Jenson v's Lewis

[dannyjo22]

So as not to clog up the race threads with the seasons worth of who is better (even though we know it's Jenson) I thought I would start this off..

IMO Hamilton has more natural ability than Button. .

Surnama gets it. I think Lewis has more skill than Button (for Dannyjo, my definition of skill is putting a guy in a fast car and asking him to drive the balls of it). In GP2 Hamilton has shown that when the playingfield is level and he is on his game he is unstoppable.

Natural ability in any sport, is the ability to do something in that sport, without much training.

For instance, if you see what Paul Gasoigne did in 1996, Euro '96, vs Scotland. He back heeled the ball into the air, over his head to make a shot. This sort of thing can rarely be taught/practiced/trained into a sportsman. At the time, nobody in the England team could do that.

Another example is Usain Bolt. Even without much training this guy would be a fast runner. Conversely, you look at someone like Tyson Gay (who is almost as fast), but needs A LOT of training to achieve similar race times.

Hamilton - this guy can jump into any car and be fast. Very little practice is required. Gilles Villeneuve was similar. This natural ability allowed Hamilton to be fast (compared to Alonso...yes, Alonso), immediately, from Race1 onwards.

When you have huge amounts of natural ability (for that sport), you can take part in the sport and immediately compete at a high level, with very little training.

This natural ability thing interests me because Skeeter called it skill and Sunama calls it ability with little training.

My understanding was it was ability you are born with. I fail to see how you can quantify Lewis has more natural talent than Jenson when both showed extremely good natural ability from the start of their careers.

If anything Lewis was mothered and cared for more than any driver I've ever witnessed. I fail to see how anyone can seperate them on natural ability.

I see what you mean regards Gazza but to be honest we don't know how much he practiced in his youth flicking the ball up etc etc Kids always practiced show boating when I was young, headers and volleys was a daily game

By the same token you have osullivan who is always rated as the best natural talent, yet is crap when he doesn't practice. So clearly it doesn't come that naturally.

You mention Gilles as a natural talent, but this is a man who found the limits by going past them, then stitched them together to make a lap. Doesn't seem that natural to me.

Without witnessing their youth, training, coaching and so on, how can anyone on this forum state Lewis has more natural talent than X.

Sure we can debate whose better, who has had the better career but I don't think natural talent can be debated. Or does kimi have more than Lewis because after all he only did 20 races before F1?

Skill as Skeeter mentioned ok I can see that, but natural talent?

I can't understand the reasoning

I still expect Lewis to come out on top, the pirelli situation and him getting more out of the tyres is worrying me but I still think utimately over a season he should be stronger

 

[dannyjo22]

An example of this was when he topped the dry times on Top Gear, by a considerable margin, in an el cheapo saloon car. Hamilton was also fast in a damp/wet track..

Hamilton and button both set a 1.44.7 in the wet, Vettel a 1.44.0 in the dry. I'd say in the wet over that distance in a car of that power you would expect to lose far more than .7 of a second.

Therefore in this meaningless comparison that's not even timed properly Hamilton and Button win.

For me, Hamilton has the natural ability while Button has the learned ability, which is gained by doing many 1000s of laps of each track. This learned ability, is at present proving more potent when scoring points than Hamilton's gung ho racing style..

Again prove this NATURAL ability. Hamilton had far far better prep for F1 than Hamilton. He had far more learning and grooming. So you prove to me at birth Hamilton had more natural ability.

Again, so you think Kimi has more than any of them as a single world champion with 20 races to his name before F1. He had less (1000's of miles of learning) mileage than any of them. Therefore using your natural ability theory he has more than the lot of them by such a margin.

 

[dannyjo22]

The JB-LH McLaren partnership so far (i.e. including last time out in Australia)

JB - 6 wins, 509 points
LH - 6 wins, 482 points

Much closer than I thought on points.

You cannot compare wet times with dry times.
You can compare dry times with other dry times and wet times with other wet times.

..

Yet you are more than happy to compare lap times on different days, different track temps, with different amounts of rubber on the track.

Surely you can see the double standards in your statement. You are happy to cherry pick the bits that suit you.

Surely you know enough about racing to know that of a lap that takes 1.40m if the track is even mildly wet you would expect to lose more than 0.7s.

And for all the bit about Vettel spanking webber, YOU are the one on this forum that shouted the loudest about webber being less than average. Now though it suits your cause you conveniently forget that he has spanked a driver you used to slate on a daily basis.

Pretty much like Button and now look at you.

 

[dannyjo22]

When studying a driver you have to look at everything he is doing. F1 (qualifying, race wins, WDC wins, points total), Race of Champions positions and yes, even Top Gear (this is a unique thing because they drive a normal saloon car, with no tweaks or obvious advantage, aside from weather). I only wish that S.Loeb could be allowed to compete in F1 [S.Loeb: what is it now, 8 titles in a row? Imagine if Alonso, for instance, had won 8 titles in a row and was still at the peak of his powers....thats what Loeb is doing in Rallying].

Now I'm sure there are people here that know, but my understanding of top gear timed laps is it's a man with a stop watch. I'm sure I've read that on multiple forums. With that in mind, take off your watch Sunama and time the same lap from footage over 1m 40 seconds long. Say a lap of suzuka and see how much your accuracy varies.

It's a joke of a comparison for so many reasons. Yet you only want to pick the reasons again which suit you. Different day, track temps, hell we don't even know how old the tyres each car runs with are. That's fine with you for comparison.

Natural ability, you more than twice have ignored my comment on kimi who must have the most natural ability. Well what about Jarno Trulli who is has always been widely reported as being the best kart driver of the lot of them from a young age. Surely that's more of this natural talent.

Anyway back to Lewis v Jenson. Like Flibster if I had to choose between the two right now I'd also go Lewis. Mainly because he's close enough to Jenson who is in the form of his life while being a fair bit younger.

There have also been so many seasons where when it's tight grid position is every thing and Jenson fails to deliver on a saturday far too often.

 

[dannyjo22]

The JB-LH McLaren partnership so far (i.e. including last time out in Australia)

JB - 6 wins, 509 points
LH - 6 wins, 482 points

To steal JRS points total and update it

JB 6 wins, 509 points 0 Poles 5 fastest laps, 20 podiums.
LH 6 wins, 497 points 4 Poles 8 fastest laps, 17 podiums.

Anyway you look at that it's a lot lot closer than even the biggest JB fans would have dreamed when he quit Brawn at the end of 2009.

The only other stat I'd be interested in comparison is how many times over the 2 and a bit years Lewis has outqualified JB. Anyone have it?

 

[dannyjo22]

how about a stat which details , self imposed non-scoring races / vs team or technical withdrawls?

JB has lost many more points than LH through team tecnichal retirements and yesterday was the first time he caused a retirement (from my memory , which I admit is falible) so this adds a lot of points to LH's tally ....

As skeeter said that would be argued forever. JB may not have caused a retirement but for instance he stopped Lewis scoring a hat full of points in Canada by not seeing him.

Those sort of stats can be argued all day long

 

[dannyjo22]

I still think had Lewis been racing with the style of racing MS did, harder tyres sprint races split into 3 or 4 he would have been just about unbeatable.