Well, that's why F1 provides you with WDC points. So it is not figure skating but actually measurable by results. Right now he is a 3 times WDC. It is not far fetched that he'll be a 4 times WDC. That'll put him right there into a very tiny club with Vettel and Prost. Both of them are my absolute heroes. And no, I'm not a Hamilton fan, nor do I care for his personality (unlike Prost and Vettel, whom I actually like). But denying Lewis his achievements is a bit short sighted. Hell yes. I know a few people who have followed F1 for a long time and they think it'd be an embarrassment for the sport if Nicole would win a WDC. I agree with them. He is a vanilla driver. Another comment I didn't come up with but fully agree with.
Again...why must those who do not constantly sing songs of praise to Hamilton must immediately be haters? Each and every irate Hamilton supporter always bring this up.
I think NeuroBeaker could sort out this one. In the past he settled the matter of Hamilton fans going over the top in their appreciation of the Brit. Nobody belittles anybody, but some just put things in their context and don't only rely on chosen stats to make a point. This has been explained over and over again in this forum. So don't feel offended every time someone denies that Hamilton is the new messiah or the GOAT (God, I hate that meaningless expression).
I don't see how it could be an embarrassment for the sport if Rosberg wins the title. Surely an embarrassment for Elton then, too?
Sorry, but I do not understand your logic...On one side you say one has to respect his achievement and just a sentence later you label his team mate as a "vanilla driver" and as "Nicole"... Without doubt the Mercedes is so dominant that those sitting in it are the only drivers able to win a WDC at the moment, all they have to do is beating their team mate...If Lewis team mate is such a joke/girl/whatever, where is actually the achievement beating him? Is Lewis achievement signing a contract at the right stable???
Ok, I'll take a stab at it. Sid, we get that you don't like the guy (I don't either) and you take absolutely every opportunity to condemn him, but it is undeniable that he's an accomplished champion. Putting words in people's mouths to say they agree to your comprehensive denigrations of every little thing he does could come across as trolling. For someone who constantly reasserts that only Ferrari and Ferrari drivers matter to you - to the exclusion of all else - you spend an inordinate amount of time talking about Hamilton's faults and lifestyle. I agree with tifosi12, the ice is thin and you will need to tone it down going forward. For everyone else, please hit report buttons rather than throw accusations of trolling back and forth. All that'll do is just exacerbate such situations rather than fix it. All the best, Andrew.
Ad 1: I have been a mod of the F1 forum long before Neuro. That's not a stab at him (he is doing a great job) but I just wanted to point out that the topic of trolling is not new to me, in fact quite the opposite: as mods we discussed the boundaries of which a lot behind the scenes. Edit: I just see that Neuro answered this in his perfect style. Ad 2 I'm not a Hamilton fan (I am a Vettel, Alonso and now Max fan) but denying a 3 times WDC his talent and skill and wash it down as sheer luck is not cutting it for me.
He lacks racecraft as evidenced in Spain, Austria and Germany. I always thought his father lucked into the title (which should have been Ferraris) and I would hate to see Damon Hill (by another name) win it again.
Nobody can deny the facts, but to say they are the achievement of a driver vastly superior to the rest is just over-egging the pudding in the case of Hamilton. He is not GREAT, just a good driver lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time, for reasons I would prefer not to discuss here. Hamilton is NOT vastly superior to Rosberg; they are evenly matched, and the German holds his own very well, I think. The car is 70% behind the success. Personally, I don't like Hamilton persona and lifestyle, and I will always prefer somebody understated like Nico to an extrovert character. I just don't like Hamilton's "in-your-face" attitude.
FerrariPilot never tired of portraying Nico on here as plain vanilla driver, basically a glorified mid field driver who lucked into his seat a MB. Personally I mostly like Nico for his intellect and life style as opposed to Hamilton. But I don't think he is WDC material. Unless he gets super lucky like his dad.
As you have not answered before I ask again: where is the great achievement beating someone like that? Yes, Hamilton does deserve the WDC more than Nico but is that because Lewis is that good or Nico not so much?
