You might think I’ve been a little permissive with the drivers I’ve decided to keep on the bubble, and there are definitely some of them that I’m not too sure about myself. I’m definitely still going to have more than 1,000 drivers in my lock, near lock, and bubble tiers after I’m done with this cursory series, and that’s not to mention other drivers I may have rejected too hastily (like Lorenzo Bandini, Dave Blaney, Rob MacCachren, Bobby Santos III, and Ivan Stewart among others) or rising stars (Kimi Antonelli, Laurin Heinrich, Christian Lundgaard, and Matt Payne technically aren’t on the list yet since this is only based on cumulative points scored through 2025 even though they’ll hit the necessary threshold based on this year, and I’m sure others like Oliver Bearman, Isack Hadjar, Taylor Barnard, David Malukas, Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs, Connor Zilisch, Corey Heim, Ryan Wood, etc… might make it).
However, part of the reason I accepted more drivers than you might think in earlier installments was because I knew who was coming. There are many drivers in the later letters of the alphabet who have substantially weaker cases, and three of them are right here. I thought I was going to drop all four, but I decided Girolami’s case was stronger than I thought it was. I suspect many people if they were doing this would consider Ginther and Goodyear no-brainers, but I think I have strong cases for why they are actually no-brainers in the other direction.
Kuba Giermaziak (15)
Summary: Polish sports car driver with five Porsche Supercup wins, 9 Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie wins, an overall win at the 24 Hours of Zolder, a class win at the Petit Le Mans, and 2 ADAC GT sports car wins.
Case for: Although tons of drivers have wins in NLS (the series formerly known as VLN), Giermaziak’s case is stronger than many other drivers because all nine of his wins were overall wins. I think Porsche Supercup has the largest gap between the talent level of its drivers and their actual recognition, as many of the stars there become the best sports car drivers in the world. While most people wouldn’t include Porsche Supercup towards a touring car model, his touring car rating of .245 is very high.
Case against: Most of the best sports car drivers win regularly for years and he had a lot of starts and stops with no major wins between 2014 and 2022, which is a big red flag since the truly great sports car drivers tend to win in at least one series if not several every single season. Although I do rate Porsche Supercup more than most people, I think I overrate the series in reaction to other people underrating it, and it’s not like he won the title there, and he only won five times in four full-time seasons, going winless twice. A couple of the co-drivers he won with in the NLS like René Rast, Kelvin van der Linde are unquestionably superior and you could make cases that both Luca Engstler and Christian Krognes are as well (although those are more debatable, and I clearly have both of those guys out). He has few solo wins by himself and no overall marquee race wins. He never even won a class win at the Nürburgring 24 Hours despite his many NLS wins, which is very unusual.
Verdict: Drop. Giermaziak is an underrated driver and his career is still ongoing so it’s possible he could work his way back into contention at some point in the future, but I don’t really see a need to keep him on the bubble for the time being, and I’m probably going to push him back into the Pending tier where I have other active drivers who have not yet accrued enough points to make the list.
Richie Ginther (16)
Summary: One of five American drivers to win a Formula One race (not counting the years when the Indy 500 technically counted for the World Championship), Ginther was the first driver to win for Honda in F1 in 1965. He finished in the top ten in the World Championship six consecutive seasons from 1960-1965 including losing out on a tiebreaker for second in 1963. He also earned two class wins in the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1957 and 1959, two SCCA National Championship wins and four more in class, and a USAC Road Racing Championship win and another in class.
Case for: Ginther had a similar trajectory to his mentor Phil Hill, who discovered him as both of them made an unusual transition from SCCA sports car racing to F1. Considering how important Honda would become as an engine manufacturer in F1, Ginther getting their first win was a big deal. Six consecutive top ten points finishes may also be too much to dismiss.
Case against: His career may have been similar to Hill’s in where they were racing, but they were never close in terms of talent. Hill was a World Champion and an SCCA champion as well with multiple overall wins in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring. Ginther never won a championship in anything and never won a marquee sports car race overall. His one F1 win in Mexico City was impressive as he blasted past front-row starters Jim Clark and Dan Gurney to take the lead at the start and led the rest of the race, but Clark fell out of the top ten quickly due to an engine issue, so he arguably really only outdueled Gurney. The problem is that the rest of Ginther’s F1 career was not great. Ginther’s 14-29 record against his teammates was not great, and he was 4-16 against Graham Hill and 1-7 against Phil Hill, both World Champions, sure, but that’s pretty bad when considering Phil is widely regarded as the worst World Champion in history. He finished fifth in the 1961 points standings for Ferrari when his teammates Hill and Wolfgang von Trips finished first and second (with von Trips even doing so posthumously), then finished eighth in 1962 when his teammate Graham won the championship for BRM. He was not very close to drivers who were not exactly among the most top-tier World Champions, and his rating of -.170 is quite bad (he’s behind Danica even!) Nor am I the only one who feels this way as Ginther ranked 147th on the F1metrics list. Some drivers from this era look a lot better when you include their performances in non-championship races, but not Ginther, who entered 16 non-championship races but didn’t win any of them.
Verdict: Drop. Ginther is somebody I used to inflate just because he was one of the five American F1 winners (not counting Indy 500 winners) along with Hill, Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti, and Peter Revson, but he was nowhere near as good as the other four. The other four all won major national or international championships and he didn’t. He is way lower-rated in my model than any of the others, even though Andretti and Revson curiously both have below-average ratings. There was a time when I was younger when I would sneer at overhyped drivers like Eddie Cheever and say things like, “Well, even Richie Ginther won an F1 race, so what’s Cheever’s excuse?” Having done more research and understood the full context of his career, Ginther is nowhere near as good as Cheever, who himself wasn’t amazing. He really doesn’t have much going for him except that one admittedly impressive win, but I don’t think that’s enough.
