Points don't tell the whole story. I think Lewis did have the edge, the season seen as a whole.
Nobody is saying he's the best driver on earth. The season rankings aren't an evolution of the year before, as they continue to change their 'general best' rankings. Its simply a reflection of how they think every driver did that specific season. And I would agree that Ricciardo was the most impressive. I still rate Alonso and Lewis ahead of him overall, as it was just one season, but its not impossible that another good driver actually does impress more than those two in a given year.
Re Lewis/Alonso '07 you might be right as I don't remember every GP weekend, I do recall it was really close though.
I understand drivers have fluctuations of form and a good guy might beat the great guys in a good year. It's just that this opens the door to incoherent choices as people will frequently jump into top 10 then disappear from the rankings forever on the basis of a year they shown a hint of potential, where Autosport hypes them beyond belief. Example: the guy in my sig Felix da Costa who I recall they placed 7th or 8th or something like that 2 years ago. That's ahead of right about the entire F1 field bar 3 or 4 drivers. Doesn't that sound slightly misguided now?
Remember in motorsport performance is always a bit nebulous and subjective as you only ever get to compare drivers fairly to their team-mates (and even then...). So you can't really completely disconnect your perceptions of each driver, from their history of previous years.
And personally I thought Alonso at least still looked quicker/more consistent than Ricciardo over the course of this year.
hindsight has nothing to do with him being an amazing rookie. that happened. looking back doesn't make it any more or less impressive. that year he was the most impressive driver. they didn't make these results today, this is the ranking from that actual year. they're not looking back saying what they think now.
I don't think I explained myself well. Imagine this scenario: take 2 drivers, one guy that's been in F1 for 10 years, and one guy that's just come out of karts, and give them a lap. And the F1 guy does a lap 0.1 seconds quicker than the kid. Who was most impressive? The kid, absolutely, no doubts about it, that's amazing. But who did the better job? The guy that had the quicker laptime.
It depends on whether you're ranking who did the better job, or who was most impressive given the circumstances. See my point?
I've no wish to diminish Lewis' amazing achievement of a season in 07. And like I just answered Sean, perhaps he did do slightly better than Alonso, I don't recall the details precisely, just that it was close.
Edited by noikeee, 18 December 2014 - 16:44.