Alonso says Hamilton ''one of the greatest of all time''

Fernando Alonso: Lewis Hamilton is one of the greatest of all time



Alonso has rated Lewis Hamilton among the best Formula One drivers of all time, alongside the likes of Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna.

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Hamilton is on the brink of his fifth world title and could securethe championship on Sunday at the U.S. Grand Prix if he outscores Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel by eight points. He is also closing in on Michael Schumacher's record of 91 wins, with 71 to his name and two full seasons left on his Mercedes contract.

Alonso, who was teammate to Hamilton at McLaren in 2007, was asked ahead of this weekend's race if Hamilton would feature in his top five champions of all time.

"It's difficult to make a top 5 of all-time greats," Alonso said, "but probably Michael [Schumacher], [Juan Manuel] Fangio, Senna, [Alain] Prost and Lewis -- that would probably be the top five.

"That's what comes to my mind but it's difficult to compare different times and different ways to win those championships. Lewis winning five now and equalling Fangio is a great achievement.

"If one had to do that in our generation I'm happy it's Lewis, because he showed the talent and he showed the commitment. When the car was dominating and delivering he won the championships and when it was not good enough he still put some performances to show his talent. That's difficult to see in our days."

Former McLaren teammates Hamilton and Alonso speaking ahead of the U.S. Grand Prix. Clive Mason/Getty Images)
In their season together at McLaren, the situation became frosty between Hamilton and Alonso as they both fought for the title and missed out by a single point to Kimi Raikkonen. Hamilton was in his debut year and Alonso felt his teammate was getting preferential treatment, leading to a complete breakdown in relations with McLaren's management and, ultimately, Alonso leaving the team.

Asked if he thought in 2007 that Hamilton was capable of winning five championships, Alonso said: "Probably in 2007 it was difficult to imagine what the future would bring to Lewis or to all the other guys on the grid. He showed his talent from day one, fighting for the championship in his rookie year and winning it in 2008.

"Probably at that time we could all agree that five or seven titles would be possible for him but then he had a couple of years down, due to the performance of the car, the switching to Mercedes, so maybe at that time we all thought it wouldn't be possible, because at the time Mercedes was struggling in 2013 and things like that.

"The feelings were up and down. But I'm happy for him because he showed the talent from day one. He was able to win races when the car was there to win them, but he was also able to win races in seasons when his car was not on top form, like 2009 and things like that. He was still winning a couple of Grand Prix per year, so it's impressive."

So there you have it!

 

as Elton had matched him in 2007, albeit with the additional support and bias of McLaren to do so, and then gone on to win races and championships, Alonso would make himself look like a much less capable driver than he is. You’ll also note he uses the demonstration of getting five titles.

No one here argues that he is fast, and the titles have come, but he couldn’t help but win four of them given the dominance of the Mercedes, it was always a two horse race until this year, and even this year, the FIA managed to nobble Ferrari’s performance advantage early on and Mercedes caught and passed us.

He uses the note that he won races in each year.... yep, he has never sat in a car that wasn’t in with a shout, in 2009 the car started off bad and then got better as did EVERYONE else once they managed to duplicate the double diffuser Brawn had from day one.

This article proves nothing, only that Alonso was in a nice mood that day

 

What the article proves, is that even on a forum where the red mist and rose-colored glasses of diehard Ferrari fans is the dominant theme... the main topic of most threads is Lewis Hamilton. So if you start with the premise that he is beating the home team year after year, I wouldn't expect anyone in this bias crowd to admit Lewis is in the top 5 drivers of all time.

Yet, one only has to look at what driver in F1 history has the most poles, it's Lewis 80 to 68 for MS, and Hamilton achieved that number with 83 fewer starts than Schumacher. If you want another measure, Hamilton is tied for the most wins in his first season he had 4 along with Jacques Villeneuve. And second, on all times wins to Schumacher. Total wins in the history of F1 Hamilton is second 71 to Schumacher's 91 but again Lewis has 83 fewer starts. Hamilton is one of the top 5 drivers in the history of F1 its just something that the home team around here is not going to be able to admit and that is perfectly understandable as this is first and foremost a Ferrari Fan Forum.

 

As you are obviously one of those thinking stats tell the whole story:
Among the top 6 drivers with the most victories in F1 history are 3 drivers currently in F1...Unless you want to tell me that this generation of drivers is head and shoulders above previous generations this stat obviously does not tell the story you want to make us believe.
Furthermore: the current Mercedes did not only boost Lewis stats to the ones you listed but also brought Nico Rosberg near top ten, just one victory behind Fangio, and this although he only drove three out of the five hybrid seasons. I doubt that anybody would put Nico near the top ten of all times so once again a proof that these stats are very much distorted by the fact that dominant cars significantly influenced them.
But just like in politics with "fake news" it is obviously easy to put all doubts aside because they come from the "biased forum with the red-tinted glasses"...

