Quite an interesting analysis, and I would probably agree with a lot of it, but when I was talking about other drivers and what they might have done, I largely had in mind other drivers in the same position as Hill/Coulthard/Villeneuve, but never even got an F1 career, or perhaps onlt a handful of races. There were lots of other F3000 front-runners that never got a decent opportunity in F1. Did Hill and Coulthard get their opportunity because they demonstrated themselves to be better than these drivers, or because they were in the right place at the right time?Not to say there weren't others who deserved a shot, but I don't think it was so mysterious. In the cases of Hill and Coulthard, they were test drivers with the team for a long time, and the team would have been able to compare them against Mansell and Prost, bloody good benchmarks.
Villenueve was perhaps more of a gamble but Indy in those days was a much stronger series than it is now.
Looking back to other contenders for a top drive in that period:
HHF: Was so impressive he was actually approached by Williams to fill the seat left by Senna but turned it down. Would have have done better in 1994 and/or 1995 than he did in 1997? Much in the team was the same so I'm not sure why he didn't succeed as much as expected. Were Hill and JV just better than they were previously given credit for? Did HHF struggle with the pressures that come with driving for a top team? Maybe it was a combination of both
Hakkinen: Should have got the 1993 drive but this explains why he didn't. http://atlasf1.autos...bra/graham.html
Hill was still a strong alternative for reasons I explained above, and he did have a very good 1993, even if Prost was arguably not at his peak, he was still a very good driver and didn't "need" to retire at that point. I think Hakkinen would have had a similar record to Hill at Williams. Probably slightly faster over a single lap and a race, countered by making one or two more mistakes than Hill generally did 1993-1994, receiving a one race ban in 1994 for his troubles. 1995-1996 I think Hakkinen had the edge so I'd call it a tie.
Alesi: Under contract with Ferrari. Had he joined, I think he would have won races but I don't think he would have won a championship as he made too many mistakes. From 1993-1996, with the exception of 1995, I think Hill was clearly the better driver even though Alesi would have flashes of brilliance. Might have got the title if he'd been alongside Hill in 1995.
Berger: Hard to say as over a season, both he and Alesi could have the edge when looking at their 1993-1997 teammate period. Might have got the title if he'd been alongside Hill in 1995.
Barrichello: Same as Alesi around then. Still very good but not at his peak until 1999-2000 in my opinion.
Brundle: I mention Brundle because according to MB, Senna actually thought the pair of them would be at Williams in 1993 and said to Brundle he was looking forward to driving in the same team with him. Good driver, consistent, but I don't think he demonstrated the turn of speed to compete for a championship.
Maybe I'm missing one or two out but to conclude, I think the biggest "black mark" against Hill, Coulthard and Villenueve was that they weren't Michael Schumacher. And if you ask me, Schumacher never had a rival that could consistently threaten him in the 90s after Senna died. Sure, there were days when Hill, Villenueve, Coulthard, Montoya, Raikkonen, Hakkinen etc would match or beat him. I really like some of the drivers I just named. Some of them won championships against Schumacher but I couldn't see them achieving that in a similar car to Schumacher's over a season.
In my opinion PlatenGlass, it's not so much that Williams could have done better. It's that Schumacher was so good, particularly from 1995, that it was natural to ask "surely Williams can do better?" Especially after a period where there was intense rivalry at the top (Senna, Prost, Piquet, Mansell). All of them had since gone. Imagine what any of those four drivers could have achieved if they were alone without the other three. Williams being challenged after such a dominant few seasons must have encouraged the question as well.
Take Jean-Christophe Boullion. Well he actually was in the right place to some extent, being the Williams test driver. But he drove alongside Frentzen at Sauber and was thrashed, which ruined his F1 chances. But I also think had Hill and Coulthard been given the same opportunity at the start of their career, they too would not have matched Frentzen, who I think was very good that year. And they too probably wouldn't have had much of a future. On the flipside, had Boullion got the same opportunity as Hill or Coulthard, he might have ended up with a decent F1 career and won races and possibly a championship.
But also in terms of more established drivers, I rated Herbert higher than Hill or Coulthard until he went to Benetton, and I think he could have been champion in the Williams. But he never seemed to recover from having been Schumacher's team-mate in effectively a one-driver team and never looked the same driver again.
Also, you mentioned Hakkinen at Williams in 1993 - I think he could have potentially embarrassed Prost to some extent. Certainly in qualifying, but maybe inconsistency in races would have counted against him. But Prost hardly had the best season of races himself and wasn't as convincing as he had been in the past.