31 replies to this topic

[F355CHALLENGE]

So many people seem to argue about the best drivers of all time (Fangio, Clark, Senna, Prost, Stewart etc...). There seems to be universal agreement (at least among Schumi's detractors) that he is piling on the stats simply because he has no equals (either car or driver).

In other words he has no competition. the argument is that the other drivers had competition.

My question is the following:

1) Is Schumacher that much better than everyone else he has raced with in the past 10 years? In other words can we surmize that the level of skill and talent is similar to what other great drivers of their era's faced? Schumi is simply that much better.

OR

2) Has the level of talent and skill dropped relative to other era's and this has made Schumacher look better than he is?

What's you opinion?

Regards,

Jon

[Ricardo F1]

No, there are good drivers out there. Hakkinen was good enough. But 2001 and 2002 have shifted things by having the best driver in the best car with no team mate. There are other drivers who could give Schumi a good run for his money, but not at Ferrari.

[HSJ]

-absolute #1 status in the best funded team with most resources
-nobodies as teammates
-excellent luck with AS dying, MH being in crappy cars etc.

That's all you need, that's all that happened.

[black magic]

it suits those who dislike shumi to somehow make out current drivers are not as good as those before them.

statistically its far more likely that each decade had similar talent of drivers the only difference then in success is matching those drivers to the relevant machinery

seems clear to me that mika just as quick as a piquet or mansell and probably quicker than prost and so on.

but don capps will be here soon claiming no way were todays the match of yesteryear.

sorry don not wash with me. ms would have been quick in any era. whether he would drive those cars today - who would. the danger compared to reward would exclude it but if he had grown up in that era yes I'm sure he would have been there and winning races.

oh and the fangio was in a different league argument. how many guys starting in their forties would be capable of being competative let alone win today. must be because todays cars are so easy to drive that all these new comers are winning gp with no previous experience.

sit back and wait for the flamers.

[Ray Bell]

No flaming at all here...

The biggest change has been the technological input and the importance of it. Today's budgets are many times multiples of those of the seventies and eighties, just out of this world compared to the sixties.

So budget and staff are more important than ever, though it's probably not fair to discount the importance of the lowly mechanic who tended the cars of the sixties.

But then, you see, that's another thing. There was often one mechanic per car then. Now there's a whole team within a team to run each car. And back at base there's another team for the test cars, and a whole range of machinists, draftsmen, fabricators etc... the list is endless.

So with a budget and good planning, you go racing. But the best budget allied with the best people wins. Even despite a great driver in another team, more often than not.

Whereas at the end of the seventies it was commonplace for the whole grid to be covered by less than two or three seconds, such was the closeness of the competition, today the haves and have nots are more clearly separated.

There's no doubt that Michael Schumacher is the best driver today... but I don't think his advantage is so great as the times would indicate back to, say, Mark Webber. A lot of that difference is the car.

There were cars that stood out in the sixties too, but they met their match fairly quickly. Today it is much harder to catch up technologically.

[RiverRunner]

We can realistically only compare those of yesteryear against their contemporaries,both in cars and as drivers.
It's hard for me,personally, to judge MS as I don't see either the depth of field in cars nor drivers present in this era as I have in the past,and yes I recognize that there was a period when Williams were absolutely dominant no matter who drove it to put that retort to rest right away,taking away one side of the eqaution.
No doubt he is untouchable on the track right now and able to drive the best that is there at the same time,built to his specs,mind you,which is probably unheard of in the past.
Double kudos to him,luck has been with him all the way and sometimes that's all he's had.
Amongst the greats,without any doubt.
Possibly inflated records though,due to his contemporaries in both classes.

[karlth]

His situation is not unlike Prost's in 1993, the difference being Schumacher has a reliable car and an absolute number 2 driver.

He is though without a doubt making the most of his opportunities.

[mikedeering]

Q) Who currently in F1 is the most successful driver (points, wins, podiums, laps led, fastest laps etc) if Michael Schumcher is discounted?

A) David Coulthard

Q) Who on this BB is often derided as a #2 driver at best?

A) David Coulthard

So the most successful driver aside from Schumacher currently in F1 is a driver often mocked for his lack of consistency, race pace, mistakes etc etc. It is not someone thought of as an F1 great.

Despite this, it is also argued that MS does not face weak competition...how does that work?

I'm not trying to undermine MS' records - he has consistently got the job done. Unlike Prost in 1993, he is responsible for developing the Ferrari into the class of the field. However, I don't believe he has faced truly great drivers. If you look at any other era, you can often name a handful of great drivers - not so during the MS era.

As we all know, Hill wasted the best car on the grid for many years. Villeneuve can't even beat an old Frenchman with 1 lucky win to his name. Juan Lap Wonder is no threat over a race distance, Mika was inconsistent and would only perform if his car was working well...

Of course, I admit history goes against Schumacher - the likes of Raikkonen, JPM, Massa, Heidfeld, Button etc may go on to great things, and cause a rethink - in the same way that Mansell was not viewed as a top line driver in the early 80s, but eventually won 31 races. We shall see...

