Four F1 champs who should have made a comeback

There’s something to be said for going out on top. Clearly, Nico Rosberg is a proponent of the idea, as were such sporting greats as Joe DiMaggio (after winning the Baseball World Series), Rocky Marciano (after defending his heavyweight crown – and a 49-0 record) and Pete Sampras (after 14 grand slam tennis titles).

In F1, as in all sports, there’s a multitude of reasons to leave. But, in our minds at least, only a select few had the talent to mount a proper comeback. Some did, with varying amounts of success, but we think there was room for more…

Photo: Kosala Bandara

Left: 1980
Should have returned: 1982
Chances of success, in a word: Solid

When he took the dominating Lotus 72D to overall victory in 1972, 25-year-old Emerson Fittipaldi was the youngest driver ever to do so. And that record was to stand for more than 30 years, until the current cream of the crop – Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso – managed the feat. 

He was also the youngest driver to take two drivers’ championships at just 27. And that’s a record that stood for more than 20 years, until Michael Schumacher’s 1995 win in a Renault-engined Benetton at just 26 years old. 

So, we can safely assume that Fittipaldi was a pretty handy driver. 

Unfortunately, family got in the way. He left McLaren to drive for his brother’s Fittipaldi Automotive team, and never enjoyed the same success over the next five seasons. 

Even with a truly uncompetitive car, Fittipaldi managed podium results, but the pressures of carrying a team were finally too much and he retired from the sport in 1980, at the age of 34. 

And we think he could have come back – in 1982, in fact, back with the McLaren team that took him to his second F1 championship win. Of course, family politics mean this probably never would have happened, but it would have been grand to see Fittipaldi keeping the likes of Keke Rosberg and Nelson Piquet honest.  

Photo: Gerald Swan

Left: 2001
Should have returned: 2003
Chances of success, in a word: Hmm…

It’s no secret that we’re fans of the soft-spoken gent that is Mika Hakkinen. And it’s no surprise, then, for us to suggest a return for the two-time world champion. 

Of course, had Hakkinen returned, he would have been up against one of the most successful F1 juggernauts in recent memory – the revitalised Ferrari team with none other than Michael Schumacher steering the team, and the car. 

And, let’s be frank – they won in 2000, then absolutely dominated in 2001 and 2002. But the margins were narrowing between Ferrari and the resurgent McLaren-Mercedes in 2003, which would have given Hakkinen a real shot at a third title.

How do we know? Well, literal driving god and good friend to TG, Mr Schumacher himself, said that Hakkinen was his toughest rival – and this is from a man who duked it out with Senna and Prost. 

And let’s not forget that in the same car – the 1993 McLaren MP4/8 – Hakkinen out-qualified Ayrton Senna at his debut race for McLaren. 

Hakkinen was always gentlemanly, but had a force of will that every driver respected. Most famously, after Schumacher closed the door on him at Spa in 2000, he pulled off one of the best overtakes in the history of the sport. Then, after the race, Hakkinen walked over to Schumacher and explained his position – exceptionally calmly, and in private –  and then refused to be drawn into any discussion of the race or its aftermath. What a gent.

We would have loved to have seen the two greats battle it out for a few more years, making Schumacher’s golden run of the early 2000s all the more exciting to watch.  

Photo: Martin Lee

Left: 1980
Should have returned: Immediately
Chances of success, in a word: Kiff (for those not up on South African slang, that means good)

When he retired from F1 at just 30, Jody Scheckter had already claimed a world title in a Ferrari F1 car. 

Not bad for a man Emerson Fittipaldi once called a “madman… a menace to himself and everybody else, [who] does not belong in Formula 1.” Of course, at the time, Scheckter played fast and loose, once taking nearly a dozen cars off the track in a single crash at Silverstone. 

However, after witnessing the horrific, deadly crash of teammate Francois Cevert, Scheckter took a more tempered approach to racing, rather than the James Hunt-approved ‘flat out or bust’ method. That, as well as Ferrari’s excellent 312T4, carried him to victory in 1979. 

Unfortunately, Ferrari’s 312T5 was never as competitive as the 312T4 had been – or the 312T, 312T2 or 312T3, for that matter – which destroyed both Scheckter’s and Gilles Villeneuve’s chances of success in 1980.

If Scheckter had kept a stiff upper lip for one more bad year at Ferrari, he would have had access to the 126C2, which won the constructors’ championship in 1982, and the 126C2B and 126C3, which did the same in 1983. Of course, Keke Rosberg would win the drivers’ championship in a Williams in ’82 and Nelson Piquet in a BMW-powered Brabham in ’83, but a Scheckter-piloted Ferrari doing battle with Piquet and Prost would have changed things considerably. 

And, if Scheckter kept his spot next to Villeneuve, instead of vacating it for Didier Pironi, maybe the exceptional Gilles Villeneuve wouldn’t have gone out to qualify at Zolder with such enmity towards his teammate.  

Photo: Lothar Spurzem

Left: 1993
Should have returned: 1994
Chances of success, in a word: Bonne (also means good. See what we're doing here?)

You could argue that Prost belongs in our list of greatest comebacks as he did… well, come back. And it’s true – he had the entire 1992 season off and mounted a comeback in 1993. But he certainly didn’t retire of his own volition and ache to return. That is, unless his retirement plan involved an acrimonious split with Ferrari. 

Yep, after publicly criticising the off-the-pace Ferrari 643, and the inability of the team to overcome what he saw as serious shortfalls in the car, Prost was fired from Scuderia Ferrari at the end of 1991. With no time to find a drive anywhere else, the then three-time champion was left commentating on the 1992 F1 season for French television. 

