Is Lewis Hamilton the greatest of all time, why or why not?

I am not attacking you.. lol

Just find it incredulous that you were born in Sept 1991 and started "watching F1 in the early 1990's " age of what 1/2/3?

Please carry on with your endless knowledge of F1

 

Agree..
I can’t wait for the season to start!

 

100%

 

Now lets hear it from Schumachers teammates.
Massa:
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/massa-schumacher-worked-harder-but-hamilton-more-talented-in-f1-4977789/4977789/
Barrichello:
https://www.planetf1.com/news/rubens-barrichello-lewis-hamilton-michael-schumacher/
Irvine:
https://www.grandprix247.com/2019/11/17/irvine-hamilton-better-than-schumacher-and-senna/
Rosberg:
https://www.planetf1.com/news/nico-rosberg-lewis-hamilton-best-f1-talent/

You can write 100 pages of bluff. Your assesment will never be more valuable than Schumachers teammates.

 

+1

Quiz: which team/nationality was found to be cheating/bending the rules and/or disqualified such as trick ride height lowering suspension to circumvent rules, fake brake-cooling water ballast to circumvent minimum weight rules, lead pellets in the fuel tank, questionable legality fuel, stealing IP from competitor, colluding with another competitor to arrange the finishing order, illegal tire test, bendy rear wing and over-max DRS gap…. Hint: NOT Ferrari and not Italian.

The only incident I know of Ferrari being found to be afoul of the rules was Long Beach 1982 when they challenged the rules as written and ran the double wide rear wing and were DQ’d. Here at least the infraction was not hidden but was in plain view.

 

Blah blah blah. You couldn't argue on your own, so you went for a red herring. You added nothing to the discussion with this.

 

Yeah, thats the point. I let the teammates add to the discussion.

 

It still baffles me that there wasn't more controversy and suspicion surrounding Mercedes dramatic speed gain in Brazil. No way, no how, was that just down to a new engine for Hamilton, and the people that believe that are just not being serious. If that had been Ferrari or Renault, accusations of cheating would been throughout the F1 media.

That rear wing was so obviously part of it.

 

But when will you come to understand that Germans are inherently honest and Italians all cheaters ?

 

Lewis took a grid penalty for the "spicy" or "beast" engine upgrade. Whether it was the engine or a higher mode software, it limited the engines distance from 6 to 7 races to 3 or 4 races.

Lewis went thru 25 grid spots---> 20 grid spots thru the sprint race (ended 5th) then 5 grid spots for the race. It(engine OR software) was good for 20mph increase.

 

Ouch......

 

Yeah, no, still not believable. No engine software setting change is going to gain a net six tenth speed gain from one race to the next. Make it as spicey as you want. Six tenths don't happen frim that alone.

Clearly, that was only part of it. You could watch Lewis and see he was picking up slip streams waaaaay back, even with no DRS.

 

Because the rear was dropping down as more downforce was applied thus reducing drag giving Merc more high speed acceleration and top end, they struggled setting it up earlier in the season i think and didnt use it at all in some races.



will explain it better than me.

 

I wonder IF Mercedes offers that OPTION to its customer teams???? I doubt it.

 

They should or they're breaking the rules.

 

You meant to say overriding the rules.

 

agreed

 

Back to the original question - the Greatest of All Time... in Formula One....

Motorsport did a statistical analysis of this. If you use the percentage of winning races entered its pretty clear that Fangio is the best. Number 2? anyone... doubt anyone will get it.....


