Villeneuve, Michael Andretti, Michael discussed on The Autosport Podcast

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Alongside Michael at imola and just kept constantly taking digs at Michael for basically running him off the road of the toes of hairpin. There's not many people on the planet who would sit next to Michael Schumacher and literally takes it in during a press conference, but you get the impression as a sort of stuff that max will do now. And he's in afraid to wind up the opposition. I think there's one key difference. I agree with that, I think there's a lot of parallels. I think Verstappen is probably a more complete driver in F one terms, perhaps. Except I think there's one key difference in that is, I don't know whether it's down to one problem on tour's character or the fact that he had to be disciplined because of running at 240 miles an hour at superspeedways. But he was generally a fair driver and gave people, I think, space and respect in wilter will contests. Which is why he would flag when Michael Schumacher didn't do that for him, but I feel like that I don't think we've yet seen that for max and that's been I know that I sound like a broken record. That's been my consistent criticism of him over the last few months, but I stand by that. I think we need to see him sharing a bit more respect to the other drive. And I do think Montoya did by and large do that. Very, very quick aside on that clip of Montoya having a drive at Michael Schumacher. The journalist asking the question in that press conference is much more dot com as Jonathan noble, who confessed that he completely forgotten about it until the clip resurfaced on F one's social media channels recently. Let's get on to the next driver on this list and it's the first Williams world champion that we've got on this list at number 7 is Jacques Villeneuve placed the team between 1996 and 1998, one 11 times and of course took that title in 1997. Kev, why is Villeneuve at number 7? In one sense, it's because he's world champion is crew and said, although actually I would argue that perhaps he's least convincing season at Williams was the one where he won the title, rarely has someone made such heavy weather of winning a world championship with a car with that revolution superiority. The team contributed to that as well. Starting on slicks at Monaco in the wet and that sort of thing. So I think that 97 could have been better, although it was obviously great as a rookie in 96 and actually he really showed some of his feistiness when Williams lost its way a little bit in 98 as well. And then there were some there were some great moments, obviously, and his championship win a year, and going wheel tour with Michael at her. That was a great movie. He made, I think. And he caught markup by surprise, and you can see markers obviously initial reaction is to get out the way before he then turns the wheel again. Williams world champion. I'd like to know what would happen if they hadn't sacked Damon hill and put hunts out fences in because I think you then might have a greater chance of holding on to Adrian newey. You've also got someone who knows how to set up the car because the French and really was a bit of a lot of the time in that season really not at the races. So it'd be interesting to see what would have happened with his next two or three years if they had not made that decision. But he did win the world championship. That was the main reason to get him up in 7th. Yeah, I broadly agree with that. I think certainly I remember Jacques alive in 1996. It was really exciting. You know, he would do these audacious moves like going around the outside of Michael O del at the last corner and it was exciting to watch, you know, it was I always thought it was cool to see a driver from IndyCar come to Formula One and be competitive. I remember being hugely disappointed when Michael Andretti, his transition didn't work out in 93. I was a big fan of Michelangelo in IndyCar and I thought this is going to be great and then it just didn't happen for him. So I was really excited to see Jacques come back to come to F one and be competitive in 96. The 96 Williams FW 18 was head and shoulders above the opposition and he did a great job pushing daemon hard for that championship and I think in 97 there were some really odd situations, wasn't it? I mean, you had the Suzuka penalty and you had, as you said, Caviar, the nice and Monaco where they started on slicks, but you know, you got quite badly our qualified by friends and already on in Monaco dining on that day. So he was already further behind on the grid. I think, yeah, Jacques, he delivered what he came to do, which was he delivered the world championship. He, I think, a 98 on thinking of races like hockenheim and places like that where he drove very well in the Williams, but the car sort of peaked on the whole. He had a good impact on the team. I felt when you again speak to engineers, people like that. He was quirky. He was different. He wasn't afraid of butt heads with people like Patrick, but he made a on the whole of positive impact, I think, on the team. They certainly enjoyed having him in the team and in that environment. If you look at his working relationship that year with Damon was really positive, they got on very well and I think yeah, on the whole that's 70s probably right. Well, let's move on to number 6. And I think number 6 carefully affair example of a driver where you say this is all about what impact do they have on Williams as opposed to where they rank in sort of a debate about who's the greatest driver because the number 6 is Alain Prost, only Joe for Williams in 1993, won 7 times and of course the title, but of course everyone famous four time world champion Nick everything else he achieved. But number 6, why is he there? Is it purely because he came in, did the job? That was sort of it, really. Yeah, absolutely. If I was doing just a list of the greatest racing drivers of all time, he's ahead of anyone else on this list, right over across what they've what they did in their careers, but it was one year. And it's not like he was there developing the Williams right now into a superior package prior to that. He very much worked his way into that into that seat and he did deliver. So he delivered a Chapman chip. I know that Patrick apparently in mind that I think Alan was probably past his best really by then. There were still some incredible silky smooth, very rapid qualifying laps and I think pat Patrick was quite impressed with that. And actually there were some there was some good race as well. I mean, people forget one remembers donnington, but actually he also, you know, he did beat it and sent it and Damon in the other car in the wet at imola. He wasn't a complete, it wasn't a complete just cruise and collect championship. He did put in some good races. I don't think you can go any higher than 6 because ultimately it was a superior car. He didn't develop it. He had a very inexperienced teammate and he was just there for the one year before he retired. So I couldn't really justify moving up ahead of some of the other drivers on this list. Williams always thought of Prost as a McLaren driver who came in for a year, did his bit, didn't really integrate himself with a team, came saw conquered and left, basically. You know, he never truly became a Williams Williams driver. I think he and also, and I remember speaking to Alan about it, we went for dinner once, and I were talking about different cars and his favorite cars. And he never really liked the feel of an active suspension car. He didn't like the sort of movement that the active car gave him. It felt unnatural to him. So.

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