Here is a list of Grand Prix drivers who I think are very much underrated by historians and contemporary F1 fans. I no particular order:

1) Masten Gregory-first full-time American-born Grand Prix driver who was blazingly fast but never received a competitive and reliable ride (ever) to capture the fame of Americans who followed. He finished on the podium in his first GP start at Monaco and 6th in the WDC standings in his rookie year despite only competing in hald of the races. He was America's first road racing star and sadly forgotten. What a pity because he was as good as Phil Hill and better than Dan Gurney in a Grand Prix car.

2) Tony Brooks-he was fast out of the blocks and produced when he had a capable ride. Sadly, he decided to retire early.

3) Jean-Pierre Wimille-had the scoring system F1 used in the early fifties been applied to the season 1947-1949, he would have been WDC twice. He was Fangio's mentor and he apparently taught him well.

4) Graham Hill-never received the fame and credit as the other British greats. Why? Why? Why? He won Monaco five times, Le Mans and the Indy 500. His career stats are considerably watered down with unreliable and uncompetitive rides he had in the latter part of his career.

5) Richie Ginther-another American who was blazingly fast right out of the box. Scored a second place finish at Monza in just his third start. Had great mechanical aptitude which made him a great development driver. He gave Honda their first win in Formula One.

6) Vic Elford-what a shame that this guy never got a decent F1 ride because he could adapt and produce quickly in anything that had four wheels. He finished fourth in his very first Grand Prix start in the wet at the 1968 French Grand Prix. He also won the prestigeous Monte Carlo Rally in 1968 and also finished 11th in the 1969 Daytona 500.

7) Peter Arundell-a podium finisher in his very first two Grand Prix starts. His career suffered a huge blow in a crash at Reims in 1964 that caused him to undergo a long slow rehabilitation. He came back a shadow of his former self in 1966 then Colin Chapman replaced him with Grahma Hill for the 1967 season.

8) Mark Donohue-won in Indy Cars, NASCAR and Sports Cars along with scoring a podium finish in his very first Grand Prix start. He also won the very first IROC championship in 1974 competing against Emerson Fittipaldi, A.J. Foyt, Denny Hulme, David Pearson and Richard Petty. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was WDC material and I truly believe that he would have become an American motorsports Icon that Mario Andretti, Foyt and Petty are today had he lived.

9) Jacky Ickx-he could drive anything fast Sports cars, Rally Cars and Grand Prix cars. His F1 career never matched his sports car career but he did produce when his machinery held up. Unfortunately, he drove for Ferrari during the time when the Ford-Cosworth engine dominated.

10) Stirling Moss-Underrated just because he was great enough to be twice WDC but never had great luck. Also there was a certain driver named Fangio early in his career who was beating everybody at that time (even if he had to still someone's elses ride when his failed). I had to put him on here just because of all those "Can't be great unless you have won a championship" type morons.

11) Alberto Ascari-although twice a WDC he is really a three time WDC if the 1949 season was incorporated into F1 history. Impressive win-start ratio that is only exceeded by Fangio. He just doesn't get the credit he deserved and I believe that he was better than Stirling Moss.

12) Chris Amon-I will let Keir handle this one.

13) Louis Chiron-I have never understood why a driver who won as many championship European Grand Prix races as Caracciola never got half the credit as him.

More to come later....

[This message has been edited by Joe Fan (edited 05-12-2000).]

Cervert jumps to mind. I think in 73 he was held back per team orders, but otherwise could have had more than one career victory.

Another underrated driver to consider in the "Peter-Arundell-would-have-been-a-great-if-not-for-a-crash" mold is Mike Parks. Come to think of it (even though this isn't racing nostalgia), so is Johnny Herbert. Also forgotten is Carlos Pace.

If we are to consider accomplishments outside of F1, lets add Jo Siffert, Pedro Rodriquez and Peter Revson.

...and Brian Redman. Good article on his career in the latest Vintage Motorsport mag.

I don't think that Chris was underrated by anyone other than the keepers of stats. He may not have been the most organized person on the planet, but in the car he was a true racer.
Isn't that what it's all about???

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"I Was Born Ready"

I am certain that I could bore everyone to tears and clog up the server if I really got rolling on this topic.

I often think that near the top of the list has to be Guy Moll, the fabulous Algerian who drove for Scuderia Ferrari. He was still maturing when fate caught up with him.

