Is it at the time when they win the championship? Personally, this questions often plays in my mind. Generally, in sports, someone peaks and hit the prime roughly at the age of 27-32, give or take. However, the likes of Vettel, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi took this to a whole new level. No doubt Alonso is a double world champion, but for some reason, i think he's driving better than he did back in 2005-2006. And i feel Button is a much better driver when he first came to Mclaren, versus when he won the WDC with Brawn. What about MS? When was his peak? 1994?1995? or 2000? looking forward for this discussion.
Peak performance is not just a matter of physical age but also experience, maturity etc. So I wouldn't put an age to it although for modern F1 drivers the range is somewhere from the early twenties to the mid thirties. Obviously it is easier to determine it in hindsight by looking at their performance and the lack thereof (e.g. blunders). Since you mentioned MS: Some of my friends believe he peaked during his second Benetton WDC because that took incredible effort/talent/etc to accomplish. Personally I think he peaked later in around 2000-2002. His talents and experience helped a great deal to design those unbeatable Ferraris. By 2006 there were tell-tale signs that he was on the decline, e.g. the crash with Jos (?) on the warmup lap. A blunder he wouldn't have made in his earlier years. As for other drivers, I'm sure Vettel hasn't even reached his peak. Alonso probably is on it right now. To me Hakkinen always remains an enigma: Couldn't figure out how to win a GP for 100 races, then becomes like the fastest man on Earth, bags 2 WDCs and then his performance collapses to the point of embarrassment. Scheckter and Jones were similar.
I think Schumacher was at his best - 1999 - 2003. No question. The impressive part is the taking Ferrari back to WDC and keeping them dominant. that is huge. As for Vettle... hard to say, he is young, but its really a combination of car and driver. clearly the car is not as good as last year's ... but it got better as the year progressed. Vettle seems to have the mental capasity to work thru problems where Webber gets "down" ... that is the difference to me of a real Champion...when the chips are down they work harder and keep positive. Alonso is most likely in my opinion right at the cusp... I dont see many more WDC if any at all coming his way - unless Ferrari produce a superior car... which seems un likely. Button - same thing, he needs the boost in the car to push him up.... BUT he has been way more impressive than I ever thought & reminds me of Damon Hill, I think he can stay with McLaren for a while and still win a lot more races... he'll need luck for WDC. In my book DiResta is the guy to watch... he needs a better car to show full potential... i think he is on the cusp of needing to move up or he will end up a languishing back marker. Perez - next year is make or brake for him. ( pun intended) in the end I think its very likely that Vettle can be a 10 time champion. However that would mean him staying in F-1 till about age 40 or so... So that is a lot of miles and he needs to be careful he does not get hurt... if he stays healthy I dont see any reason why he would not continue on his winning ways.
I remember Martin Brundle pretty much agreering that the leg break MS suffered granted him the extra break from the sport, in which he eventually peaked and scored 5 WDCs in a row. As for Mika, it's really weird. But then again, so if F1. How is it do you measure a driver's prime when he is in a POS (pretty much like Mika in his twilight years). I think F1 ina rather unique sport, and it doesn't take the driver himself to be at his prime, but the car and team as well.
Disagree completely here...Vettel's attitude when his car is mediocre is a huge question mark, IMO. It would be interesting to watch Vettel in a car like Alonso had this year. Also disagree here. He has been smoked by by his teammates in consecutive seasons (Sutil and Hulkenburg). Very "vanilla" driver and an equally boring personality. I'm sure people thought the same about Alonso after he bagged the 05 and 06 titles while he was so young. Way too many variables to say that. To even equal MS's wins total he'll have to win over 4 races a year for the next 15 years in a row. That puts into perspective what MS accomplished. Not saying he can't do it, but he is going to need LOTS of luck and make the right team choices to do so...and stay as sharp as he is now, of course. Not many have proven they can do that for a long time.
If Vettel becomes a 10 time WDC, I will have already stopped watching F1 by #5. I think the powers that be would prevent such a thing due to boredom. Perhaps that did some of that with MS.
I dont think anyone thought Alonso was going to be anyone close to Schumacher... ... Vettle is already on 3 - in a row... I think considering Red bull and Newey.. its easy for him to pick off a couple more
But we must also remember that things change rapidly in F1. Red Bull showed that they can be beaten. It's just who can actually outsmart them from the start. In Ferrari's case, the F2012 was a wreck from the start, with qualifying being it's Achilees Heel. If Ferrari can pull themselves together, Red Bull can be prevented from wins.
How are you going to label Nigel Mansell, who started in the ground effect days, went thru the turbo years as a very fast driver but didn't win a championship until the non-ground effect, non-turbo years? And how about Niki Lauda? And Nelson Piquet? And Alan Jones? Anyone before about 1965 I don't know much about, who won one in a front-engine car and also a rear-engine car? Anyone?
A driver in their prime is an athlete who hasn't driven 500,000 miles yet, or me when I gotta take a serious wizz.
I'd say Hamilton is approaching his peak in F1 right now, however the results he gets in the near future may not reflect that.
Mika´s problem was never his driving, the problem was the mercedes-bomb they planted in his Mclaren during the 2000 season!!! But there are drivers who simply seemed to lost it from one year to the other...take Alboreto for example, in 85 he was probably the best, IMO he drove even better than Prost but after that season he was never again a top, top driver.....same with Arnoux, after 83, he simply lost it......Piquet lost a lot after his accident in 87, and to me so did Berger after the 88 accident. To me Shumi was always at the same level beore his return, perhaps not as well in 2006, because he was leaving and i guess trhat hurted him a bit, making him do a couple of mistakes......KImi on the other hand, i guess his peak was ion 2005 and 2006, to me clearly the class of the field in both years, then he lost something...but he was so good that it was still enough to win a championship....
