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Originally Posted by Bezza
I agree with Garry in a sense. He was a bloody quick driver but he was "too brave" and inconsistent. Everybody loves the way he chucked his way around the corners and for being brave, but in the end this cost him his life. Maybe with a few more seasons experience he would have settled down.
But he wasnt bloody quick. His driving style attracted people, and so did his death. Those 2 things are distracting from reality, that he was a very good driver, but not an all-time great.
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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1
You give the stats against the likes of Reutemann and Scheckter, and yet those same drivers considered GV to one of the fastest drivers they raced against, as did many of his peers. Add to that Keke Rosberg's comment and that's enough for me.
So opinions and emotions outweight facts? In what crazy world are you living in? If Goebbels, Himmler and Bormann had told you that Hitler is the greatest and most honest person in world, would you have believed them? Because it sure does seem that way.
I gave facts (no emotional bias in facts) which showed how Reutemann destroyed Villeneuve, now tell me how many all-time great have been destroyed by their teammates like that?
Then Gilles was also beaten by Schekter. So thats two years in running he gets beaten. And he wasnt beaten due to reliability problems, he was beaten due to being outraced.
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As for "4 lucky wins out of 6"...take any driver you care to mention and you could say much the same.
Nope. 2/3 of his wins were lucky, how many others could that be said about?
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Fact is, for much of his F1 career GV rarely had a car capable of winning races. Yes, in 1979 when Ferrari introduced the 312T4 the car was a winner, and Gilles won its first two races, leading Scheckter home, but other than that we never got the chance to see what he might have done with a car that was the anything like the class of the field.
In 1978, Reutemann managed to win 4 times with the Ferrari, where was the Oh so great Gilles? Yep, he had one lucky win.
Ferrari was also clearly the best car in 1979.
GV didnt take full use of it.
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His 1981 victories, in particular, were remarkable. In Monaco Pironi qualified 2.5s slower in the same car, and was a lap down at the finish. In Spain GV only qualified 7th, but Pironi was 0.7s slower in 13th, and ended the race 4 laps behind. The 126CK was recognised as being an awful car, and Pironi's performances showed where the car should have been, but Villeneuve won 2 races with it.
No, pironi drove ****ly. No one can drive over the limit of the car. DP was simply doing a bad job with it, but that said, it wasnt a very good car. His 2 wins were lucky though and due to problems for others. Great wins? yes. But Schumacher and Senna had many more wins like that. Many more.
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Had he been in a Williams in 1980/1, for example, we would have seen his consistency and combined with his speed it probably would have made for a winning combination.
He had cars totally capable of winning many times, but then he wasnt able to do the job with them that was required. He had the best car in 1979, what did he do?
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He was also more interested in racing than championships. As he once said: "How the hell can you drive a race car, fight with people - and think all the time about points for a bloody championship? How can you settle for a 'safe' third place or something, because it's four points...? Jesus, people like that should be accountants, not racing drivers..."
If he was so interested in winning a particular race, why did he win so few of them and often get beaten by his teammates, considering he was prepared to take so many more risks?
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Originally Posted by fousto
Thanks Arrows
This pretty well sums it up - many are to young or to disconnected to understand what a great talent and human being Gilles was.!!
I could argue about Gilles being a great human being. I have heard it plenty that he didnt exactly treat his wife too well and used to have sex with quite many other women during his marriage.