I have often thought that Bruce McLaren was underrated as a GP driver. McLaren was a very mature, consistent driver who seemed to always be around at the finish, even in some not so great machinery.

At the top of the list is probably Harry Schell, who was far better than the stats suggest. He was a "go-to" driver who first revealed the true capabilities of the Vanwall to the GP world. He did a great deal for BRM when he drove for them, and in 1957 it was no accident that he was a member of the Officine Alfieri Maserati effort.

In 1960, it was entirely possible that the deal with BRP was exactly the ticket for Harry to finally get some long overdue recognition. However, then he went out to practice at Silverstone....

And right there with Schell and Moll is Masten Gregory. "Nuf said, one of my favorites.

Although some will cock an eyebrow, I think Giancarlo Baghetti is vastly underrated. Yes, he has all the appearance of a "one-hit wonder" he definitely had Talent. However, wrong places at the wrong times for Giancarlo in 1962 & 1963.

Another is, of all people, Phil Hill. He is rarely gievn much credit for the GP side of his resume outside of 1961. Even in The Past, it was difficult to make a purse out of a sow's ear. The teams Hill drove for in the 1962-1964 period were usually in a shambles and often his input was unappreciated or ignored. The 1965 Tasman Series with McLaren (these were "Coopers" but really the first "McLarens" due to McLaren running the operation that built & raced the cars from start to finish - although McLaren did weld together the pile of tubes he was given in 1958 into a Cooper, but that is another story...) was a better indication of the talent that Hill still had when driving for a competent team.

And, well, I could ramble on forever....

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Yr fthfl & hmbl srvnt,

Don Capps

Semper Gumbi: If this was easy, we’d have the solution already…

Don, you wouldn't bore me to tears with your analysis of underrated drivers. I think you should continue at "attempting to bore us" and let us decide. I think that such discussion is needed because it is too convenient to pick up a book and look at a drivers number of wins and WDCs. We all know that given the right circumstance, many drivers could etched the names firmly in the record books for those lazy fans who don't want to do their homework.

Don,

You try! When the tears come, you can stop!

I've always felt that Keke Rosberg was under-rated, not only by recent fans but also during his career. Same for Hunt.

I guess I might have thought Hunt underrated but for two factors: 1. The fact that I really liked Lauda in that era; and 2. Hunt was never underrated. He was lauded (isn't that nice!) for his 'underprivileged' team at Hesketh and doing so well with them, then the pommie press (the predominant press, after all, for English speaking peoples with an interest in F1) held him so high simply because he was English... later on we read hints that he won a title in a car set up by Emmo, but that was later on.
Personally, I think I underrated old Jack, and it would seem a lot of others did as well. It's only really when you look at his 1970 performances that you see how competitive he really was. McLaren, therefore, comes up because he was a parallel of Jack's in many ways.
Keke, surely, was never underrated.. not by me, anyway, and who cares what others say while you're watching him blistering through 200 miles of Grand Prix in fine style?

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

My naming of Hunt and Rosberg is more of a reflection of too much time spent on the Readers Comments board and seeing how they are generally regarded there. More of how they are looked at currently than how they were viewed during their careers by fans and press alike.

This one may make some of you scoff, but I believe Martini was quite under-rated. His debut in 85 left much to be desired, but he went back to F3000 and regrouped, and when he returned to F1 he was a strong performer for Minardi and Scuderia Italia. If Ferrari had opted for him instead of Capelli for 92, I think Martini would have surprised many and would have had some sucess with the cars of 94-95.

Here are a few in no particular order:

1) Vern Schuppan. Some more knowledgable folks might disagree. I was once told that Schuppan and Lauda were testing BRMs and had equal times. Both drivers wanted changes made to the car. Lauda could afford to pay for the changes; Schuppan couldn't. Lauda got faster and Schuppan didn't. Yup, I've always wondered.

2) Jackie Oliver. Led his first Grand Prix (Britian, '68.) Had some other good drives that year. He certainly had some stagnat years but one year in the mid seventies he finished ninth in the French Grand Prix, after having been out of F1 for a while. I always thought he had it in him.

3) Arturo Merzario. Sixth in his first GP, won the Targa...I think he had the talend and would have accomplished much more had he been with better teams.

