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I dont really know that much about Touring Cars outside of Europe so i'll base my favourite 20 on what i've seen
1. Alain Menu
2. Bernd Schneider
3. Andy Priaulx
4. Fabrizio Giovanardi
5. Andy Rouse
6. Rickard Rydell
7. Gabriele Tarquini
8. Jo Winkelhock
9. Yvan Muller
10. Laurent Aiello
11. Jason Plato
12. Steve Soper
13. John Cleland
14. James Thompson
15. Matt Neal
16. Tim Harvey
17. Matias Ekstrom
18. Paul Radisich
19. Colin Turkington
20. Alex Zanardi
The question in the title of the thread forces me to ask, which touring car series do you include in your rankings? To me it seems most of the lists here are quite BTCC-based and for example DTM is very overlooked in this regard. However, it's really difficult to compare those two series for example, so maybe there actually isn't much point in trying to compile a list, which includes both of them plus other touring car series (WTCC, etc)?
Here's my top five:
1) Alan Taylor
2) Erkut Kizilirmak
3) John George
4) Jim Pocklington
5) Stuart Oliver
Hi all.......What about Gerry Marshall?
What about Gerry Marshall?
If you look, some people have listed him in their top ten.
Anyway Gerry was not just a great touring car driver.. he was a great driver!
What ever he raced, he did it 110%. I think he had more wins in cars other than touring cars.
A man sadly missed.
nice to see some Aussie's getting a mention! I'd like to make mention of the following Aussie's for your list:
- Peter Brock - most popular Australian race driver (of any form) ever, period, full stop. During the late 70's and early 80's he was commonly accepted as God. Those who dissagreed suggested that the confusion arose from the fact that God wished he was Peter Brock.
- Larry Perkins - best touring car engineer and builder ever seen in Australia. Wasn't a half bad driver either, made it (ever so briefly) into F1
- Mark Skaife - Statistically the best ever Australian touring car driver.
- Dick Johnson - never had the most money, never had the best equipment barring a very brief period in the early 90's, every one of his acheivements where off the back of sheer determination.
- Craig Lowndes - many people down here think he is the most naturally gifted race car driver Australia has ever produced but was never given the opportunity to strut his stuff in europe and F1. I personally don't buy all that but is certainly one of the best touring car drivers Australia has produced.
- Marcus Ambrose - is now a "good 'ol boy" in NASCAR land and is doing ok, while he was in Australia he won 2 V8 Supercar titles in 4 seasons, and won a shed load of races along the way, had an incredible strike rate!
- Greg Murphy - in my opinion the most naturally gifted race car driver Australian touring car racing has ever seen (he is actually a New Zealander, but has spent nearly his entire career in Australia). Unfortunately he is incredibly tempromental and often gets the sh!ts and loses focus, hence why he has never won a championship. Everything pretty much has to be perfect for Murph to do something special, but my goodness when everything IS working for him, you get something out of this world! The best example of this is when he set the Bathurst lap record in 2003, and not only has no one been able to get near it since, it took a number of years before anyone could even get within a second of it! At the time it was nearly 2 seconds faster then anyone else. This in a series renowed for its very tight technical regulations meaning that the qualifying field spread from first to 20th is often covered by less then 1 second. To cap it all off he revealed after the lap that he actually grabbed first gear instead of third at a critical moment in the lap which the lap data later revealed costed him around 2 tenths of a second, meaning his lap could have been even more unbelievable.
- Jim Richards - a driver who just loved racing cars. Was fast in anything he drove and won alot of races and championships as a result. The saying goes with Jim Richards that if it has a steering wheel, he'll win a race in it. Also a New Zealander by birth, but spent majority of his career in Australia
Surely its has to be Mike Smith !!! ;)
Andy Rouse
John Cleland
Frank Sytner
Frank Gardner
Gerry Marshall
Jim Clark
Klaus Ludwig
Peter Brock
Gordon Spice
Win Percy
In reply to WSRfan82 I think/hope you meant Gerry Marshall and not Jerry Mahoney....The latter being not only a pretty rubbish driver but also a Drug Smuggler alongside Vic lee......Cocaine smuggled into the UK in empty gas cylinders in a VLM transporter.