine had to follow team orders.....

But there's no denying that Stirling Moss is the "the greatest driver never to win the World Championship". Had all the talents and had the best car, but doesn't have the luck to win the championship....

 

[Blake]

Eddie Irvine? Bah, he was consistently 0.6 slower than Michael, at least.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

I ought to issue an infraction for suggestions of Giancarlo Fisichella and Eddie Irvine! Both are rubbish in their own unique ways. Sheesh, someone will mention Johnny Herbert soon.

Ralf Schumacher couldn't win a championship if it was only one race, and he had an F1 car, and all the others had World Series By Renault cars. And there was only one other driver. And the other driver was blind.

Stirling Moss is by far and away the best of the lot. Interestingly, of the worthy nominees, many died before their true talent could manifest itself. So it's interesting, in that there are two real questions: Who was the greatest driver who retired before winning the World Championship; and Who was the greatest driver to be killed before winning the World Championship. That would neatly allow you to fill the winners' slots with (respectively) Stirling Moss and Gilles Villeneuve, and leave us debating the also-rans.

 

[Blake]

Sheesh, someone will mention Johnny Herbert soon.

lulz u 4got taki inoue

 

[Alfaholic]

Ralf Schumacher couldn't win a championship if it was only one race, and he had an F1 car, and all the others had World Series By Renault cars. And there was only one other driver. And the other driver was blind.

Sheesh. That's just blatent exaggeration. If the blind guy's car breaks down before it completes the first lap then Ralf's got at least a 50 / 50 chance of winning. Credit where it's due, for pete's sake!

 

[Scaff]

Sheesh. That's just blatent exaggeration. If the blind guy's car breaks down before it completes the first lap then Ralf's got at least a 50 / 50 chance of winning. Credit where it's due, for pete's sake!

Even his brother says....

...NO

Scaff

 

[RouWa]

want to throw in Stefan Bellof, who unfortunately only had little chance to show what he was capable of.

Bellof is my choice, too. He was probably faster and more talented than Michael Schumacher.

 

[Alfaholic]

Yeah but what does Michael know about driving quickly?

Don't answer that, you'll be there all night.




My vote for best driver never to win an F1 title goes to......

Nuvolari!

 

[Grand Prix]

Yeah but what does Michael know about driving quickly?

Don't answer that, you'll be there all night.




My vote for best driver never to win an F1 title goes to......

Nuvolari!

Yeah, but he was so bad-ass and won so many races, he didn't need to win a championship. 👍 He won a motorcycle race with casks on his legs!

I'd also go with Moss and Villeneuve, but I think the greatest driver to not win a race was Chris Amon.

 

[Pupik]

Moss. By far.

Stirling Moss should have hauled away at least one title. He came darn close in 1958 (4 wins to Hawthorn's 1), and obviously with the points scoring table that was to come in a few years (9 in stead of 8 for a win by 1961), he'd be a world champ.

But to drop any fallacies: He didn't really show up as a contender until mid-1954, '55 he was team-mate to Fangio, who was also "too consistent" in 1956. In 1957, the Vanwalls weren't as reliable, but Fangio was top dog with the same Maseratis Moss drove the year before. By 1959, he was driving whatever he could, since Vandervell packed up from the sport, he was injured at Spa in 1960, and even though his driving in 1961 was amazing considering he wasn't in a Ferrari...we'd have to wait until 1962 to see how well he'd do in a privateer Ferrari. Sadly, he injured himself again and retired from the sport after needing a year to recuperate. But the year-old factory shark-nosed 156s weren't all that competitive anyhow.

Gilles Villeneuve

If he had a level head all season he could have done it: 1979 was his most trouble-free year, but Jody Scheckter was able to bring the same car home with less mistakes. The year before was a learning year, and 1980 was a waste, and 1981 was a developmental year with that brutish 126C turbo car.

So what about 1982? Well...F1 cars weren't all that reliable (and this is pretty much across the board from Ferrari to Osella, McLaren to Toleman), the cars were hard to keep on the track with ground effects and accidents reaching all-time lows and highs, and many cars were competitive with one another. There weren't many run-away events: 11 different winners in 7 makes. It's hard to tell if all the tricks that teams used to "abridge" the rulebook would have aided Ferrari either for or against. So whether Villeneuve or Pironi might have won the title would have depended a lot on whether Ferrari would have been able to put up the good fight to the end, and based on Tambay and Andretti's speed to the end of the year, then yes...a Ferrari driver could have won the driver's title that year. It's hard to say whether it might have been Villeneuve or Pironi, since sadly, neither saw out the year.

If Gilles could have survived into future seasons, 1983 would have been his only chance. He would have required a reliable and fairly-quick Ferrari (realistically, that wouldn't happen again until 1988) andhe would have had to temper the excitement about one-third, which is what made Gilles so lovable in the first place.

