48 responses to “The Top-20 GP Drivers who did NOT win a championship…”

1. You put Vettel over Schumacher? Even for me that’s somewhat – err – unexpected 😮

   • Don’t worry, FH, by the end of the year Vettel won’t even be top 10…

   • But the list is done mathematically, not emotionally… Vettel still has plenty of time to have a few bad seasons and fall down the list…Schumacher had several years when he wasn’t in the best car…

     • I disagree. If it was done mathematically, it was done wrong. The used algorithm misses several important calculations like career length, relative competitiveness of the car, quality of results in comparison to relative competitiveness of the car etc.

       Take Hill for example. He competed more than half of his career in the best car of the field. finding ways to lose against Schumacher, yet he comes up higher than Mansell – that cannot be right and any formula that has Vettel coming up higher than Senna cannot be scientifically valid.

       It’s like calculationg the sum of a bunch of numbers and ignoring if they’re positive or negative.

       • Just relax:) It’s only one way of comparing them…you can do it however you like and I’m sure you’ll find someone to argue with you about it!

         After all there are lies, damn lies and statistics…

       • I thought length of career was one of the parameters – BJF?
         But top three spot on. Surprised by Senna, and Vettel is still active so who knows how that will change.

       • Sorry Fats but your response is absurdly illogical. It also shows you either didn’t read or didn’t understand the points I made in the ‘Conclusions’ part – so how can you discuss it…?
         And a major absurdity of your post is to claim such things can only be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. As Jennie (and others) was able to realise, this was just one way of doing it. Fortunately for the rest of us we do not have to bow to your self-righteousness when anybody writes something with which you don’t agree.
         Perhaps you should give us lesser mortals a list of what you do or don’t like. 😉
         I would suggest better tranquillisers, or simply don’t make remarks when you’re suffering from other problems. It doesn’t help your case, and might make you look idiotic.
         I still prefer your contributions over your comments. 🙂

         • It feels very much like a method of bracketting the drivers, rather than strict positioning, which was a point you made sometime ago, and I now see when the WC’s are added into the NQWC’s (not quite world champions). There are definately people who I seem to judge together as a group: Couthard and Villenuve for example, and the top 6 are mostly undeniable. Hill perhaps seems a little out of position, but at the same time, I think he is perpetually underated and suffers from Button syndrome to some degree.

         • It’s very cute that you miss my contributions, but slanderous and offending posts like that are part of the reason why I got increasingly aggressive and threw in the towel as far as being an editor is concerned. Everybody thinks he can make an educated statement about my mental health and ‘how much can we ridicule the fat one until he snaps’ seems to be the flavour of the last few months.

           And since when has offering my opinion has become self-righteousness?

         • Fats – as usual you answer your own points, in this post…
           But your aggressive posts were your own invention… and you fail to see how other people might find you offensive…
           Indeed, I quietly pointed this out to you in a brief comment some months ago, to which you self-righteously and fatuously (no pun intended) replied: “Thank you.”
           You have a way of starting off with what might appear to be a reasoned response but always turn it into a personal slant and, whenever somebody actually bothers to bite back, you ignore the original discussion and turn it into a “let’s all bash the Hippo” slant. Poor baby.
           I fail to see how any of this is my fault but, if you feel happier to blame me, as you still blame ‘CavR’ after so many months, then go right ahead.
           But I spend too much time on my contributions to this site to have them ridiculed by some flippant, illogical accusation, and not respond…

         • I fail to see, how I ridiculed your article. Since Jennie pointed out that it was done mathematically and not emotionally (to which you agreed with her)- I offered my opinion that if that was the result of a mathematical calculation I thought it was wrong (as in unsuitable for the purpose).

           As I see it, your goal is to come up with a Top X list of the greatest drivers and you try to show where the occupants your previous list fit into it. Foe me as a programmer that’s the classical case of finding an algorithm and my opinion is that an algorithm that delivers the list as you show it (with the positions I would put in doubt even named) is flawed. I even named the parameters that I think it didn’t factor in.

