2014 Russian Grand Prix Thread

[journeyman racer]

I single out Senna because most people, incorrectly in my opinion, hail him as a racing God but looking back on the races he made plenty of mistakes and I certainly don't regard him as the greatest of all time.

There is no question, he is definitley a racing God. He has made his fair share of misjudgements. I don't regard him as the great of all time, so far.

I disagree with your assertion that drivers nowadays are easier to driver. I would say quite the opposite. Drivers are required to multi-task constantly in todays cars. They have buttons that they use to affect balance, brake bias etc.

There are more buttons on the steering wheel. But the stuff your saying drivers have to do now, they did then.

They are far more complicated beasts than they were 20 years ago. I regard the drivers of today in much higher regard than those 20 years ago. The big difference is that drivers are much more prepared nowadays than they were back in the good old days and the standard for entering F1 is higher with F1 driver programs by the likes of RBR, McLaren and Ferrari.

I'm not sure about that. Those driver program seem to be about teams finding it easier to get a good driver, before another team does. I've not yet heard of a driver say he's become better since going through a DDP, even if they didn't end up in F1.

But we'll see how Vettel does at Ferrari, to see the effects of RB ddp, and how JEV career goes.

Now to your comment that "Fitness has nothing to do with the skill of driving" This has to be the worst comment I've ever read on this forum. Drivers are athletes, especially nowadays since Schumacher came on board and raised the fitness level to that never seen before in F1. The fitter you are, the sharper you are. The sharper you are, the quicker your reflexes, the better you're able to focus. The benefits of being fit are massive and it translates to your skill on the race track. Being fit enables a person to harness their skill further and make the maximum from the ability they have. For a F1 fan to say being fit has nothing to do with the skill of driving really boggles my mind. If they weren't fit they wouldn't be able to drive today's cars and show their skill.

Yes, there's a certain level of physical strength to drive the cars, and keep it up. But there's only so much training and diet can do. It doesn't make you more skilful at driving a car. You can try it yourself.

As far as Schumi goes. All that talk about his fitness was the media embellishing him, and in turn, F1 as a whole. Ihaven't seen him do anything which suggests he was fitter than anyone else, as in a physical test. He never won a race as a result of superior stamina, like you do see in a footy code. Damon Hill did the reaction tests at the British equivalent of the Australian Institute of Sport. Of the thousands of sports people they tested, he was the best at that. No one gave a ****, because it was Hill.

I agree with your point about the circuits being more forgiving now. I don't like this but if it is in the interests of safety then I am okay with it. This doesn't mean the drivers have less skill it just means that they can afford to make a mistake now whereas they couldn't before so now we see them making these mistakes and running wide because they know they can afford to do so while finding the limit, whereas in the past they couldn't afford those mistakes. That's nothing to do with skill, that's just a by-product of circuits being safer nowadays. It's also part of a racing drivers job, to find every advantage that they can and if they have to run wide a couple of times to do that, then so be it. It is what they are employed to do

I disagree with some of this. But not enough to make a point about it right now.