Jean Alesi

If he'd picked Williams in 1990 and not Ferrari, then yes; the Williams-Renault was quite the car to have from mid-1991 to the end of 1997. He signed more contracts in that year than he'd see F1 wins in his entire career, sadly. I didn't get to Gilles Villeneuve but I got to see all of Alesi's 200-race career, though.

David Coulthard

He had his chances in championship-winning cars. 'Nuff said.

Jacky Ickx

1970 could have been his year if Ferrari had developed their 312B sooner (although they were working on it since mid-1969). But jeez...would you have wanted to see him win the USGP, and thus steal a posthumous title away from Jochen Rindt?

Of course, Ferrari thought they had the magic formula with the 312B, and celebrated by taking the next three years off until the 312B2 development began (and failed miserably once more, finally getting it right in 1974). Ickx tried in 1971, but Jackie Stewart was too much for him, and an up-and-coming Fittipaldi was fast and smooth the following years.

So always in the wrong F1 car at the right time, or the right car after it sat on the table too long to cool. I'm talking about the Lotus 72D and 72E in 1974-75, in which Ronnie Peterson could win races, but Ickx couldn't.

Eddie Irvine

It's everyone else's fault.

Gerhard Berger

Managed to throw away races every so often.

Michele Alboreto

Too nice a guy to win the title.

Ralf Schumacher

If Micheal changed his given name.

Stefan Bellof

We'll never know.

I have to file him under Tony Brise and Tom Pryce, sadly.

We'll never know.

Tazio Nuvolari

European Championship winner in 1932; he drove a factory Alfa Romeo P3, as I recall. What's a World Championship when all the races are in Europe, anyhow?

Francois Cevert

Tough to tell; he had the experience, and he was set to take over the reigns at Tyrrell in 1974, but its hard to tell...the 007 and 008 weren't that competitive, but they had two nearly-rookie drivers in the team. But maybe more valuable input (from experience) could have aided the P34 development...

..We'll never know.

 

[Hun200kmh]

Great post, Pupik!!! I'm amazed by your knowledge of old-time F1.

I'd like to say that, even if I'm a GV fan, I really think Stirling Moss is the one ...

But I'll always feel sorry for Carlos Reutmann (sp?). Just a rememberance, because a champion doesn't crack under pressure, and he did ...

 

[superberkut]

Tough to tell; he had the experience, and he was set to take over the reigns at Tyrrell in 1974, but its hard to tell...the 007 and 008 weren't that competitive, but they had two nearly-rookie drivers in the team. But maybe more valuable input (from experience) could have aided the P34 development...

..We'll never know.

Cevert showed the most apparent potential in that when he and Jackie Stewart were teammates at Tyrrell, 'Sir Jackie' finished victorious 5 times, where Cevert finished second in those same races 5 times. Theoretically, Cevert would have won those races if Jackie was saddled with a worse car, and possibly be crowned.

However, that last possibility put that as very questionable...

I am surprised that Tony Brooks and Wolfgang 'Taffy' Von Trips were never mentioned. Tony won 6 GPs in 39 starts thanks to his tactical acumen and amazing stamina, most being in British cars. He raced for Ferrari in 1959, where he finished as runner-up to the title by 4 points to Jack Brabham, the winner with 31. A year earlier, Brooks finished 3rd in the World Championship as Stirling Moss' teammate, winning 3 races, but the reliability of the Vanwalls prevented him or Moss from winning the 1958 World Championship, directly in the Moroccan GP. His work, though, helped Tony Vandervell win the inaugural Constructor's Championship ahead of Ferrari by a large margin. He retired just before BRM's most successful season (he drove for them in 1961), and left Ferrari before the 'sharknose' cars were developed... He almost certainly would have bagged a title had he not done any of the two.

Taffy Von Trips toiled long and hard in F1, but was getting a reward in 1961, driving the famous Ferrari Tipo 156 'Sharknose' with Phil Hill as a teammate, and both drivers were far ahead of third-placed Stirling Moss in the Driver's Championship. Von Trips was leading Hill for most of the year. However, in the deciding race at Monza, where the German had to finish 3rd to guarantee the title, he was killed in an accident with the Lotus of Jim Clark, running 3rd. Phil Hill won that race and thus became the World Champion, the only driver born an American to do so. Had 'Taffy' won that race, he would have been the first German driver to win the title, 33 years before Michael Schumacher. All the results of his hard work was gone in a second. The two Germans would be directly related; the karting track Von Trips owned was actually the place where Michael Schumacher, then 8 years old, took his first laps in a car.

It is due to these that I think that Tony Brooks and Wolfgang Graf Berghe 'Taffy' Von Trips deserved a mention.

Edit: Given the above formula/theory, that meant Riccardo Patrese could have won the title in 1992, but only if Nigel Mansell had been driving a completely abysmal car.

