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Saturday 2 February 2013

Which drivers of the past are today's F1 stars most like ?

Sebastian Vettel - Nelson Piquet Snr:  Both drivers are triple world champions, both drivers have a career based largely on superior equipment. Nelson Piquet made his Formula One debut in 1978 for the fledgling Ensign team at the German GP. He started a lowly 21st on the grid, but was cutting his way through the field in fine style when his engine failed on lap 31. Three further races followed that season in a privateer Mclaren before he was signed by Bernie Ecclestone for Brabham. He made his debut for them at that season's final round in Canada and remained with the Milton Keynes outfit until the end of the 1985 season.

The Brazilian was fortunate to join Brabham at a point where they were enjoying an upswing in fortune. Their South African designer Gordon Murray had cracked the ground effect concept with the BT49 chassis which made it's debut in 1979. Strong campaigns by Ferrari and Williams during the BT49's first two seasons denied Brabham the title, but by 1981 the BT49C variant allowed Piquet to steal the title from under the nose of Alan Jones at the final round of the season.

The 1982 season saw Piquet and Brabham held back by the unreliability of the new turbocharged BMW engine, but by 1983 these problems had been resolved and the Brazilian again clinched the title at the final round. Thereafter Brabham entered a steady decline and at the end of the 1985 season Nelson left to join the Williams Honda team. Suprisingly during his time with the team he was not able to get the upper hand on Nigel Mansell who at that stage in his career was regarded as little more than a solid support driver.

Both took points off each other allowing Alain Prost to snatch the title from under their noses at the last round of the season at Adelaide. Piquet was able to clinch a third title in 1987 after Mansell was sidelined for the final two rounds as a result of a back injury sustained during practice for the Japanese GP at Suzuka. The Williams' teams refusal to reign Mansell in and afford the triple world champion undisputed number one status irked both the Brazilian and engine supplier Honda immensely and for 1988 Piquet transferred his allegiance to the Lotus team, whilst Honda transferred their second engine supply deal from Williams to Mclaren.

The move was a disaster all round and saw both Piquet and Lotus enter a steep decline from which they would never recover. Unable to overcome the limitations of the equipment at his disposal he failed to score a single victory during 1988. The following season was even worse as Lotus were forced to use Judd V8 engines after Honda withdrew their support and Piquet again scored no wins.

A switch to the Italian Bennetton team for 1990 saw a gradual improvement in form during the course of the season culminating in him winning the last two rounds of the season. A final win came his way at the expense of Nigel Mansell at the Canadian GP of 1991, but the late season arrival of Michael Schumacher to the team pushed Nelson into the shade and made him look like a driver who's best days were behind him.

For 1992 Piquet tried his luck on the Indy Car circuit. There was talk of him being drafted in as replacement for Ivan Capelli at Ferrari, but after Nelson badly broke his legs attempting to qualify for the Indy 500 this proved impossible and his days racing single seaters looked all but over.



Fernando Alonso - Alain Prost: Unusually for a Latin driver, Fernando Alonso possesses a cool, calculated approach to his racing, often playing the percentages game and only driving at ten tenths when he needs to do so to get the job done.

This approach was the hallmark of "Le Professeur" as Prost was known. Having started his Formula One career during the 1980 season for Mclaren and scoring points first time out, he saw at first hand many of the accidents, both career ending and fatal to his colleagues and was determined that this was not going to happen him.

Rather than driving well over the limit to extract a quick lap time from a car in qualifying, he concentrated more on race set up, often at the expense of grid placings. Doing so meant that come race day he could drive well within himself and still be quick. Combining this with his smooth driving style meant he was able to conserve brakes and tyres for when he really needed them during a race and could plan his attacks out rather than having to improvise.

After his stunning debut for the Woking outfit he was snapped up to drive for the highly nationalistic Renault F1 program for 1981. Race victories were plentiful during his three seasons with the French manufacturer, but a concerted campaign to clinch the driver's title was held back by a combination of unreliability and political infighting. The closest Prost and Renault got was in his final campaign with them. Leading the title race for most of the season, they were eventually caught and passed after a late season charge from Piquet and the BMW powered Brabham. The French outfit lost the title by just a single point.

