F1s Greatest Drives

[strad]

cole trickle?????

[Just_a_fan]

To me the greatest drives ever were:

1) Cole Trickle passing outside turn 4 at Daytona, 1990.
2) Jimmy Bly and Beau Brandenburg saving Memo Moreno from the fire at the Nurbrugring lake in the 2001 Champ Car GP.

Maybe I can say that we like to tell stories about the past more romantic than they actually were and tell you that Cole had "special" staggered tyres to take turn 4 on the outside and that Jimmy and Beau had the advantage to actually see the methanol flames and avoid being burnt while rescuing Memo... still they were great drives.

Ummm, we're talking real life F1 not Hollywood USian "racing".

But then you knew that...

[andrew]

Cole Trickle? Days of Thunder? Yes, that is F1(!)

[SiLo]

What a great film!

[Pandamasque]

Webber, China 2011.

[dave34m]

Webber, China 2011.

Really, after mucking up Quali in the best car on the grid and then just making the podium on the last lap. maybe if he won the race beating Vettel and Hamilton then I would agree.

[Poleman]

Kimi Raikkonen's 17th to 1st back in 2005 Japan can really be remembered as a great drive much more than what Webber did today.

[Gary]

Webber, China 2011.

[Pandamasque]

Kimi Raikkonen's 17th to 1st back in 2005 Japan can really be remembered as a great drive much more than what Webber did today.

I agree. Alonso's too. I didn't say Webber had THE best drive ever.

[Jersey Tom]

Webber's drive today is definitely up there.

[beelsebob]

I have no idea why everyone is claiming Webber's drive is incredible. The only impressive things he did was get the hard tyres out the way at the start, get into some clean air, and then use a bucket load of soft tyres to catch up. The "zomg it was 8 seconds at the end" crowd need to take a stare at the gap before the last stint, where Webber was on brand new softs, and the rest of the field was on worn hards – that's where all the time was made up, and quite frankly, any driver could have done that.

Personally I think Hamilton drove a far better race – but I still wouldn't put it in the all time greats list.

[Pandamasque]

I don't follow your logic. Are you saying that using harder tyres at the end of the race is somehow much more heroic? Everyone raced under the same rules. It's just that Webber was right at the back and definitely more than 8s behind the leader on lap 1, and then ended up on the podium. Let's put it like this, if you delete lap 1 from the timing and then add all the times, you'll see that Webber won the race by some serious margin.

[beelsebob]

I don't follow your logic. Are you saying that using harder tyres at the end of the race is somehow much more heroic? Everyone raced under the same rules. It's just that Webber was right at the back and definitely more than 8s behind the leader on lap 1, and then ended up on the podium. Let's put it like this, if you delete lap 1 from the timing and then add all the times, you'll see that Webber won the race by some serious margin.

No, I'm saying that using the same tyres and the same strategy and finishing slightly slower than someone else is not that amazing a drive. Webber was not held up while on his primes (he was lapping at about the same pace as the mid fielders, not trying to overtake them). Essentially, he and Hamilton both ran a race where they ran 15ish laps on hards, and a bunch of laps on softs, Hamilton finished ahead. Webber even had *new* softs to work with unlike Hamilton on 2 of his 3 runs.

[Tamburello]

Dude, Hamilton started 15 places in front of Webber and only finished 7 seconds and two places ahead. That should lay your doubts to rest.

[beelsebob]

Dude, Hamilton started 15 places in front of Webber and only finished 7 seconds and two places ahead. That should lay your doubts to rest.

So...
Hamilton started ~15-18 seconds ahead.
Webber finished 8 seconds behind.
Webber had a car that's widely acknowledged to be faster than Hamilton's, even without KERS.
Webber had two extra sets of soft tyres.
Hamilton had to pass front runners on track, including his team mate, on the same rubber.
Webber had to pass a few mid fielders in massively inferior cars on track, and really quite a lot of people in pit stops.

Don't get me wrong, Webber's strategy was good, and he drove well, but I don't get why gaining 8-10 seconds over a race distance with so much in his favour is worthy of a "greatest drive" or in fact "better drive than Hamilton".