124 replies to this topic

[Fisico54]

I think 2010-2011 with 7(?) world champions on the grid and before Caterham, Sauber and Manor (then Virgin) started to sell out its seats to highest bidder was the greatest years in terms of driver quality. At least since I started following the sport!

Not sure why you think 10/11 didn't have pay drivers? I doubt any of the Hispania drivers weren't paying for their seats - Chandhok, Yamamoto etc, D'Ambrosio at Virgin or even Petrov in the Lotus. It's a complete myth that pay drivers are a recent phenomenon or even that their numbers have increased.

[sopa]

 

There used to be 2 or 3 drivers seen as kings of the paddock, and I used to like arguing that any number of drivers (10 +) would be good enough to win races with the right equipment.

 

I think such rough classification of drivers talent applies across all eras. That's why it is difficult to compare different eras, because each era has the same characteristics - somebody is considered the benchmark driver, somebody is a good #2, somebody is a "journeyman", somebody is a paydriver, somebody is a promising rookie, somebody is past-it oldie, somebody is a driver with lots of potential, but never got the right car, etc, etc.

[sennafan24]

Not going to say that you're guilty of it, but 3 of them WDC's are constantly dumped on here in the forums, except when it comes to threads like this. Heck, even Schumacher is rather underrated around here in the forums

Which 3?

 

Button rarely gets any stick, as he has been buried in the mid field for almost 3 years (through no fault of his own). Lewis and Seb have always got their licks, and recently so have Alonso and Kimi. 

 

Schumi underrated on this board? I respectfully disagree!

[PlatenGlass]

This might be a bit off topic, but the highest quality grid in terms of drivers and cars combined surely has to be the second half of 2009. I don't think I've ever seen another time when the gap between the front and back of the field was so small.

[HeadFirst]

This might be a bit off topic, but the highest quality grid in terms of drivers and cars combined surely has to be the second half of 2009. I don't think I've ever seen another time when the gap between the front and back of the field was so small.

 

An interesting way to look at it, but before you declare 2009 to be the nazz let's see some numbers.

[HeadFirst]

Which 3?

 

Button rarely gets any stick, as he has been buried in the mid field for almost 3 years (through no fault of his own). Lewis and Seb have always got their licks, and recently so have Alonso and Kimi. 

 

Schumi underrated on this board? I respectfully disagree!

 

Seems to be the case here ^, but I was previously on a thread where Button bashing was vicious and non-stop. On that site it was mostly from Hamilton fanatics, that were outraged that Jenson got any credit for his work at McLaren. Glad to see people are much more reasonable here.

[Richard T]

Not sure why you think 10/11 didn't have pay drivers? I doubt any of the Hispania drivers weren't paying for their seats - Chandhok, Yamamoto etc, D'Ambrosio at Virgin or even Petrov in the Lotus. It's a complete myth that pay drivers are a recent phenomenon or even that their numbers have increased.

 

Senna and to some extent Chandhok deserved their shots in 2010. Petrov as well, he was a GP2 champion.

[Fisico54]

Senna and to some extent Chandhok deserved their shots in 2010. Petrov as well, he was a GP2 champion.

Petrov was not a GP2 champion. If you compare the CVs of Stevens/Merhi/Ericsson they wipe the floor with Chandhoks

[superden]

People always, always try to justify their era of choice as being 'the best' ever. It isn't particular to F1, and is exacerbated by people, particularly in the 21st century, having very short memories.

[PlatenGlass]

An interesting way to look at it, but before you declare 2009 to be the nazz let's see some numbers.

I haven't got proper comparative statistics but, for example, in Q1 at Monza, only one car was over a second slower than the fastest time. There wasn't really a full-time backmarker team that year. Going through them all:

Champion: Brawn
Race winners: Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari
Poles: Toyota, Renault, Force India
Race leader: Williams (several laps at Malaysia)
2nd place in race: BMW
Three consecutive Q3s at the end of the season: Toro Rosso

Toro Rosso were last in the constructors' championship and the least successful team overall, but they were far from the worst car by the end of the season. And for a worst car overall they were pretty good. I can't think of another season where the whole field were as competitive as 2009.

[garagetinkerer]

Which 3?

 

Button rarely gets any stick, as he has been buried in the mid field for almost 3 years (through no fault of his own). Lewis and Seb have always got their licks, and recently so have Alonso and Kimi. 

 

Schumi underrated on this board? I respectfully disagree!

Button, Raikkonen and Vettel. I have hardly seen anyone question the talents of Alonso and Hamilton, what they say/ do, yes, but i've not seen talent of those two brought into question.