[SennasCat]

Originally posted by HSJ
-absolute #1 status in the best funded team with most resources
-nobodies as teammates
-excellent luck with AS dying, MH being in crappy cars etc.

That's all you need, that's all that happened.

HSJ, point for point
#1 Yes. But that level of resources and teammates Ferrari still had 20 years of not much
#2 Yes. Undeniably. But Barrichello has been the best of a bad bunch and consistenly improving
#3 No. No. No. AS was on a slight but measurable decline in '94. He was still dynamically quick but getting incosistent. For every Donington 93 and Adelaide 93 (mesmerising) there were a lot of half-assed races in 93. Schumi is now starting to lose the edge despite what the scoreboard says.

How can you possibly say that the McLaren with Be engine and Newey design from '98 to mid 2000 was a crap car??/

I'm not flaming Mika, he was an excellent and deserving world champion and probably quicker than Schumi over a qualifying lap, and came back from death's door, yada yada. But you are actually lowering Mika's achievements by saying he was in a crappy car

[Don Capps]

I have come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no way to compare eras in motor sport in any rational, objective, meaningful format since unlike some other forms of sport -- say baseball, football (American and Soccer), cricket, and so forth -- the fundamentals have changed so radically (especially in the technology involved, the venues, and the rules -- "formulae") from era to era and there simply are not any real benchmarks that carry over past just a few seasons, particularly in the past several decades.

I posted the above elsewhere on this forum as well. It is pretty much the case in a nutshell. As F1 has become essentially an exercise in technology and finances, it calls for an entirely different set of primary skills by those involved. I find that the current era of F1 simply does not create the same sense of excitement, involvement, and ethusiasm for the sport that I had in past. Things change, which is one of those simple facts of life. Often change is for the better and sometimes it isn't and sometimes it is just change for the sake of change.

Fundamentally, drivers from all eras were/are folks with the same characteristics -- superb hand/eye coordination, the desire to succeed (win), great reflexes, and so forth and so on. That really doesn't change one iota from era to era -- drivers and those running the teams tend to be cut from the same bolt of cloth, only the environment and the circumstances varying from era to era.

However, the environment in which each era exists is the kicker. The year 2002 is almost literally lightyears away from the year 1952 as far as racing goes -- and 1952 was radically different from 1902. The year 1952 was not that far removed in some ways from 1932, but comparing 2002 and 1982 gets to be a real challenge.

I have my preferences for various eras built upon either direct experience from being around during those eras or from being able to understand and appreciate the environment of those eras. Things past are not always missed nor were they better -- I always keep in mind what Carl Bettman said: "The 'Good Old Days' -- they were terrible!" In many ways, Bettman is correct. The listing for the death toll in Germany for motor sports events for 1934 is staggering. One GP race in 1960 claimed more drivers than F1 has lost in a decade -- plus there were severe injuries to other drivers as well.

Returning to the issue of competition during the various eras, the point of this thread, it has always been an issue of contention. F1 in 2002 is remarkably similar to the 1952 season in that a particular driver/car combination is just mopping the field. However, Ascari didn't have to contend with Fangio who was out for the season after his broke his neck at Monza. Nor is there any reason to think that the Maserati A6GCM/52 could have bested the Ferrari 500/F2 in a straight fight, race after race. In 1972, Emerson Fittipaldi, John Player Team Lotus, and the John Player Special Lotus 72 - Ford Cosworth DFV all came together in a harmony which allowed them to dominate the season. There was competition, but there is something about being on a roll that makes many things suddenly possible. In 1992, Nigel Mansell and Williams just did the hot knife through butter deal for perhaps one of the most boring and dull seasons ever -- unless you were Frank Williams or Patrick Head, of course.

At any rate, just a few thoughts on this subject.

[Martijn]

Personally I think that, measured over the whole field, the 2002 grid lineup is miles and miles better then the 1950's driver lineup. Infact i'd like to think that even a relative unknown guy like Panis would drive cicles around the likes of everyone on the 1950s grid.

The reason for that, is that current F1 drivers stand at the top of a very wide pyramid of drivers that they have beaten in their entire career. Panis has driven many seasons in lower formulae, beating his contemporaries there, that also beat many others in earlier seasons, so all in all he's maybe the best driver out of a 10.000 kart-motorracing-enthousiasts-wannabe-F1-drivers. Together with 19 or 21 other guys who made it that far, is he competing in F1.

Now take your average 1950's F1 driver. How did he get to race the car? He probably was rich enough or knew the right people or whatever to get into the car. Sure, he had experience in previous races, but can anyone remember how ie. Graham Hill got into F1? Had he driven for 10 years in karts beating all the other little kids? Driven in FF1600 where other kids were who had beaten all their respective classmates? I dont think so.

And the rule of the big numbers says, that a driver that is among the best of a 10.000 ppl large population of kids, is gonne be more gifted in talent, experience and racecraft then the guy that happened to stumble into an F1 car by accident. Sure, Graham Hill was a 2x WDC and Panis a one time winner, but if you place both of them at the peak points of their carreers on the same track, im convinced Panis would be miles quicker.

As usual there wont ever be a way to get raw data on this, I realize that. But this is why I think the current crop of F1 drivers has a lot more talent then the 1950 or 60 bunch.

