Mclaren, John Barnard, Ferrari discussed on The Autosport Podcast

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So to me, he filled, he filled that whole that Emerson left because anything caught mccloud and completely by surprise. I mean, who leaves a world championship winning team to go join a team started by your brother? I mean, it's just a bizarre thing to do. He's almost sort of Jacques Villeneuve, isn't it? When he went to be AR and neither of those moves worked out particularly well for him Jacques and so yeah, I think James filled that whole very nicely and made my child in a tidy contender and it was obviously a controversial year where it's qualifications and all sorts of bits and pieces. And he was very quick in 77, those four positions early on very, very competitive. But ultimately I think in terms of the impact he had on McLaren as a team, I think I put him behind Emerson on this list. Well, moving on to the driver at number 5, he talks about him, just then, Niki Lauda, drove from McLaren between 1982 and 1985, started 58 times for the team, won 8 races and won the 1984 title. Kev, obviously we discussed a little bit louder that was climate Ferrari, but why is it number 5 in this top ten McLaren drivers list? Yeah, it's quite difficult to play because I guess it probably depends on your age as to whether you think immediately Ferrari or McLaren conversely I kind of feel that loud as a Ferrari driver. But he's higher on the Ferrari list as we know. But I put him in a pretty far. I mean, I don't think he should have won the 84 world title. I think pros was better that year and should have been champion but was unfortunate, but he did get that title just discussed that with James something. He did get the job done. But the reason he's that high actually is because of his efforts and work to get the tag the tag Porsche turbo sorted. I basically bought going behind John Barnard's back at the end of 83 and going. We have to run this car now and get the get the bugs out and make sure it works. And he drove the McLaren tag sort of prototype, if you like at the end of the 83 season and showed that it was quick and that it did have bugs that needed ironing out and of course he was right. He'd effectually contributed to making that package brilliant for 84 and you can slightly see why he would have been a bit knocked when suddenly he's got a land process as his teammate instead of John Watson, but then they actually worked well together. So it was good for the team. It was one of those rare occasions in McLaren 1980s history where you had the two superstars in the team and it did work. And they won the constructors and drivers titles, both years, 85 was quite poor. You'd fall away quite a lot then Andy also attracted a lot of the bad luck, so nowhere in the points. But I think he's contribution to go to rood's point. I think he's contribution to that. So the Ron Dennis super team rise is kind of what gets him into that spot. To me, louder actually, I was toying with having louder either third or fourth and ultimately I had him fought on my list. Because to Kevin's point, he won the world championship in 84, arguably should have won that season. If Monica wasn't half points, for example. But I think. You know, the loudest impact on the cloud and actually was outside the car was much, much bigger. You know, Ron Dennis worked very hard to get him back out of the time and I don't know if you guys have read John Barnard's book or the book about John Barnard called the perfect car. For anyone listening, if you haven't read it, strongly strongly recommend is one of the best books I've read in the last three, four years on Formula One. And he really highlights what a key role lauder played at mccloud and in terms of getting the tag Porsche steel done earlier getting the engine developed quicker and onto the car. Earlier than even Barnard wanted to, and he was obviously technical director at the time. Lauda was massively influential with Marlborough and with John Hogan and keeping that part of the commitment to the mcclaren program and he was a huge part of the team. So if you think of all the success, McLeod have had, it all, to me, so much of it goes back to 82 83 and what louder built as this McLeod super team as Kev just described it. I think that. Quartet of Barnard Dennis louder, John Hogan, they set McLeod and up for everything that they achieved through the 80s and 90s into the 2000s really. And I think that key between 82 and 84 can not be underestimated and allowed us to and that can not be underestimated. So in terms of impact, yes, he won perhaps less world championships than some of the other drivers on this list for McLaren, but in terms of impact, I think he had a huge, huge role to play. So to me, I was toying with third or fourth, but ultimately I'm going to go with fourth for loudoun at least. Okay, well let's go to the driver that Kevin's got a number four. It's Lewis Hamilton. Drove for McLaren very famously, of course, between 2007 and 2012, started a 110 races one 21 times and of course took the 2008 world title. Kev, why have you got Hamilton at number four? Well, greatest season in rookie F one history is a rookie or an in 2007. And I don't think he's really ever been, it's never really been suggested that he was into the political games that actually created the problems at McLaren. And I think really his main contributions that was just being really fast. And not really wanting to sit behind Alonso. Which was then a situation that was mismanaged, but I don't think that's Lewis's fault obviously then became team leader and world champion the following year. Now he did he did have a wobble as we mentioned earlier on there's no doubt in that sort of particularly in 2011 yeah, I think he wasn't in a good head space. But I think he bounced back in 2012. I think he was superb and although I think that McLaren's decline after 2012 is down to lots of factors, some of which have been around for quite a while. You can't help but say that after he left the team was the team was a lesser, a lesser thing and has had a long time to rebuild. So delivered a world championship. And I think apart from that blitz delivered on what the car was, what was capable of more often than not. And if you're bringing louder up, are you shuffling Hamilton down or are you elevating him even further? I am, I'm swapping louder for Lewis, I think. You know, I think just yes, Louis arrived at a time as a rookie and it was quite rare if I'm not mistaken for McLaren to sign a rookie at that stage. Obviously, they'd had Andretti before Mika had already been at lotus and things like that, but and the Andretti experiment hadn't really worked out. Let's ignore the cameo from Jan Magnussen, but apart from that. In general, McLaren we used to having established drivers really Kimi was as close to rookie as they had. So for them to get a complete rookie in and then I, you know, I've said a lot of this winter actually and for me Lewis's rookie season in F one 2007 will go down as probably the greatest rookie season in F one history. I think what he did in 2007 was unbelievable. I think the team probably could have helped him a bit more to be world champion in that year, really. China being the obvious one, but I think across the board, so to me he was very much a part of he was obviously a part of the furniture at McLaren, but he was a big field good story for McLeod as well. They take in this kid from counting and made him basically made him world champion across a 15 year period, and that's a remarkable story. If you look at driver development programs, that was probably the first proper proper driver development program that delivered a world champion, you know, and really built this driver all the way through. So I think in that respect, a huge part of the mccloud and story, but so much of Lewis careers come from his Mercedes era..

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