Choose your Greatest 33 from a list of 100 drivers pre-selected by an esteemed panel of international motorsports media and historians. http://thegreatest33.com
If Danica and Marco made the list and Jimmy Vasser did not. Then I say the list is a joke. Hell Danica is a joke. It is fun to watch her stomp around after she screws up.
vasser won the u.s. 500 in the first year of the split. would he have won indy that day? who knows? maybe, maybe not.
as far as "resume outside the 500," vasser was the '96 open wheel champion and he has more wins (10) against tougher competition than either of the two you mention.
my point was: there is no way would ims even consider him after the acrimony of the split - regardless of his stats, and that is too bad. jimmy, and several others of the day, had his career impacted in a negative way by tony george's ego play. open wheel racing was hurt in many, many ways - has yet to fully recover... and it was all so unecessary.
Yeah, the fields were so deep when Danica and Marco racked up those stats - those exhausting bump weekends when the stands were filled with spectators holding their collective breath... And, it wasn't like they weren't swimming in Honda money and competing against teams blowing the dust balls off of their engines.
Danica and Marco both could make an argument for the list. Aside from 2 wrecks not of his making, Marco has been very competitive there. Both have led in the closing laps...
Danica has finished: 4th, 8th, 8th, 22nd, 3rd, and 6th in her 6 starts there. Very consistent efforts on her part as well.
Marco has finished: 2nd, 24th, 3rd, 30th, 3rd....
Just for comparison, here is Robby's Indy results. I'm not counting 2004 because of the rain situation...
27th, 5th ,5th, 29th, 4th, 6th, 21st, 8th, 22nd.
In other words...Robby's stats are not too dissimilar from the other two.