My point is, the fact that Schumacher dominates current F1 is NOT through a lack of competition. Infact, the competition is as strong as it has ever been. No, its just that he makes more out of his equipment then anyone else. That intuinition that tells you the right driving line through a corner, even when youve never driven that corner before under those particular circumstances of fuelload, tyrewear and weather.

[miniman]

Amen Martijn plus the fact that todays drivers are so physically fit. A driver from the 50's and 60's wouldn't have a chance under the tremendous g-loads in a race distance. Put Fangio in any of the current F1 cars and he would get dizzy from the acceleration alone, he would probably get sick after a few high G corners.

[aportinga]

Easy question..... Take a look (if you can) at the 1989 season. Even Tyrrell were running mid-pack and at the front once and a awile. So were many other teams which we would now refer to as "back markers".

That doesn't happen today at all. Every team has it's place on the grid and thereby during the race - from the top down. No surprises at all anylonger.

So yes the racing was better back then IMO. And I don't think that anyone with access to these races 89 and back would disagree.

From a talent perspective however...I think the safety and technology of the sport have seriously removed many of the challenges that drivers once faced - especially in the 30's - 60's. So much so that I personally consider the "Best" drivers for the most part, to derive from those particular era's....

My personal favorite are Rosemeyer and Clark .

I'd like to know if Don could provide his as well?

[Don Capps]

Originally posted by Martijn The reason for that, is that current F1 drivers stand at the top of a very wide pyramid of drivers that they have beaten in their entire career. Panis has driven many seasons in lower formulae, beating his contemporaries there, that also beat many others in earlier seasons, so all in all he's maybe the best driver out of a 10.000 kart-motorracing-enthousiasts-wannabe-F1-drivers. Together with 19 or 21 other guys who made it that far, is he competing in F1.

Ever consider the fact that there was a pyramid back then as well? Many drivers got to GP, or the AAA Championship Trail, or whatever after spending many seasons working their way through the ranks of the lower classes. Also, back then, we didn't have the current Gordon/Woods/Williams obsession in which parents toss their children into a sport (racing cars) at age 5 or 6 and groom them for professional careers while they are still in their teens or even pre-teens. Very different world view at that time.

Originally posted by Martijn Now take your average 1950's F1 driver. How did he get to race the car? He probably was rich enough or knew the right people or whatever to get into the car. Sure, he had experience in previous races, but can anyone remember how ie. Graham Hill got into F1? Had he driven for 10 years in karts beating all the other little kids? Driven in FF1600 where other kids were who had beaten all their respective classmates? I dont think so.

Graham Hill worked his way into GP racing through damned hard work and persistence. Also, many of the racers of the '50s and earlier were not the playboys and idle rich as so often thought of by many here and elsewhere -- there were drivers like that, of course, but the racers got there by earning their way onto the grid. Again, the world was a different place and opportunities were different. However, talent is talent regardless of era or the size of your wallet. How many of those on the grid during recent years worked on their cars in the garage prior to the event? Or hocked all they owned to make a race?

Originally posted by Martijn And the rule of the big numbers says, that a driver that is among the best of a 10.000 ppl large population of kids, is gonne be more gifted in talent, experience and racecraft then the guy that happened to stumble into an F1 car by accident. Sure, Graham Hill was a 2x WDC and Panis a one time winner, but if you place both of them at the peak points of their carreers on the same track, im convinced Panis would be miles quicker.

I think that perhaps this is something that belabors the point -- how about Panis and Hill going at in Porsche RS60's on the Little Madonie at the Targa Florio as it was in say 1961 or whatever -- I think that both would be very quick even on the Ersatzring in modern cars, but Panis would not necessary be "miles ahead" anywhere over Hill. Besides, who would you rather have dinner with?

This all just goes to show once again how difficult to impossible it is to compare eras. We can contrast them, but even that falls short of being useful in the eyes of many. We all have preferences that are very clear. Some here will never accept those of the past being as good as those of today and vice versa. The culture of F1 has changed so radically in recent years that it is scarcely recognizable to the GP racing that I began following in the early and mid-1950's. It is definitely different, whether it is "better" or not will always a point of contention it seems.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Martijn
Now take your average 1950's F1 driver. How did he get to race the car? He probably was rich enough or knew the right people or whatever to get into the car. Sure, he had experience in previous races, but can anyone remember how ie. Graham Hill got into F1? Had he driven for 10 years in karts beating all the other little kids? Driven in FF1600 where other kids were who had beaten all their respective classmates? I dont think so.

I hope you don't think Graham Hill was born with a silver spoon in his mouth: he didn't even hold a licence to drive a road car until he was 26. He got into F1 the REAL hard way, buying four laps at Brands Hatch and being instantly hooked on racing. He quit his secure but boring job and worked as an unpaid mechanic for a racing school. He then happened to meet Colin Chapman, getting a job with Lotus almost by accident and racing customers, cars when he could, but in two years he had just four races! He then built his own Lotus - Chapman retained ownership of the car and got all the prize money! Nevertheless Graham nearly won the Autosport Championship (then the premier sports car series in the UK) in his first season. He got a works Lotus F1 drive on the back of that .... not bad for a man with only one full season's racing. Kimi who?