           Mind you, that’s all just my opinion and I think I presented it in a way that is acceptable. After all, I opened my comment with ‘I disagree’, not “who wrote this crap?” as the person would do you compared me to. I submit, I didn’t ridicule your article. I offered an opinion that differs from yours. But since, according to you, I need to adjust my medication, I might just have forgotten how to hippo…

         • You started a reply to Jennie with: “I disagree” which one can presume was a disagreement with her comment… which is ridiculous because she was right, even if I, in your opinion, am wrong.
           –
           I repeat there is no ‘right or wrong’ in something of this nature and so your impertinent suggestion that what I have done “is unsuitable for the purpose” is also a self-righteous attitude – who are you to say what should be the purpose of MY article…?
           –
           As for: “as a programmer”, what has that to do with anything in my article. If it means anything to you, let’s see your list.
           –
           If you were really reading what I wrote you would see that I did not compare you to any one. Neither did I say that you NEED to adjust your medication… but that’s how you read it, and that’s the tone you adopt when you reply. And that’s what I call self-righteous.
           Think about it, rather than snapping back in your own defence.
           –
           Equally, you did not just offer an alternative opinion – you openly declared my methods to be ‘wrong’…!
           That you consider your presentation to be acceptable is perhaps in need of review when your reputation here is to frequently upset others.
           And, in no way were any of my comments ‘slanderous’… though you might like to change your silly accusation to ‘libellous’.
           –
           You were not even correct about ‘your factors’ (as was also pointed out by another poster) that I allegedly didn’t factor in, which is why trying to discuss with you what I did is futile because you didn’t bother to check which factors I did or didn’t use.
           In fact the only reason we’re still having this pathetic dialogue, instead of leaving it as one of your smug monologues, is because, for once, I refuse to be brow-beaten by some sanctimonious bully-boy who prefers foisting his own ideas on the world at the expense of everybody else’s.

         • BlackJackFan – You sir, have made this world a better place.

           I thank you.

         • “µ˚∆ˆ√c∂¢¶∆¬πºˆ∆ˆ˚∆˜˙©ƒ®ƒç˙”
           And now, for once, I’m speechless…

       • Your Hill example is a very weak one. Hill drove for Williams for four years. In those four years, he beat Schumacher in 1993 and 1996. Moreover, Schumacher won the title in 1994 in the mids of widespread allegations of Benetton’s cheating, the championship deciding collision in the last race instigated by Schumacher, and the disarray that the Williams team was, both legal and emotional, after Senna’s death. (Some of those allegations of cheating at Benetton turned out to be true as up to some point there was a hidden launch control system in Benetton software and the refueling valve was removed for a few races)

         • Both Hills are under-rated. Graham had Jim Clark to contend with and faired reasonably well, both at BRM and as team-mates.
           Damon was also up against some notable team-mates (Prost, Coulthard) and he did nearly get that elusive win for Arrows.

     • Hi Jennie – I think you got it… 😉

2. I was most surprised with how equal Alonso and Kimi were…almost exactly the same…

   I also think it goes to show that winning multiple championships is more luck than anything else. With just a minute difference Kimi could be a three times world champion. In the same way those drivers in the top 30-40 that didn’t get a world championship probably deserved to because of the way the drove but didn’t get one due to multiple other factors not associated with their skill as a driver.

   I so enjoyed this series and will be looking forward to your next one:)

   • actually, you’ve got a point

     and Massa illustrates this point more than anyone in the list

     his title lost at the last turn, stands, at least to me, between my worst moments since I follow the motorsport
     even ahead of Senna crash and that awful zanardi accident, and I an admit, both of them marked me so much and made me cry back then

     but nothing, nothing hurted me like watching a fighting, honest and fast guy whose battled career ladder up to F1 I watched closely, being robbed of world title in that way, in my and his homeland

     being really honest, that season finale still makes me emotional even today, seriously

     • and this is a seriously honest, heartfelt statement from me, surely

       • Thanks for sharing your that. I believe its what makes the difference between people, having emotions, good and bad

     • I’m a Hamilton fan, but anyone who didn’t feel deeply for Massa at that moment, especially the way he handled it, its either a sociopath or an actual robot.

   • It seems impossible to ignore the significance of ‘luck’, or whatever you want to call it…

3. “I was a tad surprised how low Alonso comes, but not surprised with Button.”

   Yup, my thoughts exactly. Button is outranked by the likes of Coulthard, Massa, Webber and Barrichello. (Although let’s not forget: these are all damn good GP drivers!)

