The Formula 1 list of champions doesn't exactly tell the full story.
Risking controversy and a flurry of letters from angry Americans, we'd put Mario Andretti (at least that one year) on the list of undeserving champions, simply because Ronnie ‘Super Swede' Peterson held back loyally as the No. 2 contracted driver. There's no doubt Andretti was sublime and successful in anything on four wheels, but quicker than Peterson?
Then there's Keke Rosberg, the chain-smoking Finn who won a title with only a single race victory in 1982. His career record isn't much better: five wins and three poles, hardly the stuff of legends. Yet, are Rosberg's statistics the typical delusions of numbers? We all know that he, too, was blindingly fast on his day…
What about Villeneuve? Obviously not Gilles, but Jacques, who took over Damon Hill's seat and guided by far the best car on the grid to a marginal championship title, with some help from a malicious Michael Schumacher at Jerez in 1997. Now looking at the other end of the spectrum; the undeserving losers. It's essential to mention Gilles here, but the little Canadian simply didn't care about titles, only fastest laps. If life was fair, Gilles would've been champion five times and still be with us today.
But life is far from fair. Just look at Sir Stirling Moss — the greatest driver who never won a Grand Prix championship. Like his friend Jimmy Clark, Moss was one of those "simply better than the rest" drivers. His rivals and mates (those were different days), didn't understand his speed, composure and delicacy in a racing car and it didn't help to try understand either. Moss was just different.
He was never meant to race cars, if only his mother had her way. But Moss persisted, becoming a professional at the age of 18 and climbing all the way to the top, and into the cockpit of the dominant Mercedes-Benz cars in 1955 partnering Juan Manuel Fangio. Il Maestro had his hands full fending off the Brit, as Moss not only won the British Grand Prix, but also the epic Mille Miglia road race.
Four times the magical Moss finished runner-up in the Grand Prix championship race, not because of lack of talent, but because of a surplus of honour. This gentleman defended rival Mike Hawthorne's penalty in the Portuguese GP, persuading the race stewards to reverse their decision which ultimately handed the title to Hawthorne. Never mind that the champion won just one race that year, and Moss four…
Numbers, they can't even tell half the story, let alone the full one.
