It’s once again time to continue on with the top 25 ranking after taking a week off to discuss honorable mentions.
The top 10 Formula 1 drivers are where things get very tricky. Any ranking of these top 10 can be assiduously argued. Even from my perspective, it’s really just the top three that are set in stone; anybody else in there could move back and forth depending on the day.
It also needs to be noted that ranking the drivers is a bit of a problematic enterprise. All of these drivers are the very cream of the crop. Comparing eras is a bit of a fool’s game, even in a sport/series that lends itself as well as F1 does.
NASCAR, by comparison, can be a hard series to do a ranking like this because, for the first 25 years, the championship wasn’t that important. Plenty of drivers like Fred Lorenzen only raced the biggest races with the biggest purse. In F1, the goal has always been the championship, whether it is Guiseppe Farina or Max Verstappen.
Most know of Lauda now, either through his work as a non-executive chairman with Mercedes or the movie “Rush.” But even beyond that, Lauda was absolutely one of the greats.
Estranged from his family over his racing and in debt from multiple bank loans, Lauda had a much rougher upbringing compared to a lot of F1 drivers. Speed doesn’t know class, however, and his gamble paid off with a Ferrari contract after just two seasons in F1.
Lauda was the best driver in the world from 1975 to 1977. The guy was literally given his last rites in the hospital in 1976 and still came just half a point from winning the championship.
Then he returned a year later and won the championship with two races to go in the 17-race season. Despite only winning three of the first 15.
Had he not departed Ferrari after this, who knows what he could have done after that year? Still, unlike many who retired only to come back as he did in the 1980s with McLaren, he was able to actually walk away with a championship. And he did that while paired with Alain Prost, the only time Prost lost to a teammate besides you-know-who.
It’s surprising that Alonso runs a driver management company that has been successful enough to land a driver (Gabriel Borteleto) into an F1 seat next season. Why? Because Alonso’s personal career decisions have done him no favors.
But given those lemons, Alonso has made perhaps the optimal pitcher of lemonade. The only teammates who have generally beaten…
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