For a lot more detail:
http://8w.forix.com/ghill.html

And sure, some drivers had a financial leg up - Moss and Hawthorn for example, but they still had to graft their way up through F3 - the 50s equivalent of FF1600. De Portago was a very rich man, but money didn't buy a works Ferrari drive in the 50s.

[Don Capps]

I have many "favorites." I happen to think that Bernd Rosemeyer and Jim Clark are among the best racers to ever sit behind the wheel of a racing car. I also think that restricting your worldview to F1 or GP is nonsense. Dario Resta was an immensely talented and great racer, as were Mark Donohue and Erik Carlsson and Tazio Nuvolari or A.J. Foyt.

The fitness issue is a red herring. Contrary to what many believe, drivers were "fit" prior to today's crop of grid placers. True, as a whole they were scarcely like the drivers of today who are truly models of fitness. However, unlike today's drivers who compete only 16 or 17 times a year, many of these drivers drove in several dozen races a year. Stirling Moss was a fitness buff as were many others who were men who often worked tough, demanding jobs between races. Again, things change and people have to adapt to the changes. We can go on and on and on and on and on with these comparisons between yesterday and today, with sometimes the nod going to Today and sometimes to Yesterday.

Sometimes I just get so damned sick and tired of these comparisons of today and yesterday. As I have said before, if you enjoy today's racing -- well, enjoy it. Diminishing the accomplishment of yesterday's drivers will not make those of today one iota better -- and just as importantly, the reverse is true. Times have changed just so much that comparisons can perhaps only extend over a few seasons at best. There have always been Racers, racing drivers, and drivers -- and there always will be. It has always been a matter of opportunities and chances and luck when making it onto the grid.

As I have said, I just have no intense interest in today's F1 -- just like the last baseball strike finally extingusihed my longtime interest in baseball. I have an interest in modern F1, but not any real passion for it. Just like I loved my ol' Huey but only admired my Blackhawk. Perhaps I just like what I like and know too much -- and less than I think I do -- to condemn any era out of hand. Hey, unlike 1962 or even 1982 you can actually count on seeing the races on TV and not have to trek all over the world or wait for days or even weeks for the results and the story of the race. That alone is a huge plus for today's F1.

[aportinga]

Dario Resta was an immensely talented and great racer,

Indeed - a great career in the States and virtually unknown by many of my fellow Americans.

[Martijn]

Originally posted by Vitesse2


I hope you don't think Graham Hill was born with a silver spoon in his mouth: he didn't even hold a licence to drive a road car until he was 26. He got into F1 the REAL hard way, buying four laps at Brands Hatch and being instantly hooked on racing. He quit his secure but boring job and worked as an unpaid mechanic for a racing school. He then happened to meet Colin Chapman, getting a job with Lotus almost by accident and racing customers, cars when he could, but in two years he had just four races! He then built his own Lotus - Chapman retained ownership of the car and got all the prize money! Nevertheless Graham nearly won the Autosport Championship (then the premier sports car series in the UK) in his first season. He got a works Lotus F1 drive on the back of that .... not bad for a man with only one full season's racing. Kimi who?

For a lot more detail:
http://8w.forix.com/ghill.html

And sure, some drivers had a financial leg up - Moss and Hawthorn for example, but they still had to graft their way up through F3 - the 50s equivalent of FF1600. De Portago was a very rich man, but money didn't buy a works Ferrari drive in the 50s.

Just to be sure, i dont have anything against Graham Hill at all, it was just an example. Just how hard he worked as a mechanic to get into F1, or how his dinner conversations are, is interesting, but irrelevant in this context. However, if i may we can elaborate on this example a little.

It is a fact that every driver gets better with more practise. Some recent examples are Graham's son Damon Hill, who absolutely sucked in the lower formulae, but managed to do quite OK in F1, after lapping 1000s of laps as a Williams test driver. So you need talent if you ever wanne be OK, but also you need to practise to be able to get the best out of the car. Some racers even say its 80% practise and 20% talent, but its hard to measure those things.

Now Graham, with his obvious talent but without any experience, is able to be competitive right away in a Lotus. In my opinion that is a sign of weakness of the opposition, that a guy that could easily have been a lot better himself (with more experience), is still able to beat the other guys. In other words, you didnt need to be absolutely great to be good relative to the rest. Only talent sufficed in those days apparantly.



The physicall fitness is imo not really part of the equation here; if Moss or Fangio would have needed to sustain 4Gs for an hour and a half, they would have trained to be able to stand that. But they didnt have to.


Another nice thing to think about is this: If Fangio was able to lap so much quicker than he had ever done before in that 1957 Nurburgring race, howcome he didnt need to be driving that fast all the time? Apparantly his safe-cruising mode had been enough till then to wipe out the competition!


edit: this message was not meant to bash any of the mentioned drivers, its just expressing my considerations as to why i feel current F1 drivers perform closer to the 100% optimum laptime in their respective cars then the drivers of the past did.

[mikedeering]

Of course drivers get closer to 100% perfection at the time now.

