Alan Henry's Top 100 Formula One Drivers (Possible Spoilers)

[Super Hans]

Originally Posted by ensign14

And switch the cars and development around - would Ronnie have beaten Mario?

Would Eddie / Rubens have beaten Michael?

[ensign14]

No. That's why they were chosen as team-mates.

Then again, Johnny Herbert with the magic disabled software might have given MS without it a decent run for his money...

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

Stats are a misleading thing. Is Schumacher nearly twice as good as Prost?

Stats are not misleading at all and 'good' is not measurable attribute. Remember what I said earlier, Formula One is not an equitable sport.

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

Stats can be manipulated to favour anyone in any way you want.

Absolutely not. Statistics are there in black and white. Opinion can be bent one way or another, statistics can not.

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

I prefer to think of Michael as just a bloody good driver who had some perks not so readily available to predecessors and had access to the strongest team for longer than anyone in the history of the sport.

This is your opinion and I respect that. However you can not take Michael's achievements away from him. Every 'perk' he had, he earned. Many drivers preceded him at Ferrari and ample opportunity to turn that team around as he did. They failed to do it. To devalue what he's done by saying it was handed to him on a plate is a misunderstood interpretation of what happened.

[Peter Mallett]

Lies, damned lies and statistics. Never a truer word.

[Knowlesy]

I didn't bloody say he had it handed to him on a plate! He was (is) an excellent driver and earned that stuff.

But let us be honest here. It was a different era altogether. Michael is comparable to the other greats, not head and shoulders above them.

The stats are numbers. They do not paint the picture, merely complement it like a frame.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by ensign14

Where did Peterson "hold station"? There was one I can remember which happened when Mario had a mechanical problem. And it's not a "greater opportunity" to win...maybe a bit easier, but once you're in the car you're away. And switch the cars and development around - would Ronnie have beaten Mario? I doubt it, Mario was the cerebral one, Ronnie thought the 721X was a good piece of kit...


Never said they were. What I'm saying is:

1. having Irvine as a team-mate is a bit different to having Farina, Gonzalez, Collins, Hulme, Regazzoni and so on as a team-mate;

2. Schumacher's biggest accident would have been career-ending 10 years before and fatal 20 years before;

3. the current F1 car is something like 80% likely to finish any given race and has been around that level for much of MS' career. Back "in the day" you were looking at maybe 40-50%;

4. for a good number of his race wins his car was so superior to the field literally no-one else was able to race him; it wasn't like 1952, where you could turn up at Maranello with a bag of lire to buy the car that was leading the championship.

Those are all massive, massive advantages over the Fangios of this world. (Not forgetting of course Fangio only got to Grands Prix in his late 30s...)

And remember I'm not talking about the merits of the drivers. I'm talking about the statistics pure and simple - and why they can't be relied upon at all, certainly not without some sort of very careful analysis.

Accessibility to Formula One in the past was the preserve of a very small number of wealthy individuals. Schumacher climbed the ranks in an era where selectivity was much tougher. He had a more difficult ascendency when compared to the Fangios and as a result would have faced far more formidable opposition.

Comparison across generations is always difficult but to kick statistics into the trash can and say they cannot be relied upon affords us no comparison at all.

[Super Hans]

Originally Posted by davyboy

Comparison across generations is always difficult but to kick statistics into the trash can and say they cannot be relied upon affords us no comparison at all.

Statistics are what they are. Michael Schumacher has won more Grands Prix than any other driver, won more Championships than any other driver, set more fastest laps than any other driver, and acheived more pole positions than other driver. However, that doesn't mean he is the best.

[Peter Mallett]

But statistically he must be.

[Bononi]

And he is.

[davyboy]

Well in my opinion, statistically he's the best

[ensign14]

Unless you take wins per start.

Originally Posted by davyboy

Accessibility to Formula One in the past was the preserve of a very small number of wealthy individuals.

Some day I will try to work out the probability of getting to F1 from nothing. It cost Prost £30 to get to F1 - the cost of a few laps in Formule Elf or something, everything else was awarded to him by winning scholarships. No silver spoon there. In the 50s it was not THAT difficult to get into F3, get a bike engine and knock up a chassis, and you were two steps away from Formula 1 - and for a couple of years one away from the World Championship. NO chance of doing that today, you need six figures just to get there and you're not that close to F1. Graham Hill got in by offering mechanical services. And you could just hang around waiting for someone to be killed or maimed for your drive.

You just need to think of drivers in the 50s-80s who had the talent to get to F1 and never got a drive; there's not that many. Since about 1985 though there's dozens. Andy Wallace, Jorg Muller, Kenny Brack, Gil de Ferran, just OTTOMH. More drivers had the opportunity to get to F1 in the past - which made the fields weaker at the bottom, but stronger at the top, statistically (!) speaking...

[davyboy]

Would you agree that its never been more difficult to reach F1 than it is today ? If so, it follows that to win a race has never been more difficult... and even more so to win a WDC.

