Back row (left to right): Fernando Alonso (2005, 2006); Sir Jack Brabham (1959, 1960, 1966); Michael Schumacher (1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004); Emerson Fittipaldi (1972, 1974); Lewis Hamilton (2008); Mika Hakkinen (1998, 1999); Damon Hill (1996). Middle row (left to right): Niki Lauda (1975, 1977, 1984); Keke Rosberg (1982); Mario Andretti (1978); Sir Jackie Stewart (1969, 1971, 1973); Alain Prost (1985, 1986, 1989, 1993); Jacques Villeneuve (1997); John Surtees (1964). Front row (left to right) Alan Jones (1980); Nigel Mansell (1992); His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Bernie Ecclestone, Jody Scheckter (1979); Jenson Button (2009).
Why is Forrest Gump sitting next to Alan Jones?
Good to see that “Black Jack” is there too. Knowing that he’s not at full one hundred per cent, is good to know that he, the eldest of the living world champions, went there to talk with the others.
In clear contrast, Kimi Raikonnen and Nelson Piquet are not there. Too bad for them!
Shame that Nelson and Kimi weren’t there.
Schumi looks like he’s been ‘photoshopped’ in! Was he really there?
Did someone forget to invite the only world champion with a serious chance of returning competitively to F1. I mean, my favourite WRC car wrecker only left the sport 4 months ago, and yet he’s not in this photo, and I’ve seen no evidence that he’s at the gathering of “every living world champion”. Please tell me Kimi is actually there somewhere?
Thanks for posting the photo Joe. I was wondering who was attending after seeing the gallery of some of the former champions driving their old cars on the f1.com page, but wasn’t sure who all attended.
Aside from Kimi, which living former champs are missing?
Was Kimi racing this weekend?
OK, so is it just Kimi, and Nelson Piquet that are the only surviving champions not present this weekend? Also it is interesting how fit some of the drivers appear to be, save for a few that look like they are enjoying their retirement years.
why did they need to Photoshop Schumi in?
I thought it’s interesting that from these champions, Alonso was team-mates with Hamilton, who’s team-mates with Button, who was team-mates with Villeneuve, who was team-mates with Hill, who was team-mates with Prost, who was team-mates with Mansell, who was team-mates with Andretti and Rosberg.
And then there’s Schumacher, who’s never been prepared to have a top-line team-mate.
Is a complete lack of dress sense a requirement to become WDC?
Amazing! What more can I say. Thank you for this wonderful photo!
Kimi & Piquet conspicuous by absence!
Blimey Joe,
I didn’t realise that His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa and Bernie Ecclestone were F1 world champions. Did I miss a season?
What happened to Niki Lauda? didn’t he get a bench to stand on like the rest?
Awesome, just awesome.
Would have been a perfect if all of them were wearing racing overalls and of course removing bernie and the prince.
So only Piquet missing. Still smarting about the ignominious end to his son’s F1 career, I suppose?
Awesome shot – the only currently alive world champion not shown is Nelson Piquet Sr I think? Not surprising that he’s not there I ‘spose…
1959 to 2009 very cool!
once again Bernie ruins everything
That’s really cool. Thanks for the picture, Joe.
Nice!
Has there ever been 4 former world champions on the grid at once before?
No Raikkonen or Piquet? A shame…
Why is Bernie and the royal guy in the picture?
Where’s Nelson? Shame James & Ayrton could not be there….
Bernie and Sheik are impersonating Piquet and Raikonnen? They really spoil the picture but it is great to see them all at one place.
It took me ages to find Nigel without reading the text as I can never recognise him with out the moustache.
What a great photo.
The 18 guys that most readers of this website have spent most of our lives admiring and would love to meet (even though we probably wouldn’t know what to say).
But… no Nelson Piquet Sr.?? Or still avoiding everyone after last year?
Very nice,
I didn’t realise that Niki Lauder was so short mind!
18 of the 20 living champs.
Missing: Nelson Piquet (persona non grata ?) and Kimi ( counldn’t be bothered?)
I assume Alonso was annoyed when he turned up and saw that no-one else was wearing their overalls.
Schumacher: ” ha, fooled you”
Hamilton: ” I didn’t think he’d fall for that old trick”
Fantastic Photo, as an Australian it’s heart warming to see Sir Jack able to attend even with his medical issue. This to me shows how important it is.
A shame Ferrari couldn’t afford to supply Fernando a T-Shirt,must be tough to always have to wear your driving suit…………oh that would be because Santander doesn’t fit promently on a cap ha ha ha. I guess history won’t wonder why he was the only one of the 4 active F1 drivers in the photo who didn’t have time to change. In OZ we call that a “tosser”.
Is this the offical photo? You would have though they would have made a better effort taking the photo….
Dull grey room, rubbish lighting, booring pose.
Lauda looks like he is falling over, Button doesn’t have any trowsers on, and Nigel is sitting there like a pixie
(Also looks like it is shot in an iphone)
What is this? The picture is incomplete without Michelle Yeoh!
How that waste of space – and her boyfriend – could have the gall to sit her in the middle of a group portrait of all the living champions epitomises the nepotism, pretentiousness and dishonesty of modern Formula One.
A shame Piquet couldn’t make it, is there anybody else missing?
