Will we ever view drivers as having the same greatness as past generations?

Exhibit A: Sebastien Vettel. 2-time Champion just now entering his prime. So long as the Newey/Red Bull magic continues, there's no reason why he couldn't conceivably decimate every record in the book. And to boot, it's hard to find anything unlikable about the guy. So why doesn't he strike me as special?

 

Because you are looking at him in the cold light of current reality, not the soft rose tint of history. Future generations will look back at MS and SV with awe and amazement that they did what they did with those "primitive" F1 cars.

 

Very well stated. Spot on observation.

Jedi

 

+1

 

I get what you're saying, but I disagree. Prost, Senna, Villeneuve, Schumacher--just to name a few--had many moments in their careers that left immediate indellible impressions showing their superior skills as drivers. Moments that didn't require any retrospective--you saw it and knew it in real time. Vettel is obviously a very skilled driver, I just don't know how you tell these days if a driver's an 8, 9 or 10.

 

+ 100 and they had much more than the car, and could have died much easier, which two of them did. I like Vettel, but I,think in the same car, Hamilton would be quicker and Alonso better.

 

I look at the drivers and their accomplishments within the time and situations they raced:

Some of the guys in fifties were over weight gentlemen racers who couldn't stand the regime of today's G forces etc. OTOH they had the balls to drive without much of anything safety related and thus died in the slightest accidents. Schumacher once said he would have been terrified and not a F1 driver back then and that speaks volumes.

The fearlessness continued on through the sixties and only in the seventies did we get some safety standards in place thanks to guys like Stewart. A man who won 3 WDCs in a time when everybody else was burnt alive etc.

I could say Andretti's WDC was undeserved since a monkey could have won the title with that ground effect car. Yet his teammate paid the ultimate price. So it would have been at least a fearless monkey.

Guys like Lauda don't get much respect on here (why is beyond me) yet he almost died AND bagged three titles.

And of course then there are the heroes of modern times like Senna, Prost and Schumacher. Everybody knows how I feel about Schumacher the man, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he is the most successful F1 driver of all times and won some of his titles against all odds and the others by improving the odds through hard work.

I think at the very least all the WDCs are great drivers who deserve the utmost respect and achieved their titles given their circumstances. Even a Rosberg who "inherited" his title still had the balls and talent to survive a horrible year AND score the most points.

As for Vettel: He sits in the best car but for a reason: He proved his immense talent in one of the worst cars ever to wrestle it to victory. Legions of lesser drivers drove in much better cars and never achieved anything. That's why they were never given a top notch ride. And some even didn't accomplish much of anything in some of the best cars (Patrese and DeCesaris come to mind as examples).

So no, I don't think I respect any generation less or more. They're just different in their special skill sets and obviously were/are the best of their times to get to the top.

 

You have no choice but to look at each driver and their situation (car).

It evolves, SV is the king of 'push button' racing, MS was the king of whatever you want to call it ten years ago, Senna, Prost and Piquet were kings of the turbos, Lauda and Fittpipaldi were kings of the 70's, Jim Clark dominated his time, Jackie Stewart dominated his time, and all the guys before Clark, Moss, Fangio, etc.

The one thing all these guys had in common were different cars, tires, eras, amounts of money.

The other thing they have in common is every one of us differs on the amount of 'greatness' one had behind the wheel, and reasons for it. Today, you have six cars capable of winning, that's it, no more. In the 70's and 80's you have 10-12 cars capable of winning.

 

Those are good points Andreas. But do you feel at all that engineering has affected the ability to truly assess a driver's skill? Like you, I try to leave each era in its own time. And you could watch the races and definitively say "This guy is special." But when I look at the current drivers, I honestly can't tell you if they're all great, if they all suck, or what the difference is between them. Even a decade or so you could say Riccardo Rosset sucked just by watching him!

 

+1

As many say, you simply can't compare across eras.

Rose tinteds here again IMO. "Capable of" and actually doing it are two different things - Is Merc "capable" if things go their way? IMO, yes.

However, the comment prompted a quick review of the record books between '70 and '89 tells us;

# of victors; How many times in "your" 20 years;
8 ; 3
7 ; 4
6 ; 5
5 ; 7
4 ; 0
3 ; 1

I didn't come any further forward than '89, but I'd be willing to bet it remains about the same to this day.

Further, in pretty much all seasons there's a single winner or two that "lucked" into the W - Same then as now.

The other thing that jumped out was the # of DNF's - I didn't study it, but reckon ~50% of the starters weren't there at the end. Todays fickle fans would be apoplectic!

Finally, the pointy end of the grid (say, the top 10-12) is *much* tighter now than then. - I may not be able to challenge for the win, but sitting in 10th spot I'm a lot closer to pole than back then.

One could make an argument that we're living in the golden age of competitive & reliable F1 racing.....

Cheers,
Ian

 

And that's at the heart of my OP. The question really is, have all the technological advances begun to create a new era of racing whereby the drivers are becoming more the stewards of the machinery than the central component? The closer the margins, the harder it is for a driver to set themselves apart, which ultimately diminishes the human element of the sport.

