I think fans demand F1 drivers to pay their dues in lesser competitive cars before earning 'respect' in winning championships.
Funny how that doesn't seem to be a criteria for Schumacher, eh?
Right from his F1 debut, Hamilton was slotted into the best car. His subsequent McLaren years weren't competitive enough to win championships but still strong enough to win races. McLaren arguably ended up with the strongest car at the end of the season in 2011 and 2012. His debut year in Mercedes wasn't exactly a struggle either.
Best car? I doubt that for 2007. More like strongest pair of drivers, but best car? Neither in 2008, nor in 2009 (especially not until Germany), nor in 2010, nor in 2011 and I would argue that a car like the MP4-27 with miserable weekends like in Bahrain, Monaco, GB, Korea, India and Japan can't be considered as the best car over the whole season. Especially with that sort of reliability. It's nice and good if they had the best car at the end of the 2012 season, but three races are not enough to win a championship, right?
He's like the little rich kid who had everything handed to him on a platter.
Except nothing was handed to him and he had to work hard to get that McLaren seat. And even harder to impress the board and stay at the team for so long.
Compare them with e.g. Mika Hakkinen who slogged for years in uncompetitive machinery. Or Fernando Alonso who started out as a back marker in Minardi, then a few years in less competitive Renaults until 2005.
I never understood that notion. The sort of pressure you have on your shoulders starting off in a top team with high expectations and the chance to win races is something that only the best of the best manage to cope with. Starting off in a lesser car also means you don't have that sort of pressure on your shoulders, you're never going to mix it with the top guys and the top cars. The pressure of having to beat your teammate for a midfield place is no comparison to the pressure of having to beat the reigning two times WDC and fighting for the WDC. Why is this considered to be less of an achievement, than what Hakkinen or Alonso did in their first couple of seasons?
Every driver is expected to perform at his maximum and get the most out of the car. Why do some people think that the higher the potential of the car, the less impressive the performance of the driver in question is once he reaches that potential? It makes no sense.
Edited by GoldenColt, 30 March 2015 - 07:46.