1,000 Greatest Drivers: John Surtees

Four wheels good; two wheels also good.

I know I didn’t write yesterday’s Omar Martínez column and I decided it’s because I felt I wasn’t ready to. Although he is undeniably one of the legends of Argentinean motorsport, it was difficult for me to find much racing footage of him at all or very much written about him in English. I tried to do my due diligence and got some information, but selecting a best race for him would have been exceptionally difficult and I might need to consult my Uruguayan colleague Ignacio Rodríguez Amilivia, who is one of my main sources of information about this scene, for better biographical information for Martínez and I knew anything I could write that quickly would not be up to my usual standards, so I just skipped that day, but I’m going to try to make that up at some point. I was able to write about some of the other Argentinean greats like Agustín Canapino (because a lot more has been written about him thanks to his unsuccessful IndyCar crossover) and Leonel Pernía (both because his success is recent and because his family’s success in both soccer and motorsports gave me a lot more to work with), but Martínez was a lot more difficult especially because Canapino and Pernía are both in my touring car model because they did make major league touring car starts while Martínez didn’t since I don’t consider the Argentinean series major leagues from a global perspective. I’m going to have to do a lot more research and wasn’t ready on that one. I’m probably going to push off many of the other Argentinean stars after this so this doesn’t happen again, just as I am currently doing with rally drivers for the most part because I haven’t finished my rally model yet (or even come close). Surtees, however, is far better known and was a lot easier to write about. I chose to cover him today since this is the anniversary of his win at Mexico City in 1966. (And yes, I definitely think he was better that year than in his title season.) Although I left him out of my top five in his championship season in 1964 because he won the title essentially on team orders, he did utterly dominate Graham Hill to be the highest-rated driver in my teammate model that year, so I might decide to rank him in the top five anyway at a certain point. Stay tuned on that.