F1 2020

MRC

What do you think of this list?

1) Juan Manual Fangio
2) Jim Clark
3) Alain Prost
4) Jackie Stewart
5) Michael Schumacher
6) Lewis Hamilton
7) Alberto Ascari
8) Ayrton Senna


That's The Economist's statistical analysis of the best F1 drivers 1950 to 2020. They looked at the relative strengths of the driver and the car, ranking by the performance of others in the same car and then performances in different cars.

One of their graphs is available without a sign-in

The whole article is in the paper edition (October 17th-23rd 2020) or free online with limited access to a few articles a month through https://www.economist.com/graphic-d...re-the-true-drivers-of-success-in-motor-sport


I think it's a good ranking, although I would disallow two of the list for their dubious tactics

Albe100

Debate of the greatest will never be agreed upon. I started watching F1 when I was 5, first F1 race live when I was 7 (thanks dad!) And we've seen some amazing drivers since the early 80s, let alone prior to that. Different cars, different skills, different technology, different training etc. There is no way to know.

To me, I will always love Schumi and Senna, and some of the performances I've seen from them. Even Alonso has driven the tires off some subpar machinery. Unfortunately Merc has been so dominant that we don't often get to see that from Hamilton.

I think Hamilton is fast, fantastic and one of the best the sport has ever seen. The comment about Micheal selecting his teammates, quite frankly is no different than a mediocre Bottas. Merc is so strong that even with his blah performances he puts the car on the podium. At least when Rosberg was there we saw some form of racing with the Mercs out in front.

We should stop the comparing and be happy that we've seen this achievement happen and hope for rule changes sooner rather than later to make for more interesting racing at the front.

Big congrats to Lewis for his achievements and good luck to checo on finding a seat better suited for him than Haas!

TasMike

????

simonsays

I agree trying to compare drivers from different eras is futile.
I do disagree with the comparison of Schumacher’s team mates and Bottas. I think he gets very harshly judged and although not a world champion he is a talented driver. If you look at how hard it is for Red Bull to find a driver who gets into the same ball park as Verstappen then his ability to be within 1/10ths and sometimes out qualify Hamilton or even beat him makes him a worthy teammate.
Schumacher had a long history of handicapping his teammates first at Benetton with Micheal getting the lions share of testing time, and later at Ferrari with mediocre teammates and team orders. Something that I have never seen at McLaren or Merc.

And yes let’s hope for better cars from Red Bull, McLaren and Renault next year.