Is Lewis Hamilton the GOAT (this thread is about Lewis as an F1 driver, not anything else)?

this_is_gav said:
I'm going to completely pull apart most stats with the exception of championships. Race wins and poles are completely incomparable. In the first two decades of racing there were an average of just 8.6 races per season - far below the 23 race calendar we're scheduled to have this season or the average of 19.3 races per season across Hamilton's F1 career.
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I don't understand this argument at all. What you're essentially saying is that Hamilton had to win more poles, more races and be more consistent for a longer period of time to win the accolades he has. If anything it proves he is a better and more consistent driver than those of earlier years :confused:

this_is_gav said:
While he's definitely one of the greats of all time, the only thing that niggles me with Hamilton is his lack of diversity (ironically) in that most other drivers (including recent or current drivers like Schumacher, Vettel and Alonso), have all tried and succeeded in some form or other at other motorsport disciplines (Indycar, Le Mans/GTP, touring cars, Race of Champions and so on). Hamilton hasn't shown any interest in any of them, and while I think he'd be good at least one of them, it's the main thing that would stop me considering him as THE greatest of all time in my own hypothetical ranking.
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Again, what's the point of this argument? I'm sure most people here are simply comparing F1 drivers to F1 drivers. I've never watched Indycar or Le Mans once in my life, no interest. It's like saying Michael Jordan* wasn't the greatest "ball game" player ever because he never tried cricket. Sounds like you're clutching at straws.

*insert whatever name you want here, obviously..
 
Scam said:
I don't understand this argument at all. What you're essentially saying is that Hamilton had to win more poles, more races and be more consistent for a longer period of time to win the accolades he has. If anything it proves he is a better and more consistent driver than those of earlier years :confused:
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No, I'm just saying take most stats with a pinch of salt, as it's impossible to compare drivers of different eras when the only comparable things are that the all cars have four wheels (even that's not wholly accurate) and a method of propulsion. Nearly every other metric has changed.



Scam said:
Again, what's the point of this argument? I'm sure most people here are simply comparing F1 drivers to F1 drivers. I've never watched Indycar or Le Mans once in my life, no interest. It's like saying Michael Jordan* wasn't the greatest "ball game" player ever because he never tried cricket. Sounds like you're clutching at straws.
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Clutching at what straws? It's just a means of showing (or suggesting anyway) how good a driver is when faced with a challenge unfamiliar to them. There are loads of other motorsports and all F1 drivers have competed in other forms of motorsport on their way to F1, often after F1 and sometimes during their F1 career.

It's not like I was suggesting Hamilton should try MotoGP because John Surtees was successful on two and four wheels.

It's just an opinion, the same as yours. I don't need to justify it.
 
this_is_gav said:
No, I'm just saying take most stats with a pinch of salt, as it's impossible to compare drivers of different eras when the only comparable things are that the all cars have four wheels (even that's not wholly accurate) and a method of propulsion. Nearly every other metric has changed.
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I'll happily admit it's difficult to compare drivers from different eras but suggesting Lewis isn't the GOAt because he had to win more races per championship seems a little... bizarre.

this_is_gav said:
Clutching at what straws? It's just a means of showing (or suggesting anyway) how good a driver is when faced with a challenge unfamiliar to them. There are loads of other motorsports and all F1 drivers have competed in other forms of motorsport on their way to F1, often after F1 and sometimes during their F1 career.

It's just an opinion, the same as yours. I don't need to justify it.
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Well it's a discussion, so if you have an opinion to post then be prepared to justify it :confused:

Again, trying to knock Lewis because he hasn't partaken in other disciplines just doesn't wash.
 
Lewis has tried motogp...kind of. :) He and Rossi did a thing where they swapped machinery for a few test laps and spent the day together. It was a nice piece a couple of seasons ago I recall on Sky F1. Of course, neither were particularly quick in the other's machine as you would expect.
 
Malt_Vinegar said:
Its a tough one, as as said above, everything is so different across the ages. With the speed/fitness/technical/development skills, and the general complexity of driving an F1 car today being completely different to hustling a 70s beast with tea tray wings, and everything before and after that. Also, what do we mean by GOAT? Greatest F1 driver, Greatest driver in general, Greatest records holder?

For example, some people can just get an in a car and drive it, others need to hone and find the setup/balance carefully over a weekend to pull the very best out of a car. These skills and their relevance to brilliance vary from season to season, never mind from Era to Era, and across the history of the sport.

However, if pushed - I would say, going by the opinions of other F1 drivers, the variety of the machinery he drove to success, and total dominance he showed in so many of these disciplines so easily, Jim Clark has to be up there. I would be confident that if you put him in a modern F1 car, he would have the skill, spare capacity, "butt feel", technical know-how and work ethic to dominate today.
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Couldn't have put that any better, Jim Clark has to be right up there.

GOAT for Hamilton, as has been said you cant deny the skills he has, he has pretty much always beaten his teammates which is the benchmark for "equal" machinery (not always equal tactics) but the machinery is always the key for me. IF Hamilton had stayed at McLaren rather than head off to the Merc team then would we now be saying "Is Rosberg/Bottas/ "insert name here" the GOAT" because they capitalised on having the best car?

Loads touted Seb as the GOAT when he was winning....is he suddenly a poor driver now he isn't? Alonso was seen as one of the best in the modern era, he couldn't get a drive a few years ago so retired....kind of. Schumacher in a poor Ferrari = a poor Schumacher. Hill in a Jordan, Rosberg in an early Merc, Senna in a fading McLaren...

Join the best team and you will be up there for GOAT, Hamilton didn't join the best team but did have the foresight to sign for what he thought would be one day.