[ensign14]

It depends. :P If you get picked up a la Hamilton getting to F1 depends on sheer talent. If you don't it depends on talent and money. Thing is, if it's harder to get to F1, it DOESN'T necessarily follow that winning a race is more difficult. It might be easier. After all, some of the best drivers who should be there might not have been able to get there, because of the lack of money. So that thins out the competition.

[Bononi]

Originally Posted by davyboy

Would you agree that its never been more difficult to reach F1 than it is today ? If so, it follows that to win a race has never been more difficult... and even more so to win a WDC.

I agree with that, and I believe that due to that reason more and more built-for-F1 drivers will appear and will donimate the scene.

[strider]

Originally Posted by davyboy

He [Schumacher] then proceeded to do what almost nobody else before him was able to do as a driver and galvanize the team turning Ferrari into the most potent force in Formula One.

Did Lauda not do something similar in the mid 70s?

Originally Posted by davyboy

Schumacher climbed the ranks in an era where selectivity was much tougher. He had a more difficult ascendency when compared to the Fangios and as a result would have faced far more formidable opposition.

So the fact that he was a Mercedes Junior driver would not have helped?

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by strider

Did Lauda not do something similar in the mid 70s?

No he didn't. Ferrari's success, as a team, in the mid-1970s was down to Luca di Montezemolo.

Originally Posted by strider

So the fact that he was a Mercedes Junior driver would not have helped?

Of course it helped. But the $150K they paid Eddie Jordan for the drive at Spa didn't give somebody plucked from the street a chance to joyride in the Ardennes. Schumacher, who wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth and struggled to fund his kart racing, had proven himself in karts and the junior formulae against some formidable opposition long before he got to F1. The path to F1 in the 1950s and 1960s was a lot less complicated than it was in 1991... which in turn was less complicated than it is today.

[strider]

Originally Posted by davyboy

No he didn't. Ferrari's success, as a team, in the mid-1970s was down to Luca di Montezemolo.

If you haven't already, you should read Nigel Roebuck's book, Grand Prix Greats, which was published in 1986 and has already been mentioned in this thread. On page 89 Roebuck writes:

When he [Lauda] first went there, Ferrari had been dabbling in 'English technology' for a year, and were completely out to lunch, 1973 perhaps their worst season ever. Lauda's enormous capacity for work, together with a genius for method, galvanized them. His ambition was rampant. He was going to win races, become a World Champion, so they were going to have to take him there. And he turned Ferrari around, made it his team as few have ever done.

Having said that, I was around at the time and agree that it was seen as a partnership with di Montezemolo, but to ignore Lauda's significant contribution is a mistake.

Originally Posted by davyboy

Of course it helped. But the $150K they paid Eddie Jordan for the drive at Spa didn't give somebody plucked from the street a chance to joyride in the Ardennes. Schumacher, who wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth and struggled to fund his kart racing, had proven himself in karts and the junior formulae against some formidable opposition long before he got to F1. The path to F1 in the 1950s and 1960s was a lot less complicated than it was in 1991... which in turn was less complicated than it is today.

I'm not convinced that it is as difficult nowadays as you suggest, provided you have the talent. There are various programs out there to help young drivers. The Renault one has produced Heikki Kovalainen, for example, and Kazuki Nakajima is a product of the Toyota one. Then there's the best recognized of all, Red Bull. There's an interesting article in Autosport this week about Brendon Hartley, who is about to start his first British F3 season. He was plucked from New Zealand by Red Bull as a 16-year-old and sent to race in Europe, based in East Germany. I don't recall anything like that having happened in previous decades.

[adamaca]

The way I see it is you either judge them by speed, or judge them by achievments. Nothing else is really relevent. If you judge on achievments Schumacher is #1 end of. Speed however is more subjective, and brings drivers who were never in schumachers position for one reason or another, (Villeneuve snr etc). On the downside to judging by speed alone, you wind up with people like Montoya near the top. Mega quick but lacked a lot of qualities that make a succesful driver.
Then I suppose you could combine the two and end up with Moss. But there have been both quicker and more successful drivers.
I think at the end of it all you have to go by achievments. To be succesful you have to be quick too!

[Knowlesy]

If Lauda's success was down to de Montezemolo, then Schumacher's was down to Todt.

Ridiculous claims both.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

If Lauda's success was down to de Montezemolo, then Schumacher's was down to Todt.

Ridiculous claims both.

I don't think it was claimed that Lauda's success was down to di Montezemolo... but rather the renaissance of the Ferrari team in the 1970s.

In both cases it was a group of people that brought about their rise in the mid-1970s and their rise in the late 1990s. The two renaissances came about slightly different though. In the 1970s it was more serendipity that Lauda and de Montezemolo came together to make it happen. In the 1990s, Schumacher brought Brawn and Byrne with him from Benetton and truth be told it was the triumvirate that transformed the team. What I meant was that Schumacher was the catalyst that made that happen.

