I got to thinking about my top 10 favourite drivers in the past decade or so. Do I need to explain that a little more or shall I just trot on? Thought so!
10. Kimi Raikkonen - Simply for the fact he is really really ridiculously dull. It's like his personality has been botox'd. Nothing moves...
Memorable moment - European Grand Prix in 2005... Kimi flat-spotted his tyre, thought he could make it to the en.... BOOM. No? HA.
9. Kaumi Kobayashi - Ooh! A new one? Oh yes. I see great things ahead for this chap. It's such a shame that Toyota withdrew from F1 as with Kamui behind the wheel they could have had a cracking 2010. Memorable moment is a very recent one, and one that breaks my heart a tiny little bit... when he managed to overtake Alonso and Buemi in the final laps of Valencia (booo)
8. Zsolt Baumgartner - Am I the only person who remembers/likes this guy? What a little cheery chappy he was.
Memorable Moment: In 2004 he took a point for Minardi in the US Grand Prix. Ferrari claimed a 1-2 in this race, and looked quite pleased, the camera then glanced to the Minardi pit crew who were going mental with sheer joy. It goes to show, one little point means a lot to some little teams.
7. Reubens Barichello - The equivilent of F1 furniture. He has just always been around it seems! Since 1993 he has been in almost 300 races, which is just phenomenal. What's more, he's never managed to win a championship!!! Though of course, for a good few years he was partnered with Michael Schumacher at Ferrari when team orders were considered 'A-OK' so his only opportunities were given away. Something of which I am sure he is quite bitter about.
Memorable Moment - Finishing 3rd in the Drivers Championship 2009... finally a return to the glory days of Ferrari... except yet again his team-mate finished in front of him
6. Mark Webber - He's sexy, he's Austrailian, he's a genuine nice guy and curiously enough he threw up in his helmet mid-race in Japan 2007 and kept going (food poisoning is a cruel bitch)
Memorable Moment: Jaguars last race 2004, and the lead up to it, where he was clearly the life and soul of the pit garage at such a sad time for the team.
5. Takuma Sato - To this day I'm concerned. Was he aware he was driving a Formula 1 car or did he think he was in a pinball machine? Man he put that B.A.R through it's paces. However when he wasn't hurtling into a wall or exploding his engine, he was a cracking driver. He remains the best Japanese driver to have graced F1... though I suspect there may be a pretender to that crown in Kobayashi.
Memorable moment: 2007 Spanish Grand Prix, and the point taken for Super Aguri
4. Michael Schumacher - He just kicked so much ass. He made me hate him. He dominated the sport. Of course in 2010 he is like a duck with a limp, waddling around trying to remember the good ol' days. "Why a duck?" you ask. "It was the only waddly annimal I could think of" said the Lynsey. Memorable moments... erm, how about the period between 2000 and 2004 where no one else got a look-in?
3. David Coulthard - DC! A fellow Scot! A racer who never seemed to catch the luck, yet whom nevertheless managed to rack up 13 race wins and enough points to rate him as one of the all time best point-scoring Brits (if you are reading this in the future... I understand this will probably have changed, so chill out you fussy pedantic bastards!) Memorable moments for DC would be the quotes:
"I know I screwed up the same way with Alex [Wurz] last year, and took full responsibility for it, and I would expect Felipe to do the same. If he doesn't, I'm going to kick three colours of shit out of the little bastard.".
"I don't pay for my cockpit or have a father who drove in Formula One - I am still here because my team believes that I bring them value by performing at the highest level"
"I wouldn't waste my time by going to see Juan Pablo. It would be like going to a zoo and trying to communicate with a chimpanzee. We speak a different language and have a different racing etiquette, so there is no point talking to him."
And who could forget that interview with Louise Goodman...
Louise: Have you been practising with that pit lane speed limiter?
David: Yeah I have. I've just been imagining it's your nipples. I'm being a bit more gentle with it when I take my finger off it at the end of the pit lane!
2. Fernando Alonso - I have been a loyal fan of Mr Alonso since I was first forced to watch F1 in 2004 by a Mr Alex Mauchlen... his argument of 'pick someone to support, just pick a name and you'll get into it I promise' was convincing. I picked Fernando for two reasons, one being I thought his name looked cool and the second being his... eyebrows... were so... enticing. At that point he had just started his first season at Renault following a pretty decent performance with Minardi. Since then I think 2 championships speak for themselves.
Memorable moments: awaiting the end of each victorious Grand Prix for him to hold up the 'how-many-races-ive-won' fingers. For a Fernando fan moments like that were almost X-rated
1. Mika Hakkinen - Just because he is a classic all-round good guy. He's entertaining, passionate and above all he did not have his head inserted in his own derriere which in my opinion is the reason there are so few likable drivers on the grid today. A memorable moment for me would be his frustration in Monza 1999 where he went off to find a quiet spot to have a little cry, alas there was a cracking big camera following him so it did not remain the private moment of reflection he was likely hoping for. His last season was in 2001 when he announced he was 'taking a break'... a break which I am still hoping will end soon.
So there you have it, a crude run down of drivers who perhaps aren't all hall-of-famers but who have had a lasting effect on my F1-loving
No comments:
Post a Comment