Best driver in F1?

But I don't view him as the best "driver" in Formula 1 today. He's fast, but Kimi is fastest, and I think Kimi drives a car better. Alonso is too "safe" to be, in my opinion, the best driver in F1 today.

When Schuey was World Champ, there was no question. Now that Alonso is reigning Champ, there are all sorts of questions still about who's fastest. If you're truly the best, that doesn't happen.

 

Wow this thread again? You cannot say easily who was the best of all time, because each generation had their greats. The cars broke down much more prior to the Late 90's. MS is definately the greatest talent of his generation. As Senna and Prost were of their time, as Fangio and Clark were for their respective periods. MS had a very unique situation, Senna died, Mansell got old, and Prost retired. Ferrari was built around him and he did a great job with it. Whoever says MS is not a real racer must be joking. I am not a fan of his, but give the guy his due. My only problem with MS in respect to Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Prost and Senna is the number of mistakes MS makes in comparison.

 

Im not kidding as a Senna fan!
Senna's last word were to the Docter, but the real time of death was 18:40h

But maybe this is offtopic and I can tell you better in Dutch

 

by the way if you are talking about the Queen song 'show must go on' your wrong..

They made a song called 'No One But You' with a part to Senna and this is it:

And now the party must be over
I guess we’ll never understand
The sense of your leaving
Was it the way it was planned?

And so we grace another table
And raise our glasses one more time
There’s a face at the window
And I ain’t never, never sayin’ goodbye...

 

I didn't know Queen had a tribute to Senna and I wasn't quoting that. I'm surprised to read he spoke last words to the doctor. I would have thought that he was brain dead the moment the suspension pierced his helmet.

 

I think that M.S. is the best driver after Senna. M.S. career speaks volumes, but the one that achieved what the others failed to do was Fernando Alonso and thats all that will be fully respected. The second place guys are just that, second plates on the table. Kimi might be really fast, but that alone wont win races and it wont mean much if he doesn't win a championship.

 

My theory? We weren't there, and we'll never really know (just like the cause of the incident)

 

This is a question with no real anwser. I think the world of MS and find it hard to believe he wasn't the greatest at the same time Ferrari was the greatest as well. The cars make so much difference that the 'Greatest' has to have a great car. Senna was the greatest too and in the future we may still have the greatest.

 

IMO, The "best" driver isn't always the one most capable of fast spurts...it's kind of like making love....

 

It's kinda funny when discussing 'the best', that we seem to be stuck on Senna and MS. If we were having this conversation 15 years ago we would be discussing Prost and Piquet, 20 years ago we would be discussing Piquet and Lauda, go back 30 years and it's Stewart, Clark, and possibly Fittipaldi (!), and we can keep going back. You won't be able to convince me that MS can outdrive all the aforementioned drivers, but I do give him a tremendous amount of respect for somehow turning Ferrari around.

But championships, wins, poles and fastest laps separate folks, and there is much more to it than that, but we can't judge by 'shoulda/coulda/wouldas', do we ?

 

It's too hard to tell nowadays. Politics and contracts tie guys into cars and they can't show us their versatility.

In Australia, we have Jim Richards and John Bowe for example. These guys are well over 50, nearer 60 possibly.

They've been driving at the top of their game ahead of guys half their age.

Bowe once drove F1 non champ races at Calder park I believe ( www.johnbowe.com.au ?) and still drives supremely competitively. I ran him in 360C and GT in 2001-2003, and his data is still hard to beat with newer cars and younger guys driving.

Jim Richards is another league again. A truly amazing talent that can drive anything like he's done it for years.

For me, The fact that Schuey dragged both Benetton and Ferrari to the top step proves he is the best all timer all rounder. Despite being beatable over 1 lap.
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There is a dicovery movie that told alot what happend, but as you say we never really know what happend.
Fact is that the helmet and the are destroyed (about) 2years ago.
Before that time the car and helmet were all the time in San Marino.

About the doctor: It was the doctor on the racetrack not the hospital.

 

I've read the Sid Watkins books with info about the crash. He doesn't say anything about last words at the scene.

 

In other story he said Senna spoke the last words to me but I never want to talk about it.

But we can quote and quote and quote about this.
Fact is, we lost Senna into a crash.

 

i saw that. IF it's factual, it was fascinating.

 

The best ever ?
Impossible to say.


The greatest ever ?
Gilles Villeneuve.

 

Senna didn't say anything into the radio right before the crash. As soon as the Suspension pierced the Helmet, he was out. I guess we all have our favorites. If you look at Stats, it definately would be MS. But I think we need to look at a bigger picture. Saying that, if you look at stats I think Fangio still has the highest winning ratio (24 wins out of 51 races).

 

Stat-wise, Fangio is the greatest in both winning % and pole position %. Pure number of titles won and race wins, we all know that it is Michael for both. What does all these mean? Nothing, as it is impossible to compare drivers of one era to anther. However, Fangio, Schumacher, Senna and Clark has to be on the top 10 of anyone's list, which should probably also include Lauda and Prost as well.