1,000 Greatest Drivers: Gabriele Tarquini

Arguably the oldest major league champion in history.

Tarquini is a driver who might not be as familiar to you as others who I have covered because it seems touring car series are drastically overshadowed in Europe by F1, where Tarquini was not very good. Meanwhile, in the US it seems like the Supercars Championship is the only touring car series that people really care about here (because it has resulted in some successful NASCAR and IndyCar alumni), but Tarquini (like Sébastien Bourdais who I covered yesterday) is proof that F1 busts can be among the best drivers in the world. I actually gave him a top five season in 1994, ranking him third behind only F1 champion Michael Schumacher and Al Unser, Jr. because I find it very impressive that he won the British Touring Car Championship as a rookie (although he wasn’t the only driver to do that).

By “arguably” the oldest major league champion in history, that really comes down to what you consider a major league. There were NHRA champions who were older and I believe there were some gentleman drivers for sports car series that shared in championships that could be considered major league championships but didn’t really contribute. As far as people who did most of the work entirely by themselves in circuit racing, I believe Tarquini holds the record but you could make the case for others depending on which series you include as major leagues.

Today’s IndyCar race and NASCAR invocation were certainly atrocities, but I think the NASCAR race at COTA was one of the best NASCAR road races I have ever seen, so I’m not sure why all the twitterati (xati?) are complaining about it.