Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
No team in the history of the sport has won both the Drivers and Constructors title six times in a row. That is kind of special. It is above what we have seen as humanly possible in the past and qualifies as superhuman. Because all the people at Mercedes that made this happen dug deeper than any other before them to ensure they achieved this feat. To call it anything else is to belittle the incredible achievement.



The Hamilton - Rosberg pairing was the strongest at Mercedes up until 2016. It was a very close and highly competitive pairing. Unfortunately, Bottas has not measured up to that standard. That does not takeaway anything from Hamilton, in my opinion.

I suppose it would be nice to have someone in the other car to give Hamilton a harder run. But Ferrari and Redbull are much closer to the Mercedes now, they cannot afford in fighting that could cost them the championship. From that perspective, Bottas is a great driver to occupy the other seat at Mercedes.
Without a doubt Merc and the drivers have made a lot of impressive records. Overall I think statistics shows them as the most dominant team of Formula 1 when adjusted for time in the sport. And in many cases they have already surpassed the overall totals of teams that have been around a lot longer.

No sense in us debating the semantics of the use of a word on this one. It has been without a doubt an incredible team.


Rosberg and Alonso have been the toughest team competition for Lewis, but this brings up another prime example of statistics not always telling the entire story. Bottas is probably the weakest team mate Lewis has had in Formula 1. He beat (on count back) Alonso at Mclaren and missed that WDC by a couple of points. Points that he would have easily had if someone the caliber of Bottas (or at least not as strong as Alonso!) we driving in the team with him. In comparison Schumacher didn't have those really fast team mates, and when he did they were still demoted to a #2 status and often team orders were employed to assist him with his dominance. Most likely if he had not been paired with such high caliber drivers Lewis would already have matched or exceeded Schumacher in WDC titles.

All across the grid this happens, and at times it can diminish the record of one driver while assisting the record of another. The balance of driver skill within teams is a big factor in that, along with any team orders a team might make.