[LM24] F1 Drivers at Le Mans - the track record

[isynge]

This was very much Le Vieux's idea, splitting out from the entry list thread.

Coincidentally I've been mulling over the list of Le Mans winners that could also be seen as being world class in F1.

While there have been plenty of F1 winners who've won Le Mans, there's very few once you have a pick at it that were real F1 World Championship championship contenders, let alone winners. Thus very quickly you're down into the Graham Hill and Phil Hill sort of territory, so even taking a longish view of history there's a bit of dichotomy between being successful in F1 and winning Le Mans.

Is this a statistical anomaly or a reflection that they're fundamentally different disciplines?

Inherently I want to err towards the former, but the latter is a much more persuasive picture. In particular teams chock full of single seater brilliance have been conspicuous to date in not winning (Lancia, the 'youth team' Mercedes, Peugeot to date, just to take some examples) and the drivers that really seem to make a difference have had indifferent or non existent F1 careers (Kristensen, McNish, Minassian - again as examples).

Having had a ponder Jacky Ickx seems to be the one exception that proves the rule - and even then his F1 career wasn't quite as stand out as it might have been.

I guess this is the sort of thread we usually get wrapped up in during the off season - but surely it's equally valid now we can legitimately start counting the days to the big day in 2009?

Originally Posted by Le Vieux

Fair comment.

However, some former F1 drivers seemed to become better suited to endurance racing as they became older - Mario Andretti for example, and arguably Jacky Ickx. I looked forward to Jacques Villeneuve racing at LM, but have to say that I was disappointed. He should have been a pole setter, but never quite fulfilled the promise.

Had Gilles Villeneuve ever raced at Le Mans, it would surely have been worth watching, but only if you were there before 6pm on Saturday. Rather like Stirling Moss.

Looking at it the other way round (and echoing a thread that ran last year), "The Professor" Alain Prost would be a natural at endurance racing, solely because of his ability to think through a race. Michael Schumacher always seemed to have difficulties in seeing beyond the next corner.

Thought: Do we need a separate thread here?

[Le Vieux]

Originally Posted by isynge

This was very much Le Vieux's idea, splitting out from the entry list thread.

Coincidentally I've been mulling over the list of Le Mans winners that could also be seen as being world class in F1.

While there have been plenty of F1 winners who've won Le Mans, there's very few once you have a pick at it that were real F1 World Championship championship contenders, let alone winners. Thus very quickly you're down into the Graham Hill and Phil Hill sort of territory, so even taking a longish view of history there's a bit of dichotomy between being successful in F1 and winning Le Mans.

Is this a statistical anomaly or a reflection that they're fundamentally different disciplines?

Inherently I want to err towards the former, but the latter is a much more persuasive picture. In particular teams chock full of single seater brilliance have been conspicuous to date in not winning (Lancia, the 'youth team' Mercedes, Peugeot to date, just to take some examples) and the drivers that really seem to make a difference have had indifferent or non existent F1 careers (Kristensen, McNish, Minassian - again as examples).

Having had a ponder Jacky Ickx seems to be the one exception that proves the rule - and even then his F1 career wasn't quite as stand out as it might have been.

I guess this is the sort of thread we usually get wrapped up in during the off season - but surely it's equally valid now we can legitimately start counting the days to the big day in 2009?

We don't give Jacky Ickx enough credit. After all he was runner-up in the F1 championship in 1970 (or was it 71?).

Early on in his career, Jim Clark did well-enough at Le Mans. It was probably only the fact that Lotus were never seriously involved in sports car racing that prevented him from doing even better.

How would Siffert and Rodriguez have fared in F1 if they had been in top teams?

For me it's the fact that we no longer get the opportunity even to see the top F1 drivers at Le Mans (with the exceptions already noted) that's the sad part.

[Nordic]

I depends how far you want to go back into history, Hill's (graham unique in also winning the indy 500 and Phil) Rindt and Hawthorne are the only 4 to do the double so to speak, win the world F1 and Le Mans.

There are others that came close. take Moss with 10 goes at Le mans he never reached the top step, but few could argue his all round ability (yet he also failed to win the WDC as well!). Fangio had had 5 goes but never won, again his ability in long distance races should not be questioned.

Mario Andretti is another case, had 8 goes to win at LM but failed, but was a class act at other long distance races.

I agree about Ickx, I rank him alongide Moss as a great driver, but unlike Moss never gets the credit for his F1 results.

Despite that I can never think of McNish as a potential F1 champion, nor Tom Kristensen for some reason, but their long distance record is peerless, so maybe there is a gene.

Nowadays it would be hard for a top F1 driver to be able to commit to the testing required to have a serious crack at LM I think while being current, and once retired the fire may have gone from them and they can become a bit like, will J Villeneuve!

[porsche91722]

Can I throw Chris Amon's name into the mix, Damn fine driver in his day, and won '66(?) LM24.

[porsche91722]

and Bruce McLaren

[Aysedasi]

You also need to add the 'luck' element here - as all winners of Le Mans admit.

[isynge]

Chris Amon's an interesting one - arguably a case of asking whether he was actually a better sportscar driver than F1 driver - and certainly his F1 results didn't reflect his overall talent.

It does interest me however that even if we lower the bar from top line F1 drivers to just someone with a GP win under their belt we're still not over endowed with Le Mans winners - or even Le Mans entrants - will we have any advance on Olivier Panis this year for example? Indeed looking back I guess Michele Alboreto was the last GP winner to win Le Mans - and while he certainly had his moments in F1, I'm not sure I'd put him right at the pinnacle of F1 contenders.

There's probably some distortion from Audi's dominance over the last decade or so, but it's perhaps not utterly coincidental that their driver lineup has never been stacked with front line F1 drivers.