Bubble Drivers: H/I
Hi.
Since there was only one driver I originally had listed in my bubble tier with a last name starting with I (besides Eddie Irvine who I already did since he is an F1 winner), I decided to throw Hiroaki Ishiura in here with all the H drivers.
I’ve scheduled a housing inspection for next week on September 16 to determine if my mom will be able to come home. Fingers crossed. If so, I may obviously slow down my output here.
Christopher Haase
2007: C-
2008: C-
2009: C-
2012: C+
2014: C
2017: C
2018: C
2019: C
2020: C-
2024: C-
Cumulative points: 16
I don’t have a good feel on this guy mainly because unlike most big sports car stars, it doesn’t look like he ever really competed in any kind of major single-driver series, so it’s hard to distinguish his accomplishments from his teammates. Additionally, most of his major league years were spent in series that either don’t offer lap time data on their site (Blancpain Endurance Series, which later became the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup) or series that are ultimately kind of obscure (Intercontinental GT, International GT Open, ADAC GT). I’d have a better grip on his talent level if he spent more time in WEC or IMSA and I had some awareness of his lap times/passes for position but I don’t. He does have a lot of titles: ADAC (German) GT in 2007, GT4 European Cup in the Sports Light class in 2008, FIA GT3 in 2009 (all at the age of 20-22), GT Endurance Pro Cup in 2012, and International GT Open last year. Additionally, he also has two Nürburgring 24 Hour wins in 2012 and 2014, a 24 Hours of Spa win in 2017, and two Dubai 24 Hour wins in 2019 and 2024. I think that’s probably enough, but it’s particularly hard to parcel out his personal contributions to his teams, so more research is needed here.
Matt Hagan
2010: C+
2011: C
2013: C
2014: C+
2015: C+
2016: C
2017: C
2020: C
2023: C+
Cumulative points: 22
A four-time NHRA Funny Car champion, I admit that I tend to downgrade more recent NHRA drivers to an extent because it doesn’t seem like the modern drivers are held in the same esteem as the NHRA drivers especially in the ‘80s and ‘90s (or at least before the race distances were reduced from 1/4 mile to 1,000 feet). So this bias I have against modern drag racers may be causing me to underrate him somewhat, but with four titles and 53 wins, I think he should probably be on the list.
Armin Hahne
1978: C-
1981: C
1982: C
1983: C
1985: C+
1986: C+
1987: C
1988: E
1990: C
1991: C-
1995: C
1996: C+
Cumulative points: 33
Somewhat interchangeable with fellow German touring car driver Altfrid Heger (see below), Hahne only won one title in the minor-league touring car series DRP in 1981 (but he did earn nine overall wins there). Despite his lack of major-league championships, he had a knack for winning the big events, including back-to-back 24 Hours of Spa wins in 1982 and 1983, an unusual crossover to win the Bathurst 1000 in 1985 (where his co-driver John Goss was substantially worse), and an overall Nürburgring 24 Hour win in 1991, but Hahne spent most of his career racing in DTM, where (like Heger) he tended to overachieve in weak cars. He had one electrifying DTM season in 1988 where he led all drivers with six wins, one more than that year’s champion Klaus Ludwig who only won five times, and I placed Ludwig in my top five year (although granted, he had a lot of wins elsewhere and Hahne didn’t). While his overall win total of 29 may be a little paltry and he never won a major league title, he definitely had a knack for winning when it mattered.
Jim Hall
1960: C
1961: C-
1962: C
1963: C-
1964: C+
1965: E
1966: C+
1967: C+
1968: C+
Cumulative points: 28
Best known as a chassis designer, engineer, and car owner who briefly dominated IndyCar racing when his Chaparral racing team and chassis swept all three 500-mile races with Al Unser in 1978, then dominated the 1980 CART season with Johnny Rutherford and his innovative ground effects chassis that year. As a driver, Hall was also pretty great as he won the 1964 United States Road Racing Championship, where he beat a field including Roger Penske and Ken Miles, although most of the other drivers were somewhat obscure. His 1965 was even better, as he increased his win count from 4 to 5 in the USRRC although he lost the title and he also earned an overall win at the 12 Hours of Sebring and the Canadian Grand Prix in a solo drive, where he beat a field that included Bruce McLaren, Pedro Rodríguez, Peter Revson, Chris Amon, David Hobbs. Hall spent the next three seasons in Can-Am, where he earned three consecutive top five points finishes but failed to win a race.
Pete Halsmer
1981: C
1983: C+
1985: C
1986: C+
1987: C+
1988: C+
1989: C+
1990: C+
1991: C+
1996: C
Cumulative points: 27
One of the most underrated sports car drivers of the ‘80s, Halsmer started out chasing IndyCar dreams, where he placed a close second to Al Unser, Jr. in Formula Super Vee in 1981 before getting his big break in the CART Series with Arciero Racing, where he gave the team its best championship finish (11th, tied with John Jones in 1988) and race finish (2nd at Cleveland) in 1983 for a team that ran continuously until Cristiano da Matta finally gave the team its first top ten points finish and win in 2000 after Cal Wells had taken over majority ownership. But Halsmer’s real accomplishments came in sports cars, where he won three 24 Hours of Daytona class wins in 1983 and 1989, the 1989 and 1991 IMSA GTO titles, six Trans-Am wins, and 10 overall IMSA wins in solo drives.
