Fastest Formula 1 names: why Lando Norris is quicker than Jim Clark

A perennially popular subject in Formula 1 social media circles is driver names, and specifically which F1 drivers have, and/or had, the fastest names. I have never thought I would or even could write a whole column about it but it turns out that that is what I am now doing, not least because every time I see the topic discussed on Twitter/X or BlueSky or the like, what follows is usually an engaged, passionate, amusing, and good-natured debate. That is a rare thing these days, particularly on the increasingly toxic Twitter/X, and it should be encouraged therefore. So here goes.

First, many fast F1 drivers do not, or did not, have fast names. Ayrton Senna was a superfast driver, but Ayrton Senna is not a fast name. You could say exactly the same about Nigel Mansell and Jenson Button – and even Jim Clark. A fast name generally requires one of the following three properties: it should be made up of either (1) Latin polysyllables, (2) bold Anglo-Saxon or Celtic phonemes, or (3) a mixture of the two (a rare but winning formula, as I will explain below). Moreover, ideally, a driver’s first name and second name should consist of a different number of syllables. The rhythms of Jim Clark, Nigel Mansell, Jenson Button, and Ayrton Senna are all wrong therefore. However, names that consist of Latin polysyllables can still be fast despite that kind of syllabic symmetry. A good example is Mario Andretti, which is a fast name.

Some F1 driver names are simply too damn’ normal to be fast. Examples are Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, James Hunt, and Alan Jones, who were all F1 world champions, and other fine F1 drivers such as Peter Collins, Tony Brooks, John Watson, Mark Webber, George Russell, and Ronnie Peterson, who are or were all multiple F1 grand prix winners. If you were on the scriptwriting team for the British soap opera EastEnders, and you were creating a scene about the visit to Albert Square of a plumber from Basildon, you might very easily choose any of the above names for your fictitious Essex tradesman.

Ronnie Peterson is a particularly interesting case because, whereas the others listed in the paragraph above are all either English, Northern Irish, Australian, or American, Peterson was Swedish. Perhaps because of his otherworldly talent, because he died tragically young, and because the words ‘Ronnie’ and ‘Peterson’ in juxtaposition can only ever therefore conjure in the minds of middle-aged F1 fans the image of a much-missed genius balancing a black-and-gold Lotus F1 car in a glorious powerslide, it is counter-intuitive for us to think of the name of the man whom we also call SuperSwede as too damn’ normal. But it is. Or, to put it another way, if he had been called Rune Pettersson rather than Ronnie Peterson, no-one could ever accuse him of having a name better suited to an East End plumber than a Swedish F1 driver, and Rune Pettersson is of course a fast name.

So… which are the fastest F1 driver names that fall into the Latin polysyllables group? You will doubtless have your own examples, but I am going for the following ‘first 11’: Luigi Musso, Lorenzo Bandini, Ludovico Scarfiotti, Pedro Rodríguez, Vittorio Brambilla, Emilio Zapico, Ricardo Zunino, Giancarlo Fisichella, Alessandro (a faster name than Alex) Zanardi, Oscar Piastri, and Lella Lombardi, who earns two bonus points for (1) alliteration and (2) being a woman.

A small number of F1 drivers have or had fast names despite not fitting into any of the above categorisations. Here is a podium of three very different drivers who all qualify in that regard: Jody Scheckter, Tora (a faster name than Toranosuke) Takagi, and Rio Haryanto. Jody Scheckter is an interesting one, for his elder brother, who also raced in F1, was called Ian. Ian Scheckter is not a fast name, but Jody Scheckter is.

Finally, here are four literally fast F1 driver names: Piers Courage, Carlos Pace, Scott Speed, and, if you will allow me to include an IndyCar ace who tested an F1 car but never raced one, Will Power.

I am sure that some of you are itching to cavil at my choices. Please be polite when you do so, even if your preferred social media platform is Twitter/X, where abusive ad hominem posts are now sadly the norm. And, for fun, because fun is what this column is all about, in the same way that your porn star name is apparently the name of your first pet followed by the name of the road or street on which you first lived as a child – my porn star name is therefore Shaky Alwyne, if you are interested – I reckon your F1 driver name should be the surname or family name of the prime minister or president who was in power in your country at the time of your birth followed by the local name of the first overseas country that you visited on holiday as a child. Mine is therefore Macmillan España, which is a very, very, very fast F1 driver name.