If Rosberg wins the WDC this year..

[Alfa Fan]

Will he be the least deserving champion of all time?

I can't think of another time where a driver has been so clearly inferior and won the championship due to reliability / other factors.

[steveaki13]

Silly question in my opinion. A world champion deserves to be a world champion.

[AndyL]

Silly question in my opinion. A world champion deserves to be a world champion.

Exactly this.

The championship is not for being the "fastest" or most exciting. It's for scoring more points than your opponent. Clearly they guy who scores the most points deserves it.

[Stan Reid]

I can think of a lot of them. How many championships would Fangio have won if he'd been driving for BRM (0)? He tried Indy and couldn't even qualify against 33 American drivers who mostly raced on dirt horse tracks.

[jens]

Will he be the least deserving champion of all time?

I can't think of another time where a driver has been so clearly inferior and won the championship due to reliability / other factors.

In my book Rosberg would be no worse than Button or Räikkönen, let alone several other champions before these two.

Also it is worth keeping in mind a very important differentiator in this argument. To win the WDC, Rosberg has to beat Hamilton in equivalent cars. It is a damn hard thing to do, even if you have the advantage of reliability. Because most WDC's have weaker team-mates to beat (the Barrichellos, Webbers, Coulthards, Bergers and Patreses of this world) and/or their closest rivals are driving inferior cars.

[Koz]

In my book Rosberg would be no worse than Button or Räikkönen, let alone several other champions before these two.

Why Raikkonen?

He fought the good fight in 2007, McLaren were slightly faster. He had mechanical failures and it went down to the last race.

[jens]

Why Raikkonen?

He fought the good fight in 2007, McLaren were slightly faster. He had mechanical failures and it went down to the last race.

In my view the Ferrari was actually slightly faster. And Alonso-Hamilton a superior line-up to Räikkönen and Massa.

Anyway. I didn't mean the championship season in isolation, but how I generally rate these drivers. It is not a dent on Kimi or Jenson, because they are good drivers. But same applies to Nico - he is also good. He has been running Hamilton reasonably close. And if you are looking at qualifying statistics, ever since they have become Mercedes team-mates, they have scored roughly a similar amount of pole positions. Pretty impressive in my book, even if we consider Hamilton has had to sit out several Q sessions during the years due to car problems.

[Nitrodaze]

To win the WDC, Rosberg has to beat Hamilton in equivalent cars.

It may have a Merc logo on it, but l don't think we could call those cars equivalent. If one car is running smoothly and the other is dogged with all manner of problems, it is like a boxer having one hand tied to his back and taking on a Heavy weight fight. There is nothing equivalent about that.

That said, Rosberg would be a very deserving Champion considering that he lost a 43 points lead and was 19 points behind at one point but managed to turn it around to a 33 points lead with the help of a DNF and other problem for Hamilton of course. But one still has to cross the line first to win which he did with some quite superb drives actually.

[Starter]

It may have a Merc logo on it, but l don't think we could call those cars equivalent. If one car is running smoothly and the other is dogged with all manner of problems, it is like a boxer having one hand tied to his back and taking on a Heavy weight fight. There is nothing equivalent about that.

Hmm, wasn't aware that Mercedes is making black helicopters too.

[Nitrodaze]

Hmm, wasn't aware that Mercedes is making black helicopters too.

Sorry buddy, your insinuation not mine. I am just stating the facts. It may be pure bad luck but that is the way it is and l have talked about it.