Best driver in F1?

So you are saying that I wasn't "watching" the 94 season carefully now?! Stop, you are hurting my feelings All cars go through changes during the season, but they can only correct or improve so much. If the fundamental design is flawed, then it will be very difficult to recover. Looks at what happened to McLaren and Toyota last year in comparison to William, who stayed with basically the same chassis. The other example is the F-2003GA, it was no piece of cake to drive that car either. I think you would agree that in F1, to catch up is one thing, to leapfrog during the season is another. You don't think that I gave Bennetton-Ford enough credit, I feel that YOU did not give William-Renault enough credit.

For the same reason that you think Hill and William worked their butts off, I suppose Schumacher was just sipping ice tea at the pool for his years at Bennetton and at Ferrari then. Schumacher did what Prost couldn't do at Ferrari, and I am not talking about bring the titles home to Ferrari. I am referrig to how he was able to get the Ferrari team to believe him and to believe in themselve. Yes, he had help from Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Rory Barns and many others, but he was the one that had to give the inputs and the one on the track risking it all. To be honest with you, I felt that Prost was already on the decline by the time he went over to Ferrari in 1990. Yes, he came close to winning the title that year, but the team and Mansell/Berger deserve just as much credit as they were the ones that developed the car back in 89. He was smart to not get back into another F1 car until William offered him the seat in 93.

I am not blinded by the stats or the fact that Schumacher is a Ferrari driver, and I have said that from the very first post. I just don't think that his achievement should be discredited just because of the so called lack of competition as some would claim. And I think it is silly to try to rank them against each other as it is NOT POSSIBLE (How many times do I have to say this??!!) you can only creat a "top 10 list" of some sort with no particular order of who the best is.

I think the best way to gauge if it is more car or more the driver, we need to look at how their team mates did that very same year and also to other drivers of their caliber. However, we will then have to take into consideration if their driving styles fit the car's charactertistics better than their team mates styles, see how endless this can easily get to be??

 

Gee Anthony C., I can't find a thing to counter with with that last post ... thus overall I agree.

I still will create that list as atleast it goes someway to defining whether the WC was a competitive one or not ... ofcourse there are way to many variables and even if you got every driver and engineer from every year involved there would still be contention around the bar as the beer flowed .

But it does beat working and gives us something to talk about.
Pete

 

if senna is so good why is so dead

 

Motor racing drivers when they push hard have accidents ... FACT.

You have to push right and sometimes over the edge to race a car faster than the next guy, thus even the very, very best drivers (including MS) have accidents ... offs.

Thus Senna had an off ... that has absolutely nothing to do with the skill of the driver, other than the fact that he pushed a little too hard (or as some believe a component on the car broke) ... and I guess in a race he shouldn't have pushed so hard. BUT he was racing and a big part of racing is finding that limit each and every lap ... that is not actually easy and again even the very best stuff up occasionally (including MS).

Thus your point is irrelevant and MS has had many, many accidents in races and some if he was as unlucky as Senna he could have died from.

Thus the fact that MS is still alive versus Senna has no bearing on their respective abilities as a driver.

I suggest you research the concept of motorsport a little further so you can add something to this thread/discussion
Pete
ps: Some drivers choose to stay alive by being SLOW ...

 

ahhhhh but there are reports he held his breath to highten his senses for the restart (senna that is) and the chances are he over did it, if this is the case it is irresponsible and he is lucky he only killed himself and not anyone else, so if thats pushing it as u say then thank the lord i am not within cooeee of such a w reckless act.............

 

Interesting ... and I have never read or heard this before.

BUT hang on mate ... the accident happened (I think) 4 laps after the restart, Senna would be breathing by then I can assure you!

Thus I put your statement in the urban myths category of ...
Pete

 

urban myth no, the BBC did a special that showed on the parade lap he was known to hold his breath and thus high light his senses, this made him kinda buzzing just as the lights turned green, in San Marino cos of the accident he was following the opel pace car and becoming frustrated cos he knew his tyres were cold, and when they indicated to him one lap to go b4 the pace car goes off they reckon he hed his breath like a parade lap and bingo he probably held it too long and he flaked it---its a hard call cos he is dead so we will never know but i'll find the BBC stuff and display it, they did a fair bit of research on the whole thing from steering malfunctions to bizzare conspiracy theories, and this one re the holding his breath is documented somewhere because he admitted it himself.

 

Goober,

That still does not explain the 4 laps later issue ... he did not crash on the lap straight after the restart. So IMO this is irrelevant.

