In your opinion, who is the best F1 driver ever? :-k

Ayrton Senna folowed by Shummy...

The Dijon video gives you a clue. Even if its career was too short it was Gilles Villeneuve. Nobody could take a crap car and extract the most of it like him. Simply incredible car control once past the limit.

Villeneuve, Senna, like it or not, Schumie's up there too imo...

Juan Manuel Fangio followed by Senna and Schumacher...

Schumacher.....!

Ayrton Senna PERIOD

No one could take a car past its limits like he did during qualifying

A. Senna and M. Schumacher

Ayrton Senna, Juan Manuel Fangio. But also Jim Clark. Many people forget him, but he's called the Senna of the sixties. Just like Senna he crashed and died...

Michael Schumacher is different from those. Offcourse he has got a lot of natural speed, but that doesnt make him that good. He has the ability to lead, build and inspire a winning team. Like he did with Ferrari. Driving wise, he will never be the best.

ayrton senna , juan manuel fangio and niki lauda

A mention of Hiroshima showed how poor some peeps' knowledge of history is...

Jimmy Clark

A.SENNA and P.MONTOYA.:cool: :cool: :cool:

dammon hill or jimmy raikkanon < howevr u spell it

i am thinkin montoya or raikonnen but i dont watch f1 so i dont no who is gd or not because i hate the f1

dammon hill or jimmy raikkanon < howevr u spell it

it is Kimi Räikkönen.. and Damon Hill
But I think the best driver has been Mika Häkkinen. He beat Schumi even he is so "best" driver.. Mika could drive fast with "slow" car.
And he made wise decisions about race tactics.

Ayrton Senna, cos he was amazing & none of the drivers nowadays will ever match up to his technique. in his day they didn't have half of the driver aids or anything like that so yeah.

Mika could drive fast with "slow" car.

I'm sorry, but I do not agree. The two worldchampionships he won, he had by far the fastest car(especially in 1998). Before that, the McLaren wasn't that good, and he won nothing.

haahah jimmy raikkonen....
its actually kimi.
i say michael schumacher, he raced artyon senna (hes been around that long)
aryton senna
mika and kimi go 3rd

The Red Baron: Michael Schumacher,The Iceman: Mika Hakkinen, and
Ayrton Senna (don't know his nickname)

I could've sworn Kimi was called the iceman. Some diamond company made a custom helmet for Kimi And Juan for Monaco (spelling?). On the side, it spelled "ice man" in diamonds. Whatever. He's a great driver, but he still hasn't proven himself in my opinion. Alanso is a fantastic driver, but he's just not up there yet. Schumacher, well. What can I say about Schumacher. His ego is bigger than his trophy case. He's a jerk in my opinion.

Alberto Ascari is a great driver. Nobody realizes it, but Ascari was just as good as Fangio. They were serious competition. However, I like Ascari because he seemed to be just an average guy. He was a little chubby, and he wasn't the best looking man ever. I believe he was also a family man, which is pretty rare for F1 driver I think.

Jackie Stewart is also one of my favorites. I personally think he made formula 1 what it is today. He made it safe for everyone to race. If it weren't for him, too many people would die behind the wheel and F1 would be a lost sport. He's also a real guy too. From what I've seen and read, he seems down to earth and kind of like a crazy uncle.

Damon Hill is an excellent driver, along with his former team mate, Jacques Villinueve (forgive me if I spelled it wrong, I'm tired). Rene Arnoux was one of my favorites, along with Gilles of course. Stirling Moss was great, along with Dan Gurney.

However, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna are the best in my opinion. The passion those two had was just nothing you'd ever see today. I can't even begin to explain why they're amazing. They represent the sport in my opinion.

Alanso is a fantastic driver, but he's just not up there yet. Schumacher, well. What can I say about Schumacher. His ego is bigger than his trophy case. He's a jerk in my opinion.

Funny thing is that journalists who had interviews with both Schumacher and Alonso say that Schumacher is a really nice guy, and Alonso has that big ego you talk about.

Funny thing is that journalists who had interviews with both Schumacher and Alonso say that Schumacher is a really nice guy, and Alonso has that big ego you talk about.

