Minardi, Alex Kellan Orcas, Kimi Räikkönen Felipe Massa discussed on The Autosport Podcast
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
But it's hard to get away from the emotional thing with padal, not just because of that the sort of helmet in the hands sort of crying there by the side of the road. I think everyone you think you have to be pretty cold hearted not to have felt for him at that moment. But also because I'm pleased that he's in the list because I think he's kind of remembered for those couple of Ferrari outings in 2009, which is incredibly unfair really. I mean, I think he probably will hold the record for the worst all sport driver rating ever. I think one of those races you've got half a point, which I can't see Mac Alex kellan orcas being that harsh on any of the current grid to give such something so low. But that car was actually very, very difficult to drive, Kimi Räikkönen Felipe Massa struggled with it at various points during that year. It didn't exactly set the world when he got in it either. So I think that would probably is a bit hard done by there. So yet very, very happy to see him see him on the list I think that's fair enough. Well, look at you to give him the sympathy vote to the Italian that was denied. I know. Well, you know, the emotions are coming into it. Let's move on and let's get into place number 7 now Giancarlo fisichella started only 8 times and scored no points, but finished well in 8th as his highest position. And at the same race, Canadian Grand Prix in 1996 started 16th his best grid position. So less of an outing for the team, but making a higher ranking James, and 7th. He's a rookie in 96 when he gets his opportunity with minardi. He won the Italian F three championship in 94, which kind of marked him out as a future star. But he had been racing touring cars for Alfa Romeo in 95, and he was actually slated to carry on doing Turin cars for 96 and ended up swapping between the two. So a pretty good effort really given that he and also he was swapping backwards and forwards between two very different types of cars as a rookie and he wasn't really supposed to be doing the 9 60s and he was a late call up to replace takuya Nui who didn't set the world alike. It's fair to say with footwork in 95. A nuri's money fell through so physical was given the chance in its short notice he came in alongside army who had done better than badou in the end of 95. Confidently had army covered in their races together, he beat him 6 two in qualifying, which is a 75% record, which is one of the best totals in a head to head that any minardi driver had. Yeah, I mean, he didn't do all the races, obviously he stepped out for the two South American races so that tarsi markers could have a go. And he didn't see out the season either when he got back in the car because Giovanni lavage, who was you could arguably say Formula One's last gentleman driver saw out the saw out the season in his car. But he did a really good job given his lack of experience and I think it's that factor and jumping in between two different cars and going up against a teammate in an army who arguably should have won the 1993 Italian international formula 3000 championship, a really good driver as we've already covered. That means the killer runs his spot in the list. A good driver, a great racing driver over the course of his career, not the most illustrious Formula One career, I guess you could say, but Kevin, what do you think Giancarlo for sakala is 7th? What's your analysis of that? Yeah, and I fear that I promise that I will disagree with some of these choices further on in the list because we don't want to just go through all the ten and agree. But I think fizzy is fairly firmly in here because I think he's performances in a handful of races probably do just about getting ahead of the three. We've discussed already, but I think from that fewer starts, you can't really push any higher up the list. So I think he's probably pretty root in that. I mean, remember, I think Jenson Button described him as the best driver of rubbish car that he'd ever seen. I think physically is an absolute he's almost my archetype or go to driver when you're talking about someone who is brilliant when the equipment was poor and got progressively worse the more competitive his car was. So when he had a Grand Prix or championship winning car in the rent now he was absolutely and completely obliterated by Fernando Alonso admittedly is a very tough benchmark as many drivers have found since. But also you need to get radio calls to wake him up in the middle of the race and he suddenly goes three quarters of a second and a lot quicker. So I've always thought we'd be an absolutely brilliant British hill climb champion sort of championship driver, physically, which you won't hear that said in many podcasts. I'm sure. But now I think from bernardi point of view, I think he's spot on and did a very good job with very little experience. He's another one of those drivers that goes on to have a very long career as Kev's kind of said there in the nanini mode sort of thing as underlining what minardi was all about as well. It's a very niche list isn't it? Best drives of rubbish cars that were then rubbish in good cars because they'd have to have people like hunt Harold French and he'd been there as well. He could have friends and face off in that sort of list. As we always say, that's a podcast for another day. Now though, I know two drivers that Kev, you are going to disagree with on James here. So we'll look at them together. Now James you put Jos Verstappen in 6th place. He started 16 times from Minari, didn't score any points, did finish 9th in the 2003 Canadian Grand Prix also had his best grid start for the same race. He's in 6th, and you put yano trolley in 5th. Now he started fewer races for Minari, only 6 starts, also a non point scorer, finished in 9th, grid position, 17th, back at Australia in 1997. So I know Kev, you might disagree with these two. We'll look at them together, but James argue your case for why you put Jos in 6th and jano in 5th. Verstappen, we sort of covered that he went up against Justin Wilson, who was a very strong rookie, and did pretty well Verstappen had had a year out of Formula One after he was sort of unceremoniously dumped by arrows at the end of 2001. And he wanted to prove that he still had something to show Formula One and I think he did that because in machinery that was never going to be anything other than the tail ender. He didn't let his motivation get down out qualified Wilson and his record arguably could have been better had he not had a few