Ranking the top 10 Benetton F1 drivers

Italian fashion house Benetton was officially an F1 constructor for 16 years between 1986 and 2001 – although it actually bought Toleman in the spring of 1985 and sold the team to Renault in March 2000.

During those years a host of big-name racing drivers passed through Team Witney/Team Enstone (from 1993). Some were on the way up… others were heading in the other direction. Here, we name and rate our best 10.

It’s worth noting that we’ve only taken their performances into account from their Benetton years – hence no Jenson Button thanks to his horrendous single Benetton season in 2001. Likewise, Riccardo Patrese in 1993.

And given the dearth of victories – the team only scored 27, most of them by a certain chap from Kerpen – we’ve listed podiums too. But again, only those scored in Benettons. Let’s dive in.

10. Teo Fabi

Teo Fabi was a fast driver, but would never lead a grand prix for Benetton

Benetton years: 1986-87
Benetton starts: 32
Benetton wins: 0
Benetton poles: 2
Benetton podiums: 1

Unofficially Benetton’s first F1 driver, if you count 1985 (which team members do even if the record books don’t). If 1985 was counted, the stat would read three pole positions thanks to Fabi’s rain-affected effort at the Nurburgring, where he crashed on the wet Saturday, headbutted the steering wheel and likely had a concussion when he took the start.

Ferociously fast over one lap, Fabi contrived never to lead a lap of a grand prix despite his three poles. Those with Benetton proper came at the Osterreichring and Monza in 1986 with the near-megawatt BMW turbo.

“I loved Teo, super guy, lovely bloke,” says Pat Symonds, his engineer. “An extraordinary driver with an amazing ability, particularly on a fast circuit. In fast corners there was no one like him, which is why he was so good at Indy [he took pole at the 500 in 1983]. He was so smooth.

“The trouble was he didn’t have the mental strength, so when there was traffic around he couldn’t handle it. I’ve had several drivers who have been like that in my time, but none that were as good as Teo.”

9. Thierry Boutsen

Thierry Boutsen took off as a driver at Williams, but a respectable six podiums with Benetton nets him a space on this list

Benetton years: 1987-88
Benetton starts: 32
Benetton wins: 0
Benetton poles: 0
Benetton podiums: 6

Williams saw the best of him, but his preceding two years at Benetton allowed Boutsen to solidify a respectable reputation founded at Arrows.

A lack of reliability held Benetton back. In Boutsen’s first year, the team was powered by Cosworth’s Ford GB turbo, which the team rated. But a problem with Mobil’s fuel was only spotted and solved late in the season. Boutsen scored two fourths and three fifths (one of them in Japan with the new fuel), before inheriting his first Benetton podium at season’s end in Adelaide.

Ford chose to switch to the new, normally aspirated V8 DFR the following year, against the wishes of the team. Had Benetton stuck with the GB for the final year of turbo power (to that point), team manager Peter Collins remains convinced that the team could have threatened McLaren-Honda’s dominance. As it was, the team was third in the constructors’ standings, thanks largely to Boutsen’s points.

8. Giancarlo Fisichella

Giancarlo Fisichella, who served as Benetton's longest-serving driver, on his way to second in Monaco 1998

Benetton years: 1998-2001
Benetton starts: 66
Benetton wins: 0
Benetton poles: 1
Benetton podiums: 7

The driver with the most Benetton starts also drove for ‘Team Enstone’ in its Renault guise in 2005-07. First time around, Fisichella arrived fresh from a bitter tug of love between Eddie Jordan and Flavio Briatore, who was also his manager and had split from Benetton before Fisi began racing for the team!

There were bright sparks. Impressive consecutive second places in Monaco and Canada that first season served notice, but he was unlucky with his timing, joining Benetton at the start of its long, slow decline into mediocrity. Fisichella scored Benetton’s final podium in the otherwise deeply uncompetitive B201 at Spa in 2001, a season that almost finished the career of team-mate Jenson Button.

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Alan Permane engineered Fisi throughout his time in Benetton blue and again during the Renault era: “First time around he was on the podium a few times and was very good. His team-mate Alex [Wurz] was a real thinker, an analytical driver and Giancarlo was the opposite, doing it all by feel and talent. Alex worked super-hard and really looked into every single thing, and probably they were pretty much even. I don’t remember one being particularly on top.”

