Most overrated and underrated F1 drivers.

[rjbetty]

Underrated: Webber - I always felt Webber has been underrated and never got enough credit for his years at Red Bull in 07 and 08. I feel he was especially overlooked while at Williams, including Williams themselves. People felt he wouldn't get many podiums in 2010: I felt like one of the few who felt Red Bull would produce the fastest car by a stretch and Webber would be in the top 4 in the WDC.

Underrated: Vitaly Petrov - I think he should have had more credit for being the quickest Renault driver in 2011. I think he did much better at Caterham than people give him credit for. It's also the way his consistency and racecraft improved a lot each year that impressed me. It was largely unnoticed though...

Overrated: Hmmm I don't really feel any driver in 2013 is particularly overrated, but if I pick one I still say Kimi. I need some good evidence to believe he was on the level of Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton last year. Remember that he only averaged the same level as Grosjean in qualifying. I believe he probably wouldn't have done any better than Jenson just on qualifying last year. His consistency and racecraft however was every bit as good as Alonso's though I think!

Yet for all that, I think people are going way OTT declaring he was the best driver in 2012. I also don't think Hamilton or Alonso would have been beaten by Massa as Raikkonen was...

[keysersoze]

Least talented WDC: Hill. He was great at testing, setting the car up, qualifying, and running up front, but could struggle when he had to go wheel-to-wheel. I must give him his due, however; when he left Williams he had a few sterling moments.

If Massa had managed to pull off the title in '08 (?), he would likely join Damon in this group, for much the same reason.

Keke was quite the talent but had Villenueve survived or Didier didn't crush his legs I doubt Keke would've challenged. That was an odd season, and IIRC even Laffite had a chance going into the final round.

Best driver to not win a WDC. I dunno--Peterson? Gilles?

[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.

Best driver to not win a WDC. I dunno--Peterson? Gilles?

Pironi.

[Ranger]

Pironi.

Beaten by Depailler 34-7 in 1978;
Equalled by Jarier 14-14 in 1979; (Jarier missed two races)
Beaten by Laffite 34-32 in 1980;
Beaten by Villeneuve 25-9 in 1981.

So not even close to being the best who didn't win.

I'm inclined to think 1982 would have been a walk in the park for either Ferrari driver, had they both made it to the end of the season. Tragically it wasn't the case.

[AndyL]

his protractors could be way over the top effusive.

I guess they were looking at it from a different angle.

[dj_bytedisaster]

I guess they were looking at it from a different angle.

Look into an encyclopedia under 'dependability' and you'll find 'see Heidfeld'. Give him a car capable of delivering points and he delivers points. The thing that he lacks is the ability to stick a car where it doesn't belong both in positive and negative sense of the phrase.

[Big Ben]

I think you're missing a very important thing here. Yes, Schumacher definitely had an über-car between 2000 and 2004, but it was definitely not a case of being in the right place and the right time. He made the place right. He went to Ferrari when they were the laughing stock of F1. The team was a complete joke when he joined them (someone remember engines blowing up on parade laps and parts falling off the car?). He played a major part in luring Brawn and Byrne to Ferrari, two major components in Ferrari's later success.

I'm missing the point a lot. I thought he was most overrated because people say he was the best driver ever and I think it's an exaggeration .... when in fact not only was he the best driver, he was also the best team manager ever. I want to change my vote, most underrated champion: Michael Schumacher.

[wedge]

Button - Underrated - Gets stick for his championship in 2009, but it was still a title and gave Lewis more of a run than many thought and has won alot of Grand Prix.

He's both.

Whenever he wins he's lauded as a great. Take winning Melbourne last year people thought that the Pirelli's would suit Button because of the much abused term "smooth driving style" used by fans and professional critics alike and it certainly was not the case.

If you're struggling with tyre temperatures and your team mate isn't then you're over rated.

If you win races and give Hamilton a good run for his money then you're under rated.

Webber is definitely not under rated. At the infancy of car development then Webber can be a match and more (especially 2010) but with the DDD Vettel was better driver, with EBD Vettel was better driver, with DDRS Vettel driver.

[truefan72]

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.

agree with everything except Jacques Villeneuve. It is fashionable to have a go at him, but I watched those races and it was anything but gifted to him.
he drove exceptionally well his first year and still had his teammate to contend with and that was arguably the easier year.
and in his championship year drove very well indeed holding off MSC with 6 wins to MSC's 5 and a close championship

[Jag_Warrior]

There is slight difference though. Christian Fittipaldi came to F1 as the reigning F3000 champion and that was a much bigger achievement that GP2 appears today. Bruno was second in GP2 i think and had an Australian F3 title to his name. Not exactly the credentials of a hero. I also used to cheer for Christian, but I never cheered for Bruno, because I never had the feeling he made it to F1 on merit. Would have been nice to see the Senna name return to F1 glory, but Bruno wasn't it.

As for why I cheered for both of them, there is no difference at all. I cheered for both because of who their uncles were. I didn't cheer for every F3000 champ back then and I don't cheer for every GP2 champ now. I'm not speaking about how I would rate Bruno vs. Christian. Clearly, Christian would be the higher rated driver. But that wasn't my point. And while Bruno's name (and backing) certainly helped him get into and stay in F1, I'm still not aware that any reputable source rated him all that highly. So no, I would not say that he was ever over-rated.

Apples and Oranges, Sir. In his last race for Force India Fisichella put the thing on pole and only ended up 2nd, because Kimi out-KERS'ed him. Back in the day they would have given him 3 or 4 days of testing at Fiorano and Fisichella would've done just fine, but with today's testing ban he had to jump into a car he knew absolutely nothing about and to be honest he still did 100 times better than Badoer.

Well, if comparing Bruno to Fisichella is apples and oranges, then comparing Fisi to Badoer must be pineapples and oranges.

Hulk is imho quite good, but not very consistent (yet?) He only has two seasons to his name. People went all oooh and aaah over how good Kimi was after two years away from F1, forgetting that Hulk also came back from the sidelines. We haven't seen much yet from him this year, but I have a feeling we will, although that Sauber doesn't strike me as great a car as people (me included) were believing after winter testing.

I like the kid. But as yet, he has not lived up to the hype, IMO.

Frentzen was for some unexplainable reason woefully underwhelming at Williams,something that seems to happen to quite a few people (Mark or Alex Zanardi come to mind). People were expecting him to be the second coming, because he was on par with a certain M. Schumacher in junior formulae. In the end I think he wasn't that bad. He was in the championship hunt in a Jordan '99, put an ailing Prost 4th on the grid and delivered some good races in that hilarious Arrows, so I don't think he was so bad. But he probably wasn't championship material.

What I'm referring to with Frentzen was the constant (and I do mean constant) claim that he was just as fast as Michael Schumacher... based on races of days gone by in lower formulas. That would be like claiming that Danica Patrick is just as fast as whomever, based solely on her days racing go-karts against (now) more accomplished racers. It's not that Frentzen was horrible. Being over-rated does not mean that a driver is horrible. It just means that they tend to have more sizzle than steak.