🇺🇸 Pat Flaherty

Pat Flaherty was an elite professional driver whose career centred on Indianapolis 500 competition in the 1950s. His rating of 7,079 places him among the strongest drivers of that era, a level occupied by race winners at the very top of single-seater and sportscar racing. Between 1950 and 1959 he made six Formula 1 starts for the Watson team, finishing ahead of drivers of considerably higher rating on multiple occasions; he beat Duane Carter, rated 7,326, twice, and Jim Rathmann, rated 7,325, also twice. His solitary Formula 1 start result to record was a win, the signature achievement of his career.[1]

Flaherty's racing was concentrated in American open-wheel competition, particularly the Indianapolis 500, which he won in 1956. He drove for Kurtis Kraft in three of his six recorded starts, one of the leading chassis builders of the period; the team's wider record shows it fielded drivers of genuine elite standard. His final Formula 1 appearance came in 1959, when he finished twentieth, and he retired from racing thereafter.[2]