scunjee
What a pile of crock..... Just goes to show the best egg heads need more than a computer and a catchy headline. Strong words indeed though backed up with empirical evidence. Why is John Surtees not in the top 50? That's just one of many flaws in this piece
VSOPilot
"one of only two people to win a Formula One race with a car of his own design (47th-placed Aussie Jack Brabham was the other)." Oops … I guess we forgot all about that other motor-sport legend, Bruce McLaren!
RobReid
Where's Gilles Villeneuve? The Ferraris he drove were often not the best and often inferior. He held off everybody in Spain one race, with one of the drivers saying "only Villeneuve could have passed Villeneuve today". He probably could have beat Scheckter for the title, except for team orders. Alonso and Vettel? You say how much more the car is these days, but you put these two in the top 10? Moss - 29, Rosberg - 44. Hmmm, don't think so. Re-evaluate, and discard 2000 on.
NicolasMonastirsky
Amazing read, I believe that the math formula will get more complex, of course I´m not happy with the results but with more variables like reliability of the car or the tyres throughout the ages. The old F1 is dead, like it or not.
59er9er
I didn't read the entire article but Christian Fittipaldi 11th all time? No poles, no podium finishes, no wins but still ranks above the likes of Damon Hill, Graham Hill, Lewis Hamilton and other greats. Strange. nothing against Christian but I don't think he'd rank that high in any other top 50 F1 driver list.
rseifer
Thanks so much for this brilliant article and charts. Not absolutely smitten with placing low for Andretti, who won in everything from midgets to LeMans, and Surtees, who was blindingly fast on the IoM course long before he ever decided to switch from two wheels to four, or the absence of Froilan Gonzalez, who was a fierce competitor of Fangio, but overall the computations and adjustments were reasonable and always plausible. One of the very finest I've seen on GizMag. Ralph L. Seifer, Long Beach, California
PeterOsborne
Formula Ford Driver... Yes, the list is pretty good but low rates Nigel Mansel, his handling of formula cars was exceptional even among exceptional drivers. Tom Pryce was a very good driver, handled the cars very ell, but had under powered cars. His death in a racing incident left his potential incident , in my opinion, made his potential unknowable. Too bad, as he was a personable young man, and would have been very good for the sport. Mario Andretti may be lower rated tan he should be as he was an abrasive and sometimes down right dangerous man. But he was very very talented as a driver and capable of winning in any type of acing he chose. Drivers are far more than 10% tho. Personally, with an obsolete car, I was able to beat much newer, faster , card by driving it better than others. Were the car always 90%, there were many races where I should have been last but I never ever finished last.. In the only event where I had the best, newest car on the track, (A borrowed car, and I was faster than the owner in the same car) I won.....
KenMurphy
Wll, it's a very interesting study. But unfortunately it's a victim of the old computer phenomenon known as GIGO - garbage in garbage out.
Any study which puts Stirling Moss 29th has to be questioned. Apart from his years racing for the Silver Arrows, he mostly driving inferior cars in his desire to win with a British car - very often with private entrants rather than works cars. But in days when a driver could do more with a car than nowadays he won at Monaco and Nurburgring - (driver circuits in those days) in a Lotus against MUCH faster Ferraris. truly epic performances. And the Mille Miglia? And and and.... He was ALWAYS faster than Graham Hill (wonderful guy that he was) who is placed 13th. Sure Hill won the Championship but in the best car around at the time. And Keke Rosberg 44th??
EyeMars
It's tough to comprehend how come Gilles Villeneuve is nowhere to be seen in these...
TopgunTech
ONE... just ONE possibly justifiable result out of 100... Juan Manuel Fangio. After that it is all just plain rubbish and the omissions and low rankings of top drivers/achievers is just inexecusable - and insulting to some of the world greats. A few years back a bunch of schoolkids in Year 10 produced a Top 50 that puts this to shame and managed to included the greats from every era. I'm disappointed Gizmag would give this junk any oxygen - don't you have a motoring afficianado on your staff? Maybe you need one.