Of the 10, we can clearly see those who were close to or associated to Heuer / TAG Heuer. Ronnie Peterson, Jacky Ickx, Gilles Villeneuve. The 300 SLR of Sir Stirling Moss? They may not be F1 Champions but they were fighting in the pinnacle of motorsports! That in itself is already passion & accomplishment! https://www.topgear.com/car-news/formula-one/10-best-racing-drivers-never-win-f1-title#1
To this day, Gilles Villeneuve remains my favourite F1 driver. The '70s Ferraris, with their Heuer advertising, were what got me into Heuers in the first place and made an 1158 a must buy.
Gilles was also my favorite driver until that unfortunate accident at Zolder took him away... (I was only 11 years old then, too young to think of expensive watches)... and a few years later, I hooked up again with Ayrton Senna when he was driving the Lotus JPS, who made me love TAG Heuer thanks to his S/el I think Gilles Villeneuve and Stirling Moss are clearly on top of that list Even with his unfortunately short F1 career, I would have put Stefan Bellof on the list as well... just remembering Monaco 1984, Portugal 1985, and his record at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife
I thought that Michele Alboreto was unlucky in 85...not sure that he's at the same standard as the others, but I did like him. But yes to Villeneuve and Moss. In my time watching F1 (88 onwards), I don't think there are too many unlucky drivers..Coulthard, Massa and Irvine were firm number 2s. I do think if Webber had a better weekend in Dubai 2010 he could have won, and would have been just as worthy as Nico Rosberg was, given he beat Vettel heads on a few times in the season. The gap bteween them got bigger in '11 and '12, so 2010 was Webber's real chance
Moss was before my time, so I can only rely on what people say. I've followed F1 since the '70s and I liked Villeneuve a lot. I really wished he had won the championship instead of Jodi Sheckter. But for me, Gilles never did quite fill the void left at Ferrari after Niki left. Speaking of Ferrari, Jean Alesi was another driver I liked quite a bit in the 90's. After a superb battle with Senna in the 1990 USA Phoenix GP, he sadly never reached his full potential at Ferrari. I think he was the driver I was most disappointed in during my time watching F1.
Alesi was always my favourite... but despite driving for Ferrari he only managed 1 win, and he often seemed to be behind Berger...
I agree: I've been watching F1 since the mid '80s and from what I've seen myself, definitely Bellof. For the too short time we had the pleasure of watching him race, he seemed not so far from Senna. From archive footage, experts' consensus etc. it looks like Moss and Peterson were the ones. Gilles was great and did so much to make many fall in love with motor racing and F1 specifically, but many pundits wonder if he'd had the discipline needed to become a world champion in normal time. It's also true that the year when he died tragically the championship was won on a very low number of points, so he might as well have made it.
Post '94 I think Alesi, Barrichello and Patrese deserve a mention between those good drivers. In great part of theyr career they were in the right team... in the wrong year.