Ayrton Senna vs. Michael Schumacher

[Steve]

Just interesting to see other's thoughts. Who is the greatest F1 driver ever, Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher?

Feel free to use opinions to the extreme...
Steve

[ShiftingGears]

Where's Clark?

[Dave B]

Impossible question, but no doubt someone will soon be along with statistics to "prove" it one way or the other.

Schumacher's achievements are clearly the benchmark and unlikely to be equalled for a generation at least. However there are question marks about "cheating" and "dirty tactics" that refuse to go away.

Senna was no angel either, of course, but had the remarkable ability to make the hairs on your neck stand on end - particularly in qualifying. We'll never know how his career would have panned out if it weren't for the events of May 1994. Some will claim he was past his best, others would argue that Williams were about to enter a period of dominance which could have seen him take more championships.

[leopard]

Welcome to forum, Senna was probably your hero. You may obtain the proper opinions from contemporary members here.

[DezinerPaul]

Just interesting to see other's thoughts. Who is the greatest F1 driver ever, Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher?

Feel free to use opinions to the extreme...
Steve

Senna does not make the top 3 he would be lucky to make the top 5!

[jens]

-- Who is the greatest F1 driver ever, Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher?--

There are too few options in your proposed question. But we may specifically discuss about these two drivers in this thread.

Comparing drivers from different eras is extremely difficult and often impossible - to get any comparison between the two drivers, who are under spotlight, need to race at the same time at least for some time to get any comparison platform. While this presumption is fulfilled in AS's and MS's case, then it's still hard to get a viable comparison, because MS was at the start of his career and understandably hadn't reached his peak.

Which one of them can be rated higher? Generally it is dependable on which driver characteristics a person, who is comparing these two, regards as more important. The eras in which they were racing for most of their career, were different. In Schumacher's era the importance of pitstop strategy had clearly risen as well as the outcome of qualifying sessions. Also the race pace became more consistent with less chance of running out of fuel or blistering tyres.

Well, I'm not going to create headaches to myself in comparing those two fantastic drivers and call it a draw. :

[ArrowsFA1]

By the numbers it's Schumacher. Otherwise they're hard to separate.

In a sense Schumacher refined Senna's approach to racing, both in terms of the negative and positive aspects. They were both capable of using unacceptable tactics to win, just as both possessed sublime skills in a racing car.

The negative aspects are the main reasons why neither tops many 'all time greats' lists.

[SGWilko]

Impossible question, but no doubt someone will soon be along with statistics to "prove" it one way or the other.

Schumacher's achievements are clearly the benchmark and unlikely to be equalled for a generation at least. However there are question marks about "cheating" and "dirty tactics" that refuse to go away.

Senna was no angel either, of course, but had the remarkable ability to make the hairs on your neck stand on end - particularly in qualifying. We'll never know how his career would have panned out if it weren't for the events of May 1994. Some will claim he was past his best, others would argue that Williams were about to enter a period of dominance which could have seen him take more championships.

FWIW, my tuppence h'apenny on the Senna V Schumacher dirty tactics is as follows;

Senna, on two specific occasions - 89 and 90, deliberately 'took out' his opponent (Prost). However, and this is just MHO, he subsequently went on record justifying the exact reasons why he did it, and cited those he felt were the root cause of his actions.

Namely JMB deliberately moving the pole spot in 89, which incensed Senna, and he made reference to what would happen if it was not changed.

As this directly resulted in his losing the WDC that year, he did the same thing a year later to ensure he got the title, as just deserts for the previous year.

Turning to MS. Now - he has had two notable 'taking out' incidents. The '94 Hill incident was he had no excuse for. He claimed his car was damaged and caused him to swerve (I think).

'97 JV - well, that was blatant, but justice dealt its own blow and he (MS) went off the track and DNF'd.

I do think however that they both had talent in bucketloads - and then some. MS's talent was his mental dexterity and ability to think corners - even laps in advance, and his technical now how. Look at how he dealt with being stuck in 5th at Jerez - was it Jerez?

Senna had those 'out of car experiences' where he was controlling the car almost subconsiously.

Both masters of their craft - but were they flawed geniuses?

[gravity]

The Official Formula 1 website has a "hall of fame" section.
Link to Michael Schumacher's entry:
http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_dr...all_of_fame/7/
Link to Ayrton Senna's entry:
http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_dr...ll_of_fame/45/

The events in Imola '94 robbed us of what would probably have been the biggest battle of the F1 giants in Formula 1 history.

[gravity]

My favourite choice of all-time great F1 driver would have to be Fangio.

http://www.formula1.com/teams_and_dr...l_of_fame/268/

How could anyone compete with that?