But Fisichella edges it here for surviving longer and making more of its customer engines era.

7. Alessandro Nannini

Alessandro Nannini's one and only victory came under controversial circumstances in Japan in 1989

Benetton years: 1988-90
Benetton starts: 46
Benetton wins: 1
Benetton poles: 0
Benetton podiums: 8

The good-looking, chain-smoking Italian was perfect for Benetton – and he was quick. Nannini showed well against Thierry Boutsen when he moved from Minardi in 1988. He looked embarrassed by his ‘victory’ on the podium at the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix, following Ayrton Senna’s controversial disqualification. But that wasn’t his fault.

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Nannini didn’t exactly blow Nelson Piquet away in 1990, as some might have expected given period perceptions of the three-time champion. But from mid-season, his currency grew after a number of impressive performances, including holding off Senna for longer than expected at Hockenheim – and he always reckoned the Hungarian GP would have been his, not Boutsen’s, had Senna not turfed him off.

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Then came the helicopter crash that ended his F1 career. Doctors saved his severed right arm and reattached it, but it was never strong enough for F1 g-forces. Instead, he shone in the DTM/ITC for Alfa Romeo.

“One of the last of the old-fashioned drivers,” says Pat Symonds. “He used to worry about drug tests because of the amount of coffee he drank! Very talented, very natural, never did any work, never spent time thinking about the car, did as little exercise as he could get away with. He was a throwback, not of his era. If he’d been racing in the 1970s he would have been brilliant. I was a heavy smoker then and we used to sit there smoking together, and I don’t think he ever gave them up…”

Like another on this list, he might have placed higher without that life-changing injury.

6. Jean Alesi

Jean Alesi's time at Benetton was the beginning of the end of his F1 career, but 13 podiums was a good haul for a solid driver

Benetton years: 1996-97
Benetton starts: 33
Benetton wins: 0
Benetton poles: 1
Benetton podiums: 13

Benetton was the beginning of the end for Jean Alesi’s F1 career. Following in the wake of Michael Schumacher did him no favours when he pitched up in tandem with Gerhard Berger from Ferrari in 1996. But actually the first season wasn’t half bad. After a poor opener in Australia, he was second in Brazil, was let down by the car when seemingly motoring to victory in Monaco, and was beaten only by an inspired Schumacher at Monza.

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Alesi was third in the championship in 1997, but perceptions were turning. He didn’t help himself by embarrassingly running out of fuel in Australia as his team frantically waved from the pitwall. Alesi had a new race engineer that day.

“It was not nice to have that as the first one, I must admit!” says Alan Permane, a fixture at ‘Team Enstone’ since 1989 until this summer. “We did fall out about it. The problem was the radio failed and we just couldn’t get in touch with him. We had a pitboard, of course, but he was not used to using it at all.”

The one that really got away was Monza that year, where Alesi took pole position. Pat Symonds loved working with him, but not that day.

“Jean finished second at Monza and should have won,” says Symonds. “He’d driven a faultless race, but did the most pathetic pitstop I’d ever seen in my life. David Coulthard’s McLaren just came into the pits faster and left faster, nothing to do with the pitstop itself. We lost the race purely on that. I was livid.”

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5. Gerhard Berger

Gerhard Berger served two spells at Benetton in his career in 1986 and in 1996-1997

Benetton years: 1986 and 1996-97
Benetton starts: 46
Benetton wins: 2
Benetton poles: 1
Benetton podiums: 4

He’d be higher were we judging him solely on the Berger who Benetton experienced first time around in 1986. After four starts for ATS and a season at Arrows, Berger was snapped up by Peter Collins and Rory Byrne for what turned out to be Benetton’s only season with the Heini Mader-tuned BMW turbo. Reliability was poor, but Berger used the opportunity to jump to Ferrari for 1987.

The breakthrough win for driver and team at altitude in Mexico City was down to long-lasting Pirelli tyres, but it was still a great drive.

“Teo Fabi was quick, but he was inconsistent and Gerhard was a charger – and he had big balls,” is team boss Peter Collins’s direct assessment.