They have downforce, fat tires, loadsa grip, LC, TC, paddles for a gear stick and all the corners are identical 2nd gear jobs anyway. It is far easier to run at the maximum and not make mistakes.

Back in the 50s & 60s you had no downforce, no driver aids, and much longer races, wider variety of corners, often longer tracks. It was easier to make mistakes not because the drivers were worse than now but because they had far more things to worry about. To attain perfection was truly an amazing feat - nowadays any driver can just jump in a car and find the maximum pretty easily - since the driver input is reduced.

[lukywill]

riccardo patrese has race 17 years
77-93

[mtl'78]

Originally posted by F355CHALLENGE
So many people seem to argue about the best drivers of all time (Fangio, Clark, Senna, Prost, Stewart etc...). There seems to be universal agreement (at least among Schumi's detractors) that he is piling on the stats simply because he has no equals (either car or driver).

In other words he has no competition. the argument is that the other drivers had competition.

My question is the following:

1) Is Schumacher that much better than everyone else he has raced with in the past 10 years? In other words can we surmize that the level of skill and talent is similar to what other great drivers of their era's faced? Schumi is simply that much better.

OR

2) Has the level of talent and skill dropped relative to other era's and this has made Schumacher look better than he is?

What's you opinion?

Regards,

Jon

I don't think it's that simple.

I think the two most important factors that have affected competition are #1 the competition at the front has become more scarce, and #2 performance has come increasingly from the car rather than the driver.

Forget Schumacher and look at the 3 other 'greats' of the last 10 years: Hill, Villeneuve and Hakkinen. They are all very flattered by the stats as well. They all easily rank in the top 25 for wins, and fair quite well in all the career stats. Hill & Hakkinen had a little over 3 years in competitive cars while Villeneuve 2, yet their stats put them ahead of many of the all-time greats. It's because for the last decade it's been 1 or sometimes 2 teams at the top. 20 years ago, it was quite normal for the top 5 teams to score wins in a season. We can go into the reasons why this was, but it has been discussed in other threads. Suffice it to say that there were many different winners back then, so it was harder for the very best drivers to accumulate massive win totals.

Since around 1987 this has changed for good. The midfielders have been relegated to the odd flukey win due mostly to attrition. 20 years ago a driver like Fisichella would have a few wins by now.

So Schumacher has benefited from being in excellent cars, this is true. But alot of credit has to go to him because when you compare him to say Coulthard, never a top driver but reliable and solid, Schumacher has done alot more with his cars than DC has. Another thing that has help boost schumacher's totals is the fact that he has been a contracted #1 for most of his career. That is a rare thing for a driver in top teams and a testament to his importance to his employers. So all those things have skewed the results a bit for Schumacher, and even Senna/Prost for that matter.

Basicly Schumacher fans are obsessed with trying to convince everyone else that he's the greatest ever (kinda like Jehova's witnesses ;) ), but everyone has his preferences and that will never change. He'll forever be mentioned along with names like Prost, Senna, Stewart, Clark and Fangio. That should be enough.

[Chui]

I've grown to truly respect and admire Schumi. I was [and always will be] a diehard fan of Ayrton Senna da Silva and I 'despised' Schumie for winning the WDC in '93. If I met Michael I'd tell him that then proceed to give him a heartfelt hug and congratulations. I truly respect his ability and his accomplishments.

One thing I've come to see is that Ayrton and Schumie are quite similar except that Schumie is very much "sanitized" in that he keeps his heartfelt feelings and his mind's inner workings to himself. Senna and I thought somewhat alike and OBJECTIVELY watching Schumacher and OBJECTIVELY watching Senna is like peering thru time. Both are truly cerebral and both seem to be "ahead of the car" at all times.

That said, I think Senna faced more talented drivers with equipment that was either near, equal or better than himself for a longer period of his career than Michael has and Senna had at least one teammate who was arguably better credentialed than Michael's.

Look at it this way: There was Prost, obviously, Mansell, Piquet and Rosberg during Senna's prime and I think I'm missing a few, but we can stop with these as at the time they drove they all had equal or better equipment than Ayrton had. At least until 1988 and 1989 in which he fought with Alain.

In all, I cannot take anything away from the natural talent that Michael has. Senna had nothing to do with Michael's talents nor did any other driver have anything to do with Ayrton's. I personally believe that Michael's had easier competition, but that only detracts from his STATISTICS not him as a fantastic driver. Yes, I think Senna demonstrated that he was "better" [how would we know?] by fighting with Nelson Piquet & Mansell as well as Prost and Rosberg who combined have, what, nine world driver championships between them at the time(s) they drove against him.

But that is not Michael's doing, fault or responsibility. Things happened: Williams had a faulty steering column which ended Ayrton's career. The Benetton was the better handling car and it took Williams up to the eigth round to figure out the car. Could Senna have won the title? Yes. Would he have? Who knows.

[Henry]

Originally posted by F355CHALLENGE
So many people seem to argue about the best drivers of all time (Fangio, Clark, Senna, Prost, Stewart etc...). There seems to be universal agreement (at least among Schumi's detractors) that he is piling on the stats simply because he has no equals (either car or driver).