Thanks, Joe, for putting Quick Vic in the list. He certainly belongs.

Brian Redman...he was on Ken Tyrrell's short list of drivers to replace Sevroz-Gavin in 1970. Elf wanted a French driver. I don't suspect that Stewart and Redman would have gotten along as well as Stewart and Cevert; I can't imagine that Jackie would have taken Brian under his wing as he did Francois. And I don't think Redman would have needed it. But imagine if Redman and Tyrrell had stayed together until 1974. As close as F1 newcomer Jodi Scheckter came to winning the world championship, I think that an experienced Brian Redman, with four-plus years in the Tyrrell team under his belt, would have pulled it off.

But then, I wouldn't have gotten to talk to him at the F5000 races at Mid-Ohio.

Dave

Another guy I forgot to mention in my earlier post is Jan Lammers. If you read the record books, this journey-man Cart and F1 driver basically filled out the back of grids. And yet, I vaguely remember Bernie's answer to IROC -- the old Procar series, where current F1 drivers competed in, theoretically, identically prepared machines -- that Piquet and Lammers emerged as the class of the field, against Lauda, Scheckter and the likes. Is my memory correct on this?

Ronnie Peterson

JP Jarier

Andrea DeCesaris (I know, I know, but I saw him drive since he was a kid, he had real talent, just too carzy and too much bad luck)

Patrick Depaillier

Carlos Reutemann

Carlos Pace

Riccardo Patrese, great talent got great cars wway too late

Michele Alboreto

Elio DeAngelis, what a talent, fast, clean. If he only had a great car at least one full season

The remark about "journeyman drivers" made me thing of someone. Roberto Moreno. Was second at Japan in the Benneton, I think in '91. He's also been known to take crappy cars and bring them home in the points. He's made a career out of being a journeyman, but at age 41, he's extremely competitive in CART. Given that, I think he could have done more in F1, if he had had better rides at earlier age.

How about Derek Bell? I don't think he ever had a decent F1 car under him. Hmmm...he may have had one or two Ferrari drives in '68. But aside from that...Techno, Surtees (a fine but under-financed team as we know from the other thread.)

D.

-Francois Cevert - has admitted several times that in 1973 Cevert was faster than himself but was held back by team orders. I really think the 74 title would have been a walk for him considering Scketor came so close to the title and he was young and new to the team that year......

-Dan Gurney - Clark thought of Gurney as an equal, and Dan did some great things with cars too, introuducing the Gurney flap and full face helments. I often wonder what would have happened if Dan would have stayed at Brabham in 1966 and 67 instead of doing the Eagle chassis himself...........

-De Ceris. Mr Pay driver, but the guy was actually pretty fast, and aside from lots of crashs and poor judgement, he was proablly a lot better driver than a lot of people gave him credit for.......

- Chris Amon - Ferrari wanted him back in 74 but he was busy with his own team. Shame he never won a race, very talented.......

-Jack Brabham - The Mika Hakkinen of his day. People thought he won only because of his car. Jack was EXTREMELY gifted technically, which is backed up by his two world titles as a constructor (one by himself, one by Hulme) attests. Many peole often also forget that if you took out a few wierd incidents in 1970, Jack could have very well won the title that year, a year which he orignally did not intend to drive........!

-Mario Andretti - I get so sick when people critize Mario's title. They think of team orders, then forget that Mario outquailifed Peterson 5-2 in the races both had with the Lotus 79. Not to mention that he should have also won the 1977 title as well but for some really stupid DFV faulires (four in a row in mid summer!). Chapman described him as "Jim Clark all over again"...........

I could go on and on. There are a lot of guys that I feel get a bum rap. I would not do a full biography but here are a few more I feel are generally underated for the talent they had.

Graham Hill (Mr "who cares we have Jim Clark)

Phill Hill (awsome sports car driver, unfairly accused of having an easy title)

Stefan Bellof (was catching Senna and Prost at Monaco in 84 in geatric non turbo Tyrrell, killed in Belgium sports car accident a year later)

Rene Arnoux (in his early days, not in in the Ligier 89 era, could occasionally beat Prost)

Stefan Johanson (who can forget driving to 3rd at Portugal in 89 on one set of tires in horrible Oynx)

Rosberg (Mr "One win is enough", as far as sure speed, proablly second only to Senna in his era)

Jody Schktor (SP, sorry, anyway, had some great drives for Wolf and Tyrrell, stayed on the road more than Gilles in 79)

Surtees (many think he was faster than Clark at Silverstone, ran out on Ferrari when FIAT politics came in, stuck in heavy Honda, own team)

Peter Revson (drove to wins in difficult circumstances, tragically killed in Shawdow)

Albereto (close to title in 1985, scored final victory for Ford Cosworth DFV in 1983, can't be all bad)

Megatron,

De Cesaris! You're 'aving a larf.

