You new to the interweb or something? Every thread has an intellectual half life. Eventually they all devolve into drivel.
Unfortunately for you, you're chucked in with toil. Whatever he says is a reflection on you (and lewis) and not in a good way.
Reductio Ad Absurdum reasoning: reduce an argument to its most absurd consequences in order to demonstrate that it is fundamentally flawed. This is essentially what you are doing here. Whilst I commend you for constructing a credible argument unlike most of the Buffoons on here in actuality driver comparisons can be very useful. Reductio Ad Absurdum doesn't work all that well when the fundamental premise of the argument is grounded in analysis rather than logic and therefore requires a level of reasonableness. How do we know alonso is so good? His 4-5th place showings are hardly amazing but we know his car is terrible because we can compare how he does against his team mates and we know their reputation based on how they have raced against other drivers. As long as driver comparisons are tethered to grounds of reasonableness (subjective initself) they are great ways to make comparisons. Your comparison relies on over 20 years of data; it compares MS, who started establishing his reputation in the early 90s to data as late as say 2012. This makes it far less tenable not to mention "x did slightly better than y" who did FAR better than z" type arguments are very hard to quantify and aren't as straightforward as x beat y. My example is much more persuasive because it relies on data over a mere 4 years. Hamilton edged out Alonso in 2007. In 2008 Massa beat kimi and was again doing so in 09 before his accident. Come 2010 Alonso destroys Massa. This relies on data of just 4 years. I am sure you will be the first to admit that driver comparisons are useful...one just has to be reasonable about it which I believe I am doing. Everybody makes these sort of comparisons. Just need to be mature about it. In any event we don't even need to be discussing this. The reason I brought up the comparison was to support my opinion that the 08 ferrari was better than the 08 Mac. None of this really needs to be discussed given that I have answered your question about the DNFS of Massa. I am sure you agree that Ham deserved that championship and not Massa (do you?). As noted, Ham had a victory taken away from him and had numerous BS grid penalties. His team also cocked up his race in Germany. He also had stunning drives in Monaco and Silverstone. Massa caused his own DNFS through crashing and although crashgrate lost him some positions, when viewed holistically, in light of the previous findings (i.e ham getting his win taken away from him) it is clear that Massa would not have won the championship anyway. With regard to the system of counting the best 11 finishes; I mentioned in my next sentence that the system hampers the consistent driver. I agree with you that it was not ideal. Was merely trying to canvass the often overlooked positives. I think a system that discounts DNFS that arent the fault of the driver (as explained above) would work well if properly regulated. Never gonna happen though. My opinion is quite tenable and is based on the race itself. Rosberg did not change his settings until after Hamiltons car had failed. This is made quite clear from the discussions over team radio. BUT FOR Hamiltons car failure, Rosberg would not have changed his own car. Causative link between the two. Both drivers were suffering the same problem and when Hams car failed Rosberg changed his settings to mitigate potential failure. Hams car failed first perhaps because he spent a lot of time in dirty air and his temps were much higher. To state that Rosberg was more deserving of the result and Hamilton caused his own car failures is baseless. And you have provided no reason for such an opinion. Funny that you mention this. In fact just last week I was talking about Hungary and the role the SC played in the result. The SC afforded Hamilton (and the rest of the field aside from Rosberg and Alonso) an +8 sec advantage for pitting under the SC. The reason the SC was so bad for Rosberg was because it wiped out the lead he had built up over the field (around 10 sec or so). I will be the first to admit that without the SC Hamilton wouldve finished 4th and Rosberg wouldve won. Where it gets interesting is that had the roles been reversed (i.e ham started on pole and rosberg from the pit lane) a very strong argument can be mounted that Hamilton would have won the race. Hamiltons utter dominance in wet weather driving this year is clear (+17, 18 and 15 secs in Malaysia, China and Suzuka). Suzuka was 13 s after countback due to SC but was at +15 and