   Also, Häkkinen, for an “overrated” champion, outranks the likes of Lauda, Räikkönen, Alonso and Piquet. Not bad for an overrated driver. 🙂

   And it’s nice to see Moss stacked in between the Schumacher’s and Prost’s: he must have been _that_ good!

   • And Damon Hill is even better..

     • I always felt Hill was rather remarkable in just how much he appears to lack the self belief bordering on arrogance that marks out most champions.

       • But he doesn’t seem to lack grumpy arrogance when talking to Herbert… 😉 and incidentally, why wasn’t Hill at Bahrain…?

     • actually, I have Hill in high regards, a humble guy, and a much better racer than many people think

   • In Button’s defense, though, remember that he got stuck in a “dog of car” during the Honda years, which necessarily will skew his statistics. I recall that once Autosport made a Hamilton vs Button comparison during their shared years at McLaren (but frustratingly I cannot find the link!), and that Button had very similar performance statistics to those of Hamilton, “the fastest of them all”.

     • You could use that defense with any of the champions. If Senna had lived, or if he had not had Prost as an adversary. If Lauda hadn’t crashed at the Nurburgring he would have been champion in 1976 and wouldn’t have fallen out with Ferrari so may have won in 1979 too.
       If Alonso had decided to join Red Bull in 2008, what would his stats look like now?

     • But in my defence ( 😉 ), don’t forget, the drivers who got ‘stuck in a dog of a car’ already received a little nudge upwards, from me…

       • Nice to know. I must have forgotten that. Should re-read the Conclusion now..

         • My apologies… it was my desire to have this with the Conclusion part but I was suffering with ‘programmers-glitch’… 😉
           –
           Maybe I need to bring out a comic-strip version… 🙂

4. I wouldn’t have ranked Mark Webber above Button or Barrichello..

5. How about we stop the Vettantrum and post the spreadsheet!

   • ha ha! Intellectual property rights mate 😛 Personally I’d recommend anyone disputing the top 20 to devise their own unbiased system for evaluating drivers and then compare your outcome with that of BJF… Now that would be interesting!

     • I’m waiting for the Fat Hippo’s list with statistical analysis attached..

       • The fat one is doing something else – I’m not a banker. I’m writing a program to do that for me 😛

         • I’m sure it will be interesting to see your results:) I did expect that you would be writing a program to crunch the statistics…it should still be fun to argue with though…there will always be some outliers no matter what you use!

         • I would expect some outliers as in people some would have expected on the list, but not being there. The problem will be to assemble the data as there is no free F1 history database, but heck, may as well build one and publish it myself

6. This is the site I use to check my data: not sure if it’s what you’re looking for…it’s not very flash but it usually has everything I’m looking for…

   http://www.f1-data.com/script/top/index.php

   • Obviously I got confused about which “reply” to click on so it’s in completely the wrong place:)

     • GP Encyclopedia is also rather good for historical data:
       http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/encyclopedia.html

7. Strangely I have been away from the site (too much to sift through, from the wheat to the chaff with the GMM.. which is fine for the off-season, but clutters things up somewhat in-season..), but it’s nice to see the 10 who just missed out on the list. It’s nice to compare the whole list with my own that I’ve been compiling, from roughly the same wiki sources, but trying to take car strength into account, combined with results etc.

   However, I look forward to seeing the Fat Hippo’s list with algorithms to take the human element out of it. It’ll be hard to use just the statistics (unless they can be adequately adjusted for car strength.. constructors standings/points perhaps.. but then what about retirements/luck?), but it could give some surprising results – serial best car winners lower down.. serial poor car podium scorers higher up.. or just those that thumped their team-mates.. unless all team-mate strengths can also be calculated……

8. @BJF

   I’m not sure if you’re still monitoring this, but I’m surprised not to see Irvine in this list. Where did he end up?

   • And it’s still quite funny not to see Kubica in this list. Where did he end up?

   • Sorry BJF, but what about Rosberg (Nico)? Is he too below the cliff?

9. Some suggested elsewhere this classification of drivers using a quantitative model:

   http://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2014/07/18/who-was-the-greatest-f1-driver/

   Very interesting read, with some surprising results.

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