Means nothing running into Bruno the race before. Poor headwork and a knack for mistakes plus the car failing him(or the team) do not flatter him much. He was the best under the former system of 1 man devotion/unlimited refueling and tires. Great he was but no longer is. Its a fact. Period. He is a great champion of another era. Plain and simple the sport is growing away from him as he grows in age and loses his edge. Sure he can compete and has yet not outpaced Massa for the last 2 seasons. You like stats. Thats a very very strong one indeed. Frankly it is Nico's team more so than his. Nico has the win, MS has a pole he lost the race prior. Not a stellar record. How much more do you need to hear about this. If he raced for Toro Rosso would you move him up to Red Bull? Hard to say. He is midpack. Thats reality. If he does better so be it. His stats do not put him in the top 5. He is hardly better than the current BEST of F1. Im sorry but the marketing luster is old news here. Im a fan but reality is much stronger for me than his performances of some years ago.
someone has to be midpack. I'd still rather have him on the team than some of the other young guns. Some of you guys make him sound washed up. Maybe he's not as good as he was, but he appears to me to be better than most. I'd still back Brawn and Haug to know better than us.
MS had a great career. Time to let that speak more than this not so great come back. For me Nico's win really woke me up to what MS has NOT done.
Great. Another hater. So he's number two to Nico at worst. So what? You think you know better than the Mercedes team? Laughable!
I think the term "hate" is being thrown the wrong direction. There is an opinion by some of us that isn't hating. We never hated Michael, we recognize what he's achieved, but realistic about the present. Seems like the only thing close to "hate" is coming from the rosso colored fanboys against the "realists". Just look at the tone of posts and who uses stats and quantitative analysis vs. loose excuses like luck.
What would that be? It took Nico 115 races to get his first win and less than one full season for MS to get his first win. I highly doubt Nico will ever win a WDC either and I actually would like him to.
A rather pointless debate. MS is the most successful F1 driver of all times. That's all we can ever say. Whether he or Senna or e.g. Jim Clark is/was the best, we will never know because there is no way of a) measuring and b) saying what could have been: Had Senna lived through Imola, maybe he would have gone on to win 3 more titles, titles MS would never have won. Or maybe Senna's time was over regardless (just like MS' is now) and he would have never won another title and MS had collected his 7 titles regardless. Maybe Stefan Belloff was the best ever but a premature death took him from us without ever finding out. The fans of every driver will always claim that their driver was the best. Maybe they're right, maybe not. Fact remains that only WDC points and statistics are objective measure enough and by that measure MS leads and I doubt anybody will ever eclipse that record. That said, by that very same measure MS also has the three most unsuccessful years at MB in his entire F1 racing career. Some of it is down to bad luck, but the fanboys can't just write all of it off to that. DF1 was commenting on MS' comeback years, which so far have been miserable. I have actually expected him to win a couple of races (if anybody cares, just do a search for a few years back). I never expected him to win another title (unlike the fanboys who wrote stuff like "He'll dominate the field. He'll wipe the floor with young guns. The Master will school the boys of F1. An 8th title is a given. blablabla"), but I did think he'd do better than he has. I cannot say whether Nico will ever win a WDC. I think he is fast, but not a top level guy (like Alonso, Hami, Vettel or how MS and Kimi were) and the fact that he outscores MS every year speaks volumes. Not so much about Nico has gained but what MS has lost as a driver. So far Rosberg has beaten MS in all three years in every regard (wins, podiums, qualifying).
So anyway at this point it does not seem like Merc is planning ahead without MS but what goes on behind closed doors is something we do not know and there is no telling what his future holds with Merc or in any F1 related capacity.
If you read the quotes by Haug et al. you'll see that they do have a plan B for what would happen if MS decides not to continue. Believing they wouldn't consider that option would be calling them naive fools. They're certainly not that. From Haug's comments it looks like they have talked to several drivers but haven't done anything tangible, just keeping their options open because their #1 choice is to continue with MS. Meanwhile whether MS continues or not comes probably down to whether he'll have any luck/success/car reliability in the coming races. In many ways this reminds me of 2006 all over again: Merc rightfully want to know what the future holds, meanwhile understandably MS takes his time trying to decide where his heart lies.
Well said And Rob, 'hater' is a term used for those who take pleasure in seeing Michael's car break and then blame him -aphoristically and rather sophomoric- for it later by showing how many points he yielded through this season. That is the embodiment of hater as the point makes little sense to the valid counterpoint argument yet it provides them pleasure/satisfaction wallowing in the subject's misfortune. Sad.
I wait on official announcements and not misleading press. Some people are into the whole Google/Wiki thing about finding info but I am totally opposite. I could care less about anything other than what happens on the track or when I hear those words from the horses mouth. For me it is like being a Rooster in a Hen house, blah blah blah yada yada yada, no disrespect intended.
