Top 10 "Always the Bridesmaid" F1 drivers
 |
| Just can't bear not winning a WDC |
Just recently I saw the news that Roger Federer was hanging up his racket as he had to admit old Father Time had finally caught up with him.
This was the picture of him with Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Andy Murray.
 |
| GOAT Farm |
Between these four they had essentially locked out the men's tennis scene. Since Federer won his first Grand Slam at Wimbledon in 2003 only 10 titles out of a possible 78 have gone to anyone outside these four. As a tennis fan I was very lucky to live through this entire era.
Many great but not exceptional players found themselves unlucky to be born in such an era of men's tennis and never win the titles that their skill level may have achieved in a different era. The same is true over on the women's side of the game with the dominance the Williams sisters had.
This got me thinking to Formula 1 drivers who never took the World Drivers Championship despite being great drivers.
Could they have won if born just a little earlier or later? Could they have won if their peak did not coincide with the dominance of other cars or drivers such as Fangio, Schumacher, Vettel, or Hamilton?
Well the answer is - of course they could!
If you removed their competition or moved them to a different era with weaker competition then of course things would be different.
What a ridiculous question to have asked!
With that blindingly obvious revelation out of the way I still wanted to take a look at who I felt were the best drivers to have never taken home the title.
There are a number of ways to measure this and my list here is loosely based on the number of wins & podiums they achieved in their career.
In a classic count down fashion, let's kick things off with the driver occupying tenth spot in my list.
10 - Daniel Ricciardo - 8 wins, 32 podiums
 |
| Holding one of the eels from The Little Mermaid |
Danny Ric managed to finish 3rd in the championship twice as a driver of Red Bull in 2014 and 2016. In both these seasons he was actually "best of the rest" as he was up against one of the most dominant cars in the sport in the form of the Mercedes that Lewis & Nico were driving.
The 2016 season was the one that gave us the inaugural "Shoey" in Germany.
Sometimes dismissed as just a great character of F1, Daniel was very unlucky that when his talent finally got him into a top car, it was unfortunately a car that was in the Mercedes shadow.
He would go on to finish 5th & 6th in the Red Bull and also 5th with Renault but the chances of him winning the title are sadly behind him as maybe his career in F1 is as well.
9 - Mark Webber - 9 wins, 42 podiums
 |
| The World Wide Webber |
Another Australian who drove for Red Bull is next up.
Webber came onto the F1 scene in 2002 and by 2007 he had made his way into the Red Bull team. The team was fairly new and still to make a truly competitive car but with a switch to a Renault engine and with the genius of Adrian Newey starting to transform the car, things were on the way up.
By 2009 Webber was pushing himself up to 4th in the championship and looking very strong. He went on to secure three third placed finishes in the 4 years that followed. On each occasion he was beaten by his team mate, and champion, Sebastian Vettel with second spots being taken by Alonso (2010 & 2013) and Button (2011).
In his final season tensions rose between himself and Vettel after a refusal to follow team orders by Vettel and, despite the fact he secured 3rd in the title, he didn't win a race all year. That was his last season in Formula 1.
 |
| The SuperSwede |
Ronnie Peterson may not have had as many podiums as the previous two, but that is most definitely down to his life being cut short by the sport he loved.
The Swede, regarded as one of the fastest drivers on the grid in the 70s, secured 3rd in 1973 behind Jackie Stewart & Fittipaldi and then went one better in 1978 finishing second.
However, that season was not one of celebrating his second place finish. His final race was the Italian GP at Monza which was not the final race of the season but a tragic accident would take his life.
An incident involving many drivers saw Peterson collide with the barriers and then catch fire. He was pulled from his car and, despite severe leg injuries, was not thought to be the worst impacted driver from the multiple drivers involved. However, Peterson passed away later in hospital from complications caused by his injuries.
Mario Andretti, Peterson's team mate, won the Italian GP and in doing so secured the title. He was quoted as saying that he could not celebrate what should have been the happiest day of his life given the tragedy that had occurred.
7 - Gerhard Berger - 10 wins, 48 podiums
 |
| Can I get fries with that |
The "best of the rest" category does not just apply to Danny Ric going up against the Mercedes. Gerhard Berger found himself unlucky enough to be driving his Ferrari in the same era as Prost & Senna were flying their McLaren rocket ships around the tracks. He secured third spot in 1988 and was the only driver to win a race that year outside of the two McLaren drivers when he stood on the top step of the podium at Monza (not a bad place for a Ferrari driver to win!)
He would make it to 3rd again in 1994 but, while McLaren were no longer dominating, he came up against the Williams of Damon Hill and a certain Michael Schumacher in his Benetton. This won't be the last time Schumacher appears on this list!
6 - Felipe Massa - 11 wins, 41 podiums
 |
| What's the Massa? |
Oh Felipe Massa! One of the most heartbreaking ones on the list. The little Brazilian had his best streak in F1 between 2006 and 2008. In 2006 he secured a third place finish in his Ferrari behind Schumacher and Alonso.
