And this is also the name you hear from Jackie Stewart when asked about the greatest...Said the be the most natural talent back then, just as Senna later on...
I know you don't get points for pole, and I'm still predicting that Lewis will take out the WDC, but how anyone can claim that Lewis is a superior driver to Nico (or vice versa)? ......they'd have to be wearing blinkers. How often did Senna or Schumacher (Version 1.0) (for example) get out qualified by their team mates? The true greats seem to dominate every time compared to their team mates.
BTW: Stirling Moss won ~25% of ALL the races he entered, not just F1 but ever single race ... simply amazing! Pete
Add the increased reliability of modern cars. Many of the old champions had a high number of DNFs. Many of which happened when they were leading. Impossible to draw statistical comparisons across eras. Difficult to support an opinion even if you've watched both old and new drivers race.
Stirling Moss had two problems: JM Fangio and the fact that he has often chosen a British car (for patriotism) over the best car available...Moss is certainly not the most successful F1 driver (never achieving a WDC) but maybe the most complete driver over all categories winning in F2, Touring Cars and certainly in Sports Car Racing. Seeing him full throttle in the 300 SLR at the MM55 would be a reason to invent time travels
Agreed, Hammy is not fit to carry either Senna or Clark's jock, he is not even in the same league as either of them, not even close! Jimmy and Ayrton were otherworldly, that is why their early deaths were so shocking to all of the other drivers they were racing against.
Schumacher had 60 odd poles from 300 odd entries. Slightly worse than hams pole percentage I think. Maybe have a look at how many times nico rosberg out qualified him maybe in the ferrari baricchelo and Irvine weren't allowed to outqualify him? They were often given unequal machinery with Schumacher running better parts. And they both were journeyman as well. Sennnas pole stats are simply amazing though. As I've said many times in this thread, win percentage for most drivers is irrelevant and can easily be explained away by lack of inter team competition. What matters at the end of the day are the main statistics (e.g wins, poles, championships)That's what people get remembered for. And ham is doing well for a career but half over. Yet you all continue to make baseless statements without dealing with the evidence. Venerating drivers from the past is often done simply because they were from the past. Maybe for guys of your generation a way to maintain links to past f1 and post rationalise things to be better than they were. In the age of the modern athlete, where the skill of sports people on all areas has improved exponentially over the last 30 years or so, I find it surprising that you're all willing to claim that pretty much half the field of the 1950-70s could walk hamilton. Simply delusional.
Fangio. In general drivers I rate highly are senna Schumacher alonso Prost hamilton fangio In no particular order
And lack of reliability and there Hamilton is even in this season blessed against those in the past but you simply ignore that. So obviously you think it does not make a difference whether you need 100 or 500 GP to win 50 races as it is all to the absolute number of wins??? The fact that you do not seem to understand them is not really a sign of "baseless" or "lacking evidence"... "Your" generation seems to think that everything new must be necessarily better. Modern drivers might be better trained and and fitter compared to those back then but that does not mean they have more talent. The "drivers of the past" we are talking about where outstanding in their time and therefore remembered. I do not think that Hamilton is well above everyone else in the grid at the moment making him "outstanding" and we do not know whether he will be remembered the same way in 30 years...Time will tell but certainly at the moment he is still far away from that, even when now driving a far superior car just as Vettel did in previous years.
I think there's a chance you're quite mad. You clearly didn't read my post and you're replying to posts I've never made. Your one track mind is making you confused. Maybe you just need to slow down a bit.
Oddly enough both Moss and Fangio believed that while Fangio had the slightest of edges in open wheeled cars Stirling was the better of the two in sports cars.
Why are you comparing drivers from different eras, IMO it is a fruitless exercise, besides IMO MS proved times move on quickly in F1 when he made his come back, and that's besides the fact it is increasingly now a young mans sport. And tell me what was the point of Rubens, Webber ect to try and out qualifying their team mates, given the fact they had no incentive whatsoever to be able to win the race Further tell me why in your opinion, <(in other words expand your reasoning for this) why folk have to be wearing blinkers, just because they believe either Nico or Hamilton is the better driver. Because the way I 'am reading this, bearing in mind you are predicting Lewis will win the WDC or (take it out?) it seems a rather strange and lets say contradictory statement, other than that you must be wearing those blinkers your on about.
That's your opinion.... However I think it's stupid statistically, but watching the way certain people could drive those machines was almost magical and which is why they were better. Lewis is a damn good driver, but I don't think he'll be remembered as one of the greatest. Look at vettel as an example. 4 wdc and earned his place in history, but still won't be considered one of the greatest.
If you cannot recognize the inherent talent Hamilton has got, then clearly you really are not worth the bandwidth on here, as yet I have never read a positive comment from you regards his driving skill, and because of that IMO it renders all your point's completely and utterly mute.
Fortunately it is not up to biased Hamilton-Fanboys to judge whether an oppinion is worth bandwidth over here but if I finally run out of arguments I can still quote Rowan Atkinson like others
I have no argument there at all, still relatively early days for Hamilton to be considered one of the greats as yet IMO, hopefully he will continue to stay in the game long enough for that to be the case.
Response to you all generally; You're all saying its hard to compare across diff eras but are fine to rate older drivers above ham. I haven't studied every driver in depth as of yet but generally I think your claim to greatness is diminished if you've never had a wdc team mate or a team mate regarded as great. Inter team mate comparisons are very good tools to judge drivers on. If one is a designated number 2 then that is harder to judge too. The reason Vettel can so easily be dismissed is he drove for RB with an average team mate during its golden years when the car was the absolute strongest. The jury was out on him but this year he proved his worth as not that high. Had he done what ricciarso did this season then we could still rate him highly: Wdcs for different teams are also more valuable imo than for a single team. Many reasons why today's srivers better than the past: Far more competition - early days almost anyone could make a team in f1 wth the low entry fee and start racing. It was also far more amateur in nature. Today drivers train from as soon as they are 5 whereas in the past you could take it up after the war ended in your mid 30s and be Successdul. Arrogant to assume drivers who trained all their lives are going to be worse than these guys. Quality is so high nowadays that mere tenths are the difference between great and truly legendary The old days more about batural talent and how big your balls are. Today it's far more competitive and people are trained by professional outfits and brutally cut and most never make it to f1. Sorry if my post jumbled together in the move and typing in a rush lol
Anyone have any info on wdc drivers who had wdc team mates from the past and how they compared that would be greatly appreciated. No ones handled a wdc like alonso crushed raikkonnen I doubt. And alonso narrowly was edged out by hamilton. Sort of circular reasoning I know but meh just interested in wdc vs wdc comparisons. Or notable drivers who didn't get a wdc is fine Stewart is just like a Vettel jmo. Great car with no one to challenge him. Wins wdc everyone thinks he's God. Too bad he quit before someone could further embarrass him (hill already did). Great driver sure but not amazing.
Toil I mean this with no disrespect, but to say Stewart is like vettel makes it very difficult to take you seriously. And you need to educate yourself more on the history of this sport with more than a few Wikipedia references and some YouTube videos. It will change your perspective on how easy it was to drive.