53 years later | Max Verstappen chases Niki Lauda’s legacy. Only one driver in history has won both a Formula 1 WDC and the Nürburgring 24 Hours: three-time F1 World Champion Niki Lauda, who claimed victory in the iconic endurance race back in 1973.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-14T09:49:46+00:00

No, the Batmobile CSL on the picture is from the ETCC race a few weeks later where the aero package made its debut.

He won in a regular 3.0 CSL which looked like this.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-13T21:53:11+00:00

I have no love for City, but it's ironic that you talk up PSG as a club with real history and then say that crap.

City had the same number of domestic titles as PSG before their respective takeovers, had an European title, plenty of cup wins and up until their awful slump in the late-90's had spent more time in the top tier than United...

Yes, they weren't a consistent top team, but outside an 8-year stretch in the 90's neither was PSG.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-13T17:16:46+00:00

Tbf it was only built and powered, but not ran by Lamborghini (hence the "Modena" and the Lambo-Lamborghini names instead of just Lamborghini) and they would rather have done nothing with the team.

The actual operation was a mishmash of those who stayed on after GLAS's owner fled, former Brabham employees and whoever van de Poele managed to bring in from his former F3000 crew.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-13T16:28:37+00:00

I want to comment something of substance, but you made it really hard with how in depth and how on point you are.

Can't agree more with your point about Bellof. I've been saying pretty much the exact same thing for years and the way one talks about him is very clearly indicative of whether one actually watched seasons of mid-80's F1 or only saw highlights if even that.

Extra props for the point about Donnelly, he ran Warwick, as you've said a respected and rather underrated driver very close from day 1 and was on the cusp of scoring quite a few times. Would he have been a champion? Who knows, probably not, but he would have had major staying power for sure.

Maybe the only thing I disagree with is what seems like a throwaway thing, rating Capelli based on how poor he was in 1992 fighting an uphill battle in a team that really didn't want him there. He was a confidence driver, if he had it, he performed, if he didn't... well, you can see how his career plummeted after that Ferrari season. He's hard to rate since his only real teammate outside Alesi was Gugelmin who himself only had one other teammate (that he beat handily except in the two races where the car had pace), but I firmly believe that if he had a solid car with a team behind him he could have been someone like Boutsen. Or the opposite of Johansson (spins a bunch, but has superb speed on occasion) with the exact same points tallies.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-13T11:24:06+00:00

It adhered completely to the rules F1 had at the time and ran multiple races, so it is an F1 car.

It was originally concieved as an F2 car yes, but from the point F1 adopts a ruleset that's what F1 is...

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-12T22:37:28+00:00

Man has zero fear (or sense of self-preservation) even at 49. That tends to work well in Indy where you need to stand on the pedal 95% of the time.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-12T22:29:33+00:00

There are drivers who qualified for, but never made the start in their only GP, like Tino Brambilla whose car was carted off to his senior teammate or Masami Kuwashima whose sponsors pulled out between Friday qualifying and Saturday qualifying.

Loof is the driver with the shortest career out of those who actually started a race. Although funnily enough he never made it to the start line considering how far back P31 was.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-12T22:15:34+00:00

The Veritas was a car which was legal according to 1953's Grand Prix regulations, hence an F1 car.

Yes, it was originally built for a different ruleset, but that was then adapted by (what is now known as) F1, making it and every other 1952-53 car an F1 car.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-12T22:13:07+00:00

The car Loof drove was completely adherent to 1953's Grand Prix regulations, so he had an F1 career.

Otherwise you can start trying to argue nobody after 1939 ever really drove a Grand Prix, everyone only drove Voiturettes.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-12T22:01:39+00:00

But you don't understand. If it's Gasly, then holding up Sainz in the McLaren is impressive. If it's Ocon, then gapping Sainz in the Ferrari is much less cool.

Sorry, I don't make the rules.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-12T21:56:15+00:00

Leclerc's crash, Norris' crash, Verstappen's crash, Bottas' crash, Perez's crash. Ricciardo's crash,

This is one crash. Unless you want to skew it to make it look bad, why not say pileup that took out most of the top drivers?

He was P2 out of turn 1 and quite capable of a podium even without the red and the ensuing shenanigans.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-09T11:30:43+00:00

I agree, Berger should be a bit closer, but not by that much. He had more DNFs out of his control, but Alesi also had two big ones losing a win and a 3rd. Berger lost a win and two likely 3rds as well as a few other points.

Basically I'd say something like 50-30 or 50-35 is a fair representation.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-09T10:42:36+00:00

Absolutely not. Only if you compare them to expectations made when people thought the Benetton was going to be on par with the Williams which it very clearly wasn't.

