The Formula One Thread

Yes, I did state that I was being a hypocrite. My Schumi love has waned a bit over the years.

The bottom line for me is that the sport I have loved and followed religiously for over 40 years has grown boring.

That, and I was drinking while posting yesterday (that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it)

 

So you're finally realising that he was a cheat and a dirty driver?

 

The names that always come up:
Fangio raced in an era where the disparity between teams was huge. Races would be won by miles, not seconds. Still he was head and shoulders above the rest.
Clark was a huge talent and deserves to be mentioned among the best. Top three for sure.
Stewart also set the early bench mark. He did a lot in 99 starts. Yes, he is up there.
G Hill. On his day, awesome. But meteoric. And outstayed his welcome.
Lauda should be too.
Prost. No doubt.
Senna. Tainted legend, but still a legend for what he could do with innate talent.
Schumacher took a team and molded it around him, not the other way around. He changed the game forever because of that.
Vettel. Funny enough, for being a 4 timer, his name rarely gets mentioned as one of the best. Even Alonso gets more plaudits for being a better racer. That does show, right car and right time results.
Hamilton. Is setting all time numbers, and has every category other than race fastest laps and overall wins. People get on him just for his social media presence. Can you imagine what James Hunt or Nelson Piquet would have been like had they had social media to have as an outlet? Hamilton is not the team cancer that Rosberg was. Nor is he Der Fuehrer of the team. He puts in the work when necessary, has the focus and drive and actually shows twinges of sportsmanship, like pulling over for Bottas. He is in the top ten. He also had the foresight to change teams at the exact right time. Alonso lacks that foresight.

As far as a definitive top 10 list. Hard to do. One should do lists for each era. But comparing Hamilton to Fangio is not possible. It's a different sport. But Hamilton is an immense talent. If not for switching off the car by mistake, doing one extra lap in China on shagged tires, or having an engine go with four laps left in a race he dominated, he would be a five time champ. That has to account for something.

 

I love Gilles, had a great painting of him as my wallpaper for far too long....even carried a pic of him in my wallet, when I had one. He had too much red mist. I love his tenacity. His tenacity killed him. He was a good driver, nay, great driver, but there would be others that would slot above him in an "All Time List".

It's too bad his son turned out to be the biggest jackass around, who bitches just for the sake of bitching.

 

Great insight, and your last paragraph explains the truth...it's not really fair to compare the eras since they are so different. Someone on another forum made the comment that racing went downhill the day that the drivers stopped running to their cars at the start

Good discussion in general. One thing I have finally figured out after all these years is that if you get too much fanboi adoration for one person, it tends to cloud your view of others that are just as capable.

 

Probably the only time that F1 had any semblance of parody may have been the late 60's to early 70's, when nearly everyone but Ferrari used the Cosworth DFV engine and the chassis were nearly the same, before sick aero took over.

 

Hamilton not in the top 10?! Put down the crack pipe immediately.[/QUOTE]


I'll quit because I know I'm fighting a losing battle, but I'm talking racers. There are so many more than just a short list whom qualify...

Kristensen
Loeb
Fangio
Stewart
Heywood
Andretti
Lauda
Prost
I'd even go so far to put Pruitt on the list.

But like I said, my scale is different. The second drivers aids came in, racing wasn't the same.[/QUOTE]

Pruett.
Side note, I raced karts against him in the 80's. showed me what it meant to be a professional racer. Even at a young age he was very serious about what he did. Part of the reason he ended up with a great racing career.

 

In my brief career of Formula Fords, some F2000 both here and in the 'Export A' Series in Canada, with some club D Sports and Atlantic racing, my goal was to make it to F3000 or World Endurance. I got dismayed early seeing how it was a buddy buddy system and who you knew, instead of what you knew. That was pervasive in the Skip Barber Race Series I did for several years. I would beat guys that raced higher up like Henry Camferdam that went to IMSA, Robby Buehl that did Indy, but I got spanked by Elton Julian who went to F3000 and then IMSA. But, I look back at how immature I was at 18-25 and saw that I didn't have the full compliment to break out at a young age. I saw that again when I was working in the AMA paddock with a lot of young racers (Fong, Eslick, Blake, etc) and saw the commitment they had with schooling on top of being their best and I realized I was never set up to be a great racer, despite finishing every race I did in the top 50%, usually in the "second tier" after the top three would speed off into the distance. A good hobby racer is what I was.

Now, I compare that to Hamilton who had the stones to walk up to Ron Dennis and tell him that he would be racing for him one day, being signed by McLaren at the age of 12.

 

I'm not a Vettel fan. Not even a little bit. But stuff like this annoys me. I try not to let it make me dismiss everything else the messenger has to say, but it's hard. Real hard.

How many wins did Toro Rosso/Minardi have before Vettel? How many have they won since he left? I understand why people hate the guy. I'm one of them. But come on, denying his talent is ridiculous.

Unless Alonso wins a title with McLaren next year, we will never know where he really stacks up compared to the absolute best in the history of the sport. Some guys just can't seem to make the right career decisions. I feel the same way about Jacques Villeneuve.

 

I wasn't dismissing Vettel, I was trying to outline the mindset that people have when it comes to listing the greats, and truth be told, he is not usually mentioned. They feel it was all down to Adrian Newey's car being far out front of all others for the four year run. I feel he is in the top four of right now (obviously) and will be remembered as one of the greats with four in a row and being the youngest champ, etc, etc. That being said, he did have a hard time with a teammate that actually pushed him week in and week out, Ricciardo. Even Weber was never up around him as much as Ricciardo was their year together. That did rattle Seb.

Now personally, I liked him, then disliked him. Now I am ambivalent. I am like that with most racers though. They wax and wane with me depending.....

Alonso has the talent to make a turd look good. Always has. That is why he is mentioned with the best now. He is the consummate racer, to a fault, now that he continues to bitch and park what appeared to be a perfectly good car in Spa, just out of spite.

 

Great champions can have a bad year. I would have wanted to see Riccardo kick Vettel's ass at least twice before drawing any definitive conclusions.

Vettel did a few things to Weber that I can't forgive because his constant whining when things don't go his way doesn't allow me to slowly forget his past transgressions.

 

MULTI 21 !!!

 

Dude...Spoiler Alert

 

Sorry.....I hope I didn't make a mess of things.

 

No worries. I only caught a glimpse of the name as I scrolled down and imediately looked away.
Please be more careful in the future.

 

As expected…

 

So far the only 3 under contract for 2019 are Verstappen (but may have a performance clause), Vettel and Sainz. Gonna be a wild ride during the silly season!

 

Well what d'ya know…

Timely discussion.

 

Did you see the Scuderia Ferrari account double down on the stupid on twitter?

There first post stated that Verstappen took Kimi out and then he went into Seb.

Their follow up post stated "What we tweeted was a factual description of events. No need to speculate on this"

Ridiculous.

 

I didn't really see anything wrong with Vettel's move. He was trying to block Verstappen from getting to the corner first and is allowed one move to prevent that.

Plus, if you look at the crash, Verstappen didn't hit Vettel, so he let out of the gas cause he realized he couldn't force the issue into T1 cause Vettel had the position.