The Greatest Racing Driver

Most enthusiasts of motor racing have their own views on who they believe to be the ‘best’ racing driver ever. Pretty well every enthusiast really. But how have all these followers of the sport arrived at their particular and rather entrenched mindset? It depends on your age, what country you are from, the style of driving that appeals to you personally, the personality and perhaps the chivalry of a particular driver, or a myriad of other perfectly reasonable reasons. We all have our very own built in biases, which have been formed and solidified over the years and thus become quite unshakeable and impervious to another enthusiast’s arguments or persuasion. To the best of my knowledge there has not been a book written with the express purpose of logically determining who can be claimed as being the greatest racing driver in automotive history. This book strived to achieve this – the aim has been to arrive at a logical and objective conclusion for our greatest racing driver, based on a range of criteria that meets the wide ranging differentials inherent in motor racing. This objective process, which hopefully provides a realistic outcome, and not one just based on informed (or uninformed) opinion leads to a definite conclusion, – but one which may run counter to ones previously held views. It is accepted that it is extremely difficult to compare drivers from different era’s, due in no small part to the changes to roads, cars, politics and the commercial imperatives of manufacturers and sponsors, and it is thus has been important to develop meaningful data and ‘true to life’ reasoning, to interpret and analyse actual results over the 100 or so years. So, in this regard much of the actual results and calculations have been weighted according to the importance attached to each specific area and extrapolated to arrive at a realistic outcome for each result. By analysing the results in this way – by using various factors and weightings to adjust information – a logical method of evaluation and comparison results. The original data used is as accurate as it has been possible to ascertain, and in practice, this has proved to be considerably harder than was originally imagined. It is not until one really digs down deep into the history of the sport searching for the relevant entrants and race results that the real complexity begins to emerge. Whilst the original data therefore is quite accurate as far as can be reasonably ascertained, it is however very much the authors views on the relative importance of each piece of the data and the level of the weightings used, which could be said to stray from pure objectivity. Being very mindful of this, the various weightings and factors used have been thought through very carefully; have been discussed with other enthusiasts; with a number of previous and current competitors; and a number of computer models were developed to test the viability and outcome of the changes. This is the main area where anything other than pure objectivity has played a part. The various anecdotes and stories in the alternate chapters have been selected by me, and generally singled out to elaborate on the skills or personality of some of the very best drivers, or in some instances to enhance a point or contention made. In any event, if this book has the ability to encourage and stimulate discussion amongst motor racing enthusiasts, either in agreement or in disagreement with the methods used and the final objective result, then the undertaking will have been worthwhile.