The Greatest Driver Never to Win the World Championship?

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Yes he was quick and his career was unfortunate but after betraying Villeneuve I dont see him as one.
 
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?

If I remember correctly, Ronnie could have won that championship the year he died. At the end he was only something like 13 points off. After Monza was on off the American GP's in which Mario failed to finish and the final round in Canada, Mario was well out of the points.

If only Ronnie had used the '79' in the race instead of the '78'.

On the subject of Pironi, He should have won the champioship in 1982. But at the start of that season he was not the best driver out there, so in my opinion no.
 
Pironi wouldn't have got anywhere near the title if Gilles had still been around.
 
He raced in F1, so any F1 fan should remember him. Like Tomas Enge & Gaston Mazzacane.
Well, don't expect everyone to remember him. I mean he wasn't exactly fast nor does he even outperform his teammate at times. So do you think you remember any former F1 drivers like Luciano Burti, Tarso Marques, Giorgio Pantano, Justin Wilson, Zsolt Baumgardner, Cristiano Da Matta, and the link and where they are now. Yes, true F1 fans can remember them, but ask any person on the street about these person and they won't know who they are. So they are not basically a "great driver" to begin with.......

But I agree with what daan said, Ronnie Peterson or even Didier Pironi wouldn't even be close to Gilles if all of them were still around.....
 
Well, don't expect everyone to remember him. I mean he wasn't exactly fast nor does he even outperform his teammate at times. So do you think you remember any former F1 drivers like Luciano Burti, Tarso Marques, Giorgio Pantano, Justin Wilson, Zsolt Baumgardner, Cristiano Da Matta, and the link and where they are now. Yes, true F1 fans can remember them, but ask any person on the street about these person and they won't know who they are. So they are not basically a "great driver" to begin with......

Fair Point 👍
 
If only Ronnie had used the '79' in the race instead of the '78'.
He crashed the Lotus 79 in the morning warm-up. The old 78, which barely ran all year, was the spare car. An inattentive safety and distant medical crew is what possibly killed him.

I'm not sure Ronnie would have won the title in 1978, had he survived the accident at Monza in 1978. He finished less than one second apart from Andretti in the Dutch GP the race before, and he was tailing him for the last 10-20 laps. Perhaps it was team orders; Peterson said he couldn't take the win away from Mario.
 
He crashed the Lotus 79 in the morning warm-up. The old 78, which barely ran all year, was the spare car. An inattentive safety and distant medical crew is what possibly killed him.

I'm not sure Ronnie would have won the title in 1978, had he survived the accident at Monza in 1978. He finished less than one second apart from Andretti in the Dutch GP the race before, and he was tailing him for the last 10-20 laps. Perhaps it was team orders; Peterson said he couldn't take the win away from Mario.


He'd used the 78 in the first few GP's of that year. The spare 79 was set for Mario, hence it was too big for Ronnie to use.
 
I'd say Stirling Moss, as a hundred people already said before.
But who's in the most enviable situation ? Moss, now 78, who never won the title or let's say Jochen Rindt, who was world champion but didn't even live long enough to know it ?
 
Moss has always said he's glad he never did win the championship, because he will forever be remembered as the Nearly Man who never quite made it, rather than someone who won it once and then sank into anonymity.

There's also one other reason for Moss never winning the championship:

Stirling Moss
Better to lose honorably in a British car than win in a foreign one.

:)
 
Better to lose honorably in a British car than win in a foreign one.
Losing honorably in a British car... That would explain why Lewis Hamilton didn't win the championship last year :p
 
He'd used the 78 in the first few GP's of that year. The spare 79 was set for Mario, hence it was too big for Ronnie to use.

That's true: Ronnie won the South African GP in the 78. A photo of the race now comes to mind, with those squarish-split-airbox intakes over Ronnie's head.
 
Roo
Moss has always said he's glad he never did win the championship, because he will forever be remembered as the Nearly Man who never quite made it, rather than someone who won it once and then sank into anonymity.