In other words he has no competition. the argument is that the other drivers had competition.

My question is the following:

1) Is Schumacher that much better than everyone else he has raced with in the past 10 years? In other words can we surmize that the level of skill and talent is similar to what other great drivers of their era's faced? Schumi is simply that much better.

OR

2) Has the level of talent and skill dropped relative to other era's and this has made Schumacher look better than he is?

What's you opinion?

Regards,

Jon

Michael is the greatest. The fact that Michael today has the best car is not an argument against the fact, but an argument for it.
It's why Eddie Jordan rues losing Michael in 93, or was 92?

And, the fact that Michael has no competition is also an argument for the case that he is the greatest of all time. You imply that Senna was great because he proved himself against competition. But this competition Senna faced is evidence of him being not so great.

Has the level of competition dropped? You have to be kidding. The level of competition is higher than ever. Compare the budgets. The involvement of leading manufacturers, with image and reputation at stake. The fact that there's a search for an American driver evidences that the calibre is beyond America today. In the past the calibre was low enough for them to drive.

[Henry]

Originally posted by Don Capps
I have come to the conclusion that there is absolutely no way to compare eras in motor sport in any rational, objective, meaningful format since unlike some other forms of sport -- say baseball, football (American and Soccer), cricket, and so forth -- the fundamentals have changed so radically (especially in the technology involved, the venues, and the rules -- "formulae") from era to era and there simply are not any real benchmarks that carry over past just a few seasons, particularly in the past several decades.

I posted the above elsewhere on this forum as well. It is pretty much the case in a nutshell. As F1 has become essentially an exercise in technology and finances, it calls for an entirely different set of primary skills by those involved. I find that the current era of F1 simply does not create the same sense of excitement, involvement, and ethusiasm for the sport that I had in past. Things change, which is one of those simple facts of life. Often change is for the better and sometimes it isn't and sometimes it is just change for the sake of change.

Fundamentally, drivers from all eras were/are folks with the same characteristics -- superb hand/eye coordination, the desire to succeed (win), great reflexes, and so forth and so on. That really doesn't change one iota from era to era -- drivers and those running the teams tend to be cut from the same bolt of cloth, only the environment and the circumstances varying from era to era.

However, the environment in which each era exists is the kicker. The year 2002 is almost literally lightyears away from the year 1952 as far as racing goes -- and 1952 was radically different from 1902. The year 1952 was not that far removed in some ways from 1932, but comparing 2002 and 1982 gets to be a real challenge.

I have my preferences for various eras built upon either direct experience from being around during those eras or from being able to understand and appreciate the environment of those eras. Things past are not always missed nor were they better -- I always keep in mind what Carl Bettman said: "The 'Good Old Days' -- they were terrible!" In many ways, Bettman is correct. The listing for the death toll in Germany for motor sports events for 1934 is staggering. One GP race in 1960 claimed more drivers than F1 has lost in a decade -- plus there were severe injuries to other drivers as well.

Returning to the issue of competition during the various eras, the point of this thread, it has always been an issue of contention. F1 in 2002 is remarkably similar to the 1952 season in that a particular driver/car combination is just mopping the field. However, Ascari didn't have to contend with Fangio who was out for the season after his broke his neck at Monza. Nor is there any reason to think that the Maserati A6GCM/52 could have bested the Ferrari 500/F2 in a straight fight, race after race. In 1972, Emerson Fittipaldi, John Player Team Lotus, and the John Player Special Lotus 72 - Ford Cosworth DFV all came together in a harmony which allowed them to dominate the season. There was competition, but there is something about being on a roll that makes many things suddenly possible. In 1992, Nigel Mansell and Williams just did the hot knife through butter deal for perhaps one of the most boring and dull seasons ever -- unless you were Frank Williams or Patrick Head, of course.

At any rate, just a few thoughts on this subject.

Of course you can compare eras. There are braking distances, lateral forces, reaction times. Consider race craft has to be displayed where the margins and forces are smaller and greater.
Are the brake distances not shorter now than previous years? What does that demand on a driver's focus and precision to pick a brake zone.
What do the higher lateral forces (and cornering speed) mean to a driver trying find the apex, or optimal racing line?

Team structures are far more complex, and this demands much more from a driver. Many from the past could not cope with the complex personality of a single person in the team, i.e., Enzo Ferrari. Now a driver must cope with the like (Ron Dennis, for example) and keep a far more complex team structure focused. It's like a juggling act with more balls, or more plates spinning.

Just look at the pit stop. Years ago it was an opportunity to relax. Today, entry and exit times are critical. You have to stop precisely to line up with a fuel hose, tyres, and a vast crew looking to spring from the start blocks for shortest distance to the car.

I think you have to close you eyes a little to the past, and open them a little more to today.

[Ricardo F1]

Originally posted by Henry
Team structures are far more complex, and this demands much more from a driver. Many from the past could not cope with the complex personality of a single person in the team, i.e., Enzo Ferrari. Now a driver must cope with the like (Ron Dennis, for example) and keep a far more complex team structure focused. It's like a juggling act with more balls, or more plates spinning.