 

You can disagree, but i have seen my fair share of posts here taking a piss at Schumacher.

 

As i said in my original post, i have seen a lot of people here take a shot at the above 4, but when it comes to threads like this where they discuss the talented grid, suddenly it matters. I genuinely do find that slightly amusing.

Edited by garagetinkerer, 28 June 2015 - 18:44.

[sennafan24]

Button, Raikkonen and Vettel. I have hardly seen anyone question the talents of Alonso and Hamilton, what they say/ do, yes, but i've not seen talent of those two brought into question.

Fair enough.

 

Alonso is probably the most acclaimed talent out of the current bunch. Although, as a person and a businessman, he gets a lot of flack. Lewis's ability comes under more scrutiny than Alonso's. I would say Lewis gets just as much criticism as Seb. 

 

From what I read, Button gets sod all on this forum.  Kimi's talent has only been under the microscope lately. Which is a fair cop, as his form has been dire during his second run at Ferrari.

Edited by sennafan24, 28 June 2015 - 19:03.

[sjakie]

According to Bob Fernley of Force India Hulkenbergs Le Mans win shows that F1 drivers are of great quality. See http://www.autosport...t.php/id/119691.

 

While not denying that Fernley is right, he forgets to mention that it also shows that F1 is painfully inable to get talented drivers in the right seats....

[velgajski1]

According to Bob Fernley of Force India Hulkenbergs Le Mans win shows that F1 drivers are of great quality. See http://www.autosport...t.php/id/119691.

 

While not denying that Fernley is right, he forgets to mention that it also shows that F1 is painfully inable to get talented drivers in the right seats....

 

Right seats in this season are only Ferrari and Mercedes. With exception of Raikkonen I'd say that Vettel, Rosberg and Hamilton (+couple of others in weaker cars) are pretty much top of the tops as far as driver quality goes.

[HeadFirst]

According to Bob Fernley of Force India Hulkenbergs Le Mans win shows that F1 drivers are of great quality. See http://www.autosport...t.php/id/119691.

 

While not denying that Fernley is right, he forgets to mention that it also shows that F1 is painfully inable to get talented drivers in the right seats....

 

I disagree. F1 is able to get talented drivers into the right seats, there just are not enough right seats for all the talented drivers.

[Dan333SP]

I haven't got proper comparative statistics but, for example, in Q1 at Monza, only one car was over a second slower than the fastest time. There wasn't really a full-time backmarker team that year. Going through them all:

Champion: Brawn
Race winners: Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari
Poles: Toyota, Renault, Force India
Race leader: Williams (several laps at Malaysia)
2nd place in race: BMW
Three consecutive Q3s at the end of the season: Toro Rosso

Toro Rosso were last in the constructors' championship and the least successful team overall, but they were far from the worst car by the end of the season. And for a worst car overall they were pretty good. I can't think of another season where the whole field were as competitive as 2009.

 

I forgot how close that season was, time-wise, until I went over the season data in Wikipedia. Amazing to think that STR ended up ranked last that season when they were literally running a chassis identical to RBR (which won races and challenged for the title) except with a Ferrari engine and fewer aero updates.

 

It's also remarkable that the end of season closeness in '09 happened during the first year of a major revamp of the car regulations. It normally takes a few seasons with a given formula before everyone is on a level playing field. Still, despite all those super-close time gaps in qualifying, the races weren't particularly exciting.

[HeadFirst]

I haven't got proper comparative statistics but, for example, in Q1 at Monza, only one car was over a second slower than the fastest time. There wasn't really a full-time backmarker team that year. Going through them all:

Champion: Brawn
Race winners: Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari
Poles: Toyota, Renault, Force India
Race leader: Williams (several laps at Malaysia)
2nd place in race: BMW
Three consecutive Q3s at the end of the season: Toro Rosso

Toro Rosso were last in the constructors' championship and the least successful team overall, but they were far from the worst car by the end of the season. And for a worst car overall they were pretty good. I can't think of another season where the whole field were as competitive as 2009.

 

If I had the time, I would take a look at some other eras for comparison. The problem I see (aside from the sheer volume of data) is that qualifying procedures have changed over the years. The present day system in particular presents problems in that the lower teams are going flat out in Q1, when the top teams are not posting anywhere near their best times.

[Fatgadget]

If I had the time, I would take a look at some other eras for comparison. The problem I see (aside from the sheer volume of data) is that qualifying procedures have changed over the years. The present day system in particular presents problems in that the lower teams are going flat out in Q1, when the top teams are not posting anywhere near their best times.