Really? Well, I don't know much about Alonso's personality. I think he's just a good driver for his age. From what I've read about his driving and such, he just seems like he's a jerk. But I have no idea.

A good case could be made for Mario Andretti. Some might say he was a winner just by being in the right car (ground effects Lotus) at the right time.

He was the first F1 driver to run with a locked/spool rear axle. He had to drive within the limits of adhesion, because looking flashy meant looking backwards. Think about it.

A good case could be made for Mario Andretti. Some might say he was a winner just by being in the right car (ground effects Lotus) at the right time.

He was the first F1 driver to run with a locked/spool rear axle. He had to drive within the limits of adhesion, because looking flashy meant looking backwards. Think about it.

What's a locked/spooled rear axle?

No differential. The rear wheels are "locked" together.

great to see that a lot of scf member express their opinions about the topic
thank you guys

No differential. The rear wheels are "locked" together.

Oh, ok. Thanks.

I wasn't trying to sound esoteric tech, Mopar68. A locked/spool axle is fairly common in drag racing. It works great until you get out of shape. Otherwise, it's pretty radical. A vast majority of FR cars will be wildly oversteering/pushing in a turn with a spool, even at an autocross. There is NO middle ground.

Your snowdance story would have been much shorter in a FR "sports car", which would have stiffer springs (more roll stiffness, probably biased rearwards). In the snow, I could barely get around the corner from my house in my Hartge 323i E21. It's limited slip diff might as well have been a spool in low traction conditions. I abandonded it at the curb. I have had much better sucess in the snow with "pushy" FR cars. For the record, a g/f would not allow me in the driver's seat of her FF Toyota FX after one trip in the snow. After yanking the park brake lever a few times to induce a reasonable drift angle in a turn, she would not even allow me in the passenger's seat until the thaw.

Mario had won 7 USAC championships before his (full-time; he drove a couple of F1 races for Ferrari in '72) FI debut in the late '70's. In those days, the USAC series consisted of dirt ovals and paved ovals and road courses (different cars, of course), as did the AMA (bikes) championship. Somewhere along the way, he acquired seat-of-the-pants car control skills that might have been an advantage over those who learned on the traditional karting/Formula Ford/F3 career track to F1.

The kewlest racing T-shirt I ever saw was from Lotus: "Won two/One, two". RIP Ronnie Peterson, aka Super Swede.

is jacques villeneuve related to gilles villeneuve? o_O please excuse my ignorance.

is jacques villeneuve related to gilles villeneuve? o_O please excuse my ignorance.There is two Jacques Villeneuve, one is the "uncle", that is Gilles' brother and the other is Gilles' son. He's the one that you know. But "uncle" was also a hell of a driver, simply not at the right place at the right time. He won two Formula Atlantic and one Can Am championships in the 80's.;)

Michael Schum...
Juan Manuel Fangio
Jackie Stwart
Niki Lauda




p.s. schumi killed senna people, dont understand how that makes him so good, couldnt handle the prssure.

p.s. schumi killed senna people, dont understand how that makes him so good, couldnt handle the prssure.

Could you explain that? That's a little far fetched.

senna has got to be the best F1 driver he was and still the best ever driver there is no dout about that sorry to disapoint all you schumi fans but thats the truth (in my opinion of course:D )

Could you explain that? That's a little far fetched.

Bah its my opinion, but if you see that race, Schumi is presssuring Senna way to much...and it looks as if senna just over braked the turn, car got a little sideways and lost all its downforce, forcing him out...Should have never happened, but I still the pressure form Schumi killed him.

Bah its my opinion, but if you see that race, Schumi is presssuring Senna way to much...and it looks as if senna just over braked the turn, car got a little sideways and lost all its downforce, forcing him out...Should have never happened, but I still the pressure form Schumi killed him.

You know what, let's blame Eddie Jordan. Because he brought Schumacher into F1, it's all his fault. O no, I'm wrong, let's blame Schumachers parents!!!!!

Really dude, that is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. I'm sad that people thinking like this exist...

