All F1 drivers aspire to win the World Championship, but there can only be one per year (ridiculous rule, we know). This doesn’t mean those didn’t manage it don’t deserve to be lauded, however! Here are 5 of the better-than-average drivers who just couldn’t seem to find any luck.
David Coulthard
Replacing the late Ayrton Senna at Williams in 1994, Coulthard had big shoes to fill from the start, and undoubtedly was less than comfortable in the rather dodgy and flawed Williams FW16 (which possibly played a direct role in Ayrton Senna’s death).
Coulthard would take a handful of points finishes and a podium in his first season, before being replaced by Mansell for the final 3 races of the season. He’d return in 1995 for his first full season, picking up his first win in Portugal.
Coulthard would spend the majority of his subsequent career in relatively competitive cars, picking up 13 wins in total, but he was addled by bad luck as well as questionable decisions on track. He would eventually retire at the end of 2008 – ironically right before Red Bull (the last team he drove for) became a frontrunner.
Mark Webber
Mark had to wait for his 8th season in F1 to finally score his first win. Having had shocking luck throughout his career, Webber just needed something to go right for a change. For his first victory, things didn’t go right at all – he was just miles quicker than everybody else and managed to win the race regardless of his drive through penalty and first lap collision.
Webber would go on to come very close to winning the championship in 2010, but his famous bad luck would return in the final few races – handing the championship as well as 2nd place to Vettel and Alonso respectively.
Over the next 3 seasons, Webber would pick up the odd win here and there, but was outclassed by his teammate and arguably had a number 2 status in the team – which meant his car spontaneously combusted a lot more often than Vettel’s did.
Felipe Massa
After 2 years playing second fiddle to Schumacher and Raikkonen, Massa decided 2008 would be his year. It didn’t go entirely according to plan, however. Massa would retire as a result of his own mistakes in the first 2 rounds.
It wasn’t just these 2 incidents that cost him the championship – In Hungary he would retire from the lead after making a ludicrous move on Hamilton for the lead at the first corner (engine failure) and in Singapore he was doomed to a non-points finish after a shocking error by Ferrari while in the pits.
Massa’s season would end with utter heartbreak, as Hamilton overtook Timo Glock on the last corner of the last lap of the last grand prix of the season. Massa won the race a matter of seconds before this took place, and Ferrari were mid-celebration (mistakenly believing Massa had won the championship) when they suddenly discovered that Massa had, in fact, lost the world championship by a single point. Sadly, this race remains as Massa’s final win in F1.
Gilles Villeneuve
Canada’s beloved F1 star of the late 70s and early 80s remains as being one of the most highly rated drivers of all time – even though his career was so short. He was a pretty cool chap too – he was the undisputed drift king of F1, as around 90% of all photos of Gilles were of him in opposite lock in his Ferrari.
Before his untimely death in 1982, Gilles had picked up 6 wins in a time where reliability was a bit of an afterthought. He also endured an awful season in 1980 where the Ferrari was virtually stapled to the back of the field.
Stirling Moss
The legendary Stirling Moss was recently reinstated as the winningest driver to never win the world championship with Nico Rosberg’s championship win in 2016 (much to Rosberg’s probable relief). Between 1955 and 1961, Moss was never far from the front, and finished either 2nd or 3rd in the championship in each of those years.
He was particularly strong between 1957 and 1959, but retirements would deny the Englishman a genuine shot at the title. With 16 wins, 24 podiums and countless non-F1 wins, there is no doubt: Stirling Moss is the greatest driver to ever have competed in Formula 1. Who didn’t win a championship.