As is almost this entire thread; based solely on farts & fumes. Like speculating on a roulette table minus the fun + win.
Expect that in any forum. We share what we think about something we care about/or are inspired by/closely follow. I enjoy this very much with the Ferrari and F1 fans here. None of us have a crystal ball of course. I have no issues with anyone here and I learn something about the sport I love each week or more from some very informed people here. Especially those with greater technical detail than me. Hope all of you have a great day! Its warm and summer is here
Not me! I'm not a fanboi, but I'm not into knocking him either. He's statistically the best ever F1 driver....of that there's no doubt. The trouble is some people expect him to get the same results now, and if he doesn't, he's washed up and shouldn't be there. If he didn't want to be there, and if Mercedes didn't want him there, then they'd just give some lame excuse like "the neck's playing up again" or something, and he'd be gone. The mere fact that he's still there, to me, shows that Mercedes has faith in his abilities and performance and input. THE END. Anyone who thinks they're in a better position than MS or Mercedes to judge or comment is delusional. Hence, anyone who thinks he doesn't deserve to be on the grid because he's too old, too slow, out of his depth, a different generation blah blah blah, needs their head read. If he never wins another GP, then he'll have done no worse than most of the people who have driven in F1 ever. Simply put, most drivers never win a GP, and if he doesn't, big deal... and that's another statistic for the haters
No one needs their head 'read' to offer an opinion differing from yours. Its not much different at all. I think he is great and he should leave. I actually kept the copy of the Bild the day it was official and announced he would come back! Not bad for a person who thinks his time has past. I was very excited to see him drive again. Im over it and one day he will leave again and I wont miss him. I didnt the first time he left. F1 changes, drivers come and go and he is not curing cancer, hence no need to actually worship him. I appreciate what he has accomplished for Ferrari, Mercedes and F1. I simply feel he should let it go. Freud need not attend to me.....for saying that.
Ok. Thanks for confirming that you are better equipped to think he should go than Mercedes. You don't need your head read for disagreeing with me. Well....now that I think about it ....but seriously I don't see how it's open to opinion. He's there....he wants to be....Mercedes wants him there.....none of us know more than them. I'd rather him than Senna or Maldonado or Perez even, for example! But I wish them all well. I still think there are other drivers that should go before ms, so why pick on him? It's just weird.
MS has finished behind Massa, of all people and you are not telling Ferrari the same? If you do how dare you, you know more than Ferrari LOL! Ive got a nice number for you if you need HELP Chin up! - http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100478
Let me know if you can find a post made by me about getting rid of Massa. I feel the same about him as I do about MS. Who the hell are we to say "he has to go" I just don't get the negative stuff people say about sports stars. Ferrari got rid of Kimi and paid dearly for the pleasure of doing so. If they wanted to get rid of Massa, they would and could. He's obviously doing better than it appears to us nobodies OR they think he's at least better than anyone else they could get. Maybe that's how Mercedes feels about MS too, but in both cases, if they were the duds people on here say they are, they'd be gone. Anyone who insists Massa or MS should go is insulting the brilliant minds running the F1 teams, really...and to insult them only insults yourself. I mean, we can all have an opinion, but in this case it's ridiculous because we're not fully informed.
p.s. Did Mercedes pay Pirelli to say that? What a bold prediction. I wouldn't be putting money on that!
Not quite the end: There are other good reasons for why Merc wants him to stick around: As we hear on here so often, MS still enjoys a large popularity with the fans. That means more viewership of F1 races and media exposure for Merc. It wouldn't even surprise me if MB would use the MS-card in its dealings with Bernie, because having MS on the grid sells F1 better as a package. Also there are some personal bonds between Haug/Brawn and MS. Granted that goes only so far in F1 but Haug would probably rather sacrifice himself than fire MS. And lets not forget: MS is a good #2 to Nico. No need to get all huffy. My reply wasn't about your post only, but about the question in general "who is the best F1 driver". Because it can't be answered. Any answer is merely wishful thinking. The only meaningful measure we have and that is used in the history books are cold, hard WDC points.
Well, the difference is Massa's own performances have resulted in his low points total. Schumacher has missed out on a boatload of points through circumstances completely out of his control. Michael has outqualified and (IMO) outraced Rosberg several times this year. Massa has not been able to do that. Had MS's car held together he'd have about 60 points to Massa's 2 so it's not really a fair comparison. Massa has been slow until very recently, whereas MS has demonstrated great pace (easily the best of his comeback).
They all sound like excellent reasons to keep him on the team. Glad we have that settled...so I was right with THE END. What's wrong with being Nico's #2? Every team has a number 2, and some of them do a lot worse compared to their team mates than MS. What I'm saying is that Ferrari has shown they're happy to pay to get rid of someone who's not performing if they have to. The fact that they haven't speaks volumes.
