In the depths of winter, when there are no races to get excited about, discussion among F1 fans turns to a variety of widely-discussed topics. One of the more common off-season conversations concerns that age-old question: “Who was the greatest driver never to win the world championship?”

Several names always come up. Stirling Moss, who was runner-up several times in the 1950s, is an obvious candidate. So too is Gilles Villeneuve, the flamboyant Canadian who was tragically killed near the start of the 1982 season. Jack has nominated Ronnie Peterson, another promising talent who died too soon. But one name that rarely seems to be mentioned is that of Rene Arnoux.

Born in eastern France in 1948, Arnoux had a successful motor racing career in the junior formulae, culminating in victory in the European Formula Two championship in 1977. On the back of this success, he was able to graduate to Formula One the following season, though he was only able to secure a part-season drive with the underfunded Martini team. Martini folded before the end of the year, and Arnoux switched to racing for Surtees in the final two races of the season – however, he scored no points all year, his best results being a pair of ninth places.

For 1979 Arnoux was picked up by the Renault team, partnering compatriot Jean-Pierre Jabouille. The new turbocharged engines on the Renault machines were powerful but unreliable, and the chequered flag was a rare sight for Arnoux that year. This was a trend that would continue.

There was cause for hope, however – Jabouille took the team’s only victory of the year at the French Grand Prix at Dijon, with Arnoux third. This race provided perhaps the defining moment of Arnoux’s career, as he held his own in a frantic, wheel-banging battle with the Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve in the closing laps. The two cars swapped positions over and over again as the race neared its conclusion, with Villeneuve eventually emerging – just – on top. Both drivers confessed to having enjoyed the battle immensely, and despite criticism from their peers on the grounds of safety, the spectacle became one of the best-loved incidents in Grand Prix history.

Arnoux stayed with Renault in 1980, and took the first win of his career second time out at Interlagos. The very next race, at Kyalami in South Africa, Arnoux won again, putting him in the lead of the world championship. Inconsistency and poor reliability scuppered his chances for the rest of the season, however, and he had to be happy with a hat-trick of pole positions later in the season, as well as a single additional visit to the podium.

1981 was another difficult year for Arnoux in more ways than one. For one thing, Renault seemed to have lost competitiveness in relation to its nearest rivals – he finished in the points only three times all year, finishing ninth in the championship – his worst result since arriving at Renault. For another, his new teammate was the popular and immensely quick Alain Prost, who quickly established himself as the top driver in the team. Prost managed to win three races, though the Renault’s characteristic unreliability left him well out of the world championship hunt.

The following year, 1982, was perhaps one of the most unpredictable in F1 history, both on and off the track. Eleven different drivers won races – more than in any other F1 season – and the tragic deaths of Villeneuve in Belgium and Riccardo Palletti in Canada, as well as a crippling accident for Didier Pironi in Germany, shook the F1 world. Also contributing to this surreal atmosphere was the politics – the ongoing “war” between the sport’s governing body, FISA, and the Formula One Constructors’ Association ultimately led to a FOCA boycott of the San Marino Grand Prix (Renault, well-placed to capitalise on this boycott as one of the only competitive teams racing, saw both drivers retire). Not only this, but Arnoux himself was instrumental in a drivers’ strike that threatened the season-opening South African Grand Prix, in a dispute between the drivers and FISA over the issue of driver licences.

1982 was also the year where Arnoux, in a slightly different set of circumstances, could have been champion. Renault had a very fast car – Arnoux and Prost managed 10 pole positions out of 16 – but reliability was again the Achilles’ heel. Of the five races he actually finished, Arnoux was on the podium four times – suggesting that had the car been more reliable, he would certainly have been in championship contention. As it happened, Arnoux managed to score two victories, including leading Prost home in a one-two result in France. Prost, for his part, was outraged at the result, believing that as the senior Renault driver, Arnoux should have yielded to him. Arnoux insisted that no such order had been given by the team, and as far as he was concerned, he was free to race.

The controversy surrounding Arnoux’s victory in France was the culmination of a series of disagreements between the teammates at Renault, and at the end of 1982 Arnoux left the French team. He found solace at Ferrari, however, joining fellow countryman Patrick Tambay, who had joined the team the previous season after Villeneuve’s death. Three victories followed that year, and Arnoux was still in contention for the championship at the final round in South Africa, along with Brabham’s Nelson Piquet and his old sparring partner Prost. Unfortunately the Frenchman retired with engine trouble, and Piquet picked up a podium to secure his second world title.

Had Ferrari’s reliability not let him down – as it had earlier in the season, when he had been forced to retire from the US Grand Prix at Detroit while leading – Rene Arnoux could have been France’s first world champion. Instead that honour fell to Prost, who would win the title for McLaren two years later. Meanwhile Arnoux faded into obscurity; a difficult year in 1984 led to him being suddenly sacked by Ferrari one race into the 1985 season. He returned with Ligier, but his – and Ligier’s – best years were behind him, and he managed only a handful of points in the following four seasons. Arnoux retired from Grand Prix racing at the end of 1989, having failed to qualify for seven races that year. His departure from the sport was met with some relief from front-runners, who had frequently accused the Frenchman in his later years of failing to move out of the way quickly enough when being lapped.

After F1 Arnoux moved into business, establishing a karting firm. In 2006 he participated in the largely unsuccessful Grand Prix Masters series, and went on to drive for Renault at demonstration events, lapping circuits in a 1983-spec Renault F1 car. Though the steady, at times undignified, decline of Arnoux’s career is far removed from the abrupt halt we saw with Villeneuve and Peterson, and his more methodical driving style lacked the romantic extravagance of those two, Arnoux was nonetheless a worthy competitor.

Seven victories, 18 poles, 181 points. Rene Arnoux is not a name that springs to mind most quickly when considering the great F1 drivers, but had he had the required breaks, his name could be well up that list. Hence, he is my candidate not only for one of the greatest drivers never to win the world championship, but also for one of the most under-appreciated drivers of all time.