There are no “I” drivers on my bubble list, so now let’s jump to the Js…
Jean-Pierre Jabouille (19)
Summary: French Formula 1 driver and Formula 2 champion who won two F1 races in 1979 and 1980, then pivoted to the French Touring Car Championship after a broken leg in a crash in the 1980 Canadian Grand Prix effectively ended his open wheel career. Jabouille won 9 FTCC races and also competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans many times, finishing third overall on four occasions. I constantly confuse him with Jean-Pierre Beltoise, another F2 champion who won one F1 race in the ‘70s before he also switched to the FTCC, but Beltoise was definitely far superior.
Case for: Jabouille has 5 natural races led in F1, and I think I am going to include all the F1 drivers with that many or more on the list, although I am currently excluding Carlos Pace who had 4 and probably has a better reputation. In 1979, Jabouille became the first French driver to win the French Grand Prix since Jean-Pierre Wimille in 1948, although that 15-second win was overshadowed by the frantic and legendary duel between Gilles Villeneuve and René Arnoux for second place. He then won in Austria the next year after Arnoux pitted. But even if he arguably lucked into that one, he was unlucky overall in 1980 as he was the TNL three times before a turbo failure and tire failure at Interlagos and Kyalami respectively in back-to-back races gave both those wins to Arnoux and an engine failure at Hockenheim gave that win to Jacques Laffite, not to mention his effectively career-ending wreck at Montreal. Despite his bad luck, he was the first driver to win for Renault in F1 and he tied his teammate Arnoux 2-2 in wins, but remember that both of those were races Jabouille was leading before he retired. The luck difference is striking, as Jabouille outqualified Arnoux 18-10 but lost 12-5 in finishes, but he did beat him 2-1 in shared finishes. Even if the injury effectively ended his F1 competitiveness, the fact that he came back and won a bunch of touring car races also strengthens his case.
Case against: The fact that I keep confusing Jabouille with Beltoise is unfavorable to Jabouille, since Beltoise was clearly better even if Jabouille has 2 F1 wins to Beltoise’s 1. Beltoise is above average in my open wheel model (.040) while Jabouille is not (-.055), Beltoise also made the F1metrics top 100 list in 80th while Jabouille didn’t. In their touring car careers, Beltoise won back-to-back titles in 1976 and 1977 and 23 wins while Jabouille had 9 wins and no title. But Beltoise is a lock, so that doesn’t necessarily mean Jabouille shouldn’t be on the list.
Verdict: Keep. I think my model kind of breaks down on this one because my model is based on finishes and Jabouille was so unlucky. There are some fans who would argue that Jabouille was responsible for his poor reliability because they believe drivers overdriving their equipment can induce mechanical failures. But the F1metrics guy already refuted this back in 2017, stating that he believes Alain Prost is the only driver who might have been able to do this, and that otherwise mechanical DNFs have nothing to do with skill. Ryan McCafferty has also confirmed this for NASCAR, and that is also what I believe. Jabouille was sort of like that era’s Robert Wickens I guess: very fast but extremely unlucky in his open wheel career before a devastating crash, yet he still came back to fight again albeit in a different discipline. This is the kind of career I want to reward.
Frank Jelinski (15)
Summary: Although Jelinski won back-to-back German Formula 3 titles in 1980 and 1981, his open wheel career went nowhere, so he instead established himself in sports cars and touring cars where he won the 24 Hours of Daytona, two World Sportscar Championship wins and another in class, two European Endurance Championship class wins, and an ADC Supercup win.
Case for: The main things I find notable about him are things that don’t easily show up in the statsheets. In 1986, he failed to win in the premier C1 class but finished 4th in points while his teammates Oscar Larrauri (a lock) and Jesús Pareja were 6th and 9th respectively, and he also won a race in the C2 class that year. In 1988, he co-drove with the hack John Winter and beat his main teammate Bob Wollek (9th) in points, a true legend. In 1989, he and Wollek mostly shared their car owned by Reinhold Joest (see below), but they split cars in the season finale where Jelinski finished third and Wollek retired, so Jelinski beat him in points again.
Case against: Was Jelinski ever actually faster than Wollek or did he just have better reliability (which as I just discussed in the Jabouille entry has little to do with skill)? I kind of think it’s the latter. Both Jelinski and Wollek competed in touring cars and their records were very different. While Wollek won back-to-back DRM titles (the series that eventually evolved into DTM), Jelinski’s best DTM points finish was 10th and he had an 11-27 record against touring car teammates and a -.091 teammate rating, while Wollek had a 63-13 record and a .231 rating. I know sports car and touring car skills aren’t necessarily exactly the same, but they’re pretty close. He also just didn’t win enough for a sports car driver, and it’s not like I think his cars weren’t fast enough. He was a Porsche driver when the Porsches were competitive, even if Sauber and Jaguar sometimes outran them.
Verdict: Drop. It’s not enough wins and I have the sneaking suspicion he was inflated by his cars’ reliability rather than his superior talent, and I think his lackluster touring car record tells the tale here.
Bill Jenkins (19)
Summary: Pioneering drag racer who won 11 NHRA Pro Stock races and had a banner year when he won the 1972 Pro Stock title. He was also important as the first driver to win a Pro Stock race, set an elapsed time record, and set a speed record.
