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Worst WDC Ever

Started by Spillage , Dec 12 2012 14:20

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261 replies to this topic

#251 BoschKurve

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 14:24

I think the title of this topic is a bad choice of words.

I think the phrase "least deserving" takes a little bite off of it, and opens more avenues of debate open because one could make a greater case for certain championships not having gone the way they should have in theory.

The two that come off the top of my head are:

-1994 (Schumacher)
-1986 (Prost)

Prost should have been outclassed in 1986 by the superior Williams cars, yet Piquet and Mansell's battles left a door open for Prost to sneak past. Piquet was livid over the lack of team orders regarding Mansell since he was supposed to be the clear #1 on Williams. It's interesting to think about because Nelson could very well have been a 4-times WDC assuming 1987 was still won by him. Prost would have had only 3.

1994 is simple as the circumstances surrounding Benetton are enough to label that title as a very undeserving one.

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#252 Group B

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 14:27

I don't buy 1994. For me one of the F1 mags summed it up with their season review cover headline; 'the right man won it the wrong way'.

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#253 BoschKurve

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 14:55

I don't buy 1994. For me one of the F1 mags summed it up with their season review cover headline; 'the right man won it the wrong way'.

I don't really see how the magazine could make the claim that the right man won since we'll never know how things had turned out in a fair fight.

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#254 Group B

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 15:03

I don't really see how the magazine could make the claim that the right man won since we'll never know how things had turned out in a fair fight.

I imagine they had a very good idea how a 'fair fight' would have turned out if by fair fight you mean both drivers in equal cars. Hence their headline.

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#255 BoschKurve

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 16:26

I imagine they had a very good idea how a 'fair fight' would have turned out if by fair fight you mean both drivers in equal cars. Hence their headline.

Fair fight would mean one car was not illegal, which the Benetton was.

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#256 BoschKurve

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 16:59

But listen I don't feel like rehashing 1994 here. I just put it out there that I believe it was one of the least deserving titles ever won.

Regarding a number of other names people have thrown out there, I wish people would at least look into some of these drivers a bit more than just the numbers.

I cannot believe people are actually throwing some of the names they have out there. Brabham, Hulme, and Rosberg are actually considered by some to be the "worst" WDC ever? Holy god. Keke Rosberg was a worthy champion, and I have to believe those even putting his name out there, never actually watched him race. He was a tremendously talented driver. Yes I suppose his WDC wasn't the most glamorous of wins as on paper Ferrari had the best car, and likely would have won were it not for Pironi's stupidity at Hockenheim. However, to attempt to marginalize it on the basis that he only had 1 victory is absurd.

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#257 Group B

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 17:25

Fair fight would mean one car was not illegal, which the Benetton was.

No, that would be a legal fight, not neccessarily a fair one. The Benetton may, or may not have been illegal, but either way the Williams was still a superior car so DH was hardly at a disadvantage. I'm not condoning any cheating that may, or may not, have gone on, but the reality is that by any reckoning it did no more than level the playing field. Anyway, if that Benetton was such a mountain of illegal uber technology the other drivers should've been using it to take vital points of DH to help MS. They didn't.

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#258 Ragingjamaican

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 17:57

From what I've heard and read, Bennetton wasn't the only illegal car, the majority of them where. Whether it was true or not I don't know, but a lot of claims are made about Bennetton and have yet to be proven, maybe it's because it won the title, I don't know.

From what I've seen with the cars behaviour in 1994, I couldn't really say that it had electronic aids.

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#259 Wander

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 19:46

No, that would be a legal fight, not neccessarily a fair one. The Benetton may, or may not have been illegal, but either way the Williams was still a superior car so DH was hardly at a disadvantage. I'm not condoning any cheating that may, or may not, have gone on, but the reality is that by any reckoning it did no more than level the playing field. Anyway, if that Benetton was such a mountain of illegal uber technology the other drivers should've been using it to take vital points of DH to help MS. They didn't.

I don't know if the Williams was such a brilliant car compared to the Benetton, to be honest. It was fast, but very difficult to drive at the beginning of the season. Then, in the second half the car only got a single pole position while Benetton got 3 and Ferrari 2. Seems to me like it was hardly a superior car at all. Ayrton's poles might have been down to his brilliance rather than the brilliance of the car for all we know. Remember that Michael was only 2 or 3 tenths behind him each time. The disparity between Michael's pace compared to his team mates that year is very curious, but I don't think that that necessarily means that the car was actually **** compared to the Williams and that Michael was just doing some sort of miracles with it. Unfortunately we do not have the luxury of seeing what Ayrton would have done in the Williams later that year or if Schumacher would have been any faster in the Williams. Nor if Hill would have been faster in the Benetton!

I like Hill, but I won't claim that he was a faster driver than Schumacher, cause he probably wasn't. However, I do feel like he deserved to win the championship in 94 after beating Schumacher in Suzuka in then rain and then pushing Schumacher into a mistake in Adelaide. A collision is always a disappointing end to a title battle and especially so in this case where the driver who won was the one who first made a mistake and then ended the race of the other challenger with a dubious door-shutting move.

So yes, if I could give one championship in history from one driver to an another one, it would be 94.

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#260 Claudius

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 19:49

I don't buy 1994. For me one of the F1 mags summed it up with their season review cover headline; 'the right man won it the wrong way'.

Well put

The people that are "outraged" at Benetton rarely mention that McLaren had similair systems in their cars.

MS was head and shoulders above the rest in 94. It wasn't even a contest after Imola.
In the end, it took 2 race bans and other dqs for Hill to even come close.

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#261 ensign14

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Posted 24 December 2012 - 20:48

Ferrari had them as well, Larini mentioned it in an interview before the Scuderia said he had been "mistranslated". Think McLaren had what might be called one-way shifting, which was more legal. But interestingly in the race where the conditions were most equal (Suzuka) Hill nailed it...