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Send in Schumacher Your Take: Who should have made the Top Eight
Posted: Sunday June 06, 1999 10:09 AM
CNN/SI asked users to tell us which drivers we left off our Top Eight list. Many of you gave the nod to a pair of drivers still very much in the prime of their career -- Formula One's Michael Schumacher and NASCAR's Jeff Gordon. Here's a sampling of your responses... I think you are possibly forgetting the great pre World War II Italian driver Tazio Nuvolari who won a great many races on both motorcycles and in cars. He often had his victories against the odds usually in inferior cars. As a case in point his victory in the 1935 German Grand Prix against the highly subsidized and very powerful Mercedes and auto union cars is legendary. He was also a very colorful, committed and courageous individual. One example was in the 1920s when he fell and was badly injured in a motorcycle race and had the doctors set his casts in the appropriate shape so he could compete again almost straight away. I think you Americans are being a bit parochial about this, I mean Mario Andretti was a very good driver but if you were being objective you wouldn't even mention him in the same sentence as Senna, who was a truly great driver. -- Bill McClenaghan, Armidale, NSW, Australia
There are many drivers that could be in the list: Emerson Fitipaldi, Nélson Piquet and Alain Prost, for instance. However, because U.S. racing is so separate from the rest of the world, it's not very surprising that you forgot them. What really bothers me is how there were no Unsers... -- Alexandre Araújo, Fortaleza, Brazil Alain Prost, definitely! He was not only a great driver, he also had great stats -- Four F1 titles and 51 victories. There were other great drivers such as Jackie Stewart and Nelson Piquet too, but undoubtedly, Aryton Senna reigns supreme! -- Sujit Shankar, Mobile, AL Emerson Fitipaldi was the Formula One champion, won the Indy 500 and won the CART world championship. -- Leandro Kenski, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Jeff Gordon has over 40 wins, three Winston Cup championships. Yes, it is a very short career compared to what you have on the Top Eight list, but he is too dominant to ignore. The only thing he hasn't done is win 20 or more races in a season which could be a possibility with the team he has around him. I was shocked not to see him as one of your drivers. Shame on you for not seeing the obvious. -- Aaron Gossage, Naples, NY Alain Prost should've been considered for the Top Eight drivers of all time, although he is not as good as Senna in my opinion, he did win four titles in F1 and 50+ races. -- Sujit, Shankar, Mobile, AL Well there is obviously no need to say why Ayrton Senna "made" the Top Eight. Aryton Senna was and will always be a remarkable sports man, with achievements and style than can never be challenged or replaced. He loved his sport and for this, he died for his sport, showing his dedication to his racing. -- Frances, Sydney, Australia Whatever happened to Alain Prost? His omission is inexcusable. -- Ian Blanchard, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Michael Schumacher. This man has not only won two world championship titles and three follow ups in a row, but he managed what billions of Italian Lira spent by Fiat's boss Agnelli (since 1979) not has managed: to bring back Ferrari to a winning Formula One team. No driver in history had such a big influence in bringing back a whole company to the top. This man is no race driver but a modern racing manager. -- Joachim Bruck, Ettlingen, West Germany This list no doubt contains the best of all times, but how could you forget perhaps the greatest driver Germany, or perhaps Formula One racing has ever had -- Michael Schumacher. This guy has done it all, he earned the respect of everybody and he raced while the competition was perhaps the toughest, and won the championship twice, He should've been included in there. -- Salman Malik, Islamabad, Pakistan Jeff Gordon must be included. I am not a Gordon fan but just look at his accomplishments in the short time that he has been racing professionally. He dominates the Winston Cup circuit now. He will pass my favorite Cup driver, Dale Earnhardt very soon on wins, poles, top 10's, and probably get real close to the number of Cup titles. Dale is definitely a great driver, and Gordon is still proving himself. Maybe in his budding career he doesn't have enough credentials to make your list, but 10 years from now, he will probably dominate it! I may not be a fan of Jeff, but I am a NASCAR fan, and he is the Babe Ruth of real racing right now. -- Jeremy Perry, Muncie, IN
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