1,000 Greatest Drivers: Gerhard Berger

Surprisingly tied for 2nd in consecutive F1 top ten points finishes.

Even though for the most part I am more impressed by drivers who dominate than career compilers like Berger who tended to be very good more often than they were great, there are plenty of drivers like this who kept up that level of performance for a long enough sustained period (Hélio Castroneves and Ricky Rudd are two other obvious examples) that it does add up to greatness even if their best seasons usually don’t measure up to the best seasons of the champions of their eras. Obviously, the level of competition is higher in F1 so I still gave Berger five elite seasons, which I definitely will not be doing for those other two. When considering that he led my open wheel model in 1988 and also is one of the relatively few drivers to rank in the top 100 overall in two of my models, Berger is probably one of the best versions of this type of driver. While I don’t think he deserves any top five seasons, I do think he puts most of the “#2 drivers” to shame if you consider him one because of his McLaren stint. I didn’t have room in his driver capsule to list the other four drivers who rank in the top 100 in both my open wheel and touring car models but here they are: Jim Clark, António Félix da Costa, Timo Glock, and José María López. Obviously, three of those drivers are locks on my list and the one who isn’t is the one whose name rhymes with lock. (I still think I’m going to list him, but it isn’t guaranteed.) Honorable mention to Pascal Wehrlein who is in the top 100 in my open wheel model and was 101st in the last update of my touring car model (so it’s possible he will make the top 100 the next time I update it).