FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[Stephen]

Now here's a question to sink your teeth into - who in your humble opinion has been the most influential person in Formula One. I’ve been considering this for a couple of days, and I’m nowhere near anything like a short list.

For example, you could include Bernie Ecclestone for turning F1 into the commercial beast, and the international success, it is today, or Sid Watkins for improving driver and circuit safety, or even Herman Tilke for shaping racing through designing some of the more modern, and controversial, racetracks. You could even go as far as including some drivers for both their on and off-track contributions – Stewart (three times World Champion, once team owner, safety advocate), Senna (he doesn't need an introduction), and Michael Schumacher (seven times World Champion and a long time advocate of driver safety).

So any ideas because i'm stuck!

[McLaren Fan]

Goodness. I think a number of people could rightly claim the award on various grounds. Certainly everybody on your list. You could also add Colin Chapman for basically either coming up with or perfecting the majority of the concepts used in Formula One cars today.

[madbrad]

Well do we count drivers or not? If so, you can name any number of drivers who have multiple titles(or even just one if he made impacts in other ways), not the least of which in this regard could be Mario Andretti by virtue of his multi-discipline success. Otherwise, a few names come to mind, like Bernie ecclestone, Frank Williams, maybe Jackie Stewart, Roger Penske, maybe guys like Bobby Rahal and Chip Ganassi.

[piledriver]

That must be Bernie Ecclestone imo.

[8-ball]

I don't think there is a most influential person. Everyone you could name from bernie to schumi has contributed to F1 to make it what it is today. Instead of just one person how about a list of ten people?

[Jabberwocky]

Saying it is Bernie is very narrow minded, when you think of the whole of Motorsport ie Grass Roots, Rallying, Stock car raceing etc.

I would have to say Colin Chapman

[texasmr2]

Well the title say's Motorsport's but Stephen refer's to Formula One in his post so I'm thinking it's F1. My vote goes out to Bernie Ecclestone as the most enfluential in F1.

[Jabberwocky]

In that case I will also say Bernie

[madbrad]

That's true, Stephen says F1 in the first post, but the title says motorsport. CONFLICT! MY COMMODORE 64 IS GRINDING TO A HALT!

Yeah I forgot about Colin Chapman, and also Richard Petty, the grassroots comment reminded me of him, and no matter how hard I think you guys will mention someone I didn't think of.

Oh yeah and Lightning McQueen.

[texasmr2]

I think we can safely assume that we are speaking of F1 but if it was MOTORSPORT'S in general other than Bernie I would also include Bill France and Roger Penske on the american side.

[Stephen]

Apologies for the confusion, I decided mid-way through my original post to just include F1 because motorsport was too large a subject to cover. Although I liked the suggestion of Colin Chapman, interesting.