Hamilton vs. Schumacher ( Brawn's Perspective)

All a driver can do is give some feedback about the car behaviour, but the telemetry analyses that with more precision.
Some drivers are very good at testing cars, because they go nearer the limits, and are better capable to communicate their findings.
During the short pre-season testing the drivers will discover their cars, find their characteristics, and adapt to them.
With the ban on unlimited testing, the role of the driver is diminished, and now consist mostly in trimming the car during the practice sessions before a GP.
Trimming is not developing, it's simply altering some parameters to suit different circuits, like slight change in the suspension settings, the brake balance, throttle response, angle attack of wings, sometimes tyre pressure, etc ...
The development is done between races, when new parts are designed and tested by engineers.
The engineers will always be searching for technical improvements, by studying all the data collected on the car.
The driver has no role in that: neither Senna, Schumacher or Hamilton created new parts for their cars, designed a wing, or calculated a crankshaft.

 

Exacly, everyone knows Michael was instrumental in Ferrari development, before him, Ferrari had 2 excelent drivers, One of them at least was a vastly superior driver to anything Elton can ever dream to be but they lacked that extra bit that Michael had. His commitment, ability to push everyone further, and technical feedback was almost unparalel in f.1 history (like lauda, Prost and Piquet before him). IN terms of technical feedback, Elton is average (plenty of people who worked with both him and Nico will atest that Nico was far better), so right there, Michael has a huge advantage, and then, Michel is simply faster, a lot faster, and also capable of folowing any type of strategy, and also much more agressive, and of course much more car ontrol as we can see him driving in the rain. In the end there is simply no comparaison.

 

You have obviously never raced , there is only so much computers and engineers can do , whether you like it or not , you need driver feedback, that is why experienced drivers are so valuable . And you keep on contradicting yourself , like your opinion is the authority lol , it isn't . I feel at times you argue for the sake of arguing , even when you fundamentally agree with the other party , suit yourself

 

I don't know if this is a serious post but go rewatch some races. You will find all drivers reporting to the pits and asking questions if something suddenly happens to their car. Did you see any driver who's car develops a fault and they keep driving and don't tell the pit? Post a link as proof.
Why does Mercedes keep renewing Hamilton's contract if he can't operate his car?

 

You wrote, and I quote:

"He turned Ferrari into a winner and did the same with MB , a lot of MB success has to do with MS's development when he was there ."

Michael Schumacher's last season at Mercedes was 2012, and their success started in 2014, up to 2019.

Do you see the contradiction there ? LOL

 

Who did the development till 2012 ? Obviously he didn’t do it on his own but his feedback certainly helped . So you nitpick on 1 point I made lol , where is it a contradiction? When you are an armchair racer , you will have armchair opinions and sometimes they are worthless because they are uneducated , but you are you entitled to them even though you are wrong

 

Yes, Michael and Ross developed that car into a winner, the others just took it from there, and Nico was also pretty decent, and he learnt a lot from Michael. Elton is very lucky that these days Driver feedback is becoming less important, a few years ago he would be in serious trouble.
remenber Piquet vs Nelson? Everyone knows Nigel was faster (despite what nelson says) But Piquet was so far ahead in every other department that he was able to beat him (even figthing against his own team!).

 

Schumacher was always on the limit straight out of the box. This also saved the engineers time in development.
That 1996 Barnard ***** would have taken 10 years to develop into a contender with any other driver

 

Schumacher was a great driver, no doubt. And driver feedback was more important in those days. Because physical testing was simply the best way to test new designs. That doesn't mean they didn't have advanced telemetry. They did. Must have been pretty advanced considering the level of sofistication of the active suspension Williams had in their FW14. They also had windtunnels, FEA and CFD software and so on. However, these days it's much more about the telemetry, FEA and CFD. And physical testing is very limited. That doesn't mean Hamilton would be any worse at it, it just means Schumacher had a lot more experience doing it. Schumacher could go out on the track and test weird combinations in real life. Hamilton has to rely on software engineers getting the simulator right which in turn depends on the rest of the R&D team not messing up their predictions of how their components will work. Schumachers greatness was dependant on being able to do the physical testing. Hamilton's might be dependant on being able to translate simulator training to actual driving.

