Originally Posted by Rollo
Most overrated champion:
Keke Rosberg.
He only won a single race in 1982 and even then only because Pironi didn't race the last five races and because the race officials were so inept that the race he did win went one lap longer than it should have.
Most overrated Driver:
Jacques Villeneuve
Some say that Hill's victory in 1996 happened because he was in the best car and that a trained monkey could have won. If that's true, then 1997 was the year that that trained monkey did win. He'd go on for another 9 seasons claiming that he was King of Town but 3rds was the best he would ever get again.
Most underrated driver:
Graham Hill
Twice World Champion, the only driver to win the Triple Crown of Motorsport (though Mario Andretti has his own) but let his career down by tooling about in cars that really deserved to be relegated to club motorsport. If he'd quit at the end of '68 he'd have a far nicer looking resume.
Most underrated champion:
Alain Prost
Prost didn't win in 1984 because Jacky Ickx red flagged the race before time so that Prost's Porsche engined car would win the race (he was later suspended from race control duties in F1 for it). Had the race gone to 75% distance, Prost could have got 6 points for second instead of 4.5 points for the win and not lost the championship by half a point.
Prost didn't win in 1988 because he was more successful and scored more points than Senna. Owing to the stupidity that allowed drivers to drop points, Senna was able to drop a disqualification which he caused and a DNF which he also caused; Prost though dropped actual points.
Prost didn't win in 1990 because Senna was a criminal.
I reckon he could have won 2 more apart from these three but for other circumstances and that he'd be sitting on 7 championships and maybe more.
Pironi.