If Ayrton Senna was a young driver today..

timbob said:
Any bookie would have had very short odds on Senna finishing ahead of Hill in the standings that year - so perhaps he would have won the 1994 WDC.
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you do realise schumacher won the first 3 races
ayrton retired from the first 3 races

the only reason hill was anywhere near close was because msc got disqualified from 2 races and excluded from another 2.

odds are msc would have won 94 even if ayrton was in every race
 
Unless you followed Senna at the time, were around when he came onto the scene, saw him in FF2000 and F3 you have no idea why he was held in such high regard and can only view it from a perspective of books and videos, which is never a good way to form a true opinion of someones impact during an era. I have been watching motorsport since the mid 70's and in that time forward no driver has come close the making the impression Senna made or come close to having the aura you associated with him. To base your view of him based on his F1 career and some stats is to miss the point by a distance difficult to measure with a sea.

You simply can't in any resonably manner determine who was the best, pointless, but would he have been great today, without hesitation I would say yes. Greatness, true greatness is a rare thing, I've never met or watched a racer who had what he had, not in my lifetime.
 
arknor said:
you do realise schumacher won the first 3 races
ayrton retired from the first 3 races

the only reason hill was anywhere near close was because msc got disqualified from 2 races and excluded from another 2.

odds are msc would have won 94 even if ayrton was in every race
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He also had a car that was an utter dog and was competing with a car that still had traction control yet still he stuck it on pole 3 times...
 
timbob said:
Who knows. Hill nearly (and in my eyes, actually still did) beat Schumacher in 1994, in the midst of the team still recovering from Senna's death. Any bookie would have had very short odds on Senna finishing ahead of Hill in the standings that year - so perhaps he would have won the 1994 WDC.
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Pre-season, Senna was nailed on to win the championship in 94. He'd just moved to the dominant team and all of his rivals had left the sport. Once the season started though he struggled to get to grips with the amount of technology in the cars (particularly active ride) which allowed Schumacher to take a healthy lead before Imola.

Whether he'd ever have adjusted to the cars of that time is something we'll never know.
 
kaiowas said:
Pre-season, Senna was nailed on to win the championship in 94. He'd just moved to the dominant team and all of his rivals had left the sport. Once the season started though he struggled to get to grips with the amount of technology in the cars (particularly active ride) which allowed Schumacher to take a healthy lead before Imola.

Whether he'd ever have adjusted to the cars of that time is something we'll never know.
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It didn't have active ride and the removal of this from a car designed for it was where the problems stemmed from. It had understeer and snap oversteer, a terrible combination and was very front biased and really difficult to get balance into it. It also had no traction control as the rules for 94 stated, but it is now well known that Bennetton forgot that rule...
 
Senna was at the peak of his powers in 1994. The fact that he took 3 poles (miles ahead of Hill) in a car that had fundamental design flaws demonstrated that.

Looking back at the season highlights its facinating just how weak the drivers field was in 1994, Senna, Schui, Hakkinen, Hill and thats about it.

What would have happened if Imola had gone differently would probably have been an almighty Senna - Schui battle. For the first half of the season the illegal B194 would have enabled MS to build up a points lead only for Senna to dominate the 2nd half in the heavily revised FW16b (basically an entirely new car). MS wouldn't have been black flagged at Silverstone nor disqualified from Spa (there would have been no plank to wear away).

Going forward the Newey/Senna partnership would have enabled Senna to win at least 3 more titles.
 
Housey said:
It didn't have active ride and the removal of this from a car designed for it was where the problems stemmed from. It had understeer and snap oversteer, a terrible combination and was very front biased and really difficult to get balance into it. It also had no traction control as the rules for 94 stated, but it is now well known that Bennetton forgot that rule...
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It's not as if the FW15C was all that easy to tame - for example, Prost spun it in the wet at Interlagos after the rear wheels locked up as he shifted down. Hell, Senna was leading that '93 championship for a few rounds with an underpowered and (electronically) lashed-up McLaren.

I agree though that the removal of active ride and TC hurt Williams badly. Active ride especially so. And in one of those sad little ironies that occur every so often, active ride would probably have saved Ayrton - the car would have kept off the ground under the aerodynamic loads of Tamburello, not grounded out, and consequently not speared off into the wall.

But meh, it's all good! Now we have a series where you can't change the engine at all for years! And you have to spend eleventy squillion pounds on your diffuser! And you can have KERS for only a certain portion of the lap even if you can generate more energy! And you get penalised heavily if you make a single mistake....unless your Daddy is a Venezuelan oil magnate, then you can get away with whatever the **** you want!

Remind me again why I still watch this ****? 'cause honestly guys - I'm not sure any more. It was starting to get better.

And it stopped.
 
The irony that the quality's of what made Ayrton loved makes some of the current drivers loathed.

Its all horses for courses at the end of the day :)
 
LizardKing said:
The irony that the quality's of what made Ayrton loved makes some of the current drivers loathed.

Its all horses for courses at the end of the day :)
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I'm fairly certain Senna would have had his haters too.

JRS said:
Check threads started by me. But you're right - any further comment related to "the good ol' days" I'll be sure to keep there! :)
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Yeah it wasn't a dig, just a heads up to try and avoid this thread heading off down that road.
 
also had no traction control as the rules for 94 stated, but it is now well known that Bennetton forgot that rule...
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no its not..

only people who get there knowledge from wiki think that :rolleyes:

go watch some videos from that season and you will notice schumacher got a few poor starts that season and a few of his starts he leaves black lines on the grid where his wheels spun......

its utter rubbish and all investigations revealed it was never used on the car during a race....

even though the coding was in the ecu the sensors needed to run it werent found to be on the car :rolleyes:

one fact a lot of people like to ignore
 
arknor said:
no its not..

only people who get there knowledge from wiki think that :rolleyes:

go watch some videos from that season and you will notice schumacher got a few poor starts that season and a few of his starts he leaves black lines on the grid where his wheels spun......

its utter rubbish and all investigations revealed it was never used on the car during a race....

even though the coding was in the ecu the sensors needed to run it werent found to be on the car :rolleyes:

one fact a lot of people like to ignore
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I didn't get my knowledge from Wiki.
 
arknor said:
then you should no better....
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I do, which is why I don't base my comments on a single source and certainly not from snippets that you seem to be basing it on. To simply state the FIA found nothing in itself is wrong as it is to state it's utter rubbish, as that simply shows you have limited knowledge yourself.
 
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