What the hell has that got to do with the driver. The plates are kept spinning by (at Ferrari) Jean Todt, Luca Montemozelo, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Paulo Martinelli. Schumacher has an engineer, Ross Brawn and Jean Todt to talk to, the latter not very often. Why do you try and imply that the driver runs the team?

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by lukywill
riccardo patrese has race 17 years
77-93

Thank you...

Originally posted by Henry
It's why Eddie Jordan rues losing Michael in 93, or was 92?

Ninety- one as I recall...

[Henry]

Originally posted by Ricardo F1


What the hell has that got to do with the driver. The plates are kept spinning by (at Ferrari) Jean Todt, Luca Montemozelo, Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Paulo Martinelli. Schumacher has an engineer, Ross Brawn and Jean Todt to talk to, the latter not very often. Why do you try and imply that the driver runs the team?

Ok, so why didn't the machinery at Ferrari work for Berger, Mansell, Prost, Alesi?
Where Schumacher goes the machinery works. It's a simple deduction. Michael is the common denominator.

[Rediscoveryx]

I'm a big fan of the "good old days" of the 60's, 70's and even 80's Grand Prix racing, and I'd rewatch almost any race from those eras rather than watch the German GP next sunday if I could. Modern GP racing is boring in comparison.

But I don't think that the level of driving skill by drivers today are any worse than the level of driving skill by drivers twenty or thirty years ago. In fact, I believe it to be the exact opposite. It's almost a statistical impossibility that yesterdays drivers would be any better than todays if you look at how many kids are doing karts today compared with the number of young racers in the 40's or 50's.

Perhaps one reason that the cars are so important today is that we have so many drivers that are close to perfection. Instead of having maybe four or five really good guys (like in the eighties) it's quite possible that we today have fifteen guys on the level of a Mansell or a Berger. The only driver of the modern field that isn't a really, really good racer is in my opinion Alex Yoong. The problem for the guys of today is to show how good they are, as they face many guys who are on the same level of talent.

Suppose that 1 out of 10 000 young drivers really has "the gift". If we suppose that the fifties Grand Prix drivers came from a pool of about 10 000 aspiring drivers (I doubt that it was this many), that would give us just one guy who really has the gift (Fangio?). Todays drivers come from a pool of perhaps 500 000 young drivers, which would give us 50 drivers with the same basic talents as Fangio (who work harder, are more fit etc). That would cover up the entire field of F1 and CART!


I believe the main reason for the current fields low perceived skill level is the fact that in a space of just two years, the sport lost Prost, Senna, Piquet and Mansell. There was definately a void to be filled, and at that time, the only driver of the same calibre as the previous "big four" was Schumacher. F1 had gone through the same thing back in 1982, when Lauda, Reutemann, Villeneuve, Pironi, Jones, Scheckter and Andretti all quit (or was lost) within two years of each other. I have old copies of motorsport magazines where the writers express their concern over the "poor quality of the remaining drivers". Out of the ashes came the Prost, Senna, Mansell, Piquet, (and Berger, the forgotten one) generation. In my opinion, the Schumacher, Häkkinen, Hill, Villeneuve generation has the same level of talent (if not higher), but they didn't peek at the same time, which was pretty much the case with the 80's generation.

Why do I say this? Well...

Nelson Piquet: Michael Schumacher was instantly faster than Piquet. Sure, it was an old and poorly motivated Piquet, but he was beaten by Schumacher. Piquet is probably the "worst" exmple of the great 80's drivers vs the great 90's drivers, because he peaked at around 1986/87.

Nigel Mansell: Mansell's arguably greatest year in F1 was 1992, he dominated that year. In 1994, just two years later, he was soundly beaten by Damon Hill at Williams, then he went on to McLaren where he was no match for Mika Häkkinen. Did Nigel really loose all his skill, or was Damon and Mika already in 1994 and 1995 world class drivers? Personally, I think it's a combination of both, but Mansell clearly wasn't capable of beating the "awful" Hill/Häkkinen.

Alain Prost: Back from retirement in 1993 Prost was not the same driver as he was back in 1986, but he was still bloody fast. Good enough to be a comfortable WDC for the fourth time, and yet, "untalented" Damon Hill was towards the end of the season, clearly on par with Prost in just his first season of Grand Prix racing. Damon Hill's peak wasn't until three years later.

Ayrton Senna: The first time Senna was paired with a driver from the new generation was at Estoril in 1993, when he (at his peak) was outqualified by Mika Häkkinen. He had the edge on Mika though, but Mika wasn't far off - already in 1993 Mika was as close to Senna as Berger ever got. Mika didn't really break through until four years later... In 1994, Senna was the class of the field in qualifying, but Michael Schumacher, in arguably an inferior car, outraced him in Brazil and had no problems following him at Imola, a track where Williams should have been even more superior due to the Renault's power advantage. So already in 1994 I think it's fair to say that Schumacher was, if not better, certainly not far off Senna (who was at his peak or at worst, just one year past it).


These drivers (Hill, Schumacher, Häkkinen) should like all drivers haveimproved with experience and by that logic have been far better in 1997 than they were in 1993 and yet, no one of these three managed to win the title. It was won by Jacques Villeneuve.