Oh just for his dress sense, no, just no.
 
Scam said:
I'll happily admit it's difficult to compare drivers from different eras but suggesting Lewis isn't the GOAt because he had to win more races per championship seems a little... bizarre.
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I certainly didn't say he wasn't "the GOAT", I gave some reasoning as to why it's impossible to compare eras, or performances across eras. How stats can usually be manipulated or be an unreliable means of comparing ability or success.


Scam said:
Well it's a discussion, so if you have an opinion to post then be prepared to justify it :confused:

Again, trying to knock Lewis because he hasn't partaken in other disciplines just doesn't wash.
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I wasn't knocking him, I just think personally someone else is ranks above him, and that opinion is heightened not just by their F1 success (which stand alone in merit more than enough) as well as their proven success in other forms of motorsport.

When it comes down to it, it's impossible to compare style, race craft, technical ability or speed across drivers who never competed together, so you've got to go with what you can. It was common back then to race in many different forms of motorsport (Clark was killed in a F2 race for example), and one of the metrics we have for Clark's ability was as well as his amazing F1 stories and facts is that he could turn his hand to any form of racing that he partook in and was able to succeed at all of them. It's not to detract from Hamilton that he hasn't done that, more that it's something that Clark should be lauded for, and that elevates his success higher, in my opinion.
 
jaybee said:
Yeah you wouldn't knock Sir Bradley Wiggins for being no good at BMX would you. ;)
Completely different discipline.
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Not a great example. Bradley Wiggins won individual and team pursuit titles in a velodrome, won the world\olympic time trial titles on the road, and won 7 day stage races as well as his Tour de France, win. He won a madison somewhere as well I think. So he did compete in different disciplines.

For me, Hamilton is the GOAT. How he matched Alonso in his first season and should have won it, to how he competed in the McLaren in 2012, to all of his insane individual drives (dry - Brazil last year and wet - Silverstone 2008) and qualifying performances (Singapore etc.). He's just been consistently ahead of the field his entire career, and he's drove clean.
 
Stats wise there is no denying GOAT.

He has moments of awesomeness and brilliance, but he's been beaten by Nico (arguably trying to hard) and often got beaten by Bottas in the same car, so I think that slightly takes away from complete 'legend' status IMO.
 
Murf said:
He's just been consistently ahead of the field his entire career, and he's drove clean.
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For the most part. We don’t talk about 2011. :p

He’s definitely not a dirty driver like some, mind.

Demon said:
Stats wise there is no denying GOAT.

He has moments of awesomeness and brilliance, but he's been beaten by Nico (arguably trying to hard) and often got beaten by Bottas in the same car, so I think that slightly takes away from complete 'legend' status IMO.
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I think expecting him to never lose to a team mate is setting an unrealistically-high bar.

He’s only been out-scored by a team mate over the course of a season twice — 2011 (Button) and 2016 (Rosberg).

2011 was a crazy year for Hamilton. His head clearly wasn’t in the right place, both on and off the track and those incidents with Massa cost him quite a few points. The less said about Canada the better. ;)

2016 Hamilton had more reliability issues than Rosberg and ultimately that cost him the title. Considering how much effort and sacrifice Rosberg had to put into winning that year, he still needed Hamilton to have some pretty bad luck for him to win.

So no, I don’t think that takes away from ‘legend’ status in the slightest.

You only have to look at last year, when Verstappen finished in the top two in every race he finished; and Hamilton still pushed him all the way to the final race and should have won it. The guy is incredible.
 
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Irish_Tom said:
2016 Hamilton had more reliability issues than Rosberg and ultimately that cost him the title. Considering how much effort and sacrifice Rosberg had to put into winning that year, he still needed Hamilton to have some pretty bad luck for him to win.
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I think Rosberg gets a bit of a raw deal when people look back at 2016, mainly because once he could guarantee the title by finishing second in the final races that was his only goal. He didn't care about beating Hamilton in the final races, so long as he beat everyone else.

People tend to forget that Rosberg was on a run of three wins in a row already going into Malaysia (just 2 points behind Hamilton), was himself last in Malaysia after being spun by Vettel in turn 1, and won the race after that too to put himself into that situation of being able to win the title.

I'm not saying it's admirable that he won the title by sitting back, but others would have done the same in his situation (Fangio and Prost among them) and frankly his level that year was on a par with the sort of effort Hamilton and Verstappen put in last year, rising above what would normally be expected from them.

Was Hamilton unlucky with his PU failure at a key race? Of course he was. Would have won the title had he won in Malaysia? We'll never know.
 
Taking aside, for a moment, the huge differences in F1 over even the last 20 years, let alone 70 years, there are no comparable ways to judge if Hamilton is the GOAT, even looking at stats alone is moot because we now have seasons with the most number of races, so it's relatively easy, comparatively, to win more races in your career than say in the 60s, 70s, 80s.

Cars are hugely different and, with the greatest respect, drive themselves, comparatively to those from bygone eras. Drivers used to run to their cars in the pitlane for goodness sake.

So no, same era, same cars, same race calendars, same points system, you'd be thinking Lauda, Schumacher, Hunt, even Senna, could give Hamilton a run for his money.
 
Django x2 said:
Cars are hugely different and, with the greatest respect, drive themselves, comparatively to those from bygone eras. Drivers used to run to their cars in the pitlane for goodness sake.
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I don't disagree with much of what you say, but that quoted statement is just plain wrong. I think you're getting confused with the Le Mans starts from years gone by, where the drivers used to run to the cars for the start. Grand Prix have always been started with the cars on the grid and the drivers in the car.

[edit: removed waffle]
 
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