A blog that as a car and motor racing enthusiast I have to write, or type, depending on what you call blogging. I'm not technically writing and yet we still call it writing. Hmmmm. Anyway on with the subject.
To make this blog I've studied a heck of a lot of footage. I've been watching a surmised total of around 48 hours of footage. I've come up with a list of five. Believe me when I say it's a near impossible task to come up with five. You're going to not mention a hell of a lot of great drivers to do it and some I still think I've made a mistake with but I can't keep changing my mind because it would never get made.
5. It would have to be Jim Clark. Racing in the very earliest years of the Formula 1 world championship was no mean feat. The tracks resembled old country lanes more than they do purpose built race tracks. The cars had tyres that were almost as skinny as the tyes you would see on a bicycle. They had four speed manual gear boxes. No seatbelts, open face helmets and mechanical failures were not uncommon. Clark was considered the driver of his era and you would be hard pressed to disagree. In 1963 and 1965 he won the title. Unfortunately he was killed in a race that had nothing to do with F1 in 68 at the Hockenheimring in Germany. It is widely believed that if Clark hadn't died then he would have gone on to win many more titles. Clark had one of the smoothest driving styles of his day. He wasn't one to saw at his wheel. From what I've seen he was a driver that raced for straight line pace rather than out and out fast cornering. He would often take a corner calmly, slowly entering and then slowly building power, letting the speed rise as he exits but critically, not drifting. He would then make sure he changed gears at the optimum time. It's fair to say that Jim Clark was an artist behind the wheel. May he be remember for another 50 years.
4. It's really tricky this one. In the end I've settled on Gilles Villeneuve. This was a driver that never won the title and with that piece of information you're probably thinking to yourself "how can a man who never won the titles be better than a man who did, and twice no less?" Gilles had a driving style most unlike Clarks. The cars in his era had just started to sprout wings and generated little but some downforce. They also had significantly more power. Villeneuve was an attack driver who made the most of this. What's a shame is that as the number two driver in Ferrari he never got a fair chance to win the title (see the Alonso Massa incident this year at Hockenheim). His death was tragic and occured in 1982 during a practice session for the Belgian grand prix at the Zolder circuit. He clipped the back of a fellow competitors car and his car was sent skyward. Gilles himself was flung out of the seat and flew about 20 yeards into the security fencing on the outside of the next corner. I would say that Gilles defining moment was the time he lost a wheel in the first quarter of the lap at Zandvoort 1979 and then drove all the way back to the pits. For most drivers the game would've ended but not Villenueve. In the end his son, Jaques qould go on to win the world title with Williams.
3. Alain Prost. A four time world champion. A man to do battle with Senna many times. Prost was involved in a lot of very memorable duels on the track. Classics such as with Alan Jones in Germany 1981, Senna at San Marino 1985 and with both Senna and Michael Schumacher at Silverstone in 1993. What made Prost great is very similar to what makes Jim Clark great. When he got in the groove he was a very slick driver. Prost in the groove is the oppositions worst nightmare! When it happened Alain seemed to go to some other place where the track told him "this is the quickest line through here""Drive here to throw Senna off""I've got this much grip here but be careful because I'm not so grippy at the next corner" Such was his smoothness that it's almost as if he's travelled back from the future where he had seen himself crash and correct himself or something like that. I think that Prosts record speaks for itself. Four titles. And bear in mind this was in a time where driver skill was a more prominent factor in winning races. Also bear in mind Prost was racing other greats such as Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell and Michael Schumacher on a daily basis, throw Alan Jones into that list as well, Keke Rosberg. Prost had the sometimes very elusive combination of consistency and speed and that is what made him a force to be reckoned with.
2. Juan Manuel Fangio. A five time winner here. Five time. He raced in the era just before Jim Clark started. The cars then were like Coke cans turned on their side, given wheels and an engine and then sent off on the country lanes at 120mph. Open cockpit and with no seatbelts. Lots of mechanical failures. It was a very different world. Fangio often had classic duels with Stirling Moss but what gave him an edge over Moss and five titles to Moss's zero was an ability to look after a car that much more. Oh sure he could go fast when necessary but he also knew when to preserve his car and tempt others into ruining theirs! When he was on it however there was no one better. His car control was that of a master. On board footage is hard to come by but go look on Youtube and you'll find some. I love the way Fangio controls a slide with precision and ease. Some when controlling slides look like they're telling the car off for misbehaving. Not Fangio though. To me he looks like he's asking it "are you quite finished? I have a race to win here." And win he did. You don't get five world titles if you don't. Incidentally Fangio's record is second only to Michael Schumachers. And to be fair he didn't compete for nearly the same number of years.
1. There can be only one. The great, brilliant, enthralling and downright ruthless at times ... Ayrton Senna. He won the title three times. There is no question that he would've won more. Senna was fantastic. If you watch videos of some of his laps your mouth will drop. His cars would be twitching in straight lines he would be hammering them so much. Senna seemed to know how much grip was available before he got to a corner. In the wet at Donington Park in 1993 Senna went from fifth on the grid to first in just one lap. In Monaco 1991 he outqualified his team mate Alain Prost by one point five seconds. That's three years in F1 terms. He went on to win six races in Monaco and in some corners would be driving one handed as he was changing gears in corners. Oh yes the cars of Sennas era were monsters. 1,200bhp (the same as the Veryon SS), around 650kg, manual gearboxs, very little downforce, little safety and turbo engines. Senna was also ruthless. At the Japanese GP of 1990 he drove straight into the back of Alain Prost to take him off. He knew that if Prost didn't finish the race there was no way anyone could win the title other than him. Senna was in the lead and only Prost could take the title away. So Senna crashed him off to make sure he didn't take the title away! He also liked to swerve around a lot in a straight to defend his line into corners. When overtaking he would make do or die manuevers that would often cause his opponent to crash if they didn't get out of the way. I think Sennas tactics inspired a lot of Schumachers tactics. But if you really want to know just how great Senna is then I'll let you in on something. This year there will be a movie realeased about his life. Senna will be a star of the big screen as well as a name on the racing scene.
Senna died in 1994 at the San Marino grand prix. Whilst taking Tamburello corner for the seventh time that race and only one day after fellow racer Roland Ratzenberger died in the same corner, his Williams went straight on and hit the wall. Senna was pronounced to be in a coma at first but two hours after the race had finished he was pronouned dead. Why the accident happened is a mystery and still the subject of much debate. Some argue that his car bottomed out of the bumps at the corner and the rear slid out and Senna ran out of road before he could correct it. This is not a popular opinion however. Most think (myself included) that his steering broke. They base this theory on the fact that Sennas wheels just straightened up. If he were correcting a slide then he would've steered into the slide, but he didn't. He clearly didn't give up either. This was evident by him leaning to the left just willing his car around the corner. If you watch it as many times as I have you quickly realise that the most likely cause of the crash was that the steering broke. Williams were even taken to court over the incident as they were blamed for putting a fatigued wheel on.
Either way it's not hard to say that Senna was the best and will most likely always be the best. And now his nephew Bruno is racing. Incidentally Ayrton once said "if you think I'm quick you should see my nephew," I bet Bruno wishes he never said that.
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