growing. Hamilton is blistering in the wet whereas Rosberg has a much slower wet weather pace. Moreover, Hamilton has much better racecraft especially in the wet. We can see from the hungary race itself how rosberg could not get past JEV for +10 laps despite having fresher tires and having DRS (JEV had no DRS to defend). Hamilton got past JEV in about a lap in the same race with the same car and in the same conditions. Therefore given his pace advantage it is highly unlikely Hamilton, if he had started where rosberg did, would have came out behind Rosberg after pitting (as Rosberg came out behind Hamilton). Also, even if he did come out behind him he wouldve easily passed him. Rosberg failed to get past Hamilton despite having fresher tires and relied on team orders which the team cocked up by miscommunicating it to both drivers). Hamilton, it can be argued, would have got past Rosberg in the same situation easily (he got past Rosberg in Suzuka in the wet and in Hungary he wouldve been on the fresher tire and the faster compound (as rosberg was when he found himself behind Hamilton). You may say that I discount the effect of the SC (which I dont) but the converse is also true; you excuse rosbergs poor placing due to the SC and credit Hams good result with the SC. The SC was merely a factor of many. It is interesting to note that Alonso, in far inferior machinery to Rosberg, did not pit under the SC but still beat Rosberg. As far as my 5-2 goes I am very reasonable in what I count. I count all of Hams DNFS (3) and his brake failure and fire in qualy. For Rosberg I count his 2 DNFS. I could easily count hamiltons momentary car failure in Monza that gifted Rosberg the lead which he then blew and gave back to Hamilton due to being unable to cope with the pressure. With regard to counting SC, the SC in Bahrain cut out hams +13 sec lead and resulted in Rosberg being right on his ass with the faster tire compound. Many seasoned f1 drivers expressed surprise after the race that Ham was able to keep rosberg behind him given the circumstances. If Rosberg possessed Hamiltons skill in the wet the SC wouldnt have affected him in Hungary. For that reason, SCs are far too subjective to count in reliability stakes. But if you want to count the above factors that makes it 7-3.
But Schumachers entire career (at ferrari at least) was orchestrated around having a designated number 2. I'm sorry but Irvine was rubbish and probably everybody here agrees. I really like Schumacher so not trying to hate but Hamilton has never really had a bad team mate (aside from kovalienen). Kovalienen was around what a year? And Hamilton dominated him. Other than that he's had very good team mates; likes of alonso and button who are wdcs and rosberg is also very good. Why are you including Vettel in your example? The true greats don't get handled by a rookie in his first season in a good car. Senna actually got beaten by Prost more times than senna beat Prost (clumsy sentence I jnow). I know you guys love to look at stats; Hamilton is the most successful British driver in history. His results are way up there with the "gods" of the sport and he isn't half done yet. I thought you said that results speak for themselves? Apparently not eh?
Just like Vettel was number 1, until he wasn't. I have no doubt whatsoever that if someone had been faster than MS, he'd have been number 2. There's no loyalty in this game. Because he dominated his team mate for years...until now...which was the point of my post. He's winning a championship in the best car on the grid by a mile. He's never dominated a team mate....even Button beat him, and so many people don't even rate him!! (but I do) Results DO speak for themselves. When he dominates his team mate like the greats have, then he'll have proven he's the elite of the elite. At the moment, he's just the elite, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I mean, I know he's a WDC, but gee it's taken a long time to get another one. Brawn has done what he did with Ferrari. Last couple of years they hired the best F1 gurus they could get their hands on and now it's paying dividends. Like I've said, though, if Lewis doesn't win, Nico will. That's hardly legendary. Legends don't have team mates nipping at their heels.
Senna must not be a legend then...because he was beaten by his team mate multiple times. Or maybe you just shouldn't make blanket retarded statements. and you say "even Button" like hes a bad driver? Hes probably better than vettel LOL And you said Ham never dominated his team mate? see 08/09. Not everyone gets a sht team mate all the time you know...
Now that you heard another definition of 'legendary' you fear competition in your premium discipline?