Ascari. if you look at the Championship in the 50's - you may have only had 7-8 races per season ( inclusive of Indy at the time ). the Statistics clearly show Fangio as #1 - and Jim Clark is # 3. Hamilton by comparison is #4 or 5 which is very good, because he had so many more races to dilute the win percentage. then if you go to fast laps, and all that, the list usually looks like this ( this is from Memory - but Motorsport has the calculations)

Fangio,
Ascari,
Clark
Hamilton
Schumacher
Stewart
Senna
Prost
Lauda
Piquet

Again I'm pretty sure of the top 3 - but Motorsport has done the calculations. What it all means - most likely nothing, but what is clear is that the older - guys from the 50's not only had the biggest spheres... but also had the best winning percentages. that Fangio lived to almost 90 years old and saw Modern F1 shows how amazing he was to win, and survive. I know I'm a broken record, but out of all those guys - Jackie Stewart is the real living legend. Schumacher as well... but sadly seems likely Schumacher is disabled on a permanent basis. Hamilton that he is not only living but still competing is THE GUY.

 

Breaking the rules in F-1 goes back to the first day of the series. they all try to do it. It's the getting caught that counts. If you think that RB, Ferrari and McLaren are all sticking to the rule book 100% - I don't know what to say. they have engineers and lawyers constantly looking at options and scenarios. it's just more focused today, as there are fewer and fewer areas to innovate on. Colin Chapman and Gordon Murray along with Adrian Newey are all famous for cutting Hairs on the rules.... that is how they win. Ferrari as well. If Mercedes is cheating - and not caught ... good to them. they figured it out they found the unfair advantage.

 

I don't like Hamilton, but I will say he will be remembered as a GOAT because he's the first black world champion, let alone a 7-time world champion, that's just icing on the cake.

 

As many have said, can't really compare diferent ages, my opinion doesn't differ much from Tom's. I would put it this way:

50s, Ascari, Fangio and Moss....Moss was much superior to everyone else once Fangio was gone, but in f.1, Fangio looked a step above Moss. Ascari was his equal, Moss himself said it was hard to pick one over the other.
60s, Clark, end of story!
70s, Stewart and Lauda, Ronnie was very good but in the whole Stewart was a much more complete driver, Rindt was probably as fast...but we will never know what he would have achieved, Fittipaldi was not as good as him. Lauda came after , so we can't compare both, i have a feeling Stewart was better. Gilles arrived in the end, by 79 he was the best.
80s, Gilles was the indisputed star of early 80s, but his death left us with 3 names, Piquet, Prost, Senna. Senna was the fastest, but was he the best?
90s, Senna still ruled in early days, then came Michael, he's the real 90s star and 2000s.
After him, we had Alonso, Kimi, Hamilton, but to my mind, none of them came even close to Michael.
2020 forward we have Max and i believe Charles, they both promise a lot, just how good they really are remains to be seen!

These to me are the goats, wich one is better, i guess it depends on what you're searching for. To me it would be raw speed, car control, and big balls (i guess they all had that, but perhaps some were a bit bigger!), that's why i choose Gilles, but was he the best guy to win a championship? No, he wasn't, because he wasn't there for that, he just wanted to be the fastest guy, wich he was!

 

...YET....... he is still al..... too soon?

 

Perhaps. But few have ever created the following that Senna had. Those exceptional drivers are sometimes their own worst enemy. Their talent and confidence levels make them expect things of others that they cannot achieve. Same for expectations. That leads to the sometimes disastrous results that take them. Senna was no different.

 

Pretty even-keeled discussion for a potential powder-keg thread. Impressed! I agree that so much goes into the discussion of a "greatest". Fangio is great, but Ascari was his match up to his untimely death. Clark is another...magnificent driver who left us far too early. JYS, pioneer of safety and can't ignore his contributions. Senna is my controversial favorite...Gilles was a legend-in-the-making before Zolder.

They are all exceptional drivers. I'm fine with lists like furoni's...they all belong (re: Michael....we sometimes forget the weight he carried in resurrecting a long-dormant, and since-dormant for the most part, Ferrari team to a Camelot-esque period in the modern F1 era. The criticism he bore in '98 & '99 was crazy, given McLaren had a better car. Everything he achieved required enormous resolution, aggression and calm. He is far too easily dismissed as a "cheater" by those who didn't see his entire Ferrari term).

 

I can’t wait until the season starts. Off season is tiresome