But for a piece of rubber debris, Andrea de Cesaris would have won the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix.

Dan Guerney for me. As the regs here would know i've been doing a little reading lately and this man has been all but forgotton today.... seemed like a damn good racer.

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"Life will not break your heart, it'll crush it" - Henry Rollins.

Two Italian drivers come to mind:

Elio de Angelis. I saw him take the first left hander at Zolder in a F3 car - over and over, incredibly smooth and 10 times faster than the rest of the field (which included people like Warwick, Daly, Fabi, and Gabbiani, if I remember correctly). In F1, he would have be WDC.

Ignazio Giunti; I saw him finish 4th at Spa in his first GP right behind Ickx (both in identical 312B's). He was very smooth as well and lightning fast in the 312PB. His helmet design was incredible too. Too bad Beltoise decided to push is Matra 670 along the track at Buenos Aires...

What about Stuart Lewis-Evans.

The guy never really stood out when he was racing in the lower formulaes but when he joined Vanwell he was quite capable of taking it to Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks on a regular basis.

Bernie Ecclestone once said of him "..He was superb, oozing with talent. He would have been one of the greats, he was already as quick, or quicker, than Moss. He was a bit like Alain Prost, he didnt put much up front except in a racing car." This is proven in his race statistics while he was still with us.

Although he just misses out on my 'Pantheon of best racers list' this year he, along with his teammates at Vanwall, is a certain contender for next years selections.

And as for my list, which is not yet posted, I am just cogitating on my final selection - hopefully somtime today!

I would have to vote for Masten Gregory.

There's also Roger Williamson who never had time to show his stuff in F1, especially aboard a GRM, but was devastating in F3...and did anyone mention Piers Courage, the great driver of a small underfunded team running on passion and empty pockets - Williams. Sadly, both of hem died at Zandvoort.

[This message has been edited by vroom-vroom (edited 05-13-2000).]

Duane's mention of Pierluigi Martini reminds me of when I met Piero in the pits prior to the 1986 Silverstone F3000 International Trophy. I was wishing him good luck for the race, and so forth, when a guy walks up and says: "Hey Martini, I don't reckon you're as crap as everyone says, I reckon you should've won the World Championship last year!". Pierluigi looked stunned, I couldn't stop myself from laughing...

My choice for most under-rated F1 driver? It has to be the pride of South Yorkshire, the man who made yellow helmets famous way before Senna; none other than Trevor Taylor!

Trevor was British F3 champion in 1958, shared the British FJ championship in 1960 with Jim Clark, and won it outright in 1961. After winning the '61 Formula Junior championship for Lotus, Colin Chapman promoted Trevor into the works F1 team, replacing Innes Ireland (to correct a common misconception; Jim Clark did not replace Innes Ireland, Clark was already a team member). TT was immediately fast in the South African F1 races preceeding the WC season, often outpacing Clark, including winning the Cape Grand Prix at Killarney.
He then made an excellent start to the WC season with a hard-fought 2nd place at Zandvoort (outduelling Ireland and reigning World Champion Phil Hill). He had a quiet race in Monaco before qualifying on the front row at Spa on his first-ever visit to the fast and dangerous Ardennes roadcourse. Unfortunately, that's where things began to deteriorate for TT. Willy Mairesse nudged Trevor into a high-speed shunt, followed by another big crash at Rouen, while Team Lotus were concentrating (rightly, of course) on developing the monocoque-chassis 25 which was designed specifically around Jim Clark's physical dimensions and driving style. Trevor did win another minor F1 race in South Africa at season's end, by the start of the 1963 season Colin Chapman and Jim Clark had developed such a close relationship that it seemed that they only provided a car for Trevor because they felt that they had to be a two-car team; not that Taylor ever complained about his treatment.
He went from Lotus to the BRP team, and downwards from there, almost disappearing, until his amazing comeback in 1969 when he came very close to winning the inaugural British F5000 in a works Surtees.
It was with Surtees that he last appeared on a WC Grand Prix entry list, Big John entering Trevor in his McLaren at the 1970 British GP, but then withdrawing the entry so that he could concentrate on his own Surtees TS7 F1 car.
Trevor continued to race well in F5000 until retiring after the 1972 season.