Unbelievably, Renault made Alain the fall guy for these failures and he was dismissed at the end of that season. He was rapidly resigned by Mclaren for 1984 and spent much of the year showing his double world champion team mate Niki Lauda the way home, only to lose out on the title (this time by just half a point) to his Austrian team mate's more consistent points scoring.

For 1985 Lauda could not hold his younger team mate back any longer and the Frenchman stormed to his first driver's world title. By 1986, the Mclaren-Porsche combination had been overhauled by Williams-Honda as the team to beat, however their refusal to back a single driver for a title charge saw Prost steal in at the last round and take the crown after tyre problems for both Williams drivers. Mclaren fell back even more for 1987, but by 1988 the team had Gordon Murray onboard as chief designer and Honda engines. The Japanese manufacturer had initially wanted reigning world champion Nelson Piquet to partner Prost, but Alain had vetoed him and suggested the triple world champion's countryman Ayrton Senna instead.

In circumstances somewhat similar to those during the season Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton spent at Mclaren together in 2007, Prost was completely unprepared for the raw speed of his young team mate. Where Alain's approach had always been more about winning at the slowest possible speed, Senna drove every lap of every session at 110% and was always trying to go that little bit faster.

Perhaps wisely realising that trying to copy his young charger of a team mate was not the way to go, Prost stuck to his guns but was edged out of the title for the 1988 season as a result of the "best 11 scores to count " ruling that was in place at the time. Despite finishing the season with 11 more points than Senna, Prost had one less victory and as result the title wen't to the Brazilian.

During the course of that season the relationship between the two drivers had gradually begun to cool and by 1989 had degenerated into all out warfare. This time however, Prost edged out Senna and claimed the title after a controversial collision at the final chicane during the Japanese GP.

Tiring of the constant warfare at Mclaren, Prost departed to Ferrari the following season, quickly had the beating of team mate Nigel Mansell and proved to be the closest title rival of old foe Senna. The championship was again decided at Suzuka (this time in Ayrton's favour) after a suspicious looking first corner collision eliminated both drivers.

During the 1991 season the Ferrari proved itself to be way off the pace and Alain alienated himself from the team's management by publicly complaining about the performance of the Maranello outfit. This lead to his dismissal before the final round of the season. He sat 1992 out, but all the while was working away at gaining a race seat with the all conquering Williams-Renault team for for following year.

Deciding he did not want the Frenchman as a team mate again, Nigel Mansell, who had won the title for Williams in 1992 decided on a move to Indy Car racing in America and Williams paired the now triple world champion with former test driver Damon Hill. Prost initially looked a little rusty during the first few rounds of the season, allowing Senna to suprisingly streak away into an early title lead. As the "power circuits" of the middle of the season came around however, Senna's challenge largely fell away and Alain was able to coast to his fourth and final title.

On hearing that Senna would again be his team mate for 1994, Alain decided he could not go through that experience for a second time and retired from the sport. He subsequently tested for Mclaren and was even rumoured to be being lined up for a return to Williams after the death of the great Brazilian but declined the chance and left Formula One behind for good.



Lewis Hamilton - Gilles Villeneuve: Two of the most exciting drivers ever to get behind the wheel of a Formula One car are also two of the very fastest. They both however share one common trait that could have led to even greater success if they didn't have it. That is, that during their careers they both don't know when they were beaten. Often this characteristic can be a positive one, but in the case of these two drivers it can often mean over driving in the pursuit of lost causes and becoming tangled up in accidents and collisions where the sensible thing to do would have been to yield the place to the faster car behind.

Gilles made his Formula One debut for Mclaren at the British Grand Prix of 1977 with the team running a third car for him. He showed sufficient promise during this race, finishing 11th , despite mechanical troubles and only being given an old M23 chassis to race instead of the current M26 version to attract the attention of several teams. Mclaren decided that whilst Gilles had promise, his wages were going to be too expensive and he lost out on the chance of a full time drive with them to Frenchman Patrick Tambay.