This kind of takes my question in a different, yet not-unrelated, direction. F1 has always been about technology and pushing the envelope. Will F1--and racing in general--be able to maintain a level of popularity if the emphasis continues to swing in the direction of technology over drivers? It has become increasingly difficult to translate to the public the amount of effort that goes into being a competitive racing driver since those efforts have migrated from more tangible things like working a shift & clutch & sawing the steering wheel over to less visible tasks like working knobs & switches, managing in-car functions, absorbing massive g-loads and maintaining rigorous behind-the-scenes training regimens.

It's one thing when the top team is a Ferrari or, to a lesser extent McLaren, where there is decades of lineage and road-going exotic cars produced under their same roof and using race-bred technology. But when the parade is led by a Red Bull, it feeds my admittedly old-school disconnect to a team named after a caffeine drink sold at 7-11. I realize a part of this problem is mine, but it doesn't eliminate the very real question of whether technology in F1 is taking too much attention away from the drivers?

 

Which was the whole point of my thread 'way back when' when I had asked if true driver skill has been eliminated from the equation with the clutchless transmissions. Todays F1 driver could possibly fly the Space Shuttle with all the 'nick knack tally whack give the dog a bone' mechanism's, crap just look at the steering wheel's on todays F1 cars f'ing rediculous imho. I still love F1 but I long for tried and true driver input/connection to the car like it used to be!!!!
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Seb couldn't drive a Paris Madrid car but could Camille Jenatzy handle a Red Bull?

While the specific techniques may change as the tech does, certain skills and discipline remain constant across generations.

 

LOL good one.

Very well put and I agree with you, thanks for breaking it down like that.

 

Actually I think right now we have the same amount of top drivers as every decade:
- now Vettel, Alonso, Hami, Button
- 2000 MS, Kimi, Mika, JPM
- Nineties Senna, Prost, MS, Villeneuve
- Eighties Senna, Prost, Lauda, Piquet
- Seventies Stewart, Lauda, Fittipaldi, Hunt

 

I believe it is more difficult to drive a current F1 than in years past, so even though the cars are full of technology, it still takes much driver skill to control that technology. Consider the numerous adjustments a driver performs in a single lap, that steering wheel requires extreme multi tasking. Today's drivers not only must master the machine, they must master the technology. I doubt if drivers from the 1980s and 1990s, assuming their youth returned, could compete with the likes of Vettel.

As for a car named after a caffeine drink, other than times have changed and more money is spent, I do not see much difference between the Red Bull team and say a Tyrrell, Eagle, or some other independent. Grids have had independents, meaning non-manufacturers, for most of F1's history. Frankly, the fact that they have demoted the "factory" teams for two years speaks volumes as to the opportunities of such independents to be successful.

 

All the drivers mentioned above have one thing in common. They are the best of their time.

You may debate that the 60's or 70's or what ever era required more skill than today, but Vettel beat all the competition there was in F1 in the year 2011 (just like Senna and Schumacher, Clark, Fangio did in their time).

Sebastien Loeb didnt drive a Mini to Monte Carlo, but in the last 6 years he is the best at WRC.

Valentino Rossi did to his competition the same thing that Eddie Lawson, Kinny Roberts, John Surtees did to theirs.

Watch and Enjoy the legends that are being created today. If we are lucky we will get to tell younger generations...

I remember watching Racer X when; and he was a much better driver than anyone you have today....

 

What does a 2011 Ferrari F1 car (or road car) have in common with the legendary cars of the 1960s?

Answer: A badge.

I'm not as enamored of product sponsor names as I am of surnames, but it's debatable whether Ferrari has a competitive advantage in the technology-steeped world of modern racing. (Or road cars, frankly.) Everything is plastic and computers now, and information that was once locked away at Lotus or Ferrari is now obsolete within weeks or months.

That said, Vettel clearly has the goods when it comes to this era of racing. You can count his mistakes this season on one hand, with fingers to spare. Clearly he has the right skills and temperament for what he does. His consistency suggests that he's very, very talented in the context of modern F1.

 

Just as Vettel is the perfect storm of good fortune Rosberg is the opposite.
Going to a team that has just won the WDC and WCC handily just as they implode.
Victories taken for stupid stuff.
Beats the 7 time WDC almost weekly yet its because "the old man is over the hill".

Alot of this is pure luck,

IMO anyone in the top 10 is a contender in the right car under the right circumstances. At this level its the car and who you are paired with.
The skill sets change with the era yet all are the best at that current time or else they wouldnt be there.

 

Luck tends to even out over a career. Not always though.
As they say, fortune favors the prepared.

 

I hear your argument, but I'm not sure I concur; There's *always* been an argument that F1 is too much about the car and not enough the jockey. F1 is indeed *hard* - It should be! Over time, the cream always rises to the top though, even if the margins are tiny now.

Do these tiny margins "diminish the human element"? - Not IMO - They're on a knife edge all the time and job #1 is beating your teammate - Do that consistently (without binning it) and you'll get there.

Cheers,
Ian

 

My congratulations and admiration to those who claim a modern F1 car is easy to drive, and can prove it by driving one at competitive speeds.

 

Oh, and do I have to prove it by driving a complete lap?

Dale

 

It's not just about the technology of the car. You also have to consider the money.
It's almost impossible for a driver of average means to get to F1 now.
This artificially narrows the field and so doing diminishes the importance of shear skill.

 

Monaco. Blindfolded.