Yes, well worth considering... you forget to mention that the nudging from Wild Willy was while they were dicing for the lead... was it not? That is, both of them were ahead of Clark in the mono...
Then there was that major shunt at Rouen...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

They were battling for 2nd place, Clark had passed the pair of them 17 laps earlier. Trevor had been running behind Jimmy having dropped Mairesse, but he had a quick spin exiting La Source allowing Willy to close up again. The accident is believed to have occurred due to Willy's Ferrari knocking TT's Lotus out of gear, the bar seperating the Ferrari 156's nostrils touched the Lotus 24's ZF gearbox output shaft which protruded from the tail!

Trevor was lucky to have been thrown from his car, as it hit a telegraph pole which collapsed, crushing the cockpit section.

Then he had that huge shunt at Rouen, and a month after that had another huge off, this time at the Nurburgring!

I recall that Rouen one.. up the back of a stationery Trintignant Lotus 24 was it not?
But I don't recall the Nurburgring one.. I remember Jenks talking about Jimmy getting into one particularly huge slide in his effort to catch up after trying to start with his fuel pump off... but not TT's efforts.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

You recall Rouen correctly, Trevor hit Trintignant's stationary Rob Walker Lotus up the gearbox at about 80mph. At the Nurburgring German Grand Prix, TT started the race with a badly misfiring engine. On his way back to the pits his Climax V8 suddenly surged back to full power catching Trevor unawares and pitching him straight through an Eifel hedge.

Despite the above, Taylor had an even bigger off in 1963. He rolled his Lotus at 100mph in the non-championship Mediterranean Grand Prix at Enna-Pergusa. He was thrown out and slid / tumbled along the track surface for more than 40 metres before standing up and walking away!

The question is; Was he just unlucky or was he accident-prone?

>>Mario outquailifed Peterson 5-2 in the races both had with the Lotus 79. Not to mention that he should have also won the 1977 title as well but for some really stupid DFV faulires

Two of these engine failures occured because Mario ran out of gas. In his effort to maximize the car's power to weight ratio, Chapman didn't put enough fuel in the tank. Worked real well until the car coasted to a stop.

Dave

There are many drivers here who were not under rated and indeed had plenty of hype about their potential.
Roger Williamson would fall into that category.
What about the ones who did plenty, got results and were still underrated?
How many column inches do you see attributed to Emerson Fittipaldi, twice indy winner, youngest and double World Champion.
Look down the lists of people who were in with a chance of the world championship up to the start of the last race?
Ruettemann,Ickx,Regazzoni, Hulme?
Then there is Arnoux Laffite and Tambay who certainly scored more results wise than many a highly feted driver.
Drivers whose star shone brightly until a succesion of dog cars put them out, Cheever, Warwick, Merzario.
There is also as mentioned earlier who time after time shows the potential beging to be put on a podium , and who knows he might still do it?

Roberto Moreno.

Hi everyone,

This is my first post so be gentle on me.

I have to argee with a few of the guys in saying that Andrea de Cesaris was an under rated driver. He was never world champ material but he was definately quick and I don't think a Rent a driver has a 14 year career without the people doing the hiring believing he had some talent. He should have won a few races, unfortunately he rarely had a decent car.

I think that Alex Caffi was another underated driver, he was unfortunate enough to be involved with that abysmal Arrow Porsche

cheers
Matt Foster

Andrea DeCesaris

he almost won i a Jordan in '91, with Senna, Prost and Mansell in some of the most highly developed GP cars ever on the track - underated certainly.

Patrese

similarly. Never beat the top guys, but was always the best of the rest.


On the subject of lost talents and that 91 Jordan (me Irish, never) what about the Belgian Gachot - he had a great start to the season until the madness of the taxi attack - incidently his madness led to Schumachers first chance in an F1 car, oh what if a certain Italian team director had morals....

