Who is the Greatest F1 driver of all time?

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by S griffin

The incidents at Silverstone and Monza were bound to happen. There was going to be a time when neither gave way and we could see it again happen in the last two races

Yeh im suprised that Hamilton has basically admitted he will back out in the future. either Max will take advantage of this or its reverse phsycology from Lewis who actually has no intention of backing out, either way im not sure what benefit it serves.

[chillibowl]

i suspect a little gamesmanship on Lewis' part. at the least, media will now ask Max to respond and the story goes on.

still a couple of races to go but as the distractions/off track stuff builds, Lewis looks more on his game and Max slightly off of it?

experience of someone who has been in close championship battles before.

exciting stuff to come!

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

i suspect a little gamesmanship on Lewis' part. at the least, media will now ask Max to respond and the story goes on.

still a couple of races to go but as the distractions/off track stuff builds, Lewis looks more on his game and Max slightly off of it?

experience of someone who has been in close championship battles before.

exciting stuff to come!

Indeed, I think Max still has the advantage but if Lewis wins the next one, who knows? All bets off into the last race if that’s the case. Let the best man and team win

[BTCC frog]

So, a while ago, I posted a 'top 200 drivers of all time' ranking on here. An underlying theme of that ranking was that I considered the recent drivers to be better than those from the past, in part due to the fact that players in sports generally improve over time. I no longer consider this to be the case, as while the art of sprinting, or chess, or football, has always remained effectively the same, Formula 1 today is so different to Formula 1 seventy years ago, so I don't think this really applies.

The other reason why I considered the recent drivers to be the best in history is because mathematical models for comparing F1 drivers told me so. They all generally consider more recent drivers to be better than those from the past, although the very best from each era are all at a similar level. One thing that I had not really considered before is the effect of telemetry skewing the results. For example, Valtteri Bottas was probably slightly closer to Lewis Hamilton's level at Mercedes than Francois Cevert was to Jackie Stewart, or Peter Collins was to Juan Manuel Fangio. But does really this make him a better driver? Bottas was given access to all Lewis Hamilton's data (or at least you would hope he was!), as well as his own, telling him exactly when to brake during corners, when to put the power down, the ideal line through every corner etc. Collins and Cevert did not have that kind of help in perfecting their driving from being alongside the best of their era, because that level of data simply didn't exist back then. And although I have used these examples as they were teammates to the best of their era, in actual fact every current driver is able to take a corner in a number of different ways and then be told by the data which one was optimal, whereas drivers from the past had to work it out for themselves.

So in regards to the Greatest of all Time, my question is, in an era when it is easier to perfect your driving than it used to be, does the fact that the likes of Hamilton and Schumacher are able to assert themselves as being head-and-shoulders above the rest make them the greatest ever? Or does it make Jim Clark or Juan Manuel Fangio the greatest of all time because they were able to be even further ahead of the rest, when nobody had that data to help them perfect their driving. This is talking more hypothetically about this particular aspect of a driver today compared to a driver from the past, in the case of the actual drivers there are far more factors to consider in terms of who is the greatest.

Either way, I no longer consider the mathematical models to be a particularly accurate method of comparing drivers, as there are just so many factors at play which they cannot account for. And I now think my original 'top 200' ranking was pretty rubbish, and not an opinion I still hold.

I also don't really consider Lewis Hamilton to be the Greatest of all Time anymore. Although I said in a previous paragraph about him 'asserting himself as head-and-shoulders above the rest', in actual fact I'm not sure that is really accurate. In his early years, before getting the dominant Mercedes, it was not obvious that he was better than Alonso or Vettel in the way that Schumacher looked like the clear best driver during the 1990s, and although his driving appeared almost perfect from 2018-20, those Mercedes cars were also the best on the grid and when Hamilton got a serious challenge from Verstappen in 2021, it is arguable that he sort of messed up. He may have been robbed on the day in Abu Dhabi, but over the whole season his car appeared marginally faster and Verstappen had a lot more bad luck, so Hamilton maybe should have had a greater advantage before that final lap and was outdriven by Verstappen. Then in 2022 he has not been that much better than Russell even ignoring the early races when they were on different setups, while Russell's former teammate Latifi is having a horrible time and Bottas too isn't really impressing at Alfa Romeo. Hamilton's greatest claim to being the GOAT is possibly matching Alonso at McLaren as a rookie, but considering the amount of testing he was allowed to do beforehand maybe it was less of a rookie season than those of other drivers, but I would say he is slightly better than Alonso.