[ensign14]

What it basically means is Toleman has dominated F1 from 1994 to 2005 in some form.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by strider

I'm not convinced that it is as difficult nowadays as you suggest, provided you have the talent. There are various programs out there to help young drivers. The Renault one has produced Heikki Kovalainen, for example, and Kazuki Nakajima is a product of the Toyota one. Then there's the best recognized of all, Red Bull. There's an interesting article in Autosport this week about Brendon Hartley, who is about to start his first British F3 season. He was plucked from New Zealand by Red Bull as a 16-year-old and sent to race in Europe, based in East Germany. I don't recall anything like that having happened in previous decades.

If we put the money stuff aside for second when looking at things today. People like Heikki Kovalainen have been selected from a very large pool of active racers. Hundreds of thousands of kids race karts around the world and access to motorsport has never been more pervasive... which means the talent level is likely to be higher. You could say that Heikki would have faced very stern competition to get to where he did. Now Renault identified his capabilities and supported him forward, but that was primarily financially.

In the 1950s and 1960s very few people had access to motorsport. It was nothing near as popular, as pervasive or as affordable [I'm speaking relatively] as it is today. On the other side you could buy a GP car and show up to race... which is what many did. So, there was almost no selectivity to get to F1, the talent pool to draw from was small, so statistically [people will be calling me Mr. Statistics soon ] it was easier to succeed in comparison to today.

[Gt_R]

Michael's success is not down to him alone, nor is it down to Todt. Same case applies to Lauda.

There should be no shame to realise that no drivers can win a WDC alone. take Michael for example, he's brilliant, and in pure driving ability and work ethics, one of the best ever. BUT he had the support of a core group of people that made everything good. There is Todt, Brawn, Bryne, Pablo.

Even Senna won with help. And that's part of the reason for Gilles, he's outright brilliant but the opportunity to succeed just did not come along.

And statistics is just part of the equation to judging a driver, and so is speed. And there are much more than makes a driver one of the best ever. The talent, the feel for a car, the ability to race in difficult conditions, good race craft, work rate, able to bring out the best of poor machinery... etc etc. And MS excels in practically every one of them,and so did other great drivers. Thats what separate this bunch of "Greatest" drivers from the "good" ones, the "quick" ones, the "talented" ones, the "hardworking" ones.

This is what sets drivers like Fangio, Senna, Moss, Schumacher, Lauda, etc from the D.Hill, JV, JPM, DC, Ralf. Simply different classes, even though the 2nd group of them won races or wdcs.

[Gt_R]

And one thing i have to agree with davyboy though is that i find it misleading when people often "belittle" the modern generation of drivers and saying that the competition is weak.

Nowadays, practically every F1 driver are professionals and "trained" since young, from karting, etc etc. It's not like MS or Alonso or Lewis walks onto a grid to face half of it made up of amatures who didn't race.

Sure, there are the odd pay-drivers or sponsored kids. But nonetheless, most direct competitors are equipped and hugely talented in their own rights. Bourdais took many years, and success in the states, to finally enter F1 with a mid-table team. There are champions in junior formulaes who can't enter simply because they are not deem good enough.

The safety of cars, advancement in technology and professionalism meant that a very different skill set may be required to bring the best out of cars. Some try to rubbish modern drivers by saying they won't survive in the old days... but reverse the situation, who can say for sure a stewart or a moss can cream the current guys in a modern f1 car? It's like saying fighter pilots nowadays are not as skilled as those who flew during WWI :S

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by ensign14

What it basically means is Toleman has dominated F1 from 1994 to 2005 in some form.

Formula One may be underpinned by money, but its a people-based sport in which success is determined by the synergy of driving and engineering. From 1994 to 2005 we witnessed the convergence of a few brilliant individuals who excelled at making that synergy work and as a consequence raised the bar to a level that few were able to match.

I found the time Schumacher dominated very boring and would be willing anyone to beat him. I felt the same way in the 1980s when Prost and Senna would get out front. But one interview with Ross Brawn on a pitwall stopped me in my tracks. He said something along the lines of watch and enjoy what's happening here because it will not go on forever. We are witnessing the greatest driver ever doing what he does best. I count myself privileged that I witnessed many Schumacher performances at places like Monza, Interlagos, Silverstone etc... in the flesh and its something [I hope] I'll be able to tell my grandchildren about.

I do appreciate that for a variety of reasons many people play down Schumacher's achievements or look to over-emphasize the importance of immeasurable aspects of Formula One. But the facts are that he was and still is statistically the greatest ever driver. He is probably one of the fastest, if not the fastest ever [how many poles, how many fastest laps], probably the greatest ever rainmeister [how many times was he seconds faster than others in the field] and probably the most complete [his engineering of cars, his power over an entire team etc...]. His swansong gave every one a taster of how capable he was in one of his finest drives ever... and few would disagree that he would probably have won the 2007 WDC if he'd still been driving.