In Formula 1 there are driver names that sound fast and there are names that sound slow - but can you spot the difference...?
Forget the fact that he is one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers ever. Ignore the fact that he made the ballsiest overtake of all time (in a Ferrari, on the outside of Gerhard Berger, on worn tyres, at the lethal Peraltada corner in Mexico). Discard the fact that he used to drive in considerable pain and stood up to Ayrton Senna and won. Nigel, just isn't an F1 driver's name...
It's an argument that rages around the F1 office (expecially when racing has stopped and new cars haven't been launched yet). Some driver names in F1 sound fast - and some sound like chartered accountants. Admittedly, from an English-speaking perspective, drivers with Italian names will always sound fast*. For instance Bruno Giacomelli sounds fast, even though the former Alfa Romeo-driving tubster never achieved much in F1.
Yes, it's an argument that's totally spurious, but it's a game you can enjoy playing at home. To get you into the groove here's our list of some well-known F1 names divided between fast and slow:
Fast Names
Mario Andretti
Wolfgang von Tripps
Vittorio Brambilla
Ricardo Patrese
Giancarlo Fisichella
Fernando Alonso
Piers Courage
Stirling Moss
James Hunt
Jim Clark
Jack Brabham
Lewis Hamilton
Jenson Button
Slow Names
Michael Schumacher
Damon Hill
Justin Wilson
Martin Brundle
Anthony Davidson
Jonathan Palmer
Thierry Boutsen
Mark Blundell
Nigel Mansell
Nick Heidfeld
Timo Glock
Now, here's the challenge. We have divided the 2012 grid into fifteen fast names and nine slow ones. Given our (quick, call-in-the-psycho-analyst) line of thinking, which would be fast and which would be slow? The answers are below. You have to pick from:
2012 Grid: Sebastian, Mark, Lewis, Jenson, Fernando, Felipe, Michael, Nico, Paul, Nico, Kimi, Romain, Kamui, Sergio, Jean-Eric, Daniel, Vitaly, Heikki, Timo, Charles, Pedro, Narain
Score:
15-12: Pole position - you are the Baron de Graffenried of the F1 grid
11-8: Mid-grid - you are the Sauber and the Force India of this quiz
7 or below: You are the HRT of the field
All scores entirely open to debate.
Scroll down when you have selected the fifteen and the nine.
Answers
Fast
Fernando Alonso
Felipe Massa
Lewis Hamilton
Jenson Button
Nico Rosberg
Kimi Raikkonen
Paul DiResta
Nico Hulkenberg
Sergio Perez
Kamui Kobayashi
Vitaly Petrov
Bruno Senna
Pastor Maldonado
Jean-Eric Vergne
Pedro de la Rosa
Slow
Sebastian Vettel (Sebastian is a bit of a fey name, made worse by the association of wistful 90's pop outfit Belle & Sebastian)
Mark Webber (Marco would be faster)
Michael Schumacher (Mike would just about edge Schumi into the 'fast' section - his brother's name sounds faster)
Romain Grosjean (It's also the name of a lettuce - go figure)
Heikki Kovalainen (Uncomfortably close to Heidi)
Daniel Ricciardo (The same Christian name as Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe - he needs to be Dan Ricciardo, not Daniel)
Timo Glock (Timo Glock sounds like a sound effect or the alarm noise you can select on your mobile phone. Do you want to be woken up by the buzzer, the bell or the timo glock?)
Charles Pic (Charles is the name of a Bentley driver. Chuck would move him up - if he could join the good ol' boys of NASCAR and become Chuck Pic or better still Chuck Pic-up
Narain Karthikeyan (Narain sounds too intellectual to be an F1 driver, like Tarquin or Edmund)
*with the exception of Teo Fabi
DJ