I would say Schumacher was a stronger driver than Hamilton, in terms of, as I said before, more obviously looking like he was the clear best of his era, and if we take the relative gap from him to Barrichello, compared to Hamilton to Button to Barrichello, he does appear stronger, although he was getting preferential treatment at Ferrari and Hamilton's years against Button were not his strongest. However, I also wouldn't consider Schumacher to be the greatest of all time because he was too error-prone, and made far more mistakes than the other contenders.

As this Autosport article showed very well, if the Greatest of all Time was a box-ticking exercise, Jackie Stewart would probably win, but I am not convinced he could have beaten Jim Clark, for example, had they been teammates, and being teammate to Francois Cevert, who had no other teammates, for so long, makes it difficult to judge Jackie.

Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost are also clearly outstanding drivers and among the very greatest of all time, but I would be hesitant to put either at number one because I feel that, being so different, being teammates to each other sort of highlighted the flaws of both drivers. But maybe that would have happened if they had been teammate to any of the other contenders in different eras, so this could be too harsh. Currently I would consider them the third and fourth greatest drivers.

But the two I am currently deciding between as the greatest of all time are Jim Clark and Juan Manuel Fangio. Both seemed considerably-less error prone than any of the mentioned drivers from later periods, but perhaps this is because there is less footage of their driving. But it is a fact (I think!) that Clark crashed out of just one race in his career, and Fangio from just two. Both were, for a time, teammate to probably the second-best driver in Formula 1 at the time, Graham Hill in 1967 and Stirling Moss in 1955, and were able to beat them. Both had great strike rates and were very rarely beaten in races in which they didn't have some kind of car problem. If I were to pick between them, I would go with Clark by a smidge as Fangio was beaten by Farina in 1950, even if he was the better driver that season (like Hamilton vs Rosberg in 2016), and Clark also managed to dominant Formula 1 while driving extremely smoothly and making his gearbox, tyres etc. last more races than his competitors. So I am currently thinking that Clark is the greatest F1 driver, but am still a little undecided.

Sorry for reviving this thread because I understand if some members of the forum have become bored of the 'GOAT debate' after it was discussed last year, so no need to reply if you don't want it started up again. But I just wanted to put my opinion on here because I have changed it since before.

[PhilipR]

It is difficult to compare between different eras
Cars were different, requirements were different.
I.E - in the 50s-70s it was more dangerous but cars were not as physical as they are today and you did not need to be able to cope with different systems during the race like today
Also I imagine in that period - the divide between the top drivers and back of the grid was larger than it is nowadays due to the sport being more professional

Statistics can be altered by reliability as well - cars in the past were less reliable so drivers missed out on more wins than current drivers.

Also we need to take into account specific circumstances, such as the bespoke Bridgestone tires developed for Schumacher and Ferrari. Would Schumacher have been as dominant with control tires as we have today? - I still believe he would have won races and championships but might have been more difficult without bespoke tires to his requirements.

One thing I a m sure about is that the greats adapt to what is given to them and I believe had Schumacher, Hamilton or Verstappen were born in the 50s they would have been fighting for wins in the 70s and 80s as well as Clark, Fangio and Stewart would have fought for wins and championships in the 2000s and in the current era.

[Anyopenroad]

For all the thousands of words and back-and-forth debate this question throws up, it always seems to boil down to arguing the relative merits of:

Fangio
Clark
Senna
Schumacher
Hamilton

Which of those you prefer depends on the criteria you favour. Or, to be more accurate about how human decision-making happens, people pick criteria that lead inexorably to the driver they prefer .

I would add that it won’t take many more years of Verstappen driving like he is this year for him to be a sixth name on that list.

