[Driver] The GOAT - Round One - Rindt vs Barrichello

[crmalcolm]

The thirtieth match-up in Round One sees Rindt vs Barrichello.

So who do you vote for as the greater driver?

Jochen Rindt
Jochen Rindt took 9 wins in his short F1 career. This is a small number for a champion, but nobody won a race while they were Rindt’s teammate.

Rindt’s career ended in tragic circumstances, as he was killed in practice for the 1970 Italian GP. His performance that season was so dominant that he won the title posthumously in spite of only competing in 9 of the 13 races. In those 9 races, he had 4 mechanical DNFs and 5 victories, meaning a 100% win rate in counting races. This is one of only seven such cases in history, the others being:

Juan Manuel Fangio won 3/3 counting races in 1950.
Luigi Fagioli (no ranking) won 1/1 counting race in 1951.
Alberto Ascari won 6/6 counting races in 1952.
Jim Clark won 3/3 counting races in 1964.
Jim Clark won 6/6 counting races in 1965.
Jim Clark won 1/1 counting race in 1968.

Such cases theoretically correspond to a perfect scoring rate and are therefore challenging to statistically handle.

In Rindt’s case, the 1970 season was undoubtedly a brilliant driver performance. His win at Monaco was particularly impressive, coming from 8th on the grid while running an older model Lotus 49. But, the mechanical DNFs fell at convenient times with respect to maintaining a 100% win rate in counting races. In South Africa, Rindt caused a first-lap accident, ruining his own race, only to later retire with an engine failure. In Monaco, Rindt had started 8th when he retired early in race. Due to retirements of others he may have finished 2nd or possibly challenged Stewart for victory. In Belgium, Rindt had started 2nd but was running 4th (and would likely have finished 3rd due to Jackie Stewart‘s engine failure) when his engine failed. In Austria, Rindt had started on pole, but was not leading when his engine failed.

Rindt’s fatal accident at Monza was caused by a brake failure as he came into Parabolica. In retrospect, there were many signs of Team Lotus having lax engineering standards in safety-critical areas in the pursuit of outright pace before Rindt’s death. A suspension failure in practice at Belgium had been caused by someone forgetting to drill a breather hole in the hub upright casting. A steering failure in practice for France had left Rindt shaken, and upon return to the pits he prophetically declared,

“If this happens again and I survive, I will kill all of you!”

These were not isolated incidents. A year before, Rindt had publicly berated Colin Chapman after multiple wing failures caused accidents, ultimately injuring Rindt and track marshals.

At his best, Rindt was undoubtedly one of the top drivers on the grid, having convincingly outperformed both Jack Brabham and Graham Hill in equal equipment. Of the drivers in the top 100, Rindt has the highest rate of mechanical DNFs, at 55% of his starts. As a result, there were only 27 counting races in his career, making his performance rating less certain compared to drivers with longer careers. Rindt’s high standing (based largely on his 1970 season) has the knock-on effect of greatly boosting the estimate of John Surtees’ performance in 1966 when he was Rindt’s teammate.

Rubens Barrichello
Rubens Barrichello’s early career was filled with promise, beginning with a memorable drive in the wet at Donington 1993, where he retired running 3rd in only his third grand prix. This was the same race dominated by Ayrton Senna, and for a time it seemed Brazil had found its next champion. Yet, Barrichello took 123 starts to win a grand prix, and although he had championship-winning cars at his disposal, he was overshadowed by teammates Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button.

From 1993-1998, Barrichello outperformed teammates Thierry Boutsen, Eddie Irvine, Martin Brundle, Jan Magnussen, and Jos Verstappen. He gave the Stewart Grand Prix team their first podium in 1997 and in the chaotic 1999 European GP, he narrowly missed out on the honor of taking the team’s first win to teammate Johnny Herbert, against the run of play.

In 2000, Barrichello was hired by Ferrari to partner Michael Schumacher. While Barrichello was in a contractual number two role from 2000-2005, he was also clearly outpaced by his teammate, scoring 21-64 in counting races, 25-79 in qualifying, and 412-606 in points.

Moving to Honda, Barrichello spent 2006-2009 alongside Jenson Button, where he had a championship shot with Brawn. In qualifying, the pair were closely matched at 36-34, but Button was the more consistent performer in races, leading Barrichello 21-34.