A few more drivers who were underrated:

Pedro Rodriguez-he was great in a sports car winning Le Mans in 1968 and the Daytona 24Hrs in 1970 and 1971. He also has a couple of F1 wins to his credit. He even raced some in NASCAR for Holman and Moody.

Clay Regazzoni-Fast One's comments on the Pantheon nomination thread are spot on. He came out the blocks pretty fast like all the greats usually did. He won a race his rookie season at Monza and finished 3rd in the WDC points. Yes, it was in a Ferrari but impressive for any rookie driver. Not to mention that he was only 7 points behind Ickx that year who was the number one Ferrari driver.

Raymond Sommer-He co-drove an Alfa Romeo 8C with Tazio Nuvolari in the 1933 Le Mans 24 Hours. They won the race by 2 laps and surprise, Sommer set the fastest lap for the entire race.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Paul Hartshorne:
[B] The accident is believed to have occurred due to Willy's Ferrari knocking TT's Lotus out of gear, the bar seperating the Ferrari 156's nostrils touched the Lotus 24's ZF gearbox output shaft which protruded from the tail!

I assume that by gearbox output shaft, you mean the gear change linkage. I am fairly sure that it didn't protrude from the tail of the ZF but came out of the front of the 'box

I thought that too, the Hewlands had the rear linkage, and that was a problem in Juniors, but the ZF was a more homogenous box.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

How can you list someone who won a world championship as underrated? If you are talking about drivers who do not receive the attention they deserve then I would name Roy Salvadori (my pick as the greatest driver never to win a Grand Prix). Roy could do it all and in any type of car. He was extremely loyal and stuck with Aston Martin when he knew their GP program was going nowhere. He had offers of top works drives that could have made him World Champion. But that was another time and place and Roy was (and is) the consumate gentleman. All of this notwithstanding I don't think he was underrated. Everyone knew how good he was. Like so many, he just wasn't in the right team at the right time.

Re: The gearbox output shaft. Yes, I meant the linkage. Logic obviously deserted me that day, after all the output shaft can't output into mid-air behind the car

By the way, I believe that I read this theory for the accident's cause in Doug Nye's Dino: The Little Ferrari, but I can't check as I traded my copy of that book away.

How about Richard Attwood? Second at Monaco in '68 (and closing on Graham), fourth at Monaco in, I think, '69.

Dave

Megatron

regarding Andretti, is not team orders that bother me so much regarding the 78 season (as Ronnie said "nobody placed a gun at my head when I signed the contract"), but the fact that the Lotus 79 was an entirely illegal car that should have not been allowed to race at all. The miniskirts that allowed the Lotus team to fly thanks to the Venturi effect were illegal movable aerodinamic parts. Without them, I seriously doubt Mario and Ronnie would have been able to prevail over Carlos Reutemann and his Ferrari T3. And in fact, as soon as everyone else adopted the miniskirts in 1979 (by then legal to justify Lotus' previous use of them), Lotus' advantage was gone for good. That is what bothers me, a title won with a hugely illegal car.

[This message has been edited by RedFever (edited 05-19-2000).]

Funny, either I never knew of or have forgotten that bit about illegality... anyone got a succinct version of the rules as they applied and were changed?