This a tough issue.
In a sports that encompasses 56 years of history and thousands of regulations and technical changes, it is close to impossible to make any kind of objective comparison. F1 literature offers -though- a way to make the comparison and that is efficiency that is the % of races won over races (official F1 valids) raced.
Here is the Top 10 (champions only):

Driver/Raced/Won/Efficiency/Titles
1. Fangio 51/24/47%/5
2. Ascari 32/13/41%/2
3. Schumacher 220/84/38%/7
4. Clark 72/25/35%/2
5. Stewart 99/27/27%/3
6. Prost 199/51/26%/4
7. Senna 161/41/25%/3
8. Hill (Damon) 115/22/19%/1
9. Mansell 187/31/17%/1
10.Farina 33/5/15%/1
=Lauda 171/25/15%/3

Ironically, Sir Stirling Moss with 67/17/23% (he would have been 8th in the list) was never World F1 Champion.

Bah its my opinion, but if you see that race, Schumi is presssuring Senna way to much...and it looks as if senna just over braked the turn, car got a little sideways and lost all its downforce, forcing him out...Should have never happened, but I still the pressure form Schumi killed him.

Unless a flagrant case of negligence or bad judgment occurs (like Hawthorn in ´55 Le Mans) nobody can be blamed for the death of a race driver or by-standers. Racing is a dangerous sport.
God knows Schumacher is not my favorite driver but he had nothing to do with Senna´s demise. There were other factors involved: lack of focus, the abscence of a tyre-retainer cable, no HANS and probably (mind you, probably) a defective front suspension-axle structure.
I understand that this a forum to express opinions, but opinions should have a minimum requirement of supporting evidence. Otherwise is wishful-thinking or worse, slander.

The various equipment shortcomings mentioned as contributing factors to Senna's death seem inappropriate to me.

Atlanta GA US based Mazda racer and IMSA GTU and Camel Lights champion Jim Downing had invented the HANS device years earlier. He used it, preached it, but was widely ignored in the US until the death of Dale Earnhardt in '01. A HANS might have saved Dale; It would not have saved Senna.

To my knowledge, tire-retainer cables were first used on IRL Indy cars in the late '90's. If they hadn't been invented yet, how could they have saved Senna?

Senna rode on state-of-the-art composite suspension pieces. They are SO light and SO strong, but if you smack them hard enough they will SO break.

Racing can kill you. F1 safety has increased exponentially. 8 drivers died in the '80's, but only 2 in the '90's.

The sudden (I was watching live TV) death of the biggest star in world racing was shocking. It provoked widespread, long lasting controversy culminating in Cooper "S"'s asinine remark. Contrary to the natural order of the Schumi-centrist universe as perceived by many neo-F1 fans, he was not a factor in Senna's accident.

There was plenty of video footage available. More recent analysis of availble data came to the following conclusions:

Overcast skies and much lower track temps resulted in much slower rates of tire heating/growth (diameter) than had been expected after a caution period.

A flat-bottom/splitter F1 car requires the induced low-pressure airflow under the bottom plate. If the car bottoms out, said airflow goes to zero. Downforce will decrease 25-50%.

Less tire diameter caused Senna to bottom out just after he had steered into the easy kink. The car didn't turn; over a span of milliseconds, Senna gently doubled the steering angle. There was no lack of focus.

Yes, there was a lack of focus. The documentary film shows frame-by-frame the warning lights blinking and Senna reacting late. It is well known that he had personal problems (both family and labor related) that were affecting him, not to mention Barrichellos´s crash and Ratzenberger´s death the day before. There is a picture of him in the grid, just before the start that shows his face lacking his usual confidence and concentration. This photograph was part of the forensic proceedings.
I attended some of the trial sessions, and a faulty front suspension unit was considered yet not proven.
As for the tyre-retainer cable and the HANS I did not mean they were not used (obviously were not in use then, yet several frontrunners were tested but teams were not interested), my intendend meaning was that if available would have been a factor in Senna saving his life. Actually, the front tyre slided over the front end of the car and hit him the head, breaking his neck. Bell Helmets were cleared.
It is very sad, he was a great talent -no doubt one of the best- it is also extremely unfair that Ayrton is the only F1 World Champion to have died in a valid race.
His legacy includes levels of safety without precedent. No driver has died since his unfortunate demise, as you well put it.

(PS: by the way, you watched on TV...but I was there)