Motorsport Off Topic Thread

Like most, I think his legend has been increased due to his death, but he was undoubtedly special.

Just think of who he competed against: Lauda, Prost, Piquet, Schumacher (all multiple world champions), Jones, Rosberg, Mansell, Hill (all champions), multiple Le Mans 24 Hours winners.

I'm not saying the standard is worse now, but the drivers certainly had more influence over the car back then. What Senna did in that Toleman and those Lotuses for example showed just how talented he was. Unparalleled in qualifying, from his first season to his last in what at the time was a pretty broken Wiliams, but also capable of showing such immense talent in races, such as Monaco 1984, his first win in 1985 when he stuck it on pole (over a second ahead of his highly-rated teammate) then won by over a minute (lapping him) and of course Donington 1993.

They're not one-offs, they're just higher than an already incredible level above most of his peers.

He wasn't perfect obviously but few geniuses are.
 
this_is_gav said:
Like most, I think his legend has been increased due to his death, but he was undoubtedly special.

Just think of who he competed against: Lauda, Prost, Piquet, Schumacher (all multiple world champions), Jones, Rosberg, Mansell, Hill (all champions), multiple Le Mans 24 Hours winners.

I'm not saying the standard is worse now, but the drivers certainly had more influence over the car back then. What Senna did in that Toleman and those Lotuses for example showed just how talented he was. Unparalleled in qualifying, from his first season to his last in what at the time was a pretty broken Wiliams, but also capable of showing such immense talent in races, such as Monaco 1984, his first win in 1985 when he stuck it on pole (over a second ahead of his highly-rated teammate) then won by over a minute (lapping him) and of course Donington 1993.

They're not one-offs, they're just higher than an already incredible level above most of his peers.

He wasn't perfect obviously but few geniuses are.
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Alonso, Vettel, Schumacher (multiples) Rosberg, Button, Raikkonen (Hamilton has competed against some good 'uns too).
 
But that was not special for the Met Gala, Lewis dresses like that all the time

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this_is_gav said:
Like most, I think his legend has been increased due to his death, but he was undoubtedly special.

Just think of who he competed against: Lauda, Prost, Piquet, Schumacher (all multiple world champions), Jones, Rosberg, Mansell, Hill (all champions), multiple Le Mans 24 Hours winners.
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Not really sure its fair to compare Schumacher/ Hill in that list given how early it was in their careers when Senna passed, especially Hill given he was defacto No 2 at that point (for all of.4 ? races).


Schumacher was never as good as Senna imo irresepective of the records he should have been banned for life after 97 given that it was 2nd similar incident
 
jonneymendoza said:
I think once Hamilton finally retires, people will see just how much he has achieved
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I mean, statistically he is the best driver that ever lived. Which really means that any thoughts that differ from that is simply conjecture and opinion. This is why I really want him to win the 8th so that it's abundantly clear to anyone with a mild interest in the sport that he is the best driver there ever was. End of story.
 
Scam said:
I mean, statistically he is the best driver that ever lived.
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Hmm.

By what measure? If we go by ratio of Grand Prix wins to starts, Fangio has everyone beat (24 from 51). If we go by outright fastest - Schumacher has the most fastest laps, and the highest average speed for a win IIRC. Most wins in a season is jointly held by Schumacher and Vettel.

And this is before I even get started with F1 records. Much less look at other series and drivers. But before I go on hammering home my point, let's go back to my first question - please define 'the best driver that ever lived' ;)

***edit***

And don't make me trot out the Ronnie Peterson story again to show how stats really are mostly rubbish :p Or start wanging on about how Fangio, Moss, Clark, G. Hill and so on drove and won in multiple disciplines rather than just F1.
 
Scam said:
I mean, statistically he is the best driver that ever lived. Which really means that any thoughts that differ from that is simply conjecture and opinion. This is why I really want him to win the 8th so that it's abundantly clear to anyone with a mild interest in the sport that he is the best driver there ever was. End of story.
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Statistically yea, but you’re ignoring the fact that his car has been incredibly dominant.

Context is everything with data. That is why the ‘debate’ of who is the greatest driver of all time can never be answered with anything other than an opinion.
 
