Well, isn't that a similar (in some ways) situation as in '94, whereby logic has it that had he not died, Ayrton would have taken the title....Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
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Well, isn't that a similar (in some ways) situation as in '94, whereby logic has it that had he not died, Ayrton would have taken the title....Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
Truth is that a meaningful comparison is impossible, just as it is between Schumacher and Fangio, Senna and Clark, etc. Bare statistics are simply not enough.
Hmm, I think perhaps we are missing some of the point here...?
Surely Seaman, Rosemeyer, Renault or some other such driver is 'the best' if we judge drivers talents based on how unsafe/technologically decrepid their cars were...? That whole aspect must be discounted in this case surely, unless anyone actually believes that if Spa 2000 had been Spa 1967 then Schumacher wouldn't have done exactly the same?
All this 'things were different back then' rubbish is precisely that:rubbish! In the 70's people hated the blatant commercialism of F1 and harked back to the 'gentlemanly' days of the 50's, as we now view the 70's! Jack Brabham, amongst others, was well known for corner-cutting in order to drag dirt onto the track and flick stones up at the oncoming driver's faces, so anyone who is going to argue that Schumacher or Senna are not the greatest on ground of being 'unsporting' is being narrow-minded. As I have said though, Suzuka 1990 was a travesty and should not have been allowed to pass without major punishment. Michael has never to my knowledge deliberately planned to take such an action and carry it through.
But to say he is less talented than Senna due to only driving 'safe' 'easy' cars is rubbish too. He drove a 1983 Turbo Ferrari at Imola 4 years ago and said he would not have liked to race it, but you can be damn sure he would have done had he been racing at that time! As already said, he beat Senna on many occasions in a sequential stick-shift, non-traction controlled, Ford HB-V8 powered open-sided cockpit Benetton in 1992...not bad for his first full season..
The guy still races karts for fun; how technologically advanced is that!?
And yet he still beat every single driver who drove in F1 for five years running! Seriously, that's something. Add that to his previous titles in '94 and '95 (where, really, he made F1 look far too easy and far too much fun!)
As mentioned before, statistics are not enough to judge who is the best, however they do provide (in this case) an interesting backup and a good hint towards how good a driver was, that's for sure!
As I have said before, I think Michael's sheer relentless race paces lap after lap, added to the fact that he was also, realistically, a damn good qualifier too and that he maintained this level for years and years (never had an off-season, even in 2005 he pulled races and performances out of the bag you would not expect from any other driver, even on their best days!) So to maintain that level for 8 years in terms of challenging for titles is pretty exceptional. Also Michael won races in 15 consecutive seasons! (Another record) and I honestly don't think we will ever see another driver pull off that feat..
But it was the fact he was always a threat, every race, every season from 1993 to 2006, and that's pretty damn amazing. To say this is all down to Ferrari is just wrong.. I know of no other driver who would regularly stay at the track on a race weekend until late at night, and the sheer drive and determination, added to the obviously huge driving talent makes Schumacher better than Senna, and better than any other F1 driver in my opinion.
Would you ever have seen Michael holding a team to ransom and then mess them about until 4 hours before qualifying as to whether he was going to drive for them that weekend!?! (Imola, 1993).. No, I didn't think so...
This is true, and you could add Farina to that selection, of course. Again, though, arguing whether individual incidents are 'better' or 'worse' than one another is fairly pointless, because it is impossible to come to a hard and fast conclusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Osella
I agree with all of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Osella
However, none of it tells me that Schumacher is a better driver than Senna or anyone else, just as a similar list of facts about Fangio, Clark, Senna or whoever — and one could come up with a similarly impressive selection in each case — would be unable to convince me as to their superiority over Schumacher. I have my own view on the matter, but it's just that — an opinion.
This is not to say that it's not an interesting discussion, though!
The best thing about looking backwards and saying who is better or worse than Senna, if MS had driven in the same team, back then, if Clark had raced Senna, or who is the best, or should the drivers have kept their points for 2007, is that you can ARGUE ALL YOU WANT, AND THERE IS NO WAY FOR ANYONE TO OBJECTIVELY PROVE YOU ARE WRONG!!!
OTOH, predicting that Mac will lose, Kimi will be WDC, or even who wins the next race....you can still argue about what should happen until it does, and then it is yes or opps
;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Osella
And I have always thought that, right back to 1991, so I'm not going to change my mind now, it's just that there's a hell of a lot of supporting evidence and facts to help back me up nowadays! :laugh:
Positively no teammate was going to ever challenge MS. However I would have loved too see him up against Prost in a McLaren vs. Ferrari 1990 show down!Quote:
Originally Posted by Osella
Bingo. :up:Quote:
Originally Posted by SGWilko
An interesting piece in Motor Sport this month where Alain Prost talks about having Senna as a team-mate. He suggests that one of Senna's motivations was to match and beat him, and that something significant changed in Senna when Prost retired. He no longer had that "target" to aim for. There's little doubt that when Senna came into F1 Prost was the man to beat, just as when Schumacher made his debut Senna was the man to beat.
Hill I do not agree. He was fired by his team after winning the world title in a far superior machinery and the only guy having the machinery to compete against him was Villeneuve ( a rookie in his first year in formula 1) and you all know how Villeneuve turned outQuote:
Originally Posted by Malllen