With no drive for the remainder of 1977 or beyond, Villeneuve's luck changed when Niki Lauda walked out of Ferrari after securing his second title in three years for the Italian team. Gilles was offered a test for them where he performed solidly rather that spectacularly. This combined with his physical resemblance to pre war ace Tazio Nuvolari was enough to convince the eccentric Enzo Ferrari that the Canadian had promise.

The 1978 season was a mixed affair for Villeneuve. A great deal of unreliability and over driving eventually saw his form start to come good towards the end of the season and he took a debut victory at his home race in Canada. The following year saw Gilles paired with South African Jody Scheckter. The Canadian took three race victories and was usually quicker than his new team mate, but Jody was more consistent over the course of the year and took the driver's title.

1980 and 1981 saw Ferrari produce cars that were nowhere near the quickest in the field and that were also difficult to drive. This period saw Villeneuve deliver some of the best races of his career despite being given inferior equipment, the highlights of which were his wins at the tight and twisty Monaco and Spanish GPs of 1981.

With designer Dr Harvey Postlethwaite onboard for 1982 things were looking up for Ferrari and Villeneuve, but a dispute between Gilles and team mate Pironi about team orders at the San Marino GP led to the death of the great Canadian driver at the following race. With just minutes remaining of final qualifying for the Belgian GP at Zolder, Pironi was on pole position and Villeneuve did not look like he was going to beat the Frenchman's time. Making one final, desperate attempt to do so, he ploughed into the back of Jochen Mass' touring March. His car was thrown into a series of cartwheels and Villeneuve was thrown from the vehicle and across the track still strapped to his seat.

After being extricated from the catch fencing next to the track it was clear Gilles had suffered a fatal fracture of the neck and he died later that day in hospital, aged just 32.

Kimi Raikkonen - Mika Hakkinen: It could also be said that Kimi's driving style and approach to his career carries more than just a passing resemblance to that of the Swedish driver Ronnie Peterson, who was widely regarded as the fastest driver of his era. However the Swede proved himself to be a fair and dutiful team mate to Mario Andretti when at Lotus, often sitting in the American's wheel tracks despite being visibly faster as this was what his contract stipulated he must do.

It is unlikely that either Raikkonen nor Hakkinen would even have sign a contract with such a claus in it, never mind adhere to one. What all three have in common though is blistering natural pace that is so outstanding that it affords them the luxury of perhaps not paying attention to some of the more technical aspects of the sport. This ability can also manifest itself in not having the determination to continue challenging for the title year after year without wavering, sometimes without the benefit of a well handling car.

Whilst it may well be fair to say that both Finnish drivers had the most outright pace of any of the drivers during their day, neither possesses the adaptability of rivals Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton. These two are the sort of drivers who can drag every last drop of performance out of any car, no matter what it's handling characteristics, both good and bad.

Give Hakkinen and particularly Raikkonen a car that doesn't suit their driving style (one that has good front end turn in) and their form will be less spectacular. Give them both a car that does and they will almost certainly be quicker than anyone else in the same car. Give them a car that also is good enough to challenge for the title and their natural speed really begins to shine.

Hakkinen shocked everyone by outqualifying the great Ayrton Senna on his debut for Mclaren. He continued to show well, despite the car at his disposal not being as quick as the Williams or Bennetton during 1994 and 1995. However he suffered a fractured skull in a huge impact at the final round of the 1995 season in Adelaide and his life hung in the balance for a while. It took Mika a couple of years to regain his best form after this disaster, but by the end of 1997 was once again besting team mate David Coulthard and claimed his maiden win at the season ending European GP at Jerez.

With the arrival of designer Adrian Newey for the start of the 1998 season, Hakkinen blitzed his team mate and stormed to the title with eight victories. He again won the title in 1999 despite unreliability problems and an unforced error at Monza. For the year 2000 he looked on course for a third straight world title, but a hat trick of engine failures left him 19 points behind eventual victor Schumacher come the season's end. The following year was to be his last in the sport and Mika appeared to lose interest, finishing well behind Coulthard in the driver's standings.

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