All aboard Max's hype train or not?

[The Black Knight]

I was actually replying to TBK who said.. "I haven’t seen anything to suggest he has more raw speed than Bottas, let alone be on the level of Hamilton or Alonso even."

Sorry... should have quoted him to make that clear.


My point is that Bottas, other than the odd good qualy and race, is just not known for having raw pace in abundance... how anyone can seriously suggest he looks like he would be quicker than Max is quite frankly laughable.

But how much of a real known quantity is Max really?

He's only had Ricciardo as a teammate worth talking about in RBR. Ricciardo was regarded as a benchmark because he beat Vettel but, as can be seen by Leclerc this year, beating Vettel is not a difficult achievement for a F1 driver and Vettel is far from the fastest guy on the grid. He's a pretty good driver but one that was lucky to land himself a great car for 4 years and won the championship. I must admit though, I think this year along with 2014 was actually Riccardo's most impressive going to Renault and comprehensively outpacing Hulkenberg.

Max has only had 2 pole positions. Ricciardo in the same car had 3 pole positions during their time as teammates, so if Max is this talented raw speed driver, then he should certainly have more than 2 poles to his name but he hasn't. Qualifying is the benchmark for raw speed and Max has a lot to show there. Bottas on the other hand has 11 pole positions and 7 wins to his name. Max should at least have 6 or 7 pole positions to his name by now but he has 2. Sorry lads, but this Max hype train is nothing other than a bandwagon that people have jumped on because others say so. Looking at the evidence, he certainly has the potential and position within the sport to show this much flaunted raw speed we hear about but, to date, he has only shown it in patches and he certainly hasn't shown enough to prove he has more raw speed than Hamilton or Alonso. I think either of those drivers from the 2010s would easily rip him apart over the course of a season.