Bernie always win, still Joe, please help me, Which year was Al Khalifa world champion on? Which car was he racing ath the time? Was it the Isprayyouwithmoney Special Edition FX MkI?
An Observation and a Question-
Two of these men are not like the others…
I wonder if Alonso sleeps in those coveralls now…
Piquet still too mad at F1 to show? Or was he not invited?
I didn’t recognize Jones (did he dye his hair?)…and Lauda looks OLD!!
So where is the great Nelson Piquet Snr isn’t he a mate of Bernie?
A collection of people who have put into F1 far, far more than they have ever taken out. Nice to see Bernie and the Prince in the photograph too.
I have no problems with Bahrain putting this on but breaks my heart that-unless I am very much mistaken- it will not be repeated at Silverstone where the cars and these great drivers belong.
That assembly of champions, with representatives from every era right back to a man who raced against Fangio, together with all the grumbling that’s gone on in the past 12 hours about the fairly dismal excitement level arising out of Sunday’s race, has got me to thinking. Maybe there’s room for a post or other investigation of this topic.
Question (A): was there a real Golden Age of exciting racing? Is it actually the case that there was an era where the racing was consistently more exciting, wheel-to-wheel, lots of passing, etc? I mean, I remember Nigel Mansell at Silverstone in 1987, and it was bloody exciting — but memory being what it is, there might have been another dozen races that year that were boring as batshite. I can’t remember — but if there was an era when the racing was objectively more exciting — more passing, more close dogfighting — then that’s the era that we should be primarily looking to emulate, no?
Question (B): once the Golden Age is identified, someone needs to look in a rational and systematic way at _why_ the racing was good. Presumably it is possible to identify reasons. The FIA in the past few years has regulated seemingly on throwing rule changes at the wall and seeing what sticks — change a random feature, hoping that it will result in closer racing, but maybe without having a sound basis for that belief. The refuelling ban is the most recent and glaring example of this. I was all for the ban — but it doesn’t seem to have made the racing any better — rather the opposite. Maybe it needs to be a refuelling ban with more pit and tyre restrictions — or less, or more tyre manufacturers, or or or. The point is that rather than changing rules reactively or based on guesswork, based on nothing more than a hope that the racing will be improved as a result, is foolish — and that seems to be what the FIA has done.
As to who should do this — well, Jean Todt has bigger fish to fry, team principals are busy running their teams, drivers are busy driving, former champions are busy stewarding and getting their picture taken, and journalists are busy writing about it all. But it’s the journalists, maybe, that have the perspective and the historical sense (if not the time or money) to look at F1 and its history in a really methodical and organised way, find out what worked and why, and propose changes to the regulations accordingly.
Someone should, at any rate.
That’s the coolest photo I’ve seen in a long time. If it simply didn’t have those two nits in the middle of the front row!
Nelson Piquet didn’t make it then . . . .
Is that every living world champ?
Who were the two that weren’t there?
Piquet and Raikkonen did not appear
All worldchampions…this Kalifa guy, did his reigning in F1 end before or after Prince Bira?
Bartus(whose memory is getting a bid rusty)
Wot? No Michelle Yeoh?
Did they take a pic with just the WDC???
I see no reason for the prince and the toad to be in the picture…
Joe, what’s happening?
Your site is becoming a shadow of its former self. There are so few updates these days, and those that come tend to be short and rather late.
I hope everything is OK your end…
Mouse,
Which site are you talking about? If it is grandprix.com it is because I do not work for it any longer. If it is the blog, it is because I did not have the Bahrain weekend very well planned and was too busy doing other things. For that I apologise, I will get things better organised at the next race. There is just a lot of stuff to do and only so many hours in the day. If I was tell you the whole truth you would be worried about my mental health, but suffice to say that i went face first into the keyboard at 04.00 on Monday… Yesterday, I was travelling all day and had problems with wireless connections in Dubai and so was not able to put anything on the website. It happens…
a proper rogue’s gallery !….just a great picture, where did time all go – i remember watching them all drive.
Mr. Alonso is only one in the Team Uniform…
Interesting…
Bit rough to have Surtees standing whilst Button gets a seat?!?!?!?
Ah, yes, I well remember His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa epic drive in a sandstorm to win the , er , nineteen something WDC…and Bernard Ecclestones carreer in motor racing includes several WDCs…but which one did he win? LOL
I guess BCE could be taken to represent both Jochen Rindt and Piquet, as manager to the former and team owner to the latter.
Doesn’t Damon look old – but then he was as a driver too.
BCE’s F1 racing effort was failing to qualify a Connaught at Monaco …
At least the majority of these guys know what a gear lever is for – bring back manual boxes and shifters – then we’ll see overtaking as people miss-shift and lose speed into corners.
Wel, I think that’s what a large part of the ‘golden age’ was based on in terms of overtaking!
[...] A gallery of World Champions Back row (left to right): Fernando Alonso (2005, 2006); Sir Jack Brabham (1959, 1960, 1966); Michael Schumacher (1994, [...] [...]
Now someone needs to Photoshop the prince and Bernie out ….. and put Kimi and Nelson in their place!
That’s a pic I would put on my mancave wall!
This is simply awesome.
Its tragic, a shame..that Kimi isn’t in it.
How it should have been photographed:
http://yfrog.com/j4nowallj with Prince Salman as Kimi and Bernie as Nelson