Worst F1 drivers to have won a race...?

[Jacobyte]

FourWheelDrift said:

Muzzer79 said:

Definitely Olivier Panis at Monaco 96. That was a race won by whoever could keep going in one piece.

I was thinking of him as well, but 2nd was still a quick David Coulthard in the McLaren Mercedes. If he had dropped out and the 2 Saubers were 2nd & 3rd then it would be a no brainer.

Panis may well have won Monaco on merit in any case - he was overtaking all and sundry irrespective of their crashes (mostly happening after he'd already passed them). Remember, he was quickest in the morning practice due to his gamble on wet setup.

He then went on to challenge for the lead at the beginning of the 1997 season until his accident in the Canadian GP. He could well have been a championship contender as the Ligier/Prost was a damn good package that year, but the momentum was lost when Nakano couldn't lead the car development in his absence. Thereafter Panis's cars kept failing, followed shortly by his mojo.

So in no way does he deserve to win this thread.

[Great Dane]

Brambilla without doubt

[Vocal Minority]

That's a good point about Panis actually. He was flying in the first half of the 97 season

[moffspeed]

FourWheelDrift said:

Peter Gethin - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gethin#Complete... the 1 win sits alone amongst many poor results. Was 11th in qualifying, won a 5 car massed finish using a better slipstream.

Don't want to get too pedantic here but the thread is "F1 race" rather than "GP race" - so Gethin has 3 wins, the other 2 being at the ill-fated Brands Victory race in 1971 (BRM P160) and the Race of Champions (also Brands) in 1973 - albeit at the wheel of an F5000 Chevron !

Even if you open up the thread to non-Championship and domestic F1 series I cannot think of a "bad" driver who has won an F1 race, the term "worst" is only comparative especially when the peers are the Laudas/Prosts/Sennas and Schumachers of this world. Drivers like Gethin and Brambilla never set F1 on fire but in other formulae they excelled - so they were "brilliant" drivers in their own right...

[coppice]

Agreed - there were some makeweights in domestic F1 but people like Derek Bell and Tony Trimmer were seriously good drivers.If you win a Grand Prix you're more than good and I would never discount any driver who had won a GP. Brambilla is a favourite , for the notorious reason he crashed whilst waving to the Austrian GP crowd as he crossed the finishing line. Unlike Mansell of course, whose premature waving cost him the Canadian GP

[Smollet]

coppice said:

Agreed - there were some makeweights in domestic F1 but people like Derek Bell and Tony Trimmer were seriously good drivers.If you win a Grand Prix you're more than good and I would never discount any driver who had won a GP. Brambilla is a favourite , for the notorious reason he crashed whilst waving to the Austrian GP crowd as he crossed the finishing line. Unlike Mansell of course, whose premature waving cost him the Canadian GP

If the race Brambilla won had been given the red flag as it should've instead of the chequered he'd in all likeliness not have won at all.

[coppice]

True - but motor sport is full of ifs- Mansell's tyre in 86, Reutemann's weird disinterest in Vegas 81, Pironi's treachery in 82, Alesi's turning down a Williams drive in early 90s,Jim Clark's accident in 68 , Lauda's in 76 etc etc. Brambilla won a Grand Prix .Same as Prost in Monaco 84- he won, not Senna in the Toleman nor Bellof in the Tyrrell.

[moffspeed]

coppice said:

Agreed - there were some makeweights in domestic F1 but people like Derek Bell and Tony Trimmer were seriously good drivers.If you win a Grand Prix you're more than good and I would never discount any driver who had won a GP. Brambilla is a favourite , for the notorious reason he crashed whilst waving to the Austrian GP crowd as he crossed the finishing line. Unlike Mansell of course, whose premature waving cost him the Canadian GP

Funnily enough I was talking to Tony (Trimmer) last week about the rollercoaster of F1 and without doubt he was one of those drivers with an impeccable CV who just didn't get the breaks, he had a single outing in an F1 Lotus which could have lead to so much more, but then came Maki...

So if we are to identify the "worst" F1 driver in any particular era/year (not necessarily a winner) we have to set up an imaginary GP race with all 22 / 26 / 30 or whatever contestants driving an identically prepared mid-field car on an non-specialist circuit.

So, in 2014, twenty two drivers racing 22 identical Force Indias in the dry at Silverstone - which 3 drivers would stand on the anti-podium ???

[Speed Badger]

My podium in equal cars would be: 1st Grosjean, 2nd Bottas, 3rd Kobayashi

[Agent Orange]

How about Irvine? Malaysia 1999?

Schumacher's first race since breaking his leg he put the Ferrari on pole with Irvine a very long and distance second. In the race Schumacher slowed to let Irvine pass twice such that he could take the win.