Joey Hand
2005: C-
2008: C-
2011: E-
2015: C+
2017: C-
2018: C-
Cumulative points: 12
Like his contemporary Ryan Hunter-Reay, Hand is generally overrated I think because he came of age at a time when there was a paucity of American road racing talent probably as an effect of the CART/IRL split, and he was not as good as some of his contemporaries like Jon Fogarty or the Taylor brothers even as far as that goes. Hand had a good sports car career for sure with an American Le Mans GT title in 2011, an overall 24 Hours of Daytona win the same year where he led more laps than his co-drivers, and two Sebring class wins, an additional Daytona class win, and a Le Mans class win. However, I think most of his co-drivers including his ALMS co-champion Dirk Müller were a lot better than him, and I’m inclined to say no mainly because his touring car rating based on his three DTM seasons was quite bad (-.189), which along with his weak Atlantic Championship career, suggests that he was not a first-rate talent and was more reliant on faster teammates. Don’t get me wrong: he had his moments, I guess the most recent being his top five in the Cup Series, but I’m not really knocked out by him.
Timmy Hansen
2014: C-
2015: E-
2016: C
2017: C
2018: C-
2019: C+
2020: C
2021: E-
2022: C-
Cumulative points: 22
The son of 14-time European Rallycross champion Kenneth and older brother of fellow World Rallycross star Kevin, Timmy won the 2019 World Rallycross Championship in 2019, but he did so in a year when the series’s goat driver Johan Kristoffersson (who won all the other titles from 2017-2024) did not compete, so it’s a little hollow. As a result, I actually like his 2021 best when he lost the title on a tiebreaker to Kristoffersson and also won a race in the Extreme E electric off-road series and two Nitro Rallycross races. (For the record, I think Kenneth is a lock and Kevin won’t make it.)
Walt Hansgen
1956: C+
1957: C+
1958: E-
1959: C+
1960: C
1961: C
1962: C
1963: C-
1964: C+
Cumulative points: 24
Hansgen, a massively underrated sports car driver who helped inspire Mark Donohue to race, won three straight SCCA titles from 1956-1958 in the C Modiied class, earned a class win at Sebring in 1956 and another at Daytona in 1962 along with 38 overall SCCA wins and 9 class wins and an overall WSC win. He also crossed over to become a NASCAR road course ringer in 1964-65 where he had an average finish of 4 in three starts as an owner-driver.
Phil Hanson
2019: C-
2020: C-
Cumulative points: 2
I don’t even know what I was thinking with regard to this one. While he did earn championships in three different series (Asian Le Mans in 2017, WEC in 2019, and ELMS in 2020), those came when he was only 18-21 years old so he couldn’t have been contributing much and in his championship seasons, I believe he was usually being carried by stronger teammates like Filipe Albuquerque and Paul di Resta. Once he no longer had the benefit of those teammates, he faded from view even as he got older and his lap times in recent years haven’t been great. I don’t know why I was even considering him this strongly to begin with, but I shouldn’t have been.
Peter Harper
1958: C-
1961: C
1962: E-
Cumulative points: 8
Harper earned one European Rally Championship win against an entirely British field in 1958 before switching to the British Saloon Car Championship, where he earned eight class wins and the 1962 Class B championship. That year, he even beat stars like John Sears, Mike Parkes, and that year’s F1 champion Graham Hill in the BSCC standings, but admittedly, Harper did not compete in their class while the other three drivers competed in the same class and took points from each other, not to mention that Hill did not run the whole BSCC schedule due to his F1 commitments.
Altfrid Heger
1984: C-
1986: C
1987: C+
1988: E-
1989: C
1990: E-
1991: C
1993: E-
1994: C+
1995: C
1996: C-
1997: C
1998: C+
2000: C+
Cumulative points: 39
In my view, Heger’s biggest accomplishment was becoming the inaugural Porsche Supercup champion in 1993, but he had a very successful career that also included two overall wins in the 24 Hours of Spa in 1986 and 1988, two overall wins in the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 1990 and 2000, and a win in the Macau Guia Race in 1988 (one of the most prestigious touring car races). He spent mosst of his career in DTM, where he only won two races but consistently punched above the level of equipment, ranking third globally in my touring car model in 1990 even though he only finished 8th in points and failed to win a race.
Laurin Heinrich
2021: C
2022: C
2024: C+
Cumulative points: 7
Last year’s IMSA GTD Pro champion, Heinrich ranks 20th all-time in my touring car model with a .414 rating and he feels like he will certainly work his way onto the list by the time I’m done, but I’m not sure whether he’s done enough yet even though he also won a Porsche Carrera Cup Germany title in 2022. I will admit that based on his performance now, I might have underrated some of his earlier seasons on my previous top 200s so I might be willing to give him some more points for some of these seasons. He definitely feels like a driver I should list, and I probably will if he keeps doing what he’s doing.