 

The OP and I tend to get on well these days, so this isn’t a criticism of him, but if the thread were judged how my threads are generally judged, then this one would be deemed as a thread that has the intention of annoying a group of people, except in this case, it’s to annoy Ferrari tifosi, not Mercedes fans such as the great ‘Elton sucks’ thread that was the other way around.

 

LH has stats. Nico better than most think. I offer respect to the effort. I like racing and admire the results over time. Interpretation is left to us as fans.

Certainly observing Vettel the last years on track offers FA insight we cannot imagine.

 

Fernando is right.

 

"It's difficult to make a top 5 of all-time greats," Alonso said, "but probably Michael [Schumacher], [Juan Manuel] Fangio, Senna, [Alain] Prost and Lewis -- that would probably be the top five.

Alonso has rated Hamilton above himself, this doesn't happen everyday. By naming the top 5 from his view, speaks volumes of Hamilton's legacy

 

I can say i'm not trying to annoy anyone at all, it's an ESPN article , i am certainly not a big fan of Alonso but in this instance i think he makes some valid points,who else would be a contender from the present generation of drivers? Maybe Vettel? It's a very short list for sure.

 

Ironic that the only counter Hamilton haters can offer is that Hamilton was in a top car. By that measure Vettel would have never won a title without Adrian Newey.

 

Ironic that all Lewis fanboys come up with this "hater" thing and next talk against Vettel... as if talking down Vettel makes Lewis a better driver
So three drivers of the current grid are in the top 6 of the winners stats... one of them was lucky to pass his drivers license according to some lately and the other one will be forgotten in a few weeks after quitting F1... but for Lewis this stats are certainly convincing because this is something completely different...yeah right

 

Must have hit a nerve....

 

No, you are just lining up as No.10023 posting exactly the same "reasonable argument"..

 

He always responds, therefore I believe you are right.

 

Don’t worry mate, I wasn’t making a point about you, as I said, we get on well these days! It was something else

 

Absolutely right. He isn’t the class of a Schumacher or an Alonso even. Doesn’t change the fact Elton has benefited from the very best car by seconds a lap for five seasons, and still managed to get beaten by nico, hence, he can’t be a great

 

There are only two drivers with more than four drivers' championships in the history of Formula 1.
Michael Schumacher with seven, and Juan Manuel Fangio with five. Lewis Hamilton will most likely be the third driver with five championships unless he is abducted by aliens.

He is one of the greatest without question. Don't be a hater.

 

There is no question that Hamilton has the talent. He has also been lucky and smart in his choices.

For sure having Ron Dennis being his supporter at a time when McLaren was at it's peak helped. Then Hamilton left to Merc at a time when they were on the upswing and McLaren has been in a downward spiral since .

If you look at this history vs his co-drivers, he has usually dominated them. Rosberg did when over him but it was a fight when no one else was really challenging either of them.

Would Hamilton have done as well if he was with a lesser team? Well, for sure he would not have so many poles and victories. But I think we would all say he was perhaps the best driver on the grid for pushing his POS around the track faster than it should be.

He is by record one of the best. He is also by talent also one of the best. He is also, one of the luckiest -- but that's not his fault.

 

That's not possible.

 

I assume everyone appreciates that Alonso and Hamilton saying good things about each other is actually saying good things about themselves? The unsaid being that they were evenly matched when teammates so if one is great then so must the other be.

Personally, I wouldn't rate Hamilton in the top 3 British drivers** let alone the top 5 of all time. Let's be clear, statistics mean nothing. There are far more races now than ever in the past and drivers are far less likely to be killed. There is no question that Hamilton can pull out some great laps in qualifying but there have been too many races in his career where he didn't seem to get out of bed the right side or whatever. Interesting to note that Button scored more points than him over the sum of their time as teammates for instance.

** Shouldn't be too hard to work out who I think are the top 3 British drivers of all time if anyone actually cares

 

I agree to disagree.

 

Ok... Jimmy Clark, Jackie Stewart and who? Stirling Moss? Graham Hill? Nigel Mansell? James Hunt?

No knock against any of them but Hamilton fits in that group pretty well.

 

Those who were old enough to know the Senna era know that Senna also had his "haters" at the time. After his unfortunate death, he went to almost mythical status.

Same guy before and after. IMO, the after was closer to the truth.

 

After Rosberg & Alonso who has ACTUALLY RACED along side him state that he is one of the all time greats, i don't know why we still debate this

 

Because he is hated as he is the chief competitor to ferrari at the moment...... how hard is it to work out? If this was Mercedes.com, you’d be loved for your opinions. Here, you are clearly going to be despised as the majority are pro-ferrari