Look at it from a different angle. If the car was a measure of test driver greatness then surely Damon Hill must have been one of the greats of his era. In reality, it's not just the driver. It's about having the best combination of R&D people, tacticians and drivers and having them work together. Hill was good, he just wasn't great or at least didn't get the opportunity to appear to be (racing Prost and Senna, then Schumacher, with lesser competition he could have scored a couple more titles than he did).

As for the Ferrari pre-Schumacher era? Maybe not a dud but definitely not a stellar performer. Best of the rest.

 

Hill was a good test driver.
But all the data and simulators in the world cannot teach wheel-to-wheel race craft.
Much of it is instinctive, you either have "it" or you don't.

Having the X Factor counts for a lot, and then you pile on layers of self-disciplne and training.

 

People forget how much data they had in Schumi's era. Schumi's cars were nothing like Lauda's cars. As i said before, Hamilton and Kimi have won races and championships nearly 15 years ago, in cars that relied on driver input more, and are vastly different from these current cars. Leclerc, Max, Norris, have'nt had to compete in the cars 15 years ago. Those young guns feedback skills maybe none existant, probably don't know what understeer is lol. However as bmwracer posted earlier, i think driver feedback still exist, there is only so much a computer and data can do.

 

The contradiction is that stopping in 2012, Schumacher couldn't have participated in the development of a new generation of cars at Mercedes, that started only to win in 2014. But that's what you said !

 

Obviously all the cars Mercedes developed after Michael left relied heavily on his input during his time with the team. Nico said that everytime Michael went to a meeting, every engineer was there, trying to learn as much as possible from him, Michael shaped mercedes in many ways, together with Ross they brought new working methods, data analysis, etc. It was not only building a winning car but, above all, building a winning team, just like they both had done at Ferrari years before.

 

As the only driver who's had both as team mate, Nico also said Lewis has more natural talent than Schumi. If you are gonna post and believe things that Nico said, you have to believe everything he says, don't pick and choose.

 

Some people here would like you to believe that drivers can tell engineers how to design racing cars. That's nuts !!!

 

A minority of drivers can advise engineers how to make the car faster.
Lauda was one.
Schumacher was another

 

yes, and Piquet too, he and Murray were amazing together...Nelson had lot's of ideas, i guess he also learnt something from niki...I believe the only top driver that sucked at giving good ca rinfo was Ronnie, but then he had so much acr control and natural speed that it didn't matter...

 

Elton is has decent speed (of course nothing like the really fast drivers like (Jean, Mika, young Kimi, Michael), but he is a total tool in terms of understandig a car..and he was really bad with tire degradation, now he's better, but i believe that's more to the Merc and new Pirelli's than him..

 

It's so funny to read that the man who collected 84 GPs and 6 WDC titles is after all an inferior driver.

I feel so sorry for Mercedes to have picked up the wrong man. Hahaha

 

they don’t tell them how to design a car , they tell them what is right or wrong with the car they designed , can’t be that difficult for you to understand

 

That is just testing a car, not developing it .
Can’t be that difficult for you to understand !

 

Really lol ? Now we wanna play with words , testing is part of developing a car . You are a lost cause William , carry on .

 

hahah, you're also talking to William? Now i get it, don't bother mate, nothing good will come out of that, just use the ignore button like me, works like a charm

 

I see you've taken over from KTU/kraftwerk & co in the ''this is what suits my argument best right now'' department of ''Loowis is da bestests''.

 

Because in that time he sure faced significant competition....oh wait.

Red Bull decent cars with a lada engine
Ferrari was clearly pre-occupied building excellent road cars and forgot about the F1 side of things. Even when their car was fast (2018), it was only at times on par with Mercedes, maybe fractionally faster in ideal conditions.

Mercedes have had clearly the faster car by a good margin since 2014. That much is clear when even Bottas can finish 2nd in the championship.

Any dildo can win a title in that car.

Is Lewis a good driver? Of course he is. But he's no God. He's no GOAT. When Red Bull had a better car 2010-2013 Lewis was nowhere except on the radio button complaining that it was pointless to drive around.