Case for: Although 11 wins might not seem like a lot by modern standards, there were far fewer races in an NHRA season back then than there were in the ‘90s and later decades. In 1972, he won six out of eight races and he really was by far and away the most dominant driver for a time. His seven overall combined speed and elapsed time records were also a record until Bob Glidden overtook him in 1975. Jenkins had a legendary reputation amongst drag racing aficionados as he ranked 8th on NHRA’s all-time top 50. Although Jenkins might seem similar to a driver like Eddie Hill who I rejected on the surface, Hill was only ranked 14th on that list which isn’t that unignorable. It’s harder to reject a driver who was 8th, and Jenkins definitely had a higher winning percentage at his peak. Furthermore, while it’s really hard to find any historical information about the other major drag racing series like the AHRA and IHRA, Ultimate Racing History has him listed with eight AHRA wins and two IHRA wins, strengthening his case. An intangible is that he also had important success as an engine builder both in drag racing and to a lesser extent in NASCAR after his retirement.
Case against: The main thing I suppose is that he did not have enough longevity. His onetime rival Glidden went on to win ten titles and was winning as late as the mid-’90s, while Jenkins retired quickly, which makes him look worse in hindsight, but I don’t think that’s very convincing.
Verdict: Keep. He may not have a lot of NHRA wins, but he definitely dominated an era and when you consider his AHRA and IHRA wins, he looks significantly better. The reasons I prefer Jenkins to a guy like Hill are that he had a longer run of sustained dominance, a higher winning percentage at his peak (at one point he won 10 of 32 races), and because he won in other divisions. Dropping Hill might be controversial. Dropping Jenkins would be inexcusable.
Bruce Jennings (17)
Summary: A very similar driver to Bob Grossman, who I earlier rejected, Jennings won two SCCA C Production titles in 1960 and 1964, six overall wins and 11 class wins in the SCCA, while all his wins in more professional series were class wins (the 1969 24 Hours of Daytona, the 1962 12 Hours of Sebring, along with two United States Road Racing Championship class wins, one Trans-Am class win, one additional World Sportscar Championship class win, and one IMSA class win).
Case for: Jennings does seem stronger than Grossman, if only because he had a lot of regional and divisional SCCA wins as well while Grossman really doesn’t (1 in 1960, 8 in 1961, 4 in 1963, 2 in 1964, 4 in 1965, 1 in 1966, and 1 in 1967). He was third 11 laps down in his class win at Sebring, which isn’t terrible, and he only trailed F1 drivers. In his divisional races, he beat Bob Tullius twice and Dick Thompson once.
Case against: He beat no one important in any of the SCCA wins in his title seasons, and most of his divisional races came against races with 3-5 finishers. He was fourth 43 laps down in his Daytona win, but that seems hollow to me since the obscure Ed Leslie and Lothar Motschenbacher finished second. His other WSC win was a 13th-place overall finish 75 laps down with the superior Tullius. He was 11th 21 laps down in his IMSA win.
Verdict: Drop. He just didn’t beat strong enough competition often enough. It’s the same fundamental problem as Grossman, even if he has a lot more wins, and his lack of overall wins against serious fields especially is hard to overlook.
Reinhold Joest (19)
Summary: Although Joest is best-known as the wildly successful owner of Joest Racing, which won the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall 15 times along with four consecutive overall American Le Mans Series titles in 2000-2003 and the first two World Endurance Championship overall titles in 2012 and 2013, this is about his driving career, where he was successful but not to the same extent. Most of his success came in the Can-Am knockoff Interserie, where he won the 1978 title, 10 overall races, and one more in class, but he also won the European Sportscar Class 1 Championship in 1978 and three races in that series, two IMSA wins including the 1980 24 Hours of Daytona, three World Sportscar Championship races overall and nine more in class and the 1973 9 Hours of Kyalami.
Case for: Unlike Jennings, Joest had some overall wins against stronger competition. He won at Daytona as an owner-driver by 33 laps with Volkert Merl and Rolf Stommelen. He also won the season finale at Daytona with Gianpiero Moretti by a lap over both John Pauls. Because both his overall IMSA wins came alongside different drivers, he was obviously an important contributor. His overall win in a solo drive at the 1976 300 kilometers of Nürburgring came against a field including locks like Toine Hezemans, Helmut Kelleners, and Stommelen, and his two WSC wins in 1979 also came alongside Merl, who I don’t think was very good (touring car rating of -.135 and teammate record of 5-20). And of course winning multiple championships in 1978 is a big deal. Also, this shouldn’t sway me at all, but from a writing perspective, he’s more interesting to talk about as a legendary car owner.
Case against: The nagging question I have is how seriously to take his Interserie dominance. It was a Can-Am ripoff, but it obviously did not have Can-Am competition. However, while not Can-Am caliber, the Interserie competition in the ‘70s was pretty solid. He and Bob Wollek finished first and second in four races in 1978 and Joest won three of them. Joest never won at Le Mans as a driver, and his European Sportscar Championship class championship was especially weak, but I don’t think it matters.
Verdict: Keep. I was worried that if I did this I would be doing so just to talk about his success as a car owner, which is probably the main reason I had reservations. But no, unlike Jennings, he had enough solo wins against strong enough competition, he was probably better than his main co-driver Volkert Merl, and he beat Wollek head-to-head for the Interserie title, who was one of the best sports car drivers of his generation. I wouldn’t be just listing him for his car owner career. His driving career deserves it too.