What matters most: Driver or Car and Team?

This is as it should be. F1 is a team sport like no other, where teams of engineers battle each other, teams of strategists battle each other, pit crews battle each other, teams of marketers battle for budget, and drivers battle each other. Whoever gets the most right wins.

Schumacher elevated his team and made everyone around him better. Lewis berates and blames his, and they win in spite of him. To me, that is the quintessential difference between the two.

 

All this is true.

Today's drivers are betrayed by their radio.
All communications between a driver and his pit crew can be capted, edited and broadcasted, exposing their reactions during the race.
So their doubts, their frustration and anger are immediatly offered to the public, and reveal their temper.
Years ago drivers didn't suffer that sort of media scrutiny. They had to wait for the race to finish to vent their mood behind closed doors.
That's the difference.

 

This is also correct, but I think I'd say that drivers are revealed by their radio rather than betrayed.

 

That's a perfect analogy. Schumacher, like Brady,, elevated his team and also wasn't afraid to break the rules if he thought it would give him an edge.

 

It's a bit of an open question that varies each year. There have been a few cars that were so good, quite literally any driver would've been WDC in it. But such cars are very rare.

If 2 teams are within a few tenths of each other ultimate performance, the driver(s) make the difference of where the car can finish.

 

This is closer to it. When Hamilton is on it, he’s nigh unbeatable. But he definitely gets affected by poor performances, he has to work on that.

But that car is absolute trash.

 

In this era of F1: the car

 

The car, by far.

 

What matters most, the driver or the car???

To the media and the statisticians, it's the driver with THE CAR.

For true F1 fans, we look past the what the media and statisticians look at.

Alonso, still has it regardless of the car. V10, V8, V6 turbo hybrid era.

Max as well.

Gasly too.

Russell so far, looks to have it.(still early though)

Norris is up there.

Perez as well.

All have been consistent in there driving regardless of the car over the long term.

 

F1 has become an engineering championship, where the best design usually wins.

 

You have to have both at 100%. Look at Vettel. He has a particular driving style and the Red Bull during his 4 WDC's was a perfect match. When he started loosing to his teammate in the same car it wasn't that Vettel forgot how to drive. The driver is critical to car development. Crazy as it may seem I bet what Merc need is Rossberg. Rossberg is an engineer. He understands and can communicate to the engineers what needs to be done in their language. Hammy is like Vettel in a car that perfectly matched each of them. That porpoising problem is amazing. Can you imagine the lack of confidence going to the braking zone? Can you imagine this unforseen issue because the wind tunnel is a static force? So many things work on paper only to fail in real life. This bad stuff happens all the time with perfect engineering. Look at how many team mates who were basically unable to drive Verstapen's Redbull. I'm convinced that any driver on the grid except latifi and zhou could be WDC in the right car for that driver.

 

I take a different interpretation of the meaning of the thread title. If the impetus is on winning, then in this era the car is most important. You listed some good drivers, but they aren’t in cars that are capable of winning without intervening circumstances (crashes, penalties, etc. to their competitors), and none of them is capable of overcoming a car with problems, because these cars’ systems are so sensitive to the most minute variations from optimum that they can create performance deficiencies that even the best drivers cannot “out-drive.” The car is the star if winning is the measurement, at least for the foreseeable future.

 

90% car or more. Period. A winning confident/consistent driver takes a winning car and wins. LH has done that-- so have others. The rest is opinion and dead/overkilled arguments.

Stated over and over and over and over and over.........................

If you do not have a winning car your not going to win.

Today RedBull was better sorted and Charles was pushing and made a mistake on a kerb. More of that from him and he will be fried to a crisp on this forum.

 

Any given car has limits to it's capabilities, and a drive can only get so close to those limits. If you do not have a car that's at least capable of winning or being competitive, then it does not matter how great the driver is, it will not be in contention. At least in F1 over the last 30-40 years when the talent pool from top to bottom is generally really good. Put Latifi in a 2020 Mercedes and he dominates Hamilton in a 2020 Williams.

But there are cases when a great driver in a good car, beats a less than great driver in a great car. For example Schumacher - Benetton vs Hill - Williams in 1994.

 

Yes, but time and time again, we see some drivers extracting more from a winning car than their team mate(s).

 

Wrong example ! Schumacher won the title at Adelaide in 94 by ramming Damon Hill's car, not by superior driving.

 

You sound like all the Lewis fans still crying about 2021. The championship takes part over all the races, not just one moment in the last race of the season.

Are you going to ignore that Schumacher finished 1st or 2nd EVERY race he finished in a car that was factually slower than the Williams?
Are you going to ignore Schumacher was ridiculously punished with 2 DQ's and a 2 race ban? Some pretty enormous help by the FIA wouldn't you say?

 

You may choose to see it that way, but I have a different opinion.

 

Schumacher was in fact dirty, but I'm tired of Adelaide being brought up. Schumi was head and shoulders above Hill not just that year, but in the years that followed. He crushed both Hill and Coulthard in 95', in equal cars.

 

My opinion is the FIA wanted a Cinderella story in a much more popular and family famed Hill, and much more loved team in Williams winning the championship, the very team Senna had been killed with.

Throwing Schumacher out of 4 races for such minor infractions was absurd. Totally championship manipulation. Hill was never going to catch Schumacher without that happening, and 95' proved it.

And this is coming from a guy who condemns Schumi for Jerez 97' and Austria 02'.

 

Well, you may be tired, but I am not !

 

OMG, another conspiracy theorist!

Schumacher didn't loose the title, Benetton lost it for him by trying to be too clever !

But keep your opinion, you are so entertaining.