You are picking bones here; every driver has good and bad days, even Hamilton. So now, you start to dismiss previous WDCs as well for lacking "racecraft " too perhaps? Keke Rosberg didn't "luck" his title. That year, he pedalled an atmospheric Williams against turbo Renault and Ferrari. His car must have given 100/150hp to them at least in this unequal fight, and no chance of outpacing them. So Keke used the reliability of the Cosworth to score points at most GPs, knowing that an outright win would be elusive at best. He even managed one win that year, which was quite remarkable, a real "giant-killing" achievement. If the title "should have been Ferrari", why didn't they get it? Probably because they kept breaking too often, handled like pigs and spewed their bits on the track too often. It doesn't matter; Keke accumulated the highest number of points and was declared WDC according to the rules, that you like it or not. As for Damon Hill, I don't know why anyone could question his title either. From being the tester, the guy found himself team leader at Williams in tragic circumstances and picked up the flag. Damon was very good at testing and developing the car; his weakness was close racing, but most of the time he didn't need to dice with opponents. Maybe not a top driver, but a good journeyman, fast and reliable. Some say he was robbed of a first WDC by one of Schumacher's dirty tricks, and I tend to agree on that. But Damon Hill's title was well deserved. For someone who preaches that we shouldn't belittle Hamilton's achievements, it seems to me that you are quite prone at doing the same about drivers that don't meet your fancy.
That definition i's applicable to Hamilton as well !!! Let's use you logic and your arguments: Hamilton "lucked" his first title in 2008; it should have been a Ferrari that got it. Agreed ? Hamilton was regularly outpaced by Button at McLaren. He used to finish 4th or 5th in the championship. To me that sounds like a mid-field driver, no ? LW only started to look good when he landed the Mercedes drive, because it's a superior car.
If you want to play that game, you have to play it for 1994 - 1997 also. Schumacher "lucked" into his first title, when Senna was killed. If Damon Hill could get within 1 point of Schumacher in that Williams, then Senna (had he not died at Imola) would have trounced him for title #4, and -1 title for Schumacher, down to 6. In 1995, the Williams was superior to the Benneton... so another title, #5, for Senna, and -1 for Schumacher, down to 5. 1996 - easy title #6 for Senna rather than for Hill; 1997 - easy title #7 for Senna. Even if Ferrari would have still hired Schumacher without the two Benneton titles, the score would have been Senna 7 titles, Schumacher 5 titles - and people would be talking about how Schumacher lucked into a great car with contractually weak teammates following team orders, rather than GOAT.
My personal list of F1's ten greatest drivers of all time (chronological order): Juan Manuel Fangio Stirling Moss Jim Clark Jackie Stewart Nikki Lauda Alain Prost Ayrton Senna Michael Schumacher Lewis Hamilton and/or Sebastian Vettel (All the others were easy picks for me. This one is a little harder due to - I suppose - their careers being ongoing. Hell, they are probably barely at the halfway point. I'm inclined to rate LH higher at this point, because he has been great at two different teams, whereas Seb has won essentially only at Red Bull.) BTW: this list leaves off some multi-champs such as Jack Brabham, Graham Hill, Nelson Piquet, Emerson Fittipaldi, etc. Not to dismiss them, but ...
David, I agree completely with your list, but I'd find a place for Gilles Villeneuve also - while he didn't have the numbers because his career was cut short, he was a talent that ranked above anyone in his time.
I agree, Schumacher's unusually high number of driver championships were the result of Senna's death (if you want to play that game with Hamilton, you need to play it with MS also).
I see some people taking credit to keke here..let me say keke was a great driver..very, very talented one....of course that year the title should have been Gilles's, then Pironi, in the end keke got it...but he was every bit as good if not better then Didier but of course, his car was not in the same league as the 126 c2, at least in most tracks... keke was Gilles hardest oponent in f. Atlantic in 77, they had huge batles and became good friends, he was very respected by Gilles....and think this says it all. People like to talk about Mansell, Prost piquet an d senna...but Keke was up there with them..in fact i believe he was better then Mansell.....maybe he didn't win the title in the correct year,but he surely deserved one...unlike Damon IMO.
