Today is Alonso's 34th birthday and over on the Alonso vs Button thred there are posts about him being able to carry on in F1 like it would be some sort of massive achievement. Similarly a lot of posters on here at the end of last season seemed to favour KMag over Button on the basis that Button was too old to still be in F1.
Whey do some people seem to think a driver in his 30s is too old for F1? If you look at the WDCs of the 80s and 90s only four drivers won WDCs in their 20s - Piquet, Senna, Schumi and Jaques - with only Schumi doing it more than once. Even then, Schumi had his greatest period of success when he was in his 30s. Back then the sport was a lot more physical (manual clutch, no neck protectors) and we knew less about training and nutrition, meaning it should have been harder for these guys to have careers of the length they did. If anything, F1 drivers should be in the sport longer than the drivers of 20-30 years ago as a result of what we know now about keeping body and mind in good shape.
Edited by Dunc, 29 July 2015 - 20:52.