The Ferrari's were supposed to be running illegal aero devices and were disqualified giving the win to Hakkinen but Ferrari appealed and Irvine's win re-instated.

[DeuxCentCinq]

Jacobyte said:

Panis may well have won Monaco on merit in any case - he was overtaking all and sundry irrespective of their crashes (mostly happening after he'd already passed them). Remember, he was quickest in the morning practice due to his gamble on wet setup.

He then went on to challenge for the lead at the beginning of the 1997 season until his accident in the Canadian GP. He could well have been a championship contender as the Ligier/Prost was a damn good package that year, but the momentum was lost when Nakano couldn't lead the car development in his absence. Thereafter Panis's cars kept failing, followed shortly by his mojo.

So in no way does he deserve to win this thread.

That's a great shout. I remember wondering what was going on as I didn't recall seeing anything noteworthy with him beforehand, but it was a great start.

[Mr_Thyroid]

Thought I'd share a link to this neato little website - it could use a filter option so you can view different drivers side-by-side but it's still quite interesting.

http://charts.animateddata.co.uk/f1/

To answer the thread question, from the info displayed therein you could infer that perhaps the following drivers are the strongest candidates...

Jarno Trulli - lowest win to start ratio.
Jo Bonnier, Brambilla, Maldonado, Kovalainen, Panis have similarly poor start to win ratio.
Jean-Pierre Jabouille - has low win to start ratio but also has a consistently low top 10 ratio.

[Evangelion]

Halmyre said:

... Coulthard's failings weren't his skill or ability ...

The man who managed to hit the wall on the way into the pits.
And once spun off on the formation lap. In the dry.

[DanielSan]

Evangelion said:

The man who managed to hit the wall on the way into the pits.
And once spun off on the formation lap. In the dry.

To be fair, he's not the first or last person to clobber the Adelaide pit entry, daft mistake yes but hardly the only one.

[coppice]

If you win the Monaco Grand Prix you can drive. End of.

[Mr_Thyroid]

coppice said:

If you win the Monaco Grand Prix you can drive. End of.

If you start on pole it's actually the easiest race to win. Of course if you get pole at Monaco you can drive. But the fact that Jarno Trulli's only win was at Monaco only backs-up his reputation as someone who did his best work on a Saturday.

Sunday was always a day of rest for poor old Jarno.

[Halmyre]

Mr_Thyroid said:

Thought I'd share a link to this neato little website - it could use a filter option so you can view different drivers side-by-side but it's still quite interesting.

http://charts.animateddata.co.uk/f1/

To answer the thread question, from the info displayed therein you could infer that perhaps the following drivers are the strongest candidates...

Jarno Trulli - lowest win to start ratio.
Jo Bonnier, Brambilla, Maldonado, Kovalainen, Panis have similarly poor start to win ratio.
Jean-Pierre Jabouille - has low win to start ratio but also has a consistently low top 10 ratio.

I'd cut Jabouille and Bonnier some slack. Both had form as sports car drivers, Bonnier winning at Sebring, Nurburgring, the Targa Florio, Montlhery, Reims and 2nd at Le Mans. Jabouille spent at least two years of his career developing the Renault turbo F1 car, and then suffered a debilitating accident from which he never fully recovered.

[Evangelion]

DanielSan said:

Evangelion said:

The man who managed to hit the wall on the way into the pits.
And once spun off on the formation lap. In the dry.

To be fair, he's not the first or last person to clobber the Adelaide pit entry, daft mistake yes but hardly the only one.

And, also to be fair, the last time I looked, he had scored more points that any other British driver.

Just think about that. Moss, Clark, Hill, Surtees, Stewart, Hunt, Mansell, Hill, Button, Hamilton. All scored LESS points than DC. And if that doesn't prove what a farce the whole thing is, I don't know what does!

[coppice]

Mr_Thyroid said:

coppice said:

If you win the Monaco Grand Prix you can drive. End of.

If you start on pole it's actually the easiest race to win. Of course if you get pole at Monaco you can drive. But the fact that Jarno Trulli's only win was at Monaco only backs-up his reputation as someone who did his best work on a Saturday.

Sunday was always a day of rest for poor old Jarno.

Not sure the late Jack Brabham would quite agree . And Senna won 5 times was it because?

[Eric Mc]

Evangelion said:

And, also to be fair, the last time I looked, he had scored more points that any other British driver.

Just think about that. Moss, Clark, Hill, Surtees, Stewart, Hunt, Mansell, Hill, Button, Hamilton. All scored LESS points than DC. And if that doesn't prove what a farce the whole thing is, I don't know what does!

It proves the the points system is different in different eras and is a less than reliable way of measuring someones success.