Best Driver in Your Nation, and your Favourite Driver

[Monty_Burns]

Rally home grown would be Possum Bourne

Also a Kiwi

[Homem de Gelo]

all time favourite: Senna
favourite active brazillian pilot: Nelson Ângelo Piquet
favourite active non brazillian pilot: Sebastien Loeb and whoever drives for Mclaren

[Homem de Gelo]

Oh, I'm also a Hayden fan. Kentucky kid rocks.

[Odin]

Now, that's what I call a stream of consciousness. Or should it be unconsciousness...
The woman - I guess you mean Maria Kozmian. She was popular with spectators, but not a particularlyt great driver. When talking about pre-war times, one should remember about Count Louis Zborowski and his Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Sadly, he died in 1924 (aged 29) before he could achieve real fame.

Is Carlos Zatusek banned, from polish memory?
Regards
Jörg

[Odin]

Best of all?

- Walter Röhrl -

Won the Monte Carlo Rallye, in an Opel Commodore, without brakes.
Took an 8min lead in the Portugal Rallye, at one stage, in foggy conditions.
After he retired from Rallye, he went to US, to drive the Audi 200 IMSA-GTO. First time ever, in american race history, that one driver, took a ful lap advantage, of the second placed driver in a race.
Stormed in record time Pikes Peak.

I've read a little story in one forum, a short while ago.
Röhrl is 60 years old, was testing for Porsche, on the old Nürburgring, an Ferrari 599 Fiorano. While driving round the Ring, he saw another 599 in black, with dark windows, at high speed. He put his food down and closed up, passed the other and finished the lap. In the Paddock, the other guy, put the window down, yelling "are you crazy".
Michael Schumacher was all the time a bad looser.
Sounds nice
Regards
Jörg

[Phoenix21]

From my nation: Mario Andretti.

All- time: Ayrton Senna

Current favorite: Kimi Raikkonen.

[Ferrer]

- Walter Röhrl -

Won the Monte Carlo Rallye, in an Opel Commodore, without brakes.

Walter Rörhl didn't win the Montecarlo Rally with a Commodore (altough he won it 4 times with 4 different cars). He took part in the 1973 Rally with the big Opel and he retired (altough he was still classified 45th).

[scottie300z]

I grew up as an Andretti fan.

But I'd like to bring up the talents of Paul Newman, far from the best but he may be the best actor/driver combo. And he drove a Z. I'd take his talents over say those of Steve McQueen.

My all time favorite driver? I honestly can't pin it down.

[hightower99]

In my mind I would have to say that the greatest Canadian driver I have seen has got to be Greg Moore. I saw his fatal crash live on TV and it was one of the most shocking things I had ever seen.

Of course I am also a big fan of Jacques Villeneuve and I was glued to the TV for most of the '97 season.

[DanicaFan]

This is an easy question for me...

My favorite is Danica Patrick. She will win several Indy Car races in 2008.

[#3 Tasman Bloke]

Coming from Australia... it is very hard to say because many different drivers win our touring car races... but I might go for an older driver in terms of Jack Brabham, Peter Brock, Alan Jones and Vern Schuppan.

Brabham: of course, he won a couple of world championships in F1...
Jones: He, of course won the F1 championship in 1980
Brock: He won the Bathurst 1000 (a track climbing a mountain (Mount Panorama) and going down again for those who don't know) an amazing 9 times!
Schuppan: Unexpected winner of the 1983 Le Mans 24 hours...

And Monty Burns, we need to talk about why Murph is a "dickhead"...

[Falcon500]

I have to disagree with a vast majority of australians on this one brock is well known for winning one race 9 times there are many more who have won the majority of races in a year more then his 3 times.

Many years ago I said the best touring car driver ever had was a kiwi (jim richards) and I still stand by that but on the australian front the lines are blurred and very hard to define with many worthwhile champions Bowe,Skaife,Seton,Johnson, Lowndes, Ambrose, Bond and so on and so forth and nowdays even moffat can qualify on a technicality.

Out of that impressive list I dont think many can match the metoric rise of lowndes and wel also cant forget lowndes has a likely almost 20 years left to fill his cv up. As far as raw tallent goes and what may well be a suprise to most I will say coling bond is worth mentoning he could drive anything anywhere and spent a large portion of his career either on drity (rally) of in ailing machineary (alfas and early attempts in the caltex serierrs that was guestimated some 60 hp down on johnson/bowes). Part of the reason why I cite these 2 is because there are no 2 drivers in our domestic catigory I have the big guns say had so much tallent and raw ability and it shows when these 2 have the equipment they can top nearly anyone.

Another tough call would have to be our f1 entrants, admitadly not being a huge fan of f1 its makes it hard but id say jones while he had less sucsess im thinking that in all liklyhood his time was more difficult.

Ambrose is the most sucsessful driver we have had in NASCAR as most of our other aussies didnt stay in long enough and some wore out their welcome (dick Johnson) even if unintentionly. And last but not least we have had more then one Brabbahm in world catigorys and while many didnt emulate jacks sucsess in f1 many have found comfterble positions in many other catigorys particarly 24 hour racing and sportscar events.

[Falcon500]

i would also like to add in there "Gentleman" Jim Richards and his son Steven (yes Kiwi's but we will claim them )

Richos son much like garth tander and rick kelly previously have been prone to fits of bad luck often caused by poor decisions and lack of common sense (particarly rick when in 03 he earned the name crash bandicoot) with a large smattering of bad luck helping the rest of their woes along.

Also particarly evident in both richo and garth are fits of rage which cause them to punt off other drivers and ill quote john bowe in 04 i beleive "Gaths a good bloke untill you get him in a car then he becomes a D**khead!" although granted they asked the queastion very prematurly. There was also and incident when richo was trailing ingall and he precieved (the evidence ont he timers said a diffrent story) that he was being held up when eventually he screamed "I cant F**kingtake this anymore!" and proceded to drill ingall in the dieing laps spinning him with less then 5 laps to go and was dubbed a racing incident because of it happening in the last 5 laps. Good thing is these 2 seem to have grown out of it....rick im not so sure of.

[Falcon500]

...ohhh and i suppose Greg Murphy deserves a mention too (the man is a dickhead, but he does hold the lap record around Bathurst, so he's not completely devoid of talent )

Favourite drivers...Mika Hakkenen (spelling?), Marcos Ambrose...and Paul Morris (just for you Aussies )

His tallent was never in queastion he has the personlity of a light switch either its on or its off. Although I will comment there are many better ways of saying it.

And you should know that current paul morris is as popular as hemmaroids nowdays with us (too many stuff ups as a back marker with front running car tyvm) which is a shame considering his supertouring days.

[nota]

Please look beyond those johnny-come-lately V8 jet jockeys who breeze along with power steering and million dollar sponsorship.
And why should I give a stuff over poxy NZ blow-ins like Murphy or Richards x 2?

For best Australian driver think about (Norman) Wizard Smith

Smith, Norman Leslie (1890 - 1958)