Motor Sport Retro

Autosport names Senna as the greatest F1 driver of all time

Submitted by Rich Fowler on December 15, 20096 Comments

The world’s fastest magazine, Autosport, has named Brazilian legend Ayrton Senna the greatest F1 driver of all time.

In a list sure to start heated debate in pubs and offices around the world, a list of 217 world championship drivers were asked to vote for their top ten “greatest drivers” of the world championship era.

Here is how Autosport polled the drivers…”The definition of the term “greatest” was left open for the voters to interpret for themselves. Each top 10 was then scored on a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis to create the overall ranking, with a countback system used to decide the order. It was decided to focus solely on the world championship era, which began in 1950, as there are so few living links to the pre-war years.

Represented in our jury are over 9000 grand prix starts and 270 wins. As well as including current world champion Jenson Button’s vote, our jury includes an astonishing cross-section of opinion.

This includes the earliest surviving world championship grand prix winner, Jose Froilan Gonzalez, the most successful driver of all time, Michael Schumacher, the oldest living driver, Paul Pietsch, and F1′s first child of the 1990s, Jaime Alguersuari.

This poll represents the most comprehensive vote on the greatest world championship drivers. There have been 809 world championship grands prix (excluding the 11 Indianapolis 500s) and starters from all but 10 of these have voted.” (Autosport)

The 40 greatest F1 drivers of all time are as follows:

1. Ayrton Senna
2. Michael Schumacher
3. Juan Manuel Fangio
4. Alain Prost
5. Jim Clark
6. Jackie Stewart
7. Niki Lauda
8. Stirling Moss
9. Fernando Alonso
10. Gilles Villeneuve
11. Nigel Mansell
12. Emerson Fittipaldi
13. Nelson Piquet Sr.
14. Jochen Rindt
15. Mika Hakkinen
16. Alberto Ascari
17. Lewis Hamilton
18. Jack Brabham
19, Ronnie Peterson
20. Mario Andretti
21. Graham Hill
22. Kimi Raikkonen
23. John Surtees
24. James Hunt
25. Keke Rosberg
26. Sebastian Vettel
27. Jose Froilan Gonzalez
28. Dan Gurney
29. Francois Cevert
30. Jenson Button
31. Alan Jones
32. Giuseppe Farina
33. Phil Hill
34. Carlos Reutemann
35. Stefan Bellof
36. Clay Regazzoni
37. Gerhard Berger
38. Jean Behra
39. Riccardo Patrese
40. Jacky Ickx

To see the list with driver biographies visit Autosport’s F1 Greatest drivers site here

Personally, I would not have put Senna at number 1. He is a legend, but my definition of “greatness” does not extend to someone who deliberately crashes into his title rival to win the championship. That move was completely piss weak and not the stuff of a great sportsman.

Jack Brabham at number 18? Being Australian of course I’m slightly biased, but as usual Jack does not get the credit he deserves. Three world titles and a championship in a car he built himself. World Champion at age 40. Can you imagine the energy required to run the team, engineer the car and then go out and win with it? For me he has to be in the top 10.

Sebastian Vettel at 26. Come on!

Let’s get the debate started. Please let us know know your top 10 “greatest” drivers by adding your list to the comments field.

Images: Autosport.com

Ciaran

Aryton was certainly the driver that we all loved to hate. You can’t dispute his success but I’d rather share a beer with Alain Prost than with Senna. The definition of the greatest was left open to interpretation but surely the importance of how the public felt about the man should be important enough to wipe him off the top spot and also Schumacher for that matter, leaving Fangio and Prost at the top. For both Senna and Schumacher I used to groan with each race that they won.

I could never quite get over the Suzuka 1989 incident, that alone should take Senna off the top!
Jeff Greene

I can understand how motor racing drivers would rate Senna No 1. I watched him race three times and he just looked faster. I was a huge Prost and Lauda fan and I had the pleasure of meeting Prost and Senna in 1990. I agree with the others assessment of Senna’s sportsmanship yet when I met him he was pleasant and open to fans and Prost was less so. Senna is the best I have seen including Schumaker.
But my top five includes Lauda, Prost, Jim Clark, Senna and Brabham in no particular order.

Jeff
Leon Coburn

In the two years Prost and Senna drove together at McLaren, Prost outscored him both years. It was just that only the top 11???? scoring drives counted so Senna got the title in ’88. Prost also had 5 world F1 champions as team mates throughout his career and outscored all of them except Lauda in ’84 by half a point. Prost won 4 titles and it could have just as easily been 7. I put him ahead of Senna certainly. Ahead of Fangio? Probably not. Schumacher? Not enough space for that discussion here.

As usual Jack Brabham doesn’t get the recognition he so clearly deserves. He deserved the title in both ’67 and ’70 and the fact that he even lived thru his era is amazing, when so many brilliant drivers sadly did not.
reedminor

Agreed – number 1 and 2 on this list both won world championships by running their chief rivals off the road. Hardly sporting.

The day Senna ran Prost off the road (the first time, not the second) Prost had Senna cold, he out drove him … simple as that.
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http://twitter.com/Krazy_Fox Guilherme Sena

A legend is a legend.

I never saw a pilot so loved, by so many peopple in so many countries. He was magic at the tracks and the world saw it. Numbers alone (or other technicalities) were not enough to bring him down from the 1st position, I agree with the list.