Scam said:
I mean, statistically he is the best driver that ever lived. Which really means that any thoughts that differ from that is simply conjecture and opinion. This is why I really want him to win the 8th so that it's abundantly clear to anyone with a mild interest in the sport that he is the best driver there ever was. End of story.
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To those with a mild interest in the sport it might be end of the story but in reality it's far from it. Don't get me wrong he's definitely one of the best and most successful in the history but F1 isn't really a sport to make a claim that a driver from a particular era is better than others. Cars and rules are constantly evolving and changing thus making any comparisons to drivers abilities difficult and a bit pointless (imo), especially when based purely on titles won. This is the first season since the 2014 rules changes that Mercedes have to actually compete against another team.
 
JRS said:
By what measure? If we go by ratio of Grand Prix wins to starts, Fangio has everyone beat (24 from 51). If we go by outright fastest - Schumacher has the most fastest laps, and the highest average speed for a win IIRC. Most wins in a season is jointly held by Schumacher and Vettel.
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I don't know why you'd pick those stats over the others. Well actually I do because you're in denial. Most wins to starts? That's a pointless stat. Someone could enter and win one race and come out top there. Fastest lap is not a bad start, but far outshadowed by, you know, championships, rave wins etc. Again, clutching at straws. Most wins in a season? I'm not sure how that's relevant when you want to compare driver's whole careers with each other. You wouldn't say that football team that won a season with the most game wins are the best in the world, would you?

The stats that matter are across the whole career, it's not rocket science;
  • Most championship wins
  • Most race wins
  • Most pole positions
  • Most podiums
PS: When I said "best driver that lived" I mean in F1 obviously.
 
Again though that's irrelevant and shows how little you know of F1's history. Back in the 50s and 60s the races in a season numbered as few as 7 (and one of those was the Indy 500 which usually consisted of no F1 drivers). It wasn't until 1967 that there was any season with more than 10 races, gradually climbing to 16 by 1976 where it stayed within 1 race of that until 2004 when it rose to 18.

Indeed you could fit the first three seasons of F1 into fewer races than we're scheduled to have this season.

Then you consider that in the past drivers were much more likely to suffer career ending injuries or worse, including some which many consider to be the best driver to have lived (Ascari, Clark, Rindt and Senna were all champions still racing in F1 when they were killed).

So skewered are the stats that it's no coincidence that all of the top 10 drivers by race starts have raced Hamilton with the exception of Patrese, despite the fact that it was more common to race well into their 40s before retiring (or dying behind the wheel) in the 50s and 60s.

The car has always been important, but they're so reliable now that retirements are so few. Even back in 1996 we had a race with as few as 3 drivers crossing the line. Single figure number of finishers was common (usually the norm) until the 2000s.
 
Scam said:
The stats that matter are across the whole career, it's not rocket science;
  • Most championship wins
  • Most race wins
  • Most pole positions
  • Most podiums
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The only one that kinda matters is most championship wins but even that ignores just how dominant the Mercedes has been. As for your other examples they are pretty useless, current F1 seasons are almost twice as long as those back in the day.
 
this_is_gav said:
Indeed you could fit the first three seasons of F1 into fewer races than we're scheduled to have this season.
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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? ;)

bayo000 said:
The only one that kinda matters is most championship wins but even that ignores just how dominant the Mercedes has been. As for your other examples they are pretty useless, current F1 seasons are almost twice as long as those back in the day.
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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.

As for career ending crashes/deaths etc.. it's all conjecture. You can't compare "non existent" races against Hamilton's wins.

I'm not talking down older driver's achievements, but there's always a huge amount of rose tinted glasses going on and the stats speak for themselves. Again, this is why I hope Hamilton gets number 8 because it's going to make it extremely difficult to argue against that. If you don't like the fact the car was dominant for some of those years, well you're in the wrong sport, and it's not like other driver's never had superior cars in their time either .
 
Scam said:
I don't know why you'd pick those stats over the others. Well actually I do because you're in denial. Most wins to starts? That's a pointless stat. Someone could enter and win one race and come out top there. Fastest lap is not a bad start, but far outshadowed by, you know, championships, rave wins etc. Again, clutching at straws. Most wins in a season? I'm not sure how that's relevant when you want to compare driver's whole careers with each other. You wouldn't say that football team that won a season with the most game wins are the best in the world, would you?

