Top 5 Multi-Motorsport drivers


Top 5 Multi-Motorsport Drivers
A List compiled by Brian Cotnoir

Motorsports is a diverse sport.  There isn’t one type of racing, there are multiple; Stock Car, Open-Wheel, Drag Racing, Dirt Racing, Truck Racing, motorcycle racing, Endurance Racing, and others!  The racing world is full of champions and legends like Michael Schumacher, Richard Petty, John Force, Steve Kinser, and Ayrton Senna.   However, all those aforementioned drivers tended to dominate just one form of Auto racing.  They may have dabbled in other forms of racing, but failed to achieve much success outside of their main form of racing.  The truly best drivers can win in anything with four wheels (and even 2 wheels).  Today I am here to countdown the 5 Best Multi-Motorsport drivers!  This wasn’t an easy list to compile, I had to leave off drivers like Jacque Villenueve, Fernado Alonso, Graham Hill, and Sebastien Buemi, who are all great drivers in their own respects, but I still felt they deserved an honorable mention.

5.)  Juan Pablo Montoya

Juan Pablo Montoya truly is a great driver!  A two-time Indianapolis 500 Winner, CART Champion in 1999, and IMSA Champion in 2019, he was a constant threat to win the championship each year in Formula 1 and IndyCar, and he even managed to win a couple NASCAR races too.   I was torn between weather to put JPM or Jacque Villeneueve in this spot, but I decided that Jacques had a lot of success early on winning an championships in IndyCar and F1 early on in his career, but after that his career did a downward spiral of sorts, but Montoya was always competitive!


4.)  John Surtees

John Surtees is the only person to have won a 500cc Motorcycle Championship and the F1 Championship.  He won several motorcycle championships in the 1950’s before making the switch over to Formula 1.  He won every motorcycle race he entered in 1958 and 1959.  He won the 1964 F1 Drivers Championship for Ferrari, and almost won it again in 1966 driving for the Cooper Car Company.


3.)  Nigel Mansell

Some of you may be surprised to see Mansell so high up on this list.  He won his only F1 drivers’ championship in 1992 before jumping ship and going to race IndyCar in 1993, where he won his first race and the championship as a “Rookie”. He narrowly won the Indy 500 in his first attempt, before returning to F1 for a handful of races with Williams and McLaren.  Mansell is still 7th all-time in career F1 wins (He was 3rd all-time when he retired) with 31 wins.


2.)  Tony Stewart

Few American drivers are as well-known and as successful as Tony Stewart.  The man known as “Smoke” to his fans one championships in USAC, IndyCar, IROC, and NASCAR.  He was the first person to win the USAC “Triple Crown” (won the championship in USAC’s Top 3 Midget Racing Categories) in the same year.  He made the move to IndyCar where he won his one and only championship, before jumping ship again and competing in NASCAR.   Stewart won over 60 NASCAR races (across NASCAR’s top 3 Series) and he is a 3 NASCAR Cup Series Champion—2 as a driver and one as an owner driver.  Stewart still is a Co-Owner of Stewart-Haas Racing and was the co-owner of the 2014 NASCAR Champion Kevin Harvick’s Car.  For all his success in Auto Racing, Stewart never managed to win the biggest races (the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500) despite having multiple wins at both tracks in NASCAR.


1.)  Mario Andretti

Mario Andretti has 109 wins across several racing series.  He is still second all-time in IndyCar Series wins—Only AJ Foyt has more wins in IndyCar and the only driver who could possibly pass him at this point is Scott Dixon, who has 46 career wins in IndyCar—he is an IndyCar Champion, he has won the Indianapolis 500 AND the Daytona 500 (which is also his only win in NASCAR).  Most impressively, he is the winningest American in Formula 1 History, and to date, he is the last American winner in Formula 1 and the last American Champion in Formula 1!  I know I said Ayrton Senna was the best racing driver ever, in an earlier article, but Mario is the best driver across multiple racing series!


Top 5 Drivers in Auto Racing History


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