Is the car more important today than in years past?

But the best drivers usually end up in the best car anyway because they can choose. Today certainly they are bound for a longer time to the teams, Fangio changing car every (second) year would not happen today.

Back in the days certainly the fastest was not necessarily the best car, "to finish first you first have to finish" was not said for nothing. I think reliability is not really an issue anymore today compared to the 50s/60s, that is why they do not have the drop results anymore. So the best car today is more the fastest car and back then a combination of fast/reliable.

The above leads to the conclusion that in the old days drivers could drive around a weak but not a failing car. But in the early days (Fangio) they even handed cars to team mates during the race for that reason.

But even when we do not go back that far but look at the onboard videos of Senna one can imagine that these unstable cars separated the drivers more in therms of talent than the more stable cars of today. That does not mean that todays drivers are not as good but I think they can not shine that much anymore as they are more limited by the pace of their car than ever before.

 

The question isn't of comparing drivers across the years. In my opinion there are too many variables to that.

 

Not just way more....WAY!! more.

 

That was not my intention...My point was rather that in the past better drivers could do more with a weaker car than the can today -> Today the car is more important.
Your example with Alonso just shows that there are more good drivers today than really good cars, basically in the last 5 years there was always just one car to sit in but certainly more than 2 drivers deserving the ride in it. But at the end it is still not like the weakest driver gets the best car and just wins the WDC, looking over the list of the past WDC there are really just a few "flukes". My point was that a guy like Maldonado will most likely never sit in the car to beat by chance as long as Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton and a few others are around to get that seat.

 

In the past it was perhaps less important to have a good car for qualifying. In turbo eras when car turned up to 1200hp or more nobody really got the max out of the car and I think it was more about bravery.


For the races more or less the same. Lack of run off areas in the old days and certainly no Tarmac run offs. Thus the scope for overdriving a car was less because if you made a mistake the consequences were brutal. It seems in that regard it was more important to have a good car in the past than it is today because if you tried to overdrive a dog you were far more likely to die and the way tracks were set up discouraged you from wringing the cars neck. If you have a dog of a car today you can get more out of it because the tracks are more forgiving and safety is much better. Depends how you frame the argument really.


More or less the same imo