In 2007, despite Schumacher retiring, he was beaten by his Ferrari team mate again as Raikkonen won the title with the McLaren pair of Alonso & Hamilton coming in second and third.
Then came 2008 and the season finale in Brazil.
Needing to win his home race and hope Hamilton finished below 5th place, he secured his part and took the checkered flag. Vettel passed Hamilton dropping the British driver down to 6th and for a period of time Massa, his garage, and his family celebrated him being crowned World Champion.
Then Glock started going slowly.
As the only front runner that had gambled on the rain not creating bad enough conditions for the intermediate tires, Glock had stayed on slicks.
In the final few corners Lewis caught and passed Glock to reclaim 5th spot and in doing so secure the drivers championship and rip it away from Massa.
He never came that close again.
5 - Carlos Reutemann - 12 wins, 45 podiums
 |
| s |
Reutemann secured three third place finishes and one second place finish over the period 1975-1981. During this period he raced for Brabham, Ferrari, and Williams.
His third place battles came at the height of the Lauda & Hunt rivalry with his second place season seeing him place behind Piquet in a season cursed with bad luck. With Reutemann leading the championship, at the German GP his team mate Alan Jones had an engine failure prior to the race. Despite not leading the championship, Jones was the number one driver and the team gave him Reutemann's engine with the Argentinian having to take the team's third engine.
The engine failed and he didn't score any points from a race he had qualified in third place.
Piquet won the title with 50 points to Reutemann's 49. Ouch.
4 - Valtteri Bottas - 10 wins, 67 podiums
 |
| We decided not to use the naked stream picture |
Two second place finishes, two third place, and one fourth see Valterri Bottas as one of either the best wingmen or unluckiest drivers out there.
Maybe he's both.
He won over many fans with his driving while at Williams and was rewarded with a Mercedes seat in 2017.
However, despite being there in a period of Mercedes domination, he was team mate to Lewis Hamilton.
He could never quite do what Nico Rosberg had done in 2016 and get the upper hand on Lewis so despite all these wins and all these podiums he has never won the championship and looks unlikely to do so now.
He does rock a great bucket hat though.
3 - David Coulthard - 13 wins, 62 podiums
 |
| One half of AC/DC |
In a tale similar to that of Valtteri, one second place, four third place, and one fourth see David Coulthard high up my list of bridesmaids.
His spell behind the wheel of the McLaren almost fully overlapped with Schumacher's dominance (told you he'd be back ruining the careers of others!). In fact even though he did manage one second place finish, the level of Schumacher's mastery saw him finish with almost half the total of Schumacher as he claimed 65 points to Schumacher's 123.
In the years building up to this where Michael was still helping Ferrari find their feet, DC was beaten by his team mate Mika Hakkinen in 98 & 99 and also by Jacques Villeneuve in 97.
The Scot just never seemed able to make that final step to take a title.
2 - Rubens Barrichello - 11 wins, 68 podiums
 |
| The world's first invisible trophy |
This one was a tight call with Coulthard. While DC had more wins, the thing that tipped it for me was that Rubens holds the record for the most podiums without a title and also scored over a hundred points more than DC over his career. Not sure why the points total counts but it felt right to me.
Despite making the ultimate wingman comment for Valtteri only a few paragraphs ago, it's probably right to go back on this already and say that Rubens was the best.
He was Schumacher's team mate for that insane period where Michael took 5 titles in a row from 2000-2004. During this period no one was going to touch Schumacher and Rubens took two second places, a third place, and two fourth spots.
He also took third spot in the one and only year of Brawn GP where his team mate Jenson Button took the title.
A truly likeable character on the grid but unfortunately not a champion.
1 - Sir Stirling Moss - 16 wins, 24 podiums
 |
| The Rolling Stones couldn't catch him |
I really couldn't pick anyone else given it is a widely circulated view that Sir Stirling Moss was "the greatest driver never to win the World Championship".
With that as the view held by folk way more educated than me on all things F1, how could I argue?
Between 1955 & 1957 he finished runner up three times behind Fangio. In 1958 he got his fourth consecutive runners up spot but this time behind Mike Hawthorn. The 1958 title really displayed the character of Moss. He testified on behalf of Hawthorn for an alleged infraction in Portugal. As a result of the appeal, Hawthorn was not disqualified and went on to beat Moss by a single point.
From 1959 to 1961 he took three consecutive third places.
We covered the career of Moss in our Vale's Tales episode "A Knight 'n Vegas" if you wanna take a listen.
Well that concludes my top ten. Hope you enjoyed.
Just think, one of the drivers on the grid right now might one day enter this list.
Will George be Mr Consistent forever and never actually take the crown?
Could Leclerc end up on here or will Piastri come into F1 and light the whole place up but ultimately join Danny Ric and Webber as another Australian on this list?
The truth is that all of the above is possible and that we can't know for sure.
What we can know is that it will be fun finding out.
Comments
Post a Comment