mcipseric

As long as money is more important than values, we will have the disappointing and ugly win at any cost mentality. aka Vettel disregarding team orders and facing no consequences. I lost all respect for Vettel.

multi21

Now that I think about it, I was only considering F1 as the OP mentioned Senna, but there are a lot of examples of good guys winning pro championships that are not "jerks" per se. The one that jumps right out is Jimmy Johnson, a 5 time champ. Several examples in the IRL and Cart too.

My993C2

If Vettel goes on to win the 2013 WDC by less than 7 points, maybe you will understand why he did what he did.

BrandonH

After my five years as a karting dad, then three in open wheel cars, I felt like I had a ring-side seat on the incubation of tomorrow's racers. I was reminded of this when I saw Conor Daly on the grid at Indy this weekend (Hey! we used to race him!)
We tend to think of pro-level drivers as somehow magically appearing fully formed in the Mazda pro series or Indy lites or whatever ladder is current. But these guys you see on the track have been racing most weeks since they were 6-7 years old. They have literally thousands of races under their belts before they have a drivers' license. Their attitudes and character as competitors are off to a pretty good start by that time.

My conclusion? You do have to be at least willing to be a jerk to be a champion. The main reason we got out. Everyone needs a little larceny in their blood and some red mist from time to time to survive in business or any other environment (nothing is more vicious than academics!) But at least in those worlds some else's aggression won't get you instantly killed or paralyzed, all in pursuit of a career that makes stage acting looking like iron-clad sinecure.

John's 991

I think that the answer is yes. You have to be so confident, bordering on arrogant, and just cannot face the possibility of losing to be at that level. Armstrong in cycling is another example. I think Vettel is the most current example in car racing. I did not like him before, and I dislike him now. And if he does win the Championship by less than 7 points, I still think he is an a$$.

But then you get guys like Pruitt who seems like one of the nicest guys around, although I don't know him at all.

hacker-pschorr

First driver I thought of when reading the OP:

Flying Finn

I think it should be only about track behavior, Senna was ruthless but very nice person outside off track.

In any case, in F1, first true non jerk Champion that came to my mind: Mika Hakkinen.

In rally, they're practically all non jerks but I think the fact that they don't do wheel to wheel, helps a lot with that.
That said, there are cool stories some true great guys, for example, when Juha Kankkunen was leading the rally World championship and his team mate was leading him in a rally a little, team boss (at Toyota) ordered Juha's team mate to slow down so that Juha would finish ahead (very normal practice), Kankkunen said if that happens, he will slow down also! (they were behind so could check the stage times)