Walter Hernández
1993: C
1994: C
1997: C+
1999: C+
2000: C
2001: C+
2002: C+
2003: C
Cumulative points: 20
Another Argentine touring car driver, Hernández started in Turismo Carretera, where he won six races and the 1993 championship. He later transitioned into Argentina’s other major league touring car series TC2000, where he won 16 races from 1997-2003. Although he never won a title, he had three second-place points finishes in 1997, 2001, and 2003 and won five races the first two of those years, winning the most races in 2001, a year in which his champion teammate Gabriel Ponce de León only won once.
Ryō Hirakawa
2012: C-
2017: C-
2020: C+
2022: C+
2023: E-
2024: C
Cumulative points: 15
It took Hirakawa a while to develop domestically in Japan before becoming a superstar, which is why his -.135 rating based on his Super Formula results is pretty bad. He did win a Super GT title with Nick Cassidy, but Cassidy is obviously a much better driver and I will be giving him more of the credit for that. Nonetheless, Hirakawa became a great driver starting in the 2020s when he had four consecutive top five finishes in Super Formula while he simultaneously won back-to-back WEC Hypercar titles in 2022 and 2023 and his first 24 Hours of Le Mans in the former year.
David Hobbs
1965: C-
1968: C
1969: C+
1970: C
1971: C+
1972: C
1973: C
1974: C+
1975: C
1977: C+
1978: C
1979: C
1982: C
1983: C+
Cumulative points: 32
Although best known as an announcer, Hobbs also had an impressive career as a driver. Although I can’t say I understand why "Hobbs was included in the FIA list of graded drivers, a group of 27 drivers who by their achievements were rated the best in the world" because I don’t think he was ever that good, he still accumulated a great deal of success over a long period of time. This included two championships in Formula 5000 in 1971 and Trans-Am in 1983 and at least 50 wins in major/semi-major leagues. I don’t think he was ever quite elite since the 1971 F5000 season had shallower competition than later years, but he did win the only race Brian Redman and Mario Andretti didn’t win in 1974 and had 11 overall IMSA wins (almost all in solo drives) from 1977-1983. I’d definitely say he was a better announcer than driver, but he is now very underrated as a driver. (I doubt I’ll be including his F5000 contemporary Sam Posey on the list though…)
Bob Holbert
1957: C+
1958: E-
1959: C+
1960: C+
1961: E
1962: E-
1963: E-
1964: C-
Cumulative points: 35
The father of Al, an even bigger sports car legend, Bob Holbert was still pretty legendary in his own right as he won four SCCA titles (the 1958 F Modified championship and three straight championships in the E Modified class from 1960-1962) before winning the United States Road Racing Championship in 1963 over Ken Miles. While he didn’t have a lot of overall wins in endurance sports car races unlike his son, he also earned five Sebring class wins (1959 and 1961-1964 consecutively), a class win at the inaugural Daytona Continental 3-hour race (sometimes cited as the first 24 Hours of Daytona) in 1962, and an overall World Sportscar Championship win in a solo drive at Bridgehampton also in 1962.
Rickey Hood
1984: C+
1985: E-
1986: C-
1991: C
Cumulative points: 11
Hood won back-to-back USAC Sprint titles in 1984 and 1985 and the USAC Silver Crown title in 1985, winning 6 Sprint races in 1984, 4 Silve Crown races in 1985, and 9 Sprint races in 1985, but he fell off quickly after that and posted few other seasons of consequence, spending most of his later career in the All-Star Circuit of Champions, a series I don’t regard very highly (although I did decide to rate his 10-win 1991). Ultimately, I think he was too much of a flash in the pan to give him the full endorsement, but if I change my mind on that, I might upgrade his 1985 season to E someday.
Hiroaki Ishiura
2015: E-
2017: C+
2018: C
Cumulative points: 10
Although I find it weird leaving a two-time Super Formula champion off, I think his titles mostly came down to the fact that he was driving for the overwhelmingly dominant INGING team, which won three consecutive titles (2015 and 2017 with Ishura and 2016 with Yuji Kunimoto). All of Ishiura’s wins came from 2015-2018 and Kunimoto never won or finished better than 7th in points outside his title season, leading me to believe it was mostly the cars. Ishiura’s open wheel rating of -.045 is not good and Kunimoto’s -.113 is even worse. Ishiura did also have wins in Super GT and a title in the minor GT300 class in 2007, but he never won more than once a year in the premier class or came very close to contending for a championship, and his co-drivers like Yuji Tachikawa and Juichi Wakisaka were usually better than him. Although I didn’t expect to rule this way, I think it’s a no even though he beat Pierre Gasly, Felix Rosenqvist, André Lotterer, and Nick Cassidy for the 2017 title and even though I once rated him 13th in 2015 (which was an obscene overrating).