Much water had passed by the time Berger returned to Benetton post-Michael Schumacher in 1996. His two seasons were his last in F1 and were largely disappointing, in cars that Pat Symonds and Flavio Briatore claim could still have been world title winners.

Sinus problems disrupted his final season, but the comeback – after missing three races and in the wake of his father dying in an air crash – was Berger at his best, his German GP victory the obvious standout. But Symonds recalls the Austrian’s final GP in Jerez as a prime example of the “frustration” he felt.

“That last race was another highlight,” says Symonds. “Part-way through that race he woke up and was on fire. He hadn’t qualified particularly well, but drove a brilliant race. I was so frustrated and thought, ‘I know bloody well what happened there: you realised it was your last race and put some effort in.’ If he’d had that spark elsewhere it would have been a different picture.”

4. Johnny Herbert

Johnny Herbert scored two wins for Benetton in 1995, including the British GP

Benetton years: 1989 and 1994-95
Benetton starts: 24
Benetton wins: 2
Benetton poles: 0
Benetton podiums: 2

He must be tired of hearing it: imagine where Johnny Herbert would be with two good feet. His debut fourth place in Rio 1989, just seven months after that devastating Formula 3000 smash at Brands Hatch, remains one of the great first races. Flavio Briatore dropped him just before a run of circuits where heavy braking wouldn’t have been an issue… but was Herbert really in a fit state
to be a grand prix driver in 1989? Not really.

He was back in vogue by the end of 1994, when Briatore rehired him for the final two races as replacement for the underwhelming Jos Verstappen, then Herbert kept the drive for 1995. Sure, the two wins at Silverstone and Monza were inherited, but Johnny added 45 points to Michael Schumacher’s bounteous 102 to help Benetton clinch its only constructors’ crown.

Did he have a fair crack that year? There’s little doubt that Benetton favoured Schumacher – but who wouldn’t?

“It’s always daunting going up against the world champion,” says Tim Wright, who was Herbert’s race engineer for the first half of the 1995 season. “There were times when we would find something. At Barcelona we were struggling and I found something with Johnny that Michael then took on board. But I don’t think there was any favouritism. Everything Michael had, we had.

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“Michael was like Senna: he really would work hard at understanding where he could be better, whereas perhaps Johnny didn’t delve into it that deeply. You always knew Michael would get the best out of whatever you gave him.”

But Wright also acknowledges the pain Herbert lived with in the cockpit, even seven years after Brands Hatch.

“Oh yes, I was very much aware of it,” he says. “He confessed quite early on that it was going to be a struggle for him because he was still recovering. I always felt that was in his mind, and up against a really fit Schumacher you’re on a hiding to nothing.”

3. Martin Brundle

Martin Brundle could have been a double winner for Benetton with a bit more luck

Benetton year: 1992
Benetton starts: 16
Benetton wins: 0
Benetton poles: 0
Benetton podiums: 5

Only one season, but with hindsight those at the team wished it had been longer. Even Flavio Briatore, who replaced him with Riccardo Patrese for 1993, admits that. Brundle could have won twice in 1992: incorrectly fitted bolts in his transmission robbed him in Canada, and the wet/dry Spa race was another that got away. If only he’d had the view that Michael Schumacher enjoyed of his own rear tyres, Brundle would have pitted at the right time too…

The season started awfully and he didn’t get off the mark until the fifth race (a record that proved his undoing with Briatore; Brundle had been a Tom Walkinshaw hiring). But as he puts it himself, after the Canadian disappointment “it was all points and podiums”. Third at Silverstone after a dice with Ayrton Senna was a highlight, along with second at Monza, by which time he knew he was out of a drive for 1993.

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But the reason he’s so high here is this, from Pat Symonds: “It’s bloody hard being up against Michael. I feel of all the drivers I’ve worked with who were completely underrated Martin is at the top of my list. The trouble was when he was with Michael I don’t think we appreciated just how bloody good Michael was. At times we were a bit critical of Martin, even though he was the guy who could probably race Michael closer than most.”

2. Nelson Piquet

Nelson Piquet rebounded his career somewhat with Benetton after two rubbish years at Lotus

Benetton years: 1990-91
Benetton starts: 32
Benetton wins: 3
Benetton poles: 0
Benetton podiums: 4

Yes, really. And not just because he won more races in a Benetton than anyone except Michael Schumacher. Some thought Piquet was finished after two mostly poor years at Lotus, but Flavio Briatore signed him anyway.