Franco Girolami (16)
Summary: Girolami, the younger brother of the more venerable Néstor Girolami, has five touring car titles, the TC2000 championship in 2012, the Top Race title in 2018, the 2022 and 2024 TCR Europe titles, and the 2023 TCR Italy title.
Case for: Franco has more titles than his brother Néstor does and he is obviously still very much relevant today since he is only 34, which means that his career might continue to blossom in the future. His 2018 Top Race title was a big deal as he beat Agustín Canapino, Néstor, and Matías Rossi, who were three of the best Argentine touring car drivers of his era. His 17 wins in this series are the most important part of his career.
Case against: The TC2000 championship that Girolami won was not the same as the TC2000 title I have been discussing in previous entries, as the top-tier TC2000 was briefly renamed Súper TC2000 while the TC2000 series Girolami won was a feeder for the actually prestigious series. TCR Europe and TCR Italy are minor leagues. He has fallen off lately and not done very much the past couple years.
Verdict: Keep. Okay, I was going to say no at first mainly because his .018 touring car model is not good, but his best performances came in Top Race, where he had almost no teammate comparisons in his best seasons including 2018. If he was running similarly to drivers like Canapino, Rossi, and his brother (who I have as locks) for about half a decade in Top Race, I probably shouldn’t immediately dismiss him despite the poor touring car rating and despite the fact that he didn’t do as much in the international major leagues.
Scott Goodyear (14)
Summary: Goodyear won the Atlantic East championship in 1986, two CART wins in the Michigan 500 in both 1992 and 1994, three IRL wins in 1999 and 2000, a class win in the 1992 24 Hours of Daytona, and an overall Grand-Am win in 2003. He had two top ten points finishes in CART and four in the IRL, the best being a second-place IRL points finish in his final full-time season in 2000.
Case for: Goodyear was definitely one of the fastest superspeedway drivers of his time for a while, famously thrice nearly winning the Indy 500 in 1992, 1995, and 1997. He won the first race for three different car owners (Walker Racing, Kenny Bernstein’s King Racing, and John Barnes’s Panther Racing). He outdueled his more legendary countryman Paul Tracy to win his first race at Michigan.
Case against: For all that, I have never been really able to take him seriously. The problem is that basically every one of his big accomplishments comes with a “Yeah, but…” Yes, he outdueled Tracy to win at Michigan, but Tracy was a part-time pre-rookie replacement for Rick Mears who retired mid-season and he hadn’t even won a race yet, so he was not at the peak of his powers. Yes, he won at Michigan again in 1994 for a team that never won a race without him, but that was more because almost all the faster drivers including Raul Boesel and Al Unser, Jr. blew engines more than anything he did. Yes, he lost the 1992 Indy 500 in a photo finish to Al Unser, Jr. in what was then the closest finish in history, but Michael Andretti had owned everyone before his mechanical breakdown and Goodyear had actually DNQed but due to a confusing deal with his teammate Mike Groff, Walker swapped out Groff’s qualified entry for Goodyear’s DNQ entry, so he backed into arguably being in that race at all. Yes, he was running away with the 1995 Indy 500 until he passed the pace car on the final restart, but 1) you could argue that’s his fault; 2) his countryman Jacques Villeneuve inherited the win and came back from a two-lap penalty for the same infraction, so he obviously had the more impressive race anyway; 3) Goodyear threw away the race with an overwhelmingly dominant car because his Firestone tires were clearly grossly superior to the Goodyears, as proven by the Firestones’ dominance in 1996 and 1999 and also Parker Johnstone, a driver who had never made an oval start before, setting the all-time CART qualifying record at Michigan later that season. Throwing away a race with an overwhelmingly dominant car is hard to ignore. Then in 1997, he got passed by his teammate Arie Luyendyk for the win. Goodyear’s rating of -.128 is a little better than Ginther’s, but still pretty bad. Granted, that is because I have Luyendyk beating him 8-1 in 1990 when they were teammates and you can argue that’s unfair since Luyendyk had the dominant Chevy engine and Goodyear the inferior Judd. But Luyendyk swept him 2-0 in 1997, a year Goodyear went winless while Luyendyk was the only driver to win twice, so maybe Luyendyk would’ve beaten Goodyear nearly as badly as he did even if he didn’t have an engine advantage. Finally, Goodyear’s late-period IRL stuff is okay as he finished second to Buddy Lazier in the 2000 IRL championship, but that looks pretty bad in hindsight when his replacement, a prepubescent 22-year-old Sam Hornish became the youngest IndyCar champion of all time (to this day) and led the 2001 championship for the entire season, beating Lazier by nearly two full races.
Verdict: Drop. Goodyear is not the worst driver I will be discussing in this bubble group, but he might be the most overrated. Few drivers have built up such a legacy from almost winning a marquee race multiple times (not to mention how he erroneously portrayed himself as a legend in his far too many years in the ABC booth), but even having multiple near-misses in the Indy 500 isn’t all that rare. Roberto Guerrero did it. Vitor Meira did it. Carlos Muñoz did it. Nobody talks about them like they are legends to nearly the same extent. Was Goodyear that much better than them? I don’t think that he was. People just have nostalgia for the early ‘90s because those were the last years before the IndyCar split.