He's not a great...not even close. He got his first WDC by barely beating Massa, and the rest by only beating Rosberg.
Even if that had occurred, Senna and schumi are the two greatest drivers of all time, top of the list, for most people, and both had more racecraft, technical understanding, race intelligence, cunning, speed and ability in their little fingers than Elton, good driver though he might be. The closest to their type of driver today is Alonso, it isn't -44. Both of them were able to make a bad car fast and beat far superior cars when necessary, Senna in various, and schumi in the benneton and the 96-98 ferraris (the 99 Ferrari, without schumi breaking his leg, was likely the car to win the championship had he been there the full season, even swervin irvine almost won!, and it made Mika Salo look fast too). Remember, the 94 and 95 Williams was still a car that should have trounced the field - schumi worked very hard and raced some fantastic races to make those titles, he wasn't dancing around in a car 20 seconds ahead of the field after 4 laps like the Mercedes allows today. Both of them dominated their teammates overall, and both had a say in who their number two was. Barrichello and Massa were both very highly rated before they arrived at Ferrari, however, Ferrari themselves promote a driver hierarchy, and schumi being recognised by everyone as the best of his time, and possibly all time, was always going to be number one, there is no problem in my mind with that. Ferraris number two drivers were there to rear-gun for schumi, and win when he wasn't able. They signed their contracts, if not with this written in, but with this understanding. To be allowed to beat schumi would require their demonstrating not only a one lap, or one race, pace, but consistently performing at a level Ferrari would know they could allow it to happen and still achieve the titles. They would not dare to undermine schumi as he had brought to Ferrari the respect, success, belief but also a strong fear of losing again. Look at what happened in 2006 when they decided he had to go, the team started to decline. Kimi took 2007 deservedly, since the mclarens were a fraudulent copy of their tech, and massa should have won the 2008 title, marginally but fairly, without a doh pitstop and timo Glock forgetting where the gas pedal was in Brazil. Once those seasons were over, the Ferrari star had sunk below the line of the best coming teams, and we know the rest. Red bulls dominance through its aero, and now Mercedes through its manipulation of the FIA to get an engine formula that suits them and no one else, and testing restrictions to prevent anyone catching up. Before anyone comments regards the engine, saying Ferrari voted for it, the choice was little four pot bangers, or six pot bangers, there was no don't change nor v8 option, they had to vote for something, and tuneless six pot was simply better than tuneless four banger If in the tough McLaren years (sic) Elton had been able to win special races, or demonstrate fantastic ability over and above that expected of the car when it wasn't the fastest, and outpace his teammate consistently, then I no doubt might appreciate where his fans are coming from, but he didn't do anything of the sort. His hype when button arrived was that Jenson would eat his dust, get blown away, his career would be in tatters etc etc. After three years, in a pretty good car overall, neither really smashed the other, both had good and bad races, neither did anything spectacular, and Jenson, the underdog, the man unfit to lace eltons boots according to some, scored more points. Did brundle score more than ayrton ever, massa or Rubens score better than Michael, did Eddie? They dominated their teammates first and foremost, same car, massive differentials in performance no matter how good the teammate Got a great reputation - don't go to Ferrari is you want to keep it, Michael will destroy you - is what drivers thought back in the day. I doubt any of the top five would hesitate at joining merc to go head to head with Elton, even we know what to do. Get in his head, make him know you won't give way, and he will crumble. Nico fails because he lets Elton keep pushing him around without response. He needs to do the same, if Elton pushes him out wide, do it to him, make contact, risk the controversy, but let him know you will take him out rather than win, because that is how Elton does it, he trusts that others would rather finish in the points having lost a place, than dice and maybe lose all their points, that way, he can be as aggressive as heck and it's fine. The press are mostly Brits it seems, so they are too biased to call him out on his overt moves.