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

Some interesting names have come up here.
Joe Fan mentioned Jean-Pierre Wimille who, I believe, could well be a candidate for the greatest driver of all time. I for decades have had an interest in him, perhaps because I was a died-in-the-wool Fangio fan and if Fangio said he (Wimille) was the greatest, then that was good enough for me.
Before WWII Wimille hadn't yet had the cars or the opportunities to really show his capabilities, but those close to him always believed he had what it takes.
Then he lost perhaps his best years through the war, but came back after the war - mainly in Alfas but also other cars - to be very successful.
He perhaps could have won even more races except that Alfa, being dominant at the time, shared the wins around a bit among the drivers.
Wimille (who also shone in sports cars, remember) was killed before he had the opportunity to be measured directly against the likes of Ascari, Fangio etc.
His was, possibly, a sad case of being born at the wrong time.
Don mentioned Giancarlo Baghetti. I agree he was probably a far better driver than his record would indicate. But I don't know that I would rank him as a potential "great".
I had the good fortune to meet Baghetti in 1977 when we both were competing in the 1977 London to Sydney Marathon. It was in Madras in India, while we had a few days break while having the cars shipped (in a rusting hulk) to Australia.
I found him to be a true gentleman, obviously well educated and from a background of class. He told me he was then a photo-journalist. He spent most of his time in Madras alone, quietly reading a book by the swimming pool.
I said to him that I remembered reading in Motor Sport that Jenks reckoned Lorenzo Bandini was a better driver than Baghetti (their careers were roughly parallel) but that the latter tended to get the drives because of his social standing and connections, while Bandini came from a more middle-class background and was only given the left-overs.
I half expected an outburst, or at least indignation in his reply, but Baghetti thought very carefully for a few seconds, then said, "Yes, you could say there is some truth in that statement..."
I have more respect for him for that comment than for anything he ever did behind the wheel.
Incidentally, he not only won at his first start in a world championship GP in a Ferrari, he already had won his first GP start of any kind in a non-championship event. You can't do that if you don't have some talent even if you have the best car.
His career went down the gurgler along with Phil Hill's with that, in retrospect, ill-advised walk out from Ferrari to start ATS. But then they were proabbly forced into it at the time.
And, if anyone is still with me, Duane mentioned Pierluigi Martini.
I, too, had the feeling Martini was better than people thought. he certainly didn't deserve the bagging Murray Walker and (was it James Hunt?) used to give him in the TV commentary.
During that period, I was at the Japnese Grand Prix and I watched Martini at length each day to try to figure out what sort of a person he was and how he operated. He came across as determined, intelligent and very professional.
When I had the opportnity to speak to him after the race, I asked was he aware of the bagging he received in the English TV commentary, suggesting that such things could unfairly damage (and had in the past) a driver's career beyond repair.
He said "Yes, I am aware of what they say. But what can I do about it? I just have to keep working hard and hope that one day I have the opportunity to prove them wrong."
Unfortunately he didn't get that chance.
I should quit now, but another who was mentioned is Alex Caffi. He. too, drove extremely well in uncompetitive machinery.
I saw him at Monaco, 1988 I think, in an Osella. During qualifying (or practice perhaps), I don't know if they had pulled some dodgy tweak with the car, but he did a time the car shouldn't have been able to do - based on past performances. And he was great to watch while he was doing it.
GP racing is full of tales of "might have beens". There is a lot of talent that has gone down the drain through lack of opportunity. There also have been a few drivers who have had their brief time at the top more through being in the right place at the right time than through being any great talent.
Life isn't fair and motor racing in particular isn't fair, as race engineer Bruce Carey reminded me recently...

Bruce Carey... we've mentioned him before, but I haven't seen him for years.. is he in more trouble?
Surely it's not like the time he got me to pick up a parcel from a certain NSW North Coast car dealer... I arrived at the airport, asked for the parcel for ***** Engineering, the guy went away, a few minutes later a young bloke rushed out and said "If I were you I'd get out of here..." - I waited a while, my parcel wasn't forthcoming, further warnings were, so I left without the Hewland gearset and whatever else had flown down from the North Coast with it...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

Bruce Carey is alive and well and attends many a classic race meet

So you see him occasionally?
Say hello to him, ask about the Hewland gears flown down from Port Macquarie... and how he never got them...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

And he helps Dave Mawer with Barton Mawer's Formula Ford.

Naturally! Where's he living now? Sounds like he's back from the Old Dart...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

Maybe another underrated driver?

How about Rolf Stommelen? After the "experiment" with the Eiffeland-Car (my favourite in the category "best looking"!), he never had the chance to drive with top material. Maybe except the GP in Montjuich Park 75, but it was a sad weekend in general.
He got the ability to get into a team, which then had the worst year ever

PQ

I'm not sure that Rolf was underrated. Before the Eiffeland he drove for Brabham and Surtees. He was good, but up against Graham Hill,Mike Hailwood and Tim Schenken he never totally eclipsed any of them.
Where he did excel (however you spell it) was in long distance races, where he usually brought the baby home.

A lot of underrated drivers.

That means there must be a lot of overrated drivers as well.

Do you have any suggetions?

mat

This is new to me. Hunt's car was set up by Fittipaldi? Wasn't Fittipaldi struggling with the Copersucar effort, together with his brother?

mat

Yes, mat, good idea.

Anyone interested in a new thread about generally OVERrated Grand Prix drivers?

R.D