[morninggents]

I think BTCC's post is pretty near the mark. It is difficult to rank drivers from different eras. I believe the four greatest of all time to be Fangio, Jim Clark, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Lewis Hamilton is a great driver and deserves to be ranked highly but in my opinion the overwhelming superiority of Mercedes between 2014 and 2020 (and even, probably, 2021) takes some of the edge off his wonderful achievements. For most of that time he only had his teammate to beat, which he failed to do with Rosberg, and sometimes Bottas was asked to let Lewis by.
So of Fangio, Clark, Senna and Schumacher it is hard to choose. Mighty drivers all. On the basis of slight flaws in character (a bit of cheating here and there) I would have to rank Senna and Schumacher below the other two. Take you pick between Fangio and Clark. I think I would have to go with Jim Clark.

P.S. Just seen Anyopenroad's post above and agree his comments about Max Verstappen.

[S griffin]

It’s funny how Stewart and Prost are always omitted from people’s lists. Obviously they aren’t exciting enough for some, but for me they would both make my top 5 of all time

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by PhilipR

It is difficult to compare between different eras
Cars were different, requirements were different.
I.E - in the 50s-70s it was more dangerous but cars were not as physical as they are today and you did not need to be able to cope with different systems during the race like today
Also I imagine in that period - the divide between the top drivers and back of the grid was larger than it is nowadays due to the sport being more professional

Statistics can be altered by reliability as well - cars in the past were less reliable so drivers missed out on more wins than current drivers.

Also we need to take into account specific circumstances, such as the bespoke Bridgestone tires developed for Schumacher and Ferrari. Would Schumacher have been as dominant with control tires as we have today? - I still believe he would have won races and championships but might have been more difficult without bespoke tires to his requirements.

One thing I a m sure about is that the greats adapt to what is given to them and I believe had Schumacher, Hamilton or Verstappen were born in the 50s they would have been fighting for wins in the 70s and 80s as well as Clark, Fangio and Stewart would have fought for wins and championships in the 2000s and in the current era.

In the 50s-70s it was more dangerous but were cars less physical than they are today? Modern F1 cars have hydraulic power steering. They also have paddle shifting and don't have a clutch pedal and gear stick anymore. Apart from the porpoising we saw earlier this year, car suspension is much better.

Granted drivers back then didn't cope with different systems during the race, or have a plethora of buttons to contend with on the steering wheel, so I would think of that being mentally demanding, rather than physically demanding.

[PhilipR]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

In the 50s-70s it was more dangerous but were cars less physical than they are today? Modern F1 cars have hydraulic power steering. They also have paddle shifting and don't have a clutch pedal and gear stick anymore. Apart from the porpoising we saw earlier this year, car suspension is much better.

Granted drivers back then didn't cope with different systems during the race, or have a plethora of buttons to contend with on the steering wheel, so I would think of that being mentally demanding, rather than physically demanding.

Modern cars pull 5+ Gs through corners, they are also faster which means breaking and accelration is harder. I imagine even with paddleshifts and power sterring pulling 5 times the cars weight through a corner is not an easy feat physicaly

Let's not forget the gym and fitness training modern drivers go through compared to drivers in the 50s-70s just to be able to drive these cars.

One thing I do miss is seeing drivers completely destroyed phisically after a race like in the early 2000s - but I guess this is what you get when you drive at 70% to proserve tyres rather than 95-100% all the time

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

In the 50s-70s it was more dangerous but were cars less physical than they are today? Modern F1 cars have hydraulic power steering. They also have paddle shifting and don't have a clutch pedal and gear stick anymore. Apart from the porpoising we saw earlier this year, car suspension is much better.

Granted drivers back then didn't cope with different systems during the race, or have a plethora of buttons to contend with on the steering wheel, so I would think of that being mentally demanding, rather than physically demanding.

I think the modern physical demands come from the amount of G generated. Corner speeds today place much higher demands on upper body strength I feel:

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-italian-grand-prix-williams-mechanics-help-exhausted-nyck-de-vries-out-of-the-car-after-his-points-scoring-f1-debut.1743691636627328562.html

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I think the modern physical demands come from the amount of G generated. Corner speeds today place much higher demands on upper body strength I feel:

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/v...627328562.html

Yes. Nyck was exhausted after Monza but then he wasn't as race fit as the regular drivers and not accustomed to the race distance in that heat.
However, in general, G force aside, physical demands were great back in the 50's and in prewar racing.