I think the reason why Schumacher is heads above the rest is because he isn't a 1 in 10 000, he is a 1 in 1 000 000. And for as long as I've been watching F1 (since the mid 80's), there has only been three of those; Senna, Prost and Schumacher. But as for the rest of them, I'd rate Hill ahead of Mansell, Häkkinen ahead of Piquet and Villeneuve ahead of Berger without any hesitation at all.

[Don Capps]

There are Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics....

[Williams]

Rediscoveryx, thanks for an excellent post. I would like to add one other reason why drivers of today seem to come up to the standards of their elders so quickly. And that is simply that the new generation learns from the previous generation. Michael Schumacher had been watching Senna for years before he ever set foot in an F1 car. He understood the importance of technical feedback, attention to detail, physical fitness, and was well-prepared when he showed up at Jordan in 1991 (?). Likewise Senna watched Alain Prost's approach to racing and and knew what to do and what to expect when he arrived in F1.

Where most rookies coming into the sport today already have many of the basics for success in modern motorsports down pat when they begin their careers, drivers at the dawn of the sport had to learn it all for themselves. The few that had the natural talent and quickly discovered the secrets of driving fast had a tremendous advantage over the many drivers who were still groping around in the dark. The Fangios and Mosses were up againsts very few other Fangios and Mosses, and every new trick they discovered tended to give them another large boost on the field.

I would speculate that the "average" F1 drivers today at the top level know 90% of what the very top drivers know, whereas in the early days an average driver would know perhaps 50% of what the top drivers knew. Knowledge becomes common currency so much quicker today and everyone has had a lot of time to understand the basics. There is not a lot more that a driver can discover today about driving fast, whereas in the old days there was much more room for innovation and new methods.

This also explains why the drivers are so close in ability today and why the cars make such a huge difference in on-track performance. Given the same modern F1 car, there is not a lot of different ways to driver it fast, and most drivers will lap within a few 10ths of any other driver in that car. As Fangio said, "In my day it was 75 percent car and mechanics, 25 percent driver and luck. Today it is 95 percent car. It is simple to prove. A driver can emerge in a good car, become World Champion and a year later disappear completely to the back of the grid. Driving skill hardly matters anymore." I don't believe that Fangio meant the skill doesn't matter at all, rather that driving skill doesn't make the big difference in performance that it once did. And I don't believe there is as large a variation in the skill level as there once was.

[Don Capps]

Also, as mentioned in so many words by a number of folks, there is also a significant change in how racing as a sport is approached by not only the fans but the drivers. In the decades following WW2, the period we seem to be focusing on here, being a racing driver was often an activity rather than a vocation. By that I mean that very, very few drivers were true professions in that they were supported by the proceeds derived solely from racing automobiles (or motorcycles for that matter). This was true throughout the world, not just in Europe or the Americas.

As a result of this, there were generally many who were quite talented but who got either little exposure -- coverage of racing events being even worse than today which is difficult to fathom by most -- for better opportunities or had their careers cut short through death or injury or an onset of common sense.

Only a few organizations had feeder systems or series which allowed drivers to progress through a series of gates before getting to The Show. The AAA/USAC ladder of midgets, sprints, and champ cars was mirrored in the F3, F2, and F1 ladder in Europe for instance. However, this was an imperfect system and remains so today.

Since the dawn of motor sports, the skills and talents needed to succeed in racing have changed an iota. Racing drivers then and now are for all intents and purposes the same. What has changed is the environment (Toto Roche or P.J. Agajanian verus Bernie Ecclestone), the opportunities (the talented mechanic who gains success in the cockpit such as Wilbur Shaw or Hermann Lang or Jack Brabham all of whom actually constructed cars with their own hands versus those who bring other assets to the table which is a lengthy list worldwide in all eras....), and how the sport is "played." There were few racing programs for pre-teens until very recently. Indeed, many drivers in the past could not compete on the track until they were at least 18 or 21. The shift to grooming 8-year olds to be racing champions in F1 or stock cars is a trend (and which generates some questions which are avoided like the plague by most) which skews the variances between eras even further apart than before.

Perhaps there is only one real common thread that runs through racing from its start over a century ago until today -- When given a choice, always pick being lucky over being good since you can do something about, but being lucky is another matter.....and if you are both good and lucky it is funny how much luckier you will be than someone is both lucky and good....

Also, if it is acceptable behavior to force someone off the track or step outside the envelope in the ethos of today's racing, then it is perhaps more difficult to compare levels of competition and eras than ever.

[Rediscoveryx]

Yes, the times are different and it's perhaps not really fair to compare individual drivers, let alone entire generations of drivers to each other. I mean, it's hard enough to compare the level of talent of a guy like Montoya to, for instance, that of Jacques Villeneuve. If we can't even compare these guys, then how on Earth are we suppose to compare the talents of say Nuvolari to those of, for instance, Ayrton Senna? It's impossible, yet, in a way, intriguing. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's imagined a qualifying session with Ayrton Senna and Jim Clark in equal machinery battling for pole. Or a race between Fangio and Prost...