After returning from his ‘sabbatical’ in 1993 with Williams, taking the F1 championship for the fourth time and (probably) firing a nice ‘told you so’ at Ferrari, Prost was finally ready to retire from driving. And he did so. 

Unfortunately, his move into team ownership wasn’t a roaring success. Prost Grand Prix was blighted with fairly iffy Peugeot engines, unwieldy chassis and the leg-shattering crash of lead driver Olivier Panis, which meant points were in scant supply. And, by 2002, PGP was £25m in the red and Prost was out of business.

Frankly, he would have been better off as a driver. But, with Senna moving to Williams in 1994, he wouldn’t have found a seat he actually wanted to sit in over with Frank’s team. His best bet would likely have been over at Benetton, which would have given us another great team rivalry: Prost v Schumacher. We can only imagine.  

Photo: Stuart Seeger

Left: 1975
Best non-F1 moment: Winning Le Mans in 1972 and claiming the Triple Crown
Career rating, in a word: Peerless

Quick fact: Graham Hill was one of the best racing drivers of all time. 

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can explain a bit. You see, Hill was the only driver to have ever won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Indianapolis 500, Monaco Grand Prix and Formula 1 driver’s championship. 

It’s a feat that’s never been equalled – partly due to the increasingly insular nature of different race series and the sheer amount of time it takes to compete in increasingly packed race schedules. 

Of course, the other side of it is down to the fact that Hill was exceptionally brisk behind the wheel of anything with an engine. 

After claiming two Formula 1 championships, Hill headed to Le Mans and won it as well, then became a film star in Steve McQueen’s (the original) Grand Prix and a renowned television presenter. 

Yes, when he retired from F1, we think it was the right time. But his achievements beyond Formula 1 made his decision the right one, much like the next three on this list…

Photo: Anefo / Joost Evers

Left: 1979
Best non-F1 moment: Sharing a booth with Murray Walker for some of the best F1 coverage ever   
Career rating, in a word: Entertaining

As perhaps the definition of an F1 playboy, Hunt was pretty much the guy you want to be – or at least be friends with. 

His career was the stuff of legends, even before Ron Howard’s Rush brought them to life with cinematic goodness and Olivia Wilde. 

Hunt was always his own man, wholly unafraid to do, say, or rail against whatever he felt like. So his win for McLaren in the glory days of the 1970s, before the sport became a corporate juggernaut, was a victory for talent and tenacity over sponsorship and political manoeuvring.

And even after his driving career ended with a season in the disappointing Wolf WR7, he still thrilled and delighted F1 fans the world over, with his brash, witty and brilliant commentary for the BBC’s Grand Prix television show.

Photo: Anefo / RC Croes

Left: 1979
Best non-F1 moment: Winning Le Mans a staggering six times 
Career rating, in a word: Enduring

By 21, Jacky Icky was already a champion. Not in F1, mind – he’d just taken the Spa 24 Hours in a BMW 2000. And, in his second race at the Nürburgring, he took his slower Formula 2 car (both F1 and F2 classes were run at the same time at the large circuit) through his qualifying lap so quickly that only the F1 cars of legends Denny Hulme and Jim Clark were faster. 

This, as you might have already guessed, is what we call ‘a good sign’. The Nürburgring was Ickx’s playground for his entire F1 career, where he revelled in what Jackie Stewart called 'The Green Hell' (and what Kenny Loggins would call the ‘Danger Zone’, we presume). 

Even so, Ickx never claimed a Formula 1 championship, thanks to the dominance of names like James Hunt, Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda. And, after racing less and less frequently in the late 1970s, he retired from F1 for good. 

But his real success was found elsewhere – beating the incredible Porsche 917 to win his first-ever 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Ford GT40. And this was after he eschewed the traditional running Le Mans start, sauntering over to his GT40 instead and calmly bolting up his seatbelt. That victory also heralded the end of the dangerous Le Mans start, which saw drivers take off without doing up their seatbelts, sometimes with tragic consequences. 

Ickx won an incredible six times Le Mans, in Ford GT40s, Porsche 935s and 956s. He also won his debut race at the Bathurst 1000, conquered Dakar with an overall win in 1983, and claimed the 1979 CanAm championship. 

Photo: Anefo / Joost Evers

Left: 2006
Best non-F1 moment: A third 24 Hours of Daytona crown
Career rating, in a word: Broad

It’s fair to say that Montoya is a fairly handy driver. It’s perhaps more fair to say that he’s a chuffing excellent one, and one that can do well in just about anything with a steering wheel.

Not convinced? Well, he’s the only driver since the legendary Graham Hill to win both the Indy 500 and the Monaco Grand Prix. Hill, of course, also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, achieving the almost mythical Triple Crown of Motorsport, but Montoya has won the 24 Hours of Daytona three times, so we can draw the appropriate parallels.

Montoya’s F1 career was undone by the Schumacher-Ferrari coalition that won five championships on the trot. Often ‘the best of the rest’, he managed hard-won wins at Monaco, Monza, Silverstone and the Hockenheimring. After Ferrari’s dominance ended with a resurgence from Renault and Fernando Alonso, Montoya announced that he’d leave McLaren-Mercedes, and F1, at the end of 2006. 

Of course, you could argue that if Montoya had stayed another two years, he could have won in 2008, but that’s pie in the sky thinking. And besides, Hamilton was in the fray by then.

Instead, Montoya branched out into NASCAR, IndyCar and endurance racing, netting wins in IndyCar and the 24 Hours of Daytona. Oh, and did we mention he just claimed the ‘Champion of Champions’ in the Race of Champions? Champion!

Photo: Rafa Castillo