What is different is the amount of attention given to fitness and conditioning in the most recent 30 years. You only have to look at the condition of one N Mansell back in the 80's then look at the attention M. Schumacher paid to his physical fitness to realise how much things have changed in the last 50 years.

That aside, I still feel the versatility displayed along with the mental bravery the drivers of 30-40-50 years ago displayed creates a completely different set of skills current drivers do not need to possess.

Personal safety is nothing like the issue of present-day drivers that it would have been back in the 60's and 70's.
Schumacher has remarked, when given the opportunity to sample a 60's F1 car, how dangerous it would be.
Yet a number of them have no problem getting on board at Goodwood....

I had the opportunity to observe G. Hill, Stewart, Attwood, Courage, Hulme, McLaren, Brabham, Amon, Bell, Rindt and Clark all competing against one another in my youth and would rate them all much closer to each other than many modern- day commenters would.
If there was anyone who stood out consistently over that decade it would have been Clark and Stewart, with Jimmy having the edge.
And with Fangio being the standout of the previous decade and perhaps Lauda/Stewart in the following decade, I'd have no trouble with Clark being rated the best of all time. Fangio would be the other standout of all time.

What about Cevert? He never showed a real ability to beat Stewart or consistently on or at the same level across multiple years. Match him on occasions yes and he would have led Tyrrell but for watkins Glen, but not quite at that level that we saw. Perhaps he may have developed further but it didn't happen.
Revson is another, who like Donohue, had success across a number of disciplines and was probably far better than many rated him at the time.

Fittapaldi and Mario Andretti also had great success and longevity across multiple disciplines. Mansell's competitiveness in F1 across a five-six-year period and the following CART title in 73 would place him highly but his subsequent time at McLaren was a mess.

Across decades the whole issue becomes very subjective and is mainly one of opinion, and ultimately that is all it is.
There is no way to objectively compare drivers of completely different generations.

[S griffin]

Drivers in the 50s were as fit as they needed to be. In fact Stirling Moss was famous for having his own fitness regime, even if it did include the odd Craven A! Moss has often been described as the first professional

BTW I don't remember Schumi driving a 60s F1 car, but I know he tried Tambay's 1983 Ferrari and found that quite an experience, saying he didn't feel safe in the car with how far forward his feet were and the like

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

However, in general, G force aside, physical demands were great back in the 50's and in prewar racing.

If you put aside the biggest physical challenge for drivers, then yes the demands were great back in the '50s. But I think the physical demands of current G forces are much higher (particularly on the upper body and neck) than any previous iteration of cars.

Overall - I think any current F1 driver would be able to cope with the physical demands of a '50s era car. They might be more challenging in terms of other attributes - but from a physical conditioning perspective, today's demands are the highest they have ever been.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I think the modern physical demands come from the amount of G generated. Corner speeds today place much higher demands on upper body strength I feel:

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/v...627328562.html

A modern F1 car will certainly pull more Gs. If the fitness needed to survive high G forces, for around two hours, is the main requirement of an F1 driver, then how many of the old skills have been lost, like manually shifting gears, a foot operated clutch, heel and toe? All very physical. GP races were also longer.

I would be interesting to know how the G forces in a current F1 car compare to previous F1 cars. At a guess, the cars Fangio drove in the '50s would be pulling around 1.2g, on those thin tyres and by the mid '70s they will have increased to around 2.2gs and with the ground-effect cars in '78 and '79, it will have increased further still, particularly when cornering. Meanwhile the driver still had to manually shift gear.

I'm not really surprised Nyck de Vries was exhausted. That was his first GP and it's a longer race then a Formula E ePrix, plus it was 27° Celsius at Monza.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

I would be interesting to know how the G forces in a current F1 car compare to previous F1 cars. At a guess, the cars Fangio drove in the '50s would be pulling around 1.2g, on those thin tyres and by the mid '70s they will have increased to around 2.2gs and with the ground-effect cars in '78 and '79, it will have increased further still, particularly when cornering. Meanwhile the driver still had to manually shift gear.

