 posted 05-01-2002 16:25 GMT   | |
The greatest drive?
In its latest issue, the UK's Motorsport magazine conducted an interesting survey with a renowned panel of approximately thirty judges that included ITV's Murray Walker, well-known journalist Nigel Roebuck, and motor sports writer Alan Henry, to determine what has been the greatest motorsports 'drive' in history.
The results, for the most part, were quite surprising. While in several other surveys in recent years, Ayrton Senna's complete dominance of the 1993 European Grand Prix, which included that masterful display that took him from fifth to first before the end of the first lap, has been voted as the greatest formula1 driver ever, in Motorsport's results, that drive is only ranked in third place. The winner's honours go to the only man to have won five formula1 world championships, Argentine, Juan Manuel Fangio, for his colossal drive in the 1957 German Grand Prix held at the Nürburgring that is considered by many as his greatest performance. In that race, he drove a Maserati 250 F and fought hard with the Ferrari's of Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins while trading the lead of the race. It was only in the penultimate lap that the Argentine passed the Ferrari's to win the race and take his fifth world title. Second place went to Briton Stirling Moss, but not, curiously, for one of his formula1 performances. Instead, he got the vote for his winning performance in the 1955 'Mille Miglia' race, a classic endurance race that begins in Brescia, northen Italy, then reaches Rome mainly via the western coast of the country, and then returns for the finish back at Brescia through the eastern side of Italy. Rounding out the top five positions were Jackie Stewart's 1968 German Grand Prix win at the Nürburgring in his Matra Cosworth and Nigel Mansell's 1987 British Grand Prix win at Silverstone, a race that will probably be most remembered for the audacious passing manoeuvre that Mansell put on team-mate, Nelson Piquet, to take victory. Interestingly, Michael Schumacher, a current four-time world champion manages only mention in the top twenty votes for his second place at the 1994 Spanish Grand Prix, something he achieved, pit stops and all, stuck in fifth gear from about mid-way through the race. Alain Prost, another four-time world champion, does not even make it into the top twenty. Senna, by contrast, has four mentions in total: third for the 1993 European Grand Prix, thirteenth for his maiden win at the Portuguese Grand Prix of 1985, fourteenth for his second place at the rain-soaked 1984 Monaco race and twentieth for his win at the 1988 Japanese Grand Prix which gave him his first world title. Another interesting result is Keke Rosberg's thirty-first place for his 1985 British Grand Prix qualifying lap: to this day, it stands as the fastest qualifying lap ever with an average speed of 160.925 mph (approximately 257.4 kmh).
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High-Res Pictures : http://www.f1gamers.com/f1/bb/?a=view&t=27725&d=
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Closed topic 
let's not make this another topic about senna/ms/prost/hill ect. being the best driver...