Good point that.That is where the excitement is then.....Watching the once mighty McLarens battling for scraps with minnows the likes of Manor!

[sopa]

This might be a bit off topic, but the highest quality grid in terms of drivers and cars combined surely has to be the second half of 2009. I don't think I've ever seen another time when the gap between the front and back of the field was so small.

 

The more I think about it, the more 2009 makes sense. In terms of driver quality.

 

One reason is that this was the final year before recession. All teams were financially relatively well off, with lack of paydrivers. Who were the worst drivers that year? Possibly Nakajima and Piquet. With Grosjean and Alguersuari performing below-par after getting thrown into deep-in, but both obviously talented. Nakajima was the only one, who can be considered as a paydriver - Toyota financed his Williams seat.

 

I also tried to compile a list of who I thought were the best 10 drivers at the time, and if you reach a situation where you are unsure whether you can fit the likes of Heidfeld or Barrichello into top 10, you know the quality of the grid must be damn high.

 

From 2010 we obviously got 3 new teams, more paydrivers, and the likes of Senna and Chandhok filling the back of the field seats, so the overall quality wasn't that impressive.

[Jimisgod]

Right seats in this season are only Ferrari and Mercedes. With exception of Raikkonen I'd say that Vettel, Rosberg and Hamilton (+couple of others in weaker cars) are pretty much top of the tops as far as driver quality goes.

 

That we know of. Alonso, Button and Ricciardo are easily top drivers, too. And there's open question marks about more than half the grid who are new and have never been near a decent car.

 

Of course the number of young talents will always be higher than the number of eventual top drivers.

[TheUltimateWorrier]

Yes, mainly because drivers aren't dying at every grand prix.  We aren't losing the young talents with potential and the world champions.

[HP]

The biggest problems with the lists and years being posted here is that it's including drivers entire careers and not how they were doing during that year in particular. Does anybody here honestly think that Piquet's drives in 1991 were a match for what he was doing in his title winning years? It's hard to pick one year out and say that everyone on the grid was driving close to their best.

 

Overall I would say yes, the grids we've had since around 2007/8 have been amongst the best we've ever had. Not because of the strength at the front, or even the midfield, but because of the quality at the back. Never again will we see anyone as useless as Hector Rebaque, Giovanni Lavagi or Jean-Dennis Delatraz, drivers who the likes of Marcus Ericcson, Narain Karthikayan, Max Chilton eta all could wipe the floor with. That makes a big difference in raising the overall quality.

F1 these days is supposed to be a show and entertainment. So the downside with all this quality drivers of today [light sarcasm] is that the show is more and more devoid of side-kicks who provide comic relief. These days the drivers are so good, but boring most the time, that people in this forum introduced a photoshopped thread, to keep us laughing. What are we going to do, when our last hope of a grin, Maldonado, is quitting F1? Maldonado is much better than any of the ones you mentioned, even a race winner. So it can be done, good racers, that can be hilarious (even without the need of crashing)

 

From my perspective as a long time follower of the sport. These days I can get into an argument about anything, but I enjoyed and had more fun with F1 of the old. I'm not suggesting let's go back to amateur hour, however, but quality has many different facets.

[HeadFirst]

F1 these days is supposed to be a show and entertainment. So the downside with all this quality drivers of today [light sarcasm] is that the show is more and more devoid of side-kicks who provide comic relief. These days the drivers are so good, but boring most the time, that people in this forum introduced a photoshopped thread, to keep us laughing. What are we going to do, when our last hope of a grin, Maldonado, is quitting F1? Maldonado is much better than any of the ones you mentioned, even a race winner. So it can be done, good racers, that can be hilarious (even without the need of crashing)

 

From my perspective as a long time follower of the sport. These days I can get into an argument about anything, but I enjoyed and had more fun with F1 of the old. I'm not suggesting let's go back to amateur hour, however, but quality has many different facets.

 

Try a comedy club, some stand-up comics are truly hilarious.

[HP]

Try a comedy club, some stand-up comics are truly hilarious.

Thanks. But I have already enough fun in my life. Maybe it's good to contiune with F1, so I have a more balanced life

 

But my point still stands, even F1 needs to be fun, especially if it still wants to attract the masses. Quality racers only won't do it.

Edited by HP, 10 July 2015 - 01:00.

[John B]

For overall depth 1981 is worth considering as well. In addition to the front runners drivers like Andretti, Mansell, Rosberg, Patrese and Tambay were in midfield or uncompetitive cars. Hector Rebaque even grabbed a CART win the following year...