Yes - as I think about it a bit more, I wonder if the late '80s and early '90s cars may have provided the biggest physical challenge in history.
Another factor (and cause of significant G) is the braking. This results in two physical challenges - declaration G and pedal pressure.

Are current F1 cars the shortest braking in history? This would give a very high G if so.
And is the pedal pressure comparable to previous? (I don't know).

Obviously the physical challenges were different in the '50s, and I am not in away trying to downplay them. It's possibly impossible to answer - but I would pose the following thought:

How many current F1 drivers do we think would be able to step straight into an Alfa Romeo 158 and (physically) complete 70 laps of Silverstone.
Conversely, how many of the drivers would be able to step into an Alfa Romeo C42 and achieve the same?

Clearly hypothetical and we will never really know, but an interesting article on the subject (IMO) can be found here.

'Research shows that heart rates can average 182 beats per minute over the course of a race while experiencing cardiorespiratory responses and energy costs which are similar to that seen in elite marathon runners and soccer players.'

[PhilipR]

I think people adapt to the world and circumstances they are presented with. For us racing in the 50s-60s looks very dangerous(and it was), however for drivers of that era maybe it did not register as such as that was what they were used to and did not know better.

The same as drivers from that period might find the physical needs and mental capacity to drive modern f1 car as alien as their world never necessitated such attributes

I do still believe that the greatest would have been great in any era. Stewart, Clark, Fangio , Moss etc would have been winners and champions if they were contemporary to us and vice versa, Schumi, Prost, Hamilton, Senna, Verstappen would have been winners had they been racing in the past. The Greats adapt to what is given to them

[chillibowl]

In a way I’m glad nyck was exhausted. As the drivers get younger and younger…I believe on average this is true but maybe not, but regardless it should be a taxing thing to do so whether it’s your first race or 20th race of a season, I take it as a good reminder that motor racing is still a hard and dangerous thing to do.

Obviously don’t want to see anyone get hurt but with more races on the horizon I also don’t want it appear as if the drivers are not taxed enough if that makes sense.

[PhilipR]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

In a way I’m glad nyck was exhausted. As the drivers get younger and younger…I believe on average this is true but maybe not, but regardless it should be a taxing thing to do so whether it’s your first race or 20th race of a season, I take it as a good reminder that motor racing is still a hard and dangerous thing to do.

Obviously don’t want to see anyone get hurt but with more races on the horizon I also don’t want it appear as if the drivers are not taxed enough if that makes sense.

I do miss a bit in the 90s and 2000s when after a race all drivers looked knackered and exhausted. But back then they could rely on pushing 95%-100% on the tires for almost entire race

Nowadays to preserve the life in the tyres, drivers drive at 70% most of the time which you can see as they rarely look troubled at the end of the race

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by PhilipR

Nowadays to preserve the life in the tyres, drivers drive at 70% most of the time which you can see as they rarely look troubled at the end of the race

How much of that is down to drivers not pushing, and how much is driver conditioning?

[PhilipR]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

How much of that is down to drivers not pushing, and how much is driver conditioning?

Hard to tell really - but remember Hungary 2021 when Hamilton had to push basically all race to catch up after the restart - he was spent at the end of the race and he is in good shape.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by PhilipR

Hard to tell really - but remember Hungary 2021 when Hamilton had to push basically all race to catch up after the restart - he was spent at the end of the race and he is in good shape.

Yes - good example.

Maybe the real situation is that - the current F1 cars are the most physically demanding ever, if they are driven to their maximum for a full race distance.......

[bathurst77]

People are naming people that would have been GOAT if....

I will state it now I would have been the greatest if,
I had the money, determination, contacts, talent, ability, and got off the couch and stopped grabbing beer and crisps.

[Aysedasi]

Not if I'd got there before you though.....

[Born Racer]

Norris has chimed in with a comment about Verstappen being one of the most talented ever: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/a...5fXc8q4gj.html

Time will tell if he can reign in some of the excesses and refine some aspects of his racecraft to become one of the greatest, but I think Lando has a point. He stacks up very well on pure ability. At least this year, he is looking much more like earning the championship compared to in 2021.

Verstappen's 2022 reminds me of Schumacher's 1995. Following a controversial first championship win, he truly cements his right to a title the following year with a more crushing and also more deserving display.