I think it works very well as it is not intended to make a comparasion like you do but just to show that such a comparation over several years and different cars does not work at all. Every car has its own characteristic that might suit one better than the other, every driver has a better or a worse year. The first could be seen in the comparasion of Vettel/Ricciardo and Alonso/Raikkonen this year as I doubt that the result really reflects the abilities of the two inferior. The second could be easily seen in comparasion of Raikkonen/Massa between 2007 and 2008. Within just one year you could easily come to the conclusion that either of them is the better one depending what suits your line of reasoning. Why do you think Massa would have not deserved it? He was number two driver all the years before and he stepped out of the shadow and had its best season. Certainly he might not be the best driver in the grid but that does not mean that he does not deserve it...This is the problem: you see all in black and white. I do not think that Hamilton is an undeserved WDC but that does not prevent thinking that Massa would have deserved it as well... I think you should watch this again at youtube before you quote that...You both would be the first to slaughter Rosberg live here on FChat doing the same with Hamilton as he did with Raikkonen ("Rosberg is cheating", "Cheatberg"....). To shortcut the chicane instead of breaking, going directly into slipstream to overtake at the next corner, do you really think that was OK??? Why? The maths are easy, if Massa would have achieved one point more in Singapore he would have won the WDC as I still not see why you think Hamilton was taken away his victory unjustified. Again you only read what you want to read. I have never said that Hamilton caused the car failures but he and the team could have avoided the DNF after it occured just as one could see at the car of Rosberg. But in the line of reasoning you count this race double: first you count it in negative for Hamilton in your 5-2 DNF/Bad Luck Statistic, then you mention that Hamilton won 9 compared to Rosberg 4 races where you completely ignore the fact that Rosberg had problems in that race as well preventing a victory. So based on your own logic this must count 5-3 in bad luck... Here ago you have a wild mix of facts and guesses...It is not true that is was bad for Rosberg loosing 10 second but loosing 3 positions. Even with loosing 10 seconds he could have pulled away from Ricciardo and Alonso after the SC. But he lost 3 positions and this was the only reason he dropped behind Hamilton. So again based on your "Bad Luck Scala" this would be about 5-4 now. What is following is nothing but a guess and not "a strong argument" that Hamilton would have won the race if it would have been the other way round. His race would have been ruined by the safety car just as it was with Rosberg... This is a very clear example why we are discussing here: you mentioned three races Hamilton has won and no one doubts that he was faster, but you use "utter dominance" and "blistering". If you want to see "utter dominance" you should look for some videos of Senna and Schumacher in the rain to see what that actually is. I would say even with a far superior car that the Mercedes is also in the wet Hamilton is far away from that. Look at Suzuka: at the Beginning both Rosberg and Hamilton had the same pace on heavy wets and it is not that Rosberg was slowing down Hamilton as at least two small off-road excursions showed that Hamilton was not cruising at this part of the race. After they changed tyres Rosbergs speed dropped back as he did not get the Intermediates working and Hamilton could easily pass. Whereas everyone in the grid became faster Rosbergs fastest lap was in lap 15 and did not improve after that although the track was getting better showing that Rosberg had some problems with his setup. Certainly this is his own problem and is no excuse but it shows that the difference between them is not because Hamilton is driving "blistering". This is a likely race simulation that purely goes on in your mind and is not even substantial enough to discuss. And again that you basically understand why I am discussing with you whereas everyone else left the room long ago: Hamilton won 9 races this year in a far superior car and most likely he will become WDC. I have absolutely no problem with that and I am far away from saying "Rosberg deserves it more" or even that I hate Hamilton as someone always points out. My point is that it is not a big deal that he is winning the WDC as it was not with Vettel last year. What annoys me is this biased sight where a trouble free victory after pole start to finish is all of the sudden because of the genius of the driver whereas it was nothing to comment when Vettel did it 9 times in a row last season. I have absolutely no problem when you cheer your favourite driver just as others might do with Alonso or who ever but the evaluation of this should be more realistic. When you look in this (and other threads) you will see that there are not few that think this way as comments like "the second comming" when you are talking about Hamilton are not coming from nothing. So all I and some others are asking for is to have a little bit less blinkers on.
OK a last thing, just for curiosity as it depends on what stats you are looking for: by what is Hamilton more successful than Jim Clark or three times champion Jackie Stewart?
Sir Jackie Stewart (note the SIR in front of his name) Races 100 (99 starts) Championships 3 (1969, 1971, 1973) Wins 27 Podiums 43 Jim Clark Races 73 (72 starts) Championships 2 (1963, 1965) Wins 25 Podiums 32 Lewis Hamilton Races 145 (145 starts) Championships 1 (2008) Wins 31 Podiums 67 31 Wins is nothing to scoff at, but there are certain times in life when you have to stop being a fanboy and respect what the pioneers of this sport have done. They didn't have 20 races in a season (usually it was 10) and they lost on average 2 drivers per season to death. Don't compare apples to oranges and don't put Lewis in the with the all time greats UNTIL he gets to that point. He is a great driver, but he hasn't proved himself yet.
