4 replies to this topic

[Andreas93]

While watching events live I think it's fair to say that our sympathies or the lack of them towards certain characters can make us pretty biased in forming our opinions as events unfold, yet with the passing of time biases may evaporate and our opinions get reevaluated. 

 

A few weeks ago I had a bicycle accident that left me bedridden for a while. Unable to do much I killed time with reading, watching movies and old races, than I decided to rewatch the hybrid era. As a Ferrari fan this era hasn't been my favorite to put it mildly and I missed a lot of it as especially at the beggining I found the cars unimpressive and the races as unpredictable as a romcom. 

 

After rewatching the 2014 season, I think I was touch too harsh back than, probably a bit of a ******** Ferrari fan  , it was actually a pretty decent season with good battles all around the field and here are some of my conclusions from the season. 

 

Cars to be honest were even more unimpressive than what I remembered. At Barcelona qualy in Q1 I misstook a hot lap for warmup lap at first. The racing itself though was quite good I have to admit, with overtaking more than possible even among cars that were peer competitors with each other. 

 

Moving to the inter team battles, the Merc battle was closer than what I remembered. I remembered as if Hamilton was blowing Rosberg away and the latter only had a sniff thanks to Hamilton's wretched luck, but it was a lot closer than this and by the end luck in my books was more or less even between them. What really made the difference for me was that Hamilton was a better racer, the races in Bahrain, Spain, Japan and US being the defining moments. In the first two Rosberg was quicker but failed to get by, while in the latter two Hamilton was quicker and was able to overtake Rosberg. 

 

Apart from Mercedes blowing away the field the biggest surprise of the season was probably Ricciardo beating Vettel. In truth, at the time I was quite amused about it( probably the ******** Ferrari fan bitter about losing two titles to Vettel took over me again ). I still think Ricciardo was impressive, but I also think the beating he inflicted on Vettel had been slightly overstated and I honestly doubt Ricciardo is a quicker driver than the Vettel I saw at Ferrari between 2015 and 2019. 

 

Williams inter team battle was interesting. Bottas was lightning in qualy, but in the races his gap to Massa was much smaller and was an early indicator that he's not quite a top driver. 

 

At Ferrari Alonso was driving like a machine and had an almost perfect season, one of the best of his career probably, his near victory in Hungary being the drive of the season for me. Raikkonen on the other hand had a shocker of the season where it looked like it was post- 2013 summer break Raikkonen who turned up at Maranello. Overall Raikkonen's season was very unimpressive. On pace, especially in races, I think he was generally closer than Massa used to be, but bad luck like Malaysia or Monaco, slow Ferrari pitwall reaction or bad starts like Bahrain, Canada, Austria or Russia compromised him even when he had decent pace, and there were some weekends where he looked just lost. Apart from everything else he was way off the pace in the wet in a season where there were seven rain affected weekends.  

 

At McLaren Button was reliable as ever with a car that only really looked competitive in the final third of the season. Watching Magnussen was reminiscent of Piastri last year, quick over one lap, sometimes struggling badly in races, though Piastri is a far fairer racer. 

 

Force India started the season well but faded away as the season progressed. The only season where the Hulk got the better of Perez, though Perez was quite unlucky at times and very very close on pace.

 

At Toro Rosso 20 years old Kvyat was very impressive and retired Vergne from F1. Vergne used to be  a guy whom I saw in his pre-F1 days in British F3 and WSR 3.5 where he was very impressive, so I have to admit, his failure to become a top F1 driver kinda surprised me.

 

Lotus had so many technical problems comparing their drivers is really hard. The only standout moment of their season for me was Grosjean's P5 in the Spanish qualy. 

 

Sauber had a shocker of a season also and finished with 0 points, as if anyone needed a further proof for just how poor that Ferrari PU was. 

 

The small teams were also difficult to compare with all the gremlins and financial troubles they had. Bianchi was the most impressive of the lot from the back, often fighting with far superior cars, unfortunately his tragic accident robbed the grid of one of the most talented up-coming drivers

 

These would be my thoughts regarding the 2014 seasons, if you have disagreements with my own conclusions, feel free to add them. If there are other seasons, events or drivers or other F1 related figures regarding whom you'd reevaluated your earlier opinions, feel free to add them also. 

 

[F1Frog]

I enjoyed the 2014 season because it was something of a breath of fresh air to have the pecking order turned on its head so much, as I was so fed up of Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull winning anything. In reality, it was a below average season but with a few really special races like Bahrain, Hungary, and particularly Canada which was one of my favourite races that I have seen. An outstanding drive by Nico Rosberg to hold off Perez, Ricciardo, Vettel and Massa for so long. One place that I have sort of changed my opinion is that when watching this race live, I really wanted Massa to win and was very upset when he was hit by Perez at the end. When I rewatched this race not too long ago, I am no longer a fan of Massa at all following his ridiculous Crashgate case and so was very much enjoying seeing him stuck at the back of the train.

 

One thing I think I have re-evaluated my opinion on is the level of the Mercedes drivers. At the time, I was very much an Alonso fan and had spent the last few years feeling convinced that he was the class of the field and would be beating Vettel in the same car, so thought my opinion was being validated by Ricciardo beating Vettel and Alonso destroying Raikkonen, who I also considered among the best drivers before 2014. At the time, I rated Hamilton just below Alonso and Vettel as I thought he hadn't been far ahead of either Button or Rosberg, but with hindsight I think those drivers were a lot better than they seemed at the time. Hamilton also beat Button more emphatically than it felt at the time. I think he was perhaps always the class of the field, other than 2011, and Massa and Raikkonen were both just overrated drivers, while Rosberg was not far behind Hamilton at any point. Having said that, Hamilton was not at potential GOAT level yet at this stage even if he was the best driver, I think he made a considerable step up in 2018 which was peak Hamilton. I agree with your opinion that the Vettel of 2015-19 was better than Ricciardo, he is probably one that was overrated at the time although he was far better than the 2021-24 version of Ricciardo.

