So in other words, Hamilton has to win 2-3 times more races per year and perform successfully over a longer period of time compared to drivers of old?
No, it just shows how worthless it is trying to compare drivers of different eras on any level. It's a completely different sport now in nearly every way. The only real similarities to the dawn of F1 is that they (usually) had 4 wheels, a steering wheel and are (primarily) petrol powered. Literally every other aspect of the cars is different now.
The tyres are completely different now (bias-ply vs radial), the gearboxes (fully manual vs automatic vs semi-automatic), the engines (normally aspirated, supercharged, turbocharged, hybrid, vastly different displacement), the steering (hydraulic now), the safety factor (F1 drivers used to be surrounded by fuel tanks either side of them in flimsy light metal and the fact most didn't even wear seatbelts until the 70s as it was deemed safer to be thrown clear than strapped in the car), the throttle and brakes (fly-by-wire and hydraulic), the sheer number of electronic engine map settings and so on. Don't even get me started on the tracks.
But that's not Hamilton's fault, like I said above it just shows he performs week in week out, at a level above everyone else in his era. Maybe drivers of old did that on race day - but you're just showing me new reasons why Hamilton has excelled them.
Statistically the best in some regards, but that's all. You just can't compare objectively. Hamilton might be the best driver in your opinion, and that's fine, but there is no way to conclusively compare.
For me Clark is the best of all time. Even ignoring some extraordinary performances (like leading from a lap down at Monza of all places), he won in every discipline he entered (while competing in F1) and only finished second once (when he had an engine issue). I can't say he was definitively better than the likes of Fangio, Senna, Schumacher or Hamilton though - it's just an opinion.
Some of those years? Pretty much all his titles and vast majority of his wins were won during the time when Mercedes dominated the field and he only had his teammate(s) to worry about, which makes your stats about poles, wins and podiums even less relevant. No one is denying that he's a great driver and will likely become the most successful driver to date however F1 is a team sport so any claims that one driver is the greatest of them all are very much subjective. I started watching F1 in late 80s and I don't remember any other time when a single team had such a dominant car for this long. Maybe Ferrari in early 2000s but due to work/ life and the fact I dislike Schumacher (for what he did to Hill and Villeneuve) I didn't really follow F1 during that time.
Schumacher had the best car in 4 of those 5 years from 2000 to 2004 (not 2003). Maybe 2006 depending on how highly you rank Alonso's performance.
Mercedes have clearly had the best car from 2014 to 2020 (7 seasons) and the only car/driver combination which got close to toppling them was Vettel and Ferrari in 2017, but across the whole season Mercedes were still better (even at Ferrari's peak in the first half of that season Mercedes had 6 wins to Ferrari's 3).
I'm not offended by anyone... It's people like you, JRS and gav that puts everyone off the sport. Trying to give lectures about learning the intricate history of the sport before you're allowed an opinion, honestly get over yourselves...