 

[Grand Prix]

Even if Wolfgang von Tripps did win the title that day, he probably would have died anyway. His scheduled flight after the race crashed with heavy casualties.

 

[Pupik]

Tony Brooks

Oooh...that's why he's the forgotten man of Grand Prix racing. Even I forgot about him...A really short career in F1 with a long career in dentistry. He burst onto the (F1) scene literally with a non-championship win and while reading dental books on the plane ride! I always forget how amazing that win was, dominating a race in Italy (Siragusa Circuit) in a Connaught, beating the factory Ferraris!

He winds up in that wayward BRM, gets a ride with Vanwall, and still amazes everyone with his consistency. He was really one of the younger drivers out there, and he hadn't decided on the racing career until he started winning GPs! A year later, he's hurt in a crash at Le Mans, when his car overturned and later, hit by another car (which ironically, may have saved his life). He has an epiphany while in the hospital, and re-discovers his faith as a Roman Catholic.

He gets the drive with Ferrari, who has Jean Behra, Phill Hill, and Wolfgang von Trips as teammates all driving the 246 (not a bad "dream team") and had it not been for a bad clutch causing an early DNF at Monza and a worry about his tire at Sebring, he would have won the title: Brabham was leading, ran out of gas on the last lap, and pushed the car over the line to 3rd or 4th. Tony Brooks was running 3rd, and might have inherited the lead had he not stopped to have the car checked out.

At that point, he sort of felt that his life was more precious (don't forget how dangerous racing was then), and fell back onto dentistry after 1961. Not only would this all make for a darn good movie, but yeah, he was within a shout of the '59 world title.

Wolfgang von Trips

Wolfgang was unlucky enough to get killed at Monza: He should have won the 1961 title, but he was really one of the most unlucky of all the F1 drivers there have ever been. When I look back at race reports, he seriously had some rotten luck thoughout his career. I think the stories from mechanics and other driver say that he was tough on his machinery, which may have to do with his DNFs. His high-speed crash at the banked Monza led to it's disuse from F1.

I've heard the inevitable "flight back" is kind of nonsense, urban legend stuff. I mean, who knows how or when he might have celebrated at Monza, had he won the title right then and there? Or prepared for the US Grand Prix while in Italy? Meh.

Juan Pablo Montoya

A bit inconsistent; he sometimes had a knack for throwing away races. I think he could have done it, had he not been in the Schumacher-Alonso era, and was in a team that nurtured his type of personality and raw speed-based talent. To me, he was a lot like Nigel Mansell in that respect.

As an aside, twenty years from now, Mika Hakkinen will really look like an awesome driver, as he managed two titles in the "Schumacher era". Not that he didn't deserve a title or two.

 

[SagarisGTB]

My vote for best driver never to win an F1 title goes to......

Nuvolari!

I was going to say the same thing. A man among men. Him and Bernd Rosemeyer were real drivers.

If we confine the options to the actual F1 era, then its Moss. Though Massa will challenge him for that honour in 7-8 years.

 

[superberkut]

I was going to say the same thing. A man among men. Him and Bernd Rosemeyer were real drivers.

If we confine the options to the actual F1 era, then its Moss. Though Massa will challenge him for that honour in 7-8 years.

True, but wasn't there some sort of award held by local newspapers, given to the man to score the most points on a 'tour'? Journalism on motor sport was rather big then.

 

[Motominded]

Wonderful Thread *2 thumbs up*

My list

5. Rubens Barrichello ~ yes really

4. David Coulthard ~ To take after Senna

3. Gerhard Berger

2. Sterling Moss ~ To loss to Fangio?

1. Gilles Villeneuve ~ NEVER AGAIN

 

[Alex.]

I can tell you now, every single driver ever bar maybe 1 or 2 would have gotten out of their car and went home after that puncture in the gravel.

 

[Patrik]

Ronnie Peterson was the greatest... He would have been a champion if it wasn't for those ***holes in the Lotus team.

 

[airjordan604]

Alex Yoong

 

[Muzaffar]

Alex Yoong

Seriously... WTF? How do you even know him? I'm gonna take a guess and that you are a primary/secondary Malaysian student? Yeah, nice to know you and welcome to GTP.

 

[Only_in_f1]

How do you even know him?

He raced in F1, so any F1 fan should remember him. Like Tomas Enge & Gaston Mazzacane.

 

[superberkut]

Ronnie Peterson was the greatest... He would have been a champion if it wasn't for those ***holes in the Lotus team.

To think that all he wanted was to race for a good team... he didn't care if the contract favoured Mario Andretti or not; he just wanted to race. That attitude does not see many people become champions, but Ronnie was one of the best drivers with said mentality. He was no Sunday driver, though.

Perhaps Didier Pironi should be here?