F1

Best/worst driver pairings

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  • #299126
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Anyone have any thoughts of ‘classic’ driver pairings at any team over the years? Either for the success they had, or how they worked well together, or built up team spirit? Conversely, any that were a disaster – both in how they negatively affected a team, or a pay-driver line-up that squandered a good car?

    My choices:

    Best –
    A.Senna/Berger – McLaren
    Lauda/Regazzoni – Ferrari
    Alesi/Berger – Ferrari/Benetton
    Button/Hamilton – McLaren
    Brundle/Bellof – Tyrrell

    Worst –
    Takagi/Rosset – Tyrrell
    Bruni/Baumgartner – Minardi
    Papis/Inoue – Arrows
    Alonso/Hamilton – McLaren
    B.Senna/Maldonado – Williams
    Piquet Sr/Mansell – Williams

    #299127
    GeeMac
    Participant

    Surely we have to mention Hakkinen/Coulthard in the “Best” category? In the worst I would have to put Sutil/Gutierrez, I don’t recall there ever having been a less exciting driver line up.

    #299128
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Massa-Raikkonen and, definitely, Sheckter-Villeneuve in the best section. And the all-conquering Three Fs of Alfa: Fagioli, Farina, Fangio.

    #299129
    George
    Participant

    Best – Moss/Fangio
    Worst – Chandhok/Yamamoto (just for one race for HRT in 2010)

    Thinking of bad combos is somewhat harder than good ones :P

    #299130
    VMaxMuffin
    Participant

    Debate: Was Senna/Prost a good combo or a bad combo?

    #299132
    George
    Participant

    @vmaxmuffin
    Good for all involved I think. Their rivalry might have cost the team a few points, but from a marketing standpoint both for the team and the sport it was a huge bonus, and the fans got to see two of the greats go at it in equal machinery. Plus they won every championship while they were together so taking points off each other didn’t allow a rival to take the championship like Raikkonen in ’07.

    #299142
    Strontium
    Participant

    Hamilton and Button was, of course, one of the best in recent history.

    Gutierrez and Sutil comes to mind immediately as one of the worst in recent times.

    Also, don’t discount Massa and Alonso, given the amazing teamwork and collaboration which went on.

    #299144
    Nick
    Participant

    For best, I’d suggest Schumacher/Barrichello at Ferrari from 2000-2005. Not at the top of all time, that would probably be Prost/Senna, but I’d definitely add them into the discussion. It was at the peak of Ferrari’s powers at the start of the decade, Barrichello – as much as he might not have wanted to – played the wingman to perfection, and Schumacher was all but untouchable during that period. Certainly controversial at times, but their success can’t really be ignored.

    As for worst, I’d definitely agree with Sutil/Gutierrez, from the most recent number of seasons or so. Can’t really think of a more dull pairing than that. Could suggest Alesi/Mazzacane in the Prosts at the beginning of 2001, at a stretch. Mazzacane was pretty terrible (rightly, I feel, dumped four races into the season), but despite Alesi being somewhat over the hill, he still had the capability to challenge for a meaningful result, so I think that alone would be enough to keep them out of the running.

    #299145
    PorscheF1
    Participant

    Debate: Was Senna/Prost a good combo or a bad combo?

    I don’t think there ever was a better one…?

    #299161
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    My thought was that Prost/Senna was the worst pairing. They got on dreadfully, crashed into each other costing the team points, and Prost felt he was driven out of the team he had been at for five years. They even had separate end-of-year team photos!

    #299168
    PorscheF1
    Participant

    How about Alonso/Massa if you want to look at the off track things of F1.

    #299220
    ForzaAlanRabbit
    Participant

    Sutil/Gutierrez was definitely one the worst lineups of recent years and none of the HRT lineups were ever slightly interesting.

    #299146
    Scottie
    Participant

    How can I contribute to this thread… Agree with MOST good and Bad pairings, particularly Senna/Prost, Hakkinen/Coulthard, Schumacher/Barrichello. Hamilton/Alonso was bad for McLaren, as it lost them the drivers, but gave them the Constructors!

    Alex Zanardi and Ralf Schumacher were pretty bad in 1999 at Williams… but then the Williams wasn’t the best of cars.

    Andrea de Chesaris needs to feature here somewhere? Surely!
    Perhaps with John Watson at Mclaren in ’81?
    Or maybe with whichever driver he was paired with at Jordan in ’91?

    #299334
    David-A
    Participant

    @scottie -Ralf Schumacher was actually quite good in 1999, but saddled with a teammate that failed to score points for Williams, like Rosberg with Nakajima in 2009. Also Alonso & Spygate cost Mclaren even the constructors.

    #299339
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Best: Fernando Alonso & Giancarlo Fisichella at Renault.
    They got on well with each other, Fisichella was a strong number two to the team leader Alonso and they had a 100% success rate in both the drivers and constructors championships in their two years together.

    Worst: Tiago Monteiro & Christijan Albers at Midland F1.
    Twice they collided with each other on the first lap in races in Monaco and Canada, they scored zero points for Midland F1 in a car that was worthy of a few points with some good drivers in it.

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