Jackie Stewart doesn't think MS is one of the greats?

A steel brake that light would self destruct in the first corner.

 

Interesting opinion. Did you ever see JS drive? Those that have seen him and even more imporantly raced against him, rate him as one of the most naturally gifted drivers of all time.

Agree though with comparing driver's of different era's, they can only be compared to their contemporaries and in this regard both JS and MS are kings amongst their peers

 

No way would I put Sir Jack above Sir Jackie. Even Jack himself wouldn't. But we really should include drivers before F1 times. It annoys me that they are forgotten. All that happened was the Grand Prix's were given a different name, which was F1 Grand Prix. Same racing ...

Therefore we should include Nurvolari and Rosemeyer.

And yes mousecatcher, Vettel's effort this year has been less than last year so this year it IS the car.
Pete

 

Indy cars run with steel brakes and they don't fail. Also when 'somebody' (I bl**dy cannot remember the driver) raced with Williams he didn't apparently like the feel of the carbon brakes so had his car converted to steel brakes ... no difference in braking performance at all.

Carbon brakes are all and only about their weight, which is why it is such a complete wank that we waste so much of the worlds resources making them for road cars where that lighter weight is completely unnecessary. It really is the ultimate posuer addition to road cars and one that I would be too embarrassed to have on any road car of mine.
Pete

 

well stated.

 

Am I only one reading this differently? First the article is mainly about LH. Second, saying many of greatest drivers don't get into accidents doesn't mean Jackie is saying that MS is not among one of the greatest.

 

I agree with werewolf here. Heat dissipation is the issue. Modern discs and pads combine to give much, much, less fade. The fact that they are lighter is just a bonus.

At least that is the way it looks from my layman's perspective.


Onno

 

No cop out here. Here is the (my) order:

1. Fangio
2. Sterling
3. Ayrton
4. Jimmy
5. Michael

Michael, Ayrton, and Jimmy won races on dedicated, clean, perfectly predictable and measurable circuits. Fangio and Sterling, on the other hand, also drove (and won) in spectacularly different, and arguably far more challenging circumstances ( I know, not F1, but I think it counts).

Of the five, Michael is the one who has the most titles (Ferrari!), but he is also the only one that didn't risk his life at every turn while obtaining them. Quoting Robert Frost, it makes all the difference.

As to simply going by the WDC numbers, that would place Jacques Villeneuve above Stirling Moss. I don't think so...

By the way, Fangio won his last GP when he was 47, retiring very shortly thereafter. Nobody EVER called him old, incompetent, or past the retirement age: He was the best, and he was winning, until the end. Does that make you think of somebody?

 

My top 5: ALL TIME

1. Jackie Stewart
2. Ayrton Senna
3. JM Fangio
4. Jim Clark
5. Michael Schumacher

5-10

6. Alan Prost
7. Niki Lauda
8. Gilles Villeneuve
9. Tazio Nouvalari
10. Mario Andretti

 

Sorry, but I disagree with this statement. IMO, F1 drivers of today are also putting their lives on the line everytime they goes out on the track. Let's not forget that Michael broke his leg in 1999 and two drivers had lost their lives ( Senna & Ratzenberger ) during his ongoing F1 career. While today's F1 racing is by far lightyears away from Fangio days in terms of safety, it is still an extremly dangerous sport because the drivers are pushing not only themselves but also the machinaries to the limit every single second they are out on the track.

And as for the greatest, in no particular order :

Schumacher, Senna, Prost, Clark and Fangio.

 

+1

Or Mansell! Or, indeed a whole pantheon of one time winners.

A single title, while a worthy achievement, certainly doesn't put you among the greats. Sir Sterling is probably the only non-WDC who's name can be seriously discussed with these guys - He's the "exception that proves the rule" IMO. Trouble with him (rightly or wrongly) is the old "ahh, but, he never won the WDC" argument.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Very well put. No one could argue that Jacques, Damon Hill, and Hamilton are among the greatest of all time. Infact all three were fairly good drivers, in the best equipment of the that particular season. Sterling Moss was by far more talented than these three, just in a much more competitive set of seasons. Michael on the other hand won a WDC in the Beneton, which was no match for the Williams that year. He also made the otherwise slow Ferrari quick, and built a multi championship team around it.

 

Which year was the Benetton not a match for the Williams? It was definitely superior in the early part of 1994 and close to if not equal to the Williams in 1995. Michael is definitely one of the greatest of all time, but it was not like he took a midfield car to the WDC, (I can't think of any driver that won the WDC in anything over than a top 3 car). I wish he would have had a strong teammate once in his career that we could compare him against. He did do an amazing job of turning Ferrari around with Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne.

 

For the acheivement of turning around Ferrari from 1996 - 2007 that alone makes him one of the all time greats!!!!

 

Agreed. There is no disputing the remarkable turnaround from the 1991-1995 slump that Ferrari was enduring. I Michael in my top 4 with Senna, Clark and Fangio.

 

Mine is:

Vettel (best driver ever)
Fred Alonzo -or- Louis Hamilton (can I make it a tie?)
Airton Senna
Mike Hawthorne (looked that one up)
Michael Schumacher (he crashes too much but has a lot of titles)


Sincerely,

F1 Newbie

 

1 - 5

#1 - Schumacher (broke every record)
#2 - Senna (FAST)
#3 - Nuvolari (Look it up)
#4 - Alberto Ascari (won 9 races in a row)
#5 - Fangio (he was VERY good, maybe I dont give him enough credit BUT he did change his car every year for a new comptetive team AND other drivers did often give up their chance to win the championship for their team leader)

 

Which one of Michael's team mates at Beneton was scoring in the same points values as he was, or on the podium as often? I don't recall JJ Letho just nipping Schumacher for the WDC ala Prost/Senna, at McLaren.... I think you give the Beneton too much credit. The Williams was by far more technically advanced. Without the car, Damon Hill would have been no match for Schumacher.

