Heinz Harald Frentzen - Majorly under-rated!

Always was a low key favourite of mine from his Sauber days, but I have rarely heard his name mentioned by anyone across the F1 circus - and for such a consistent performer in some pretty feeble cars wondered what everyone else thought?

Quite an under-rated driver old Harry-Heinz!

Check his stats over here in his Sauber days - [en.wikipedia.org]




Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Frentzen was probably a race winner nothing more than that... better than Ralf but not a WDC driver. Nothing spetacular about his driving but surely the cars he drove was never a big problem for him.

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WDC driver without the WDC mentality. Too nice a guy basically.

Bruninho Wrote:
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> Frentzen was probably a race winner nothing more
> than that... better than Ralf but not a WDC
> driver. Nothing spetacular about his driving but
> surely the cars he drove was never a big problem
> for him.



Actually his driving style was usually compared to the one of none other than Michael Schumacher, but it was no secret that the guy lacked of technical ability to set cars up

i never admired the guy but he was one of my dads favourites to watch on every gp

great racer if you ask me, France 1999 usually comes up to my head when i hear his name



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2008 04:24AM by Slash.

Frentzen...meh, nothing special....



"There are some pikeys there at Turn 10 putting tarmac down - what do you think of that?" - Martin Brundle

Actually his driving style was usually compared to the one of none other than Michael Schumacher

He overshadowed Schumacher with comparative ease in the Sauber Mercedes Group C car.

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probably would have won a championship in championship winning car.

dkpioe Wrote:
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> probably would have won a championship in
> championship winning car.


He didn't. At Williams, all he could manage was a single win.

He was one of my favourite drivers, but he was a lot like another one of my favourites (Fissichella) who didn't bring his "A game" when he had a good car.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2008 09:34AM by Team CLR.

actually i forgot the 97 williams season. he was a bit of a kovaleinen or rubens that year. a bit of a b grade driver like fisi, but a lot of b drivers have won championships over the years, like nelson piquet when he won the championship against better drivers mansell and senna because mansell had bad luck and senna had worse car.

Nelson Piquet won the championship 3 times. I'd hardly call that "b" grade.

As for Frentzen, ultimately he was actually over rated, due to his brief Group C history, everyone expected him to rock up at Williams and own Schumacher. It didn't happen.

He was quite impressive in the 99 Jordan however.

Frentzen as one of my favourite drivers and he drove very well 1999

Likewise, was never a favourite, but always goof to watch.

Never deserved to be treated like he did by EJ at the end of his Jordan days

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2013 - Nando must come through..

Anyone who can stay in the thick of the World Championship title fight until the final 2 rounds, driving a Jordan, is worthy of mention IMHO. He won 2 races that year in a car which really had no right to be winnnig races. France was lucky but Italy was deserved, and let's not forget he also started on pole at the Nurburgring.

However, like Fisichella, you put him in a Williams and he was fairly underwhelming. I suppose it didn't help that the team was geared towards Villeneuve at the time, but he still didn't show the best of himself.

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To be fair he wasn't really in the thick of it.

Yes he had a mathematical chance, but much of that was borne out of mistakes and misfortune of others.

France was a good win, but again that was down to the weather and a bit of strategic brilliance, and it has to be noted that Schumacher was unable to challenge in the end because his car was ailing.

Monza wasn't quite as deserved as you make out, don't forget that a certain Mika Hakkinen was cantering off into the distance before making a mistake, and having his little cry in the bushes, so even that was another inherited win.

Pole at the Nurburgring was fairly impressive, but that was equally down to good timing because remember, Nurburgring 1999 was wet in both qualifying and the race.

Don't get me wrong, Frenzten did do really well in 99, but never was he truly in the "thick" of the championship fight.

J i m Wrote:
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> To be fair he wasn't really in the thick of it.
>
> Yes he had a mathematical chance, but much of that
> was borne out of mistakes and misfortune of
> others.

Had he won that European GP (and he had led from start to the point his drive shaft broke) he would have been tied on points with Irvine and Hakkinen. In retrospect he had no chance, as the car was woeful in the remaining events, but at that point, he was most certainly in the thick of it. Yeah the others cocked up, but he also gave that car results and performances it never should have had.

J i m Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> France was a good win, but again that was down to
> the weather and a bit of strategic brilliance, and
> it has to be noted that Schumacher was unable to
> challenge in the end because his car was ailing.

Don't forget Frentzen had his own problems that race. He lost 10 seconds in one moment alone when it wouldn't change down.

J i m Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Monza wasn't quite as deserved as you make out,
> don't forget that a certain Mika Hakkinen was
> cantering off into the distance before making a
> mistake, and having his little cry in the bushes,
> so even that was another inherited win.

Classic race, but he did beat both Ferraris, Hakkinen's teammate and a Stewart with what many feel was the most powerful engine at that point.

He certainly had the ability, and always shone in inferior equipment, but when he stepped into that Williams, nothing clicked. He just seemed to stagnate. Not dissimilar to Verstappen, who, while not as good overall, could also pull out some stunning drivers in lesser machinery.

Good driver yes, blew his chance in 97 yes. If only Hill had been in Williams 97 then eh

From what was said about hhf was he played with the car to much, to much time was spent on set up and he very often went the wrong way.

dkpioe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> actually i forgot the 97 williams season. he was a
> bit of a kovaleinen or rubens that year. a bit of
> a b grade driver like fisi, but a lot of b drivers
> have won championships over the years, like nelson
> piquet when he won the championship against better
> drivers mansell and senna because mansell had bad
> luck and senna had worse car.

Or same Piquet against Reutemann in 1981 I think... in the last round in Las Vegas Reutemmann had several problems with gearbox and handling in the car... and in the middle season Williams switched from Michelin to Good Year and it made the car worse...

There are a lot of great drivers that didnpt win the WDC... Gilles Villeneuve, Ronnie Peterson for example...

I've always felt the same. Piquet was never a poor driver, but I always struggled to appreciate him. He had his moments (for instance that move at Hungary in '86 is possibly the overtaking move of all time), but his massive success largely came at the expense of others. I honestly can't think of a driver who was consistently as lucky as he was.

I've said recently that you don't win a WDC through little more than luck, but there is an exception...

The closest examples which spring to mind are of Hulme in '67 (more his teams reliability, though he did beat a certain Jack Brabham in the same car) and Hunt in '76 (for obvious reasons), and that's not to say neither deserved their titles, more that they may not have won them had the immediate opposition not suffered specific problems.

Alot of people still feel alonso got the 2005 and 2006 title through problems with others, yes a number of races he did go out there and win with no problems for others but 9 times out of 10 the car ahead or challenging broke.

So I would add alonso in there as well, I know some of you do not agree. But would he have won the title in 2005 had the mclaren not kept breaking probably not and would he have won 2006 had the ferrari not blown up in japan and the stupid ms move in monaco probably not.

I am not saying he did not deserve the title I am just saying he was helped a lot by others.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2008 10:32AM by marcl.