1,000 Greatest Drivers: Gil de Ferran

He managed to bring all three of his teams back from the dead.

This one I could basically write in my sleep as a few years ago, I was watching all the split-era IndyCar races and I got somewhere through 2004 before I stopped, so I’ve watched the entirety of all de Ferran’s seasons except 1995. I feel a little bad that I’m picking 1997 for de Ferran’s best season since he caused a crash at St. Petersburg’s that arguably ruined Christian Fittipaldi’s career and went winless, but I stand by it. In 2000 and 2001, de Ferran had the dominant Reynard-Honda-Firestone package and didn’t dominate as Hélio Castroneves was more dominant (and also Juan Pablo Montoya in 2000 and Kenny Bräck in 2001 were more dominant than him). I still think those are full elite seasons since he brought Penske back from the dead and was better than Castroneves, not to mention that you can easily argue the 2000 and 2001 CART fields were the best IndyCar fields in history. But 1997 was the only year he led in natural races led, TNL, and lead shares even though he had an equipment disadvantage as his Goodyear tires were much slower than the Firestones that the dominant teams like Ganassi had, so I’m still adamant that year is better. Nonetheless, I ended up giving de Ferran six elite seasons during the split years, which I think is more than I expect to give any of his contemporaries. You could argue 1996 and 2002 should be C+ instead, but in 1996, he was the only driver other than Michael Andretti to win on Goodyears and he did it on track with a team that shut down that year and in 2002 he beat Castroneves in lead shares nearly 2-1 and was leading the IRL points before a crash at Chicagoland caused him to miss the finale at Texas, so I would say those are barely elite also. But please can we stop saying he holds the closed-course world speed record? A.J. Foyt did that before de Ferran’s career even started.