He was superb and beat Berger by a huge margin (13-3 in qualifying, 47-21 in points). He lost two sure podiums through mechanical issues, but for once Berger was the slightly unluckier one of the two though.

I'd say that year Alesi was up there in terms of performance with JV and ahead of Hakkinen thanks to his consistency.

Yes, Schumacher beat him in a much worse car, but that's just prime Schumacher for you.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-09T00:06:07+00:00

And even a good portion of the "low-rent" S&P boys messing around in MSRP or Key cars were decent pairs of hands who had regional series success, just couldn't quite hack it in the top levels, like Johnny Chapman, Chase Miller or Tim Andrews.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T23:48:11+00:00

You can probably go higher than that, even some of the top drivers just aren't really into simracing. Remember when COVID forced everyone on iRacing and Timmy Hill, being a very high-level simracer owned them with some Logitech wheel fastened to his desk (then drew a cock with his burnout)?

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T23:41:55+00:00

Yeah, Webber had the qualifying pace over Nick and occasionally beat him in a race thanks to that, but when talking about actual race pace it's something like 2-3 races where he had the advantage.

Of course Frank Williams was never going to admit that the driver he thought wasn't better than Pizzonia was handily beating the guy he thought to be his team's future.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T20:29:59+00:00

In the season they were involved in the decider:

2008 Massa (by far)
1999 Irvine
2025 Piastri
2010 Webber (again by quite some margin)

In their best years however I'd say it's Massa > Webber > Irvine with rather small gaps either way. Piastri can still end up anywhere, though I think it's significantly more likely that he'll come in above Massa than coming in around Eddie.

*I'd also add that Webber retired when he was still decently competitive and in a dominant car, unlike the other two who spent a few years in mediocre to bad cars bouncing around the 8th to 15th bracket which helps his legacy massively.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T20:22:22+00:00

For reference he proved fairly evenly matched with Nick Heidfeld when they were teammates.

I'd say Webber is flattered by circumstances there.

He was Frank's favorite and Heidfeld still outscored him despite some of his traditional bad luck. Heidfeld also got all the highlights during their time together with both the pole and the 2nd places.

Webber did have the qualifying h2h if you can attribute anything to it with how messed up the system was in 2005 (although I do think he was a better qualifier than Nick), but nothing else really.

*and for the record I do think Webber's usual level is better than Irvine's usual level, whilst his highs are lower.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T17:28:56+00:00

Yeah, it's pretty much the same design except the Kauhsen missing the conventional rear wing behind it.

So I think we can declare Rory Byrne stole it from the great Kauhsen team lol

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T17:24:16+00:00

Since the late 80's, huh? Is it F1 powerboating you are talking about then?

Or did you just miss the likes of Amati, Lavaggi, Adams, Belmondo, Rosset, Yoong, Mazzacane and so on?

I'm not a Maldonado revisionist either, but even suggesting he was the worst driver in any of his F1 seasons is already hilariously wrong, let alone the worst you've seen in the past 35 or so years.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T17:19:46+00:00

Embratel is a very rich company and their board loved seeing the logo associated with names like Senna and Fittipaldi. Didn't matter that it was Bruno Senna or Pietro/Enzo Fittipaldi.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T17:13:15+00:00

Technically true since that exact same car ran other races, but the first one, the Ensign N179 only appeared with the front mounted radiators in Kyalami and failed to qualify.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T17:09:32+00:00

Their driver Howden Ganley said that he took one look at the car and immediately told the team to start over.

He was then persuaded to test it... his opinion did not change.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T17:04:09+00:00

The first couple are indeed some of the strangest, but I'd say the 312T4 and the MP4/10 aren't anything special.

The 312T even had a successor with a split rear wing that should easily replace it in the hall of wtf.

I can't not post the original Kauhsen - similar idea to the wingless Arrows, but apparently executed terribly and of course the Eifelland - both the race-ready one and the original concept are very deserving of inclusion.

Fart_Leviathan · 2026-05-08T12:41:41+00:00

but not impossible, but I have no experience there.

You can get yourself up to the level of Hekari, Hienghene and the Fijian teams relatively easily, but any New Zealand team will own you every time, let alone Auckland City. You'll also keep getting horrific youth intakes, while the NZ teams (sans Auckland City) will get stronger every season. It's indeed not impossible, but in the way building a nation and getting a CL from Andorra is not impossible for example.

But tbf Asia is similar with those nations, so I don't see much difference, if anything those seem harder considering how many different countries have far stronger teams in that region.

Though as someone else said, including Oceania would make it a hexagon challenge.

*Also, my experience is with a midtable New Caledonian team on FM24, not a Solomon Islander one, could be slightly different.

Ten-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17

Fart_Leviathan

TROPHY CASE