 

I would say Hulkenberg vs Perez was very evenly matched across their three years. Hulkenberg had a greater advantage in 2014 than Perez did in 2015-16 but Perez had that advantage in two years to Hulkenberg's one. But across their whole careers I would rate Hulkenberg higher as a driver, as he was better in 2012-13 and 2017-18 and Perez just had his two best seasons when Hulkenberg was his teammate. But that Perez was so much better than the 2023-24 Perez. But I really liked Hulkenberg in 2014 and probably overrated him at the time. Bottas also had a really good 2014 season, his advantage over Massa really wasn't far off Alonso's. He was definitely underrated when driving for Mercedes, but I probably rated him too highly during his Williams time as well. Magnussen was surprisingly good in 2014, it was probably his best season as he got so close to Button. The Magnussen that returned in 2016 was nowhere near the same level. Grosjean was also at the top of his game at this time, I too remember that P5 in Spain qualifying well. I think Vergne was still better than Kvyat in 2014 and was unlucky to lose his place on the grid but obviously can't argue with Verstappen and Sainz replacing him. Bianchi was great in 2014 with that P9 in Monaco one of the highlights of the season and the thing I still point to as proof that F1 teams don't need to be any good to add value to the grid, and I miss Marussia and Caterham. At the time I thought we had lost a future world champion in Bianchi, but in hindsight that was perhaps ambitious but he could still definitely have won races. I think Gutierrez was overly maligned at the time as Sutil and Grosjean were both decent drivers and he gave them a decent run for their money. Also Maldonado's move on him in Bahrain was perhaps the worst piece of driving I have seen in recent F1.

 

My unpopular opinion from that season is that I actually liked the look of the cars. I found the front of the Ferrari and the Toro Rosso particularly aesthetically pleasing, while the first Martini Williams was the most beautiful of them all and I also liked the funky nose on the Lotus.

[absinthedude]

My recollection of 2014 is that it began with "old school" reliability issues, which brought back attrition for the first few races. I liked that, not being sure if the leaders would even finish. I don't recall it being an especially bad season. Rosberg ran Hamilton pretty close. Alonso delivered everything he could. Massa and Bottas put Williams back on the map. 

 

An event that I re-evaluated years after the fact was Schumacher's crash into Hill at Adelaide in 1994. Obviously Schumacher was at fault but I gave him the benefit of the doubt at the time and assumed it was out of desperation rather than a deliberate attempt to put Hill out. Then after Jerez 97 I changed my mind. I went back to my tapes of 1994, transferred the footage of the incident frame by frame to film (no digital projectors in those days, or at least they cost a fortune) so I could use my film projector to view the image on a large four foot screen, backwards, forwards, different speeds. And yeah, I was in no doubt....it was calculated and deliberate. 

[Beri]

When debuting, I always thought Hamilton was something special. Following him from the early brinks in autosport, he was the first mega talent that I saw debuting who I followed from the get go. Then he got in his hissy fit with Alonso during his debut season and was most certainly no driver who was showing any form of respect towards his teammate. Regardless that it was double World Champion Alonso. Something that, combined with Alonso's behavior and McLarens inability to master the situation, eventually did cost him and Alonso the title.

It made me dislike Hamilton from that season onwards and subsequently disgregarding his successes. LIke the early Mercedes titles. "Those were won with the best car" was my usual reply.

Then 2021 came around and everything changed. Abu Dhabi, and the immediate response in the weeks after, like not showing up for the Gala and such, were in negative form still fuel to my earlier thoughts. But once the dust settled, the admiration came. Certainly when his first comments were penned down during the early 2022 stages. Him telling and showing that he respected his competitor. Looking footage back where he congratulates both Verstappen Sr. and Jr. after the race. The way he stood upon that podium; in disbelief but yet applauding Verstappen. This did show to me how big of a champion he really is. He never threw dirt on either Max or Red Bull. Despite what had happened. He did show his anger and disbelief, but they were always targeted at the FIA or Masi. Never to Verstappen.

When 2022 and 2023 made Hamilron humble by the lack of success, his early 2024 announcement of switching to Ferrari was something I still am of the opinion of that it is a fantastic move for him and the sport. The most laurelled driver and team getting together. Thats just a mouth watering combination. And when his subsequent victory at Silverstone came along, I found myself cheering on the sofa. For Hamilton. Had you told me 5 years ago that one day I would be cheering for Hamilton, Id bought a straightjacket for you myself. But here I am; not a major fan of Hamilton. But a fan of the sport who admires Hamilton now more than ever. Considering that my admiration for Schumacher only came after his first retirement, I am happy that I can enjoy Hamilton for another couple of seasons.

[F1Frog]

I didn't really enjoy the 2016 season at the time, finding it incredibly boring. But looking back now I think it was a fantastic season with a lot of exciting and controversial races, the rise of Verstappen, and most of all the title battle between Hamilton and Rosberg. This was probably partly due to not really supporting any of the top six drivers that season and being annoyed that the likes of Force India, Williams, McLaren and the rest of the midfield were never anywhere near them as they had been in 2014 particularly (2015 was even worse). I wish I had appreciated 2016 more at the time.

 

As previously mentioned, I used to think Alonso was the best driver of his era right up until 2017. Now I would say that Hamilton was always better.

 

I rated Sergio Perez's 2020 season extremely highly but with hindsight, the Racing Point was by far the best car in the midfield and flattered both Perez and Stroll. I think Sainz and Norris were both very underrated at the time and getting McLaren to third in that championship was an extraordinary achievement.