The stats that matter are across the whole career, it's not rocket science;
  • Most championship wins
  • Most race wins
  • Most pole positions
  • Most podiums
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I love how fragile Hamilton fans are about their boy. I wasn't even criticising Hamilton and yet you leap straight to me being "in denial" about how awesome he is. May God bless y'all...'cause no other bugger would :p

Scam said:
PS: When I said "best driver that lived" I mean in F1 obviously.
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Why is that obvious, in a thread about Schumacher who also raced in the World Sportscar Championship before F1?

Anyway, you say Hamilton is the best of all time and throw stats around. And that's fine. Most wins? Yeah. Most poles? Yep. Most titles? Nearly there, currently sharing.

But raw stats don't tell you the full story. So - and don't say you weren't warned - a tale of a driver who didn't win a title and 'only' half the number of races as, say, Damon Hill:

Pete Lyons in Autoweek said:
It was the last minute of final qualifying. A black-and-gold, wedge-shaped Lotus 72 darted into sight. I picked out the helmet: blue-and-yellow, Ronnie Peterson.

His chassis was brand new, and had been giving him trouble throughout practice. This would be his final chance of a decent starting position. In obvious desperation, he came hurtling into the tight left-hander pressing every pedal at once. With the tail already out, he bounced his inside front wheel off the apex curb; that knocked the back end out even further, and the car wiped sideways across to the outside and slid both back wheels up on the sloping exit curbing - it was at that kind of angle.

But Ronnie's right foot was already pushing a dent in the bulkhead and he never lifted. With the poor Cosworth screaming at redline, both fat rear Goodyears broke loose and plumed off layers of blue smoke three inches deep. Then the long, black dart rebounded crazily headfirst to the middle of the track. It was still canted way sideways, front wheel cocked all the way over, rear wheels painting two jetblack streaks of molten rubber.

Years of railbirding told me that Ronnie Peterson had lost that car. Even if he managed, somehow, to catch the wild slide before it became a hopeless spin, at the very least there would be a series of unruly, time-wasting fishtails.

Nope. Not one. Exactly as the 72 reached the center of the road, it snapped precisely back into alignment with it - and stayed there. There was not so much as a hint of twitch the other way. Running straight and true, leaving nothing behind but noise, SuperSwede cannoned on toward the stopwatches.

For me, that moment before the first Grand Prix of 1973, the Argentine at Buenos Aires, set the tone and tint for the entire year. It was ... my first full Formula One season, the first when I'd been able to attend more than one or two of these events that, to me at that time in my life, crowned the majestic summit of motorsport. And here at the very first one my own wide eyes had witnessed the driver then reckoned to be F1's fastest literally lifting a resistant race car by sheer force of skill from the nowhere half of the pack to fifth on the grid, a scant half-second short of pole.

[In] that magic year ... the formula itself showcased its drivers. Grand Prix cars seemed to have stabilized at a level of unusual quality. In 1973 they were good racing instruments, powerful enough and difficult enough to drive to present a visible challenge, closely matched enough to create frequent close racing, generally reliable enough to allow that close racing to continue for most of a race distance and inexpensive enough to allow a great variety and number of teams to participate
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Hamilton is about the best of his generation. Does that make him a better driver than Fangio? Or Alonso and Vettel in their pomp? Or Schumacher, Senna, Prost, Clark, Graham Hill, Stewart etc? Or the drivers who never won titles, like SuperSwede, Moss, Gilles Villeneuve? Or the drivers who won titles in multiple disciplines, like Mansell or Surtees?

And if your only answer is 'he won more F1 races' then please do me a favour and go take a deeper dive on the history of the sport.

Besides, the greatest driver of all time is clearly Nuvolari ;)
 
Arguing who is the best driver is stupid, who cares, honestly? Are you getting paid to post this drivel?

All the sportsmen/women who put their lives in danger, be that for their own thrills or that of the spectators are great, winning something, coming first, being fastest, scoring the most points, who cares? Besides we all know the best racing is normally in the middle of the pack.
 
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