Amit Amola
With speed which thrills but can almost kill, these Formula One drivers have been our speed god from the origin of this thrilling game. This is the list of top 10 F1 drivers of all time.
Ayrton Senna da Silva (21 March 1960 – 1 May 1994) was a Brazilian racing driver who won three Formula One world championships. He was killed in an accident while leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. He was among the most dominant and successful Formula One drivers of the modern era and is considered one of the greatest drivers in the history of the sport. He remains the most recent driver fatality in Formula One.
Senna has often been voted as one of the greatest Formula One drivers of all time in various motorsport polls. He was recognised for his qualifying speed over one lap and from 1989 until 2006 held the record for most pole positions. He was also acclaimed for his wet weather performances, such as the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix, the 1985 Portuguese Grand Prix, and the 1993 European Grand Prix. He holds a record six victories at the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix, and is the third most successful driver of all time in terms of race wins.
Michael Schumacher (born 3 January 1969) is a retired German racing driver. Schumacher is a seven-time Formula One (F1) World Champion and is widely regarded as one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time. He was named Laureus World Sportsman of the Year twice. He holds many of Formula One's driver records, including most championships, race victories, fastest laps, pole positions and most races won in a single season – 13 in 2004 (the last of these records was equalled by fellow German Sebastian Vettel nine years later). In 2002, he became the only driver in Formula One history to finish in the top three in every race of a season and then also broke the record for most consecutive podium finishes. According to the official Formula One website, he is "statistically the greatest driver the sport has ever seen".
After beginning with karting, Schumacher won the German drivers' championships in Formula König and Formula Three before joining Mercedes in the World Sportscar Championship. After one Mercedes-funded race for the Jordan Formula One team, Schumacher signed as a driver for the Benetton Formula One team in 1991. After winning consecutive championships with Benetton in 1994/5, Schumacher moved to Ferrari in 1996 and won another five consecutive drivers' titles with them from 2000 to 2004. Schumacher retired from Formula One driving in 2006 staying with Ferrari as an advisor. Schumacher agreed to return for Ferrari part-way through 2009, as cover for the badly injured Felipe Massa, but was prevented by a neck injury. Schumacher returned to Formula One on a permanent basis from 2010 with the Mercedes team before retiring for a second time at the conclusion of the 2012 season.
Juan Manuel Fangio (24 June 1911 – 17 July 1995), nicknamed El Chueco or El Maestro ("The Master"), was a racing car driver from Argentina, who dominated the first decade of Formula One racing, winning the World Championship of Drivers five times.
He won the World Championship of Drivers five times—a record which stood for 46 years until beaten by Michael Schumacher—with four different teams (Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Maserati), a feat that has not been repeated. A member of the Formula 1 Hall of Fame, he is regarded by many as one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time and holds the highest winning percentage in Formula One - 46.15% - winning 24 of 52 Formula One races he entered. Fangio is the only Argentine driver to have won the Argentine Grand Prix, having won it four times in his career—the most of any driver.
Alain Marie Pascal Prost, (born 24 February 1955 in Lorette, Loire) is a French racing driver. He is a four-time Formula One Drivers' Champion. From 1987 until 2001 Prost held the record for most Grand Prix victories. Schumacher surpassed Prost's total of 51 victories at the 2001 Belgian Grand Prix. In 1999, Prost received the World Sports Awards of the Century in the motor sport category.
Prost employed a smooth, relaxed style behind the wheel, deliberately modeling himself on personal heroes like Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark. He was nicknamed "The Professor" for his intellectual approach to competition, though it was a name he did not particularly care for. Skilled at setting up his car for race conditions, Prost would often conserve his brakes and tyres early on in a race, leaving them fresher for a challenge at the end.
James Clark (4 March 1936 – 7 April 1968) was a British Formula One racing driver from Scotland, who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965.
Clark was a versatile driver who competed in sports cars, touring cars and in the Indianapolis 500, which he won in 1965. He was particularly associated with the Lotus marque.
He was killed in a Formula Two motor racing accident in Hockenheim, Germany in 1968. At the time of his death, he had won more Grand Prix races (25) and achieved more Grand Prix pole positions (33) than any other driver. In 2009, The Times placed Clark at the top of a list of the greatest-ever Formula One drivers.
He is known as the greatest natural talent ever seen in Formula 1. Clark didn't seem to understand why he was fast, but destroyed top fields time and again.
Sir John Young "Jackie" Stewart (born 11 June 1939) is a British former Formula One racing driver from Scotland. Nicknamed the "Flying Scot", he competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships. He also competed in Can-Am. In 2009 he was ranked fifth of the fifty greatest Formula One drivers of all time by journalist Kevin Eason who wrote: "He has not only emerged as a great driver, but one of the greatest figures of motor racing."
Jackie Stewart was one of those drivers who was so smooth, so precise, that he didn't look quick unless you had a stopwatch in your hand.
His crusade to improve safety standards only adds to the living legend that is Sir Jackie Stewart.
Sebastian Vettel (born 3 July 1987[2]) is a professional German Formula One racing driver, currently driving for the Austrian racing team Red Bull Racing. He is the current Formula One World Champion, having won the championship 4 years in a row: in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. He is among the most successful F1 drivers of all time.
Vettel holds or held numerous other "youngest" Formula One records, among them: the youngest driver to have taken part in an official practice session of a Grand Prix, to score championship points (until Daniil Kvyat in 2014), to lead a race, to secure pole position, and to win a race. He is also currently third in the overall tally of pole positions behind fellow German Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna.
Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda (born 22 February 1949) is an Austrian former Formula One driver who was the three time F1 World Champion, winning in 1975, 1977 and 1984. More recently an aviation entrepreneur, he has founded and run two airlines (Lauda Air and Niki). He was also the manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years. He is currently working as a pundit for German TV during Grand Prix weekends and acts as non-executive chairman of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team.
Tazio Giorgio Nuvolari (16 November 1892 – 11 August 1953) was an Italian motorcycle racer and racecar driver. Resident in Mantua, he was known as 'Il Mantovano Volante' (The Flying Mantuan) and nicknamed 'Nivola'. His victories—72 major races, 150 in all—included 24 Grands Prix, five Coppa Cianos, two Mille Miglias, two Targa Florios, two RAC Tourist Trophies, a Le Mans 24-hour race, and a European Championship in Grand Prix racing. Ferdinand Porsche called him "the greatest driver of the past, the present, and the future."
Joseph Gilles Henri Villeneuve (January 18, 1950 – May 8, 1982), was a Canadian racing driver. An enthusiast of cars and fast driving from an early age, he started his professional career in snowmobile racing in his native province of Quebec. He moved into single seaters, winning the US and Canadian Formula Atlantic championships in 1976, before being offered a drive in Formula One with the McLaren team at the 1977 British Grand Prix. He was taken on by reigning world champions Ferrari for the end of the season and from 1978 to his death in 1982 drove for the Italian team. He won six Grand Prix races in a short career at the highest level. In 1979, he finished second by four points in the championship to teammate Jody Scheckter.
Life is full of challenges. Wise people choose to meet them. Foolish people choose to run from them...