“I signed Nelson first because nobody liked him and this was really good motivation, to have a world champion in the team,” says Briatore, who cannily offered a ‘carrot’ deal: the more points Piquet scored, the more he’d get paid. “This was the first time Benetton had a world champion. The management was against it, but for the mechanics it was fantastic to have a guy like Nelson. We had somebody serious.”

The wins, back-to-back in Japan and Australia 1990, and Canada in 1991, were inherited – but he held off Nigel Mansell’s Ferrari in Adelaide. Piquet was on it in 1990, outqualifying Alessandro Nannini across the season 9-5 and scoring more than double the Italian’s points.

Even Pat Symonds, whose affection for the family is well under control, admits that Piquet was effective: “Flavio wanted to sign him and I didn’t. I thought he was past it and was on the way down. And I didn’t like him. But he was good, of course he was. And he seemed to spark up. He was on a deal that was a very small retainer and a very big bonus. It might be cruel to say that was the reason why, but he was a lot better than I thought he’d be.

“He was a hard guy and went through a few race engineers. But from a work-ethic side I wouldn’t have a bad word to say about him. Piquet did work and I hadn’t expected that from him.”

1. Michael Schumacher

Michael Schumacher, the most important driver in Benetton's history won world titles in 1994 and 1995

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Benetton years: 1991-95
Benetton starts: 68
Benetton wins: 19
Benetton poles: 10
Benetton podiums: 19

Obviously. Poached from under the nose of Eddie Jordan after his striking debut at Spa in 1991, Schumacher immediately lived up to the hype, scoring points in his first three races for Benetton.

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The first victory came just a year on from his debut, at Spa in 1992, and set an example for all that was to come: he went off the road, team-mate Martin Brundle came past, Schumacher spotted the state of the Briton’s tyres and chose to pit for slicks. That won him the race.

Once Benetton provided him with a car of title-winning calibre, Schumacher was ready to wring every drop. Yes, the controversy of 1994 – and the dark insinuations that the team was illegally using traction control – are a stain that won’t budge. But Schumacher was comfortably the best driver of that season, emphatically so in 1995 when he became champion again with far less rancour. When he left for Ferrari in 1996, Benetton never got over him.

“I was impressed with Michael right from the start,” says Pat Symonds, who became his race engineer from the beginning of 1992. “And I really enjoyed working with him right from the start, too: the work ethic, intelligence, striving to get better.

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“On top of it he was also a really nice guy who cared. I definitely saw the improvements. He wasn’t like a rookie because of his Mercedes training and how sportscars is a really good way to learn about looking after things, and for racecraft too. But like all rookies he had his silly incidents and mistakes. Still, you grow out of those. If you are a slow driver you don’t grow into being fast. It was never a problem.

“A lot of the things he got wrong were actually when he wasn’t 100% on it, like overrevving engines on in-laps. Through the year his racecraft got better, his confidence grew.

Symonds relished working with Schumacher at Benetton

“All the good drivers I’ve worked with have this self-esteem and Michael had it right from the start, but it built. That qualifying in the Jordan at Spa must have shown him that he could do it, and by the start of 1992 he was mature beyond his age and experience.”

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Brundle offers insight into Schumacher’s driving strengths from his single year at Benetton: “Where he was quicker was in the slow corners, just like Mika Hakkinen actually. It’s not the big-balls corners like 130R at Suzuka. You used to keep it flat, but the payback was not very high for that kind of risk.

“In slow corners, he could rotate the car because he could left-foot brake and I couldn’t because I smashed my left foot up in 1984. He could get the car straighter earlier. That was where Michael had me, and Mika was the same.

“It’s not where you assume it might be in the brave stuff, it’s in the technical stuff. It frustrated me enormously because he would get on the throttle harder at the same point as I was, with less wheelspin. How does that happen?

“In terms of fitness he moved the game on too. He was strong, young and super-fit in what were very physical cars. Michael was the right man at the right time, and he lit the track up with his speed.”

Brundle credits his 1992 team-mate Schumacher with moving the game on