Someone like Moss would not have sunk into anonymity after just one title... the future generations will remember the non-champions less as our culture becomes less sophisticated and people rely on archives as opposed to stories handed down from generation to generation, even though there is a fair bit of literature on Stirling Moss and not Mike Hawthorn!

Edit: Good point, Metar. I should have remembered that!
 
Someone like Moss would not have sunk into anonymity after just one title... the future generations will remember the non-champions less as our culture becomes less sophisticated and people rely on archives as opposed to stories handed down from generation to generation, even though there is a fair bit of literature on Stirling Moss and not Mike Hawthorn!

Because he isn't just a non-champion. He's the guy who had more wins but lost it. He's the ultimate almost-champion, in that regard.
 
Stirling Moss has stayed within the motor racing community; many drivers leave those circles for a few years (or for good). If there were a British ambassador to the sport, it would be Stirling Moss. (Jackie Stewart is the Scottish ambassador.)

Mike Hawthorn was killed in a road accident a few months after winning the 1958 title. His career was much shorter, although he was a brilliant driver.
 
I don’t know about that, so many champions of that era are forgotten today, yet Moss’s name lives on.

Well, three other names are not hard to remember... (Farina in 1950, Fangio from 1951 and 1954-57, with Ascari in 1952-53) However, it is true that one would remember Moss more than even, say, Jack Brabham, who raced in a similar period. I don't know, as you are Australian, does his name get mentioned much in your country?
 
Brabham is relatively famous in this country. But I do wonder if you really think Farina and Ascari have similar notoriety as Moss… Farina especially does not come to mind as the best of the best despite his title, but many talk about Moss as one of the greatest of the era.
 
Well, Farina is really a bit like Nelson Piquet (the complaining), and the odds were visibly in his favour for the first championship title in 1950, which Fangio could have easily won had the politics of Alfa Romeo worked differently. But, the point would be that there was not much of a variation of World Championship title winners, and only four names in that era (as opposed to 1977-1984, for example) is easier to remember, even if the names spark no familiarity. Farina would have ended up like Stirling Moss in Italy, but not much else would have come if he hadn't won a World Championship. Of course, the fact that he won it out of team politics more than driving skill (he was fast, but many believed Fangio to be faster, and Ascari even more so) seems to taint his reputation.
 
But I do wonder if you really think Farina and Ascari have similar notoriety as Moss… Farina especially does not come to mind as the best of the best despite his title, but many talk about Moss as one of the greatest of the era.
Who are these "many" and why are they so stupid? Farina isnt the most famous driver, ill give you that, but over Fangio and Ascari? Thats why we have cars named the Zonda M and Moss KZ1, right?
 
Who are these "many" and why are they so stupid? Farina isnt the most famous driver, ill give you that, but over Fangio and Ascari? Thats why we have cars named the Zonda M and Moss KZ1, right?

That would've been a Zonda N :rolleyes:
 
Who are these "many" and why are they so stupid? Farina isnt the most famous driver, ill give you that, but over Fangio and Ascari? Thats why we have cars named the Zonda M and Moss KZ1, right?

I thought, "Zonda" was either the Italian word for wind or a car endorsed by Riccardo Zonta, but they couldn't use his name for licensing issues.

It helps that the brands are Italian too, you know.
 
I thought, "Zonda" was either the Italian word for wind or a car endorsed by Riccardo Zonta, but they couldn't use his name for licensing issues.

It helps that the brands are Italian too, you know.

He probably referred to the Zonda F (which stood for Fangio), as Fangio helped Pagani develop the exotic supercar.
 
Zonda is an italian mountain wind caused by mountain summit air pressure or something. F stand for Juan Manuel Fangio as Metar said.
 
Who are these "many" and why are they so stupid? Farina isnt the most famous driver, ill give you that, but over Fangio and Ascari? Thats why we have cars named the Zonda M and Moss KZ1, right?

One of the best, not the best.
 
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