Anyway ... that just puts Prost further ahead (in my book) as both MS and AS have committed equal number of dangerous driving offenses on the track.

Pete

 

reckless behaviour cannot be tolerated because eventually the impact could be more than an off, prost just seemed more technical in his driving but also give credit to Ronnie Petersen who died in 1978 was probably one of the best up and coming drivers of all time.

 

First of all i seriously doubt the whole holding breath thing. I never heard him admit anything like that. If anyone else has please correct me. From reading his book on driving, he stresses the importance of breathing when racing. Secondly the telemetry from the Williams was still functional to the moment of impact and shows that the whole time he was working to save the car. Kinda hard to do if you are passed out. There goes that theory.

 

Sorry for bringing this up again, but I have to give credit when it is due. This is one fantastic post! I agree with almost everything in it. Great to see Stefan Bellof get a mention. What a shame he wasn't around long enough to fuflill his promise. I read a report on his antics during that rained out Monaco GP; awesome. Doesn't he remain the only person to have lapped the Nurburgring under 7 minutes (6:50-something I think) in a Porsche 956? Apparently, this equated to an average speed over the entire lap of 200km/h. Incredible. As for Tazio Nuvolari, I think I read somewhere that he was the person who invented oversteer! I'm not sure if that's true, however from what I've heard and read, he was awesome.

Best driver never to win a F1 title? Stirling Moss, naturally!

 

I believe he invented the four wheel drift ... and that completely changed cornering thinking back then.

Pete

 

Yep, that must have been it; I knew it was something in that vein. What a revolutionary!

 

Nuvolari was amazing:

These Pictures show him at Biella Circuit in 1935 and Monza in 1934 (car 22 pursuing Varzi).
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I have a strong respect and affection even for Alain Prost. It's clear in my mind that he may have been a better technical driver than Senna but there are times when sheer Latin passion and determination is what wins the hearts of fans and races.

Prost is often not well received by Senna fans but it's clear this guy deserves to be sit amongst the greats.

He has always tried to champion safety. He tried to start his own F1 team. He proved to be a worthwhile foil for Senna. When he retired it didn't seem that the fans would miss him much. But it really was our loss.

I feel priveleged that I saw Senna and Prost race. We do not see equals battling like that these days. I feel sorry that 'new' F1 fans these days did not see what it was really like.

Races like Adelaide '93... how can one adequately describe that?

T.

 

Why is this even a question? Michael holds all the records. Nuff said. If someone else was better they would have all orat least some of the records or even just one. I mean who's the best golfer of all time? The one that holds the most records. I think that's Tiger. Maybe not. Who's the best soccer player of all time? Pele. I believe he has been to and won the most world cups of any player.

 

French are latin also!! Don't forget that.

 

If it were that simple, why would so many people on here adore Gilles?

PS: Pele was great, but I always take issue when they call him the greatest. Lots of other names come to mind. Some South American, some European.

 

Tiger really does NOT hold that many records, yet.
The list of greatest golfers of all time reads more like this...
Jack Nicklaus
Bobby Jones
Tiger Woods
Arnold Palmer
Walter Hagen
Byron Nelson
Sam Snead
Tom Watson
Gene Sarazen
Nick Faldo
Nick Price
Vijay Singh

That's probably a pretty universal top twelve, but I'm sure there is conjecture with some of those.

 

When selecting the "best" driver in F1, judgment has to come into play one way or the other. MS has most of the records but that alone does not necessarily make him the best EVER, but rather the most successful in terms of statistics and yes right there with only a handful of drivers to be considered the best.

If we apply the numbers only we would conclude that Keke Rosberg was a better driver than Stirling Moss, and we all know that's just not true.

 

Well then you would have to qualify what best means. Best for one season, best before he died, best for one race, etc.. But I think best really means a drivers overall career and no one can deny that Schumi has the best stats. So I think it is safe to say he's the best.

 

yeah I really have no idea about golf. I was just using that as an example. I don't play much. It's too slow and uneventfull. Maybe if I could body slam my oponent if I won at the end of the game i would like it more.

 

Being successful doesn't always mean you're the best. In racing especially, there are many arguements over who would have beat who, in what car, what era, etc. To deal in absolutes and say MS is the best ever because of his stats would be leaving out many other factors. It is almost impossible to compare different eras so no one can really say who's the best. My take is the best way to know might be winning percentage but even that isn't a definitive measure.

 

Those are good points and again who's the best will continue to be subjective to some extent.
By winning percentage then Fangio would take the honors.