Worst car to win an F1 WDC?

[Yoong Montoya]

In response to The Moon Monkey's thread, I thought I'd do a similar one, but this time ask what was the worst car to win an F1 WDC?

How about Keke Rosberg's 1982 Williams?

[Jordi]

Not the best, but certainly not the worst car. My point is, to win a title, a car can't be too bad... So, the Williams was not the best car in 1982 -outright speed, but it was certainly the best in other areas, reliability, for example

[Armco Bender]

The Lotus 72 of 1970,after all it killed the champion

[krt917]

Umm, this is quite tricky. As Jordi says, to win a title a car has to be pretty good, so I guess we're looking at cars that weren't the best, but that won a championship due to driver virtuosity or great team work.

1973 - Stewart - Tyrrell 006 - Apparently quite tricky to drive. I think someone like Simon Taylor said that it wasn't really as good as the Lotus 72 or the McLaren M23.

1982 - Rosberg - Williams FW08 - Not a bad car, but it certainly wasn't the fastest. A very strange and tragic year too.

1986 - Prost - McLaren MP4/2C - Mansell probably should have won the championship, but Prost had done a fantastic job to keep the car in contention right up to the last race when it wasn't really a match for the Williams.

1995 - Schumacher - Benetton B195 - Michael's driving was assisted by great strategy and Williams dropping the ball on a number of occassions. The Benetton probably wasn't as bad as people said at the time, but wasn't the best either.

[DNQ]

1970 Lotus/Rindt - Yes, as Armco Bender said
1982 Williams/Rosberg - Fast, but not the fastest
1986 McLaren/Prost - The Williams was the class of the field that year
1994 Benetton/Schumacher - Considering it was illegal I'd say it was the worst

Those are the ones that spring to mind for me.

[BootsOntheSide]

The 2000 Ferrari was probably nowhere near as good as the McLaren,a nd in terms of teh chassis I suspect that the Williams was better as well.

The 1982 Williams and 1986 McLaren are definate forntrunners for this. Rosberg really worked miracles in poor cars for Williams at the time, it's a great shame he left for 1986 when they were becoming truly competitive, and then struggled with the 1986 McLaren. A final win at Adeliade would've been so poetic.

[DNQ]

Originally posted by BootsOntheSide
The 2000 Ferrari was probably nowhere near as good as the McLaren,a nd in terms of teh chassis I suspect that the Williams was better as well.

Hmm, I can't agree with that, not at all. Sure, the McLaren edged out the Ferrari, but I don't think you can say that the Ferrari was 'nowhere near as good.' For one thing, it was certainly more reliable...

[Glen]

I loved Rosberg, and I very well remember that Adelaide race - stayed up only to see both my favourites go out.

[Adam43]

Originally posted by krt917
1986 - Prost - McLaren MP4/2C - Mansell probably should have won the championship, but Prost had done a fantastic job to keep the car in contention right up to the last race when it wasn't really a match for the Williams.

Not a bad car as such (as explained above in context to this thread), but relative to the Williams, it had no right to propel a driver to the title. Well done Prost. Amazing. The best car won the Constructors and the best driver won the drivers. Top year, with exciting racing to boot.

[Redlake27]

I would say the Benetton B195 or the Mp4/2C. The FW08 was a good car - awesome through Paddock Hill bend or around the fast sweeps of the Osterreichring or Dijon. It nearly won on its Zolder debut before Keke binned it. Admittedly, 12 months on it was a non qualifier.

Equally the Tyrrell 006 was mentioned but Cevert used to sit comfortably on Stewart's tail so it couldn't have been that bad.

The 95 Benetton never looked like a natural winner at any circuit, but won 9 races I think. That was good strategy, reliability and superb driving overcoming the deficiencies. Herbert was rarely able to get the car in the top three rows of the grid so it was quite an average car, about comparable with this years Renault I guess on overall performance, but the driver able to make the difference.

[Adam43]

I agree the 1995 Benetton wasn't the class of the field, but I think, relatively it was better than this year's Renault. Although in 1995 there wasn't as many competitive teams (the top 3 are fairly well matched this year).

Also I think it won 11 races (9 for Schumacher and 2 for Herbert).

Also Cevert was becoming a great driver.

[ensign14]

Maserati 250F in 1957, not because it was a bad car but because it was years old and should have been destroyed by the rest of the field by then. By 1958 it was scraping for points. Took a Fangio to take the title.

[garcon]

Given the choice, I'd sooner drive a 250F than a F2003GA...

[garcon]

I see your point though.

But it wasn't really Maserati's fault it took the rest 8 years to catch up...

[Mekola]

Originally posted by ensign14
Maserati 250F in 1957, not because it was a bad car but because it was years old and should have been destroyed by the rest of the field by then. By 1958 it was scraping for points. Took a Fangio to take the title.

I think it was the more meritable championship of Fangio. During the second part of the championship (except Nürburgring) the Maserati 250F wasn't as good as Ferrari or Vanwall, to not mention that the team go to bankruptcy at the end of the year!!!
Since 1958 it wasn't any official Maserati team (bankrupted), only private / personal entries.

[Adam43]

While the 250F might not have been the class of the field, one thing in it's favour is that it had the balance and poise to allow Fangio to excel at it's craft.

[Yoong Montoya]

Just wondering, would the Brabham BMW BT52 from 1983be worth considering? Or was that an illegal car as well?

The strange thing about the Benetton Ford B194 from 1994 is that the second driver never came close to winning a GP. Then again, you could say the same thing about the Brabham BT52 (OK, Patrese won the last race, but it was inherited, in much the same way as Schumacher in Austria last year). In both years, the second car placed 10th in the WDC. If they were both illegal cars, well then the second car might have been legal:confused:

[bcobbus]

How about the 1964 Ferrari? Surtees just won because of poor reliability in Lotus, and his teamate punting off Graham Hill?

[ensign14]

Originally posted by Yoong Montoya
The strange thing about the Benetton Ford B194 from 1994 is that the second driver never came close to winning a GP. Then again, you could say the same thing about the Brabham BT52 (OK, Patrese won the last race, but it was inherited, in much the same way as Schumacher in Austria last year).

Patrese threw the San Marino GP away and tangled with Elio de Angelis when going for the lead at Brands Hatch in '83. Riccardo was very fast that year but had godawful reliability.

[Miss Hardt]

Originally posted by Armco Bender
The Lotus 72 of 1970,after all it killed the champion

I agree. Nothing can be worse than that. They had the title but they didn't have Jochen anymore

[Yoong Montoya]

Originally posted by ensign14
Patrese threw the San Marino GP away and tangled with Elio de Angelis when going for the lead at Brands Hatch in '83. Riccardo was very fast that year but had godawful reliability.

Yeah, I think Riccardo had something like 9 mechanical failures whereas Piquet only had 1 or 2.

Just wondering, what was the reliabilty of the second Benetton in 1994? How many mechanical failures did it have between its 3 drivers? Schumacher only had 1 I think, when his engine blew up at Hockenheim.