The All-Motorsport Power Rankings: No. 67

Le Mans.

The race is a dream, or rather a hallucination by the time you've been awake for the duration of the race. However, with 24 hours of racing comes 24 hours of drama, incident, and the kind of innocent comment that, in hindsight, becomes the sort of thing the Power Rankings love—perhaps sleep deprivation makes drivers and teams more prone to ill-advised comments?

Anthony Davidson became the least popular person in America, Peugeot surrendered in a typically French manner, and Audi were ruthlessly, well, German.

Of course, Le Mans means I pretty much slept through the Canadian Grand Prix and NASCAR from Michigan—the concensus being I didn't miss much in Michigan, and couldn't have picked a worse F1 race to discover sleep deprivation.

Montreal had bad tyres (Bridgestone) and bad driving (everybody it seems)—what makes F1 great. Sadly the bad weather stayed away.

15. Jacques Villeneuve (This weekend, NASCAR)

Renault rules out Villeneuve.

OK, here’s an idea—treat Jacques like an opt-in system, only tell us when you’re actually considering him.

14. Stephane Ratel (FIA GT1 boss)

The 10-year-old Saleen S7 embarrassed Ratel's new generations of GT1 cars at Le Mans.

Expect to see the Saleen great-grandfathered in for GT1.

13. Stephane Sarrazin (IRC, Engine Failures)

He’s returning for the Ypres Rally in the IRC.

Naturally, expect another Peugeot engine failure.

12. Bernie Ecclestone (F1)

“It is wonderful to be back in Montreal, and to be honest, we shouldn't have left in the first place!" said Bernie from behind a large stack of Canadian dollars.

Read more.

11. Scott Speed (NASCAR)

If you ever wanted an illustration as to how far Scott Speed has come in NASCAR, it’s the fact no one’s blaming him for the inter-team contact.

Watch here.

10. Nigel Mansell (Le Mans 24 minutes)

Nigel’s skills are deserting him in his old age and lack of moustache.

Evidence A - Blown Tyre 1986

Evidence B - 2010

9. Reed Sorenson (NASCAR)

Next up on Red Bull’s tour of trying to resurrect faded NASCAR careers...

Read more.

8. Felipe Massa (F1, eating swimmers, surfers and Robert Shaw)

Force India believe a shark attacked Tonio Liuzzi’s car.

The FIA cut open Felipe Massa and found several pounds of halibut and a Quebec license plate, so penalised him after the race.*

*Penalty was actually for pit lane speeding.

Canadian GP results.

7. Luca di Montezemolo (F1, moaning)

Still picking on the little teams?!?

He’d be stealing their dinner money if they had any cash.

6. Michael Schumacher (F1, again)

After nearly half a season we have definitive proof—it is, indeed, Michael Schumacher in the Mercedes.

None other than the original cheating German could drive like that....

5. Anthony Davidson (Le Mans, Engine Failures)

“It serves [the Corvette driver, Emmanuel Collard] right.”

"Doesn’t he know who I am? I’m from the radio! I’m famous!"

4. Denny Hamlin (NASCAR)

I miss Jimmie Johnson.

NASCAR Michigan results

3. Ralph Juttner (Le Mans)

Audi team chief “We live in motorsport at a time in which reliability is actually not in question, nobody retires nowadays.”

And they say Germans don’t understand sarcasm.

Le Mans 24 Hours report.

2. Lewis Hamilton (F1)

Lewis stopped on his slowing-down lap after qualifying. Ironic considering last time F1 was in Montreal he seemed to have trouble stopping.....

Montreal qualifying and race reports.

1. Mike Rockenfeller (Le Mans)

Le Mans winner, along with Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard

“At the beginning I had a difficult time at Audi. Now I’m grateful that they had confidence and believed in me.”

Now, I believe the Power Rankings should always remind drivers that they’re fallible, so....

Here’s Rocky at the start of that career.