 

To be fair to Hamilton, he still has time on his side to prove whether he is one of the greatest ever or not, I don't think his careers over quite yet.


And here's something to shock certain members on here:

The way Hamilton goes about his racing reminds Me of a certain driver from way back yonder who I admired greatly (still do, always will!), who drew Me into F1 in the first place. He was aggressive, super fast, had fantastic car control, had a never say die attitude and was more than happy to go wheel to wheel racing with his rivals (which like with Hamilton, often ended up in collisions).
His name?: Gilles Villeneuve (Yes, that's right, I think Hamilton, as a driver in the car, is a modern day Villeneuve!).
This is the side to Hamilton that I can appreciate and begrudgingly admire (except when he's running into one of My beloved Ferrari's of course!).

However, for Me he falls short of Villeneuve with his attitude outside of the car. At times he seems to think that to be successful or great you have to be arrogant, smug or aloof (or a combination of all three). Villeneuve might have been a bit aloof at times but he was most definitely not arrogant or smug.


As for Jackie Stewart, in an interview once he said that any driver who said the risk of getting killed whilst racing was a big part of the thrill, was an idiot! (or words to that effect!).

A couple of months later the BBC interviewed Sir Stirling Moss and one of his statements was that the risk of dying whilst competing in Motor racing was a big thrill for him and that taking chances and getting away with it made him feel alive! (He did also agree that far too many drivers died needlessly before their time).

Reading the comments made by Stewart, I get the impression that he is blatantly saying that Schumacher is not one of the greats, but he is wrong. Schumacher changed the whole attitude of drivers when it came to F1. Suddenly they had to be fitter, more focussed on the job at hand, more dedicated. Yes he was a win at all costs type of driver back then, but so was Ayrton Senna in his day, and he is universally rated as one of, if not the, greatest of all time and yet he had plenty of controversy and incidents surrounding him. Schumacher was merely the latest evolution of that type of driver who took the style to the nth degree to achieve success.

As for Schumacher having the best car and the best team around him when he won his Championships, how did that happen?. Was it by sheer luck or was it from hard work?, moulding the team to become more dedicated by leading by example, testing the car from sunrise to sunset (and not by leaving the testing for some other "lesser" driver to do), spending time with the engineers to understand the concept of the engineering of the car (often late into the night!), working out how to get the most from the car during races (Using the pit lane limiter as a traction control device around the last corner at Magny Cours springs to mind straight away).

Whether you (or Jackie Stewart) like it or not, Schumacher built the Ferrari team into a virtually unbeatable machine through sheer dedication, and that to Me is the sign of one of the true greats of Formula one.

 

Nico may be the first strong teammate Michael has had; it is far easier to score more points when your teammate is under contract to move over for you. Looking at Michael's teammates we have, Piquet (last year looking towards retirement), Brundle (never more than a 2nd tier F1 driver, great guy, but he did not have what it took to be a top F1 driver), Lehto and Verstappen (never top tier, had to share the car in 1994), Johnny Herbert (team orders and happy to leave the team), Eddie Irvine (decent number 2 driver, nothing more), Rubens Barrichello (decent number 2 driver, nothing more, contracted to let Michael by when he was in the lead) and Felipe Massa (good guy, but not number 1 material and under ocntract as Michael's number 2).

Fangio had Farina and Moss as teammates, Clark had Surtees and Graham Hill as teammates, Prost had Lauda and Senna as teammates and Senna had Prost and Damon Hill as a teammates.
The Benetton was very good (thanks to Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne) in both 1994 and 1995. The 1995 Williams was a better car than the 1994 which inferior to the Benetton at the beginning of the season.

Michael did save Ferrari from an incredible slump they had been in since 1979 (with the excpetion of 1990), but he brought a very talented support cast with him in the form of Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne. Rory is supposed to be coming out of retirement to see if he can help Ferrari regain its former glory, and this tifosi is hoping that it comes soon!
Forza Ferrari.

 

1) clark
2) senna
3) fangio
4) schumacher
4) stewart

 

Alberto Ascari won 9 races in the row simply because there was no opposition. Ferrari was the only competitive team due to rule changes. He should not be above Fangio or Clark IMO.
Pete

 

Ascari, did have superior machinery, however that in no way takes away from his skill. I do agree that he is most likely not as superior a driver as Clark / Fangio, but he was very good before and after the war... and in many different types of cars. He did have huge balls! they all did from the 20's to the early 60's.... F-1 & racing in general was completely different. harder cars to drive, lower speeds, but longer races, no safety, and no driver aids at all... not even seatbelts or helmets... skinny treaded tires, wire wheels, & drum brakes... and if you look at the speeds they were doing - a modern car on most tracks today would still be going quite fast!

 

I think you're mixing up Antonio (the father, pre-war) and Alberto (the son, post war).

 

Easy.

You don't think about it.

Today, you get in your DD and you could get broadsided by a dump truck, or a car can cross the center line and hit you head-on, but you don't think about it.

Bad things happen to other people, that's what you have to believe.