Rosberg vs. Schumacher 2010-2012

[BritishRacinGrin]

A lot of people saw Rosberg regularly out-performing Schumacher as an indication only that Schumacher had 'lost it'. It seemed to be commonly thought on here that Rosberg was a 'journeyman' racer who was really nothing exceptional, so the fact he was beating Schumy could only mean that Schumy was 'well past it'. Some people even described Schumy's final stint in F1 as 'embarassing', and lambasted him for wanting to make a comeback of sorts.

I was always skeptical of this view. I thought Rosberg was pretty good and Schumacher was perhaps a little slower to learn the car and a quite obviously more accident prone, but his lap times weren't a million miles off and his racecraft was as good as anyone. I felt that given time and a good enough car, Schumacher would have little difficulty swapping first and second place sports with Rosberg.

This year Rosberg has run a very close fight with a driver who is arguably the best on the grid, or at the very least 'right up there'.

Has Rosberg's performance this year caused any 'Second Coming of Schumacher' detractors to re-evaluate his performance at the end of his F1 career? Did you rate Schumacher anyway? Do you still think he was 'past it' regardless?

(Resisting the temptation to end this post with the word 'discuss')

[RYH64E]

BritishRacinGrin said:

This year Rosberg has run a very close fight with a driver who is arguably the best on the grid, or at the very least 'right up there'.

This year Rosberg came second in a two horse race.

You can't come to any conclusions about the ability of either Rosberg or Hamilton following a season where their car advantage was such that Maldonado and Chilton would have finished first and second had they been driving for Mercedes.

[Catatafish]

RYH64E said:

This year Rosberg came second in a two horse race.

You can't come to any conclusions about the ability of either Rosberg or Hamilton following a season where their car advantage was such that Maldonado and Chilton would have finished first and second had they been driving for Mercedes.

+1 and there's also the unfortunate truth that as you get older, have kids etc. the reactions slow and risk taking is avoided more and more.

If you've won 5xWDC, do you really have as much motivation as the other guy who has none?

[BritishRacinGrin]

RYH64E said:

This year Rosberg came second in a two horse race.

That's true but I don't see how that makes the comparison between those two drivers any less valid.

Are there people out there who still doubt that Hamilton is world class?

RYH64E said:

You can't come to any conclusions about the ability of either Rosberg or Hamilton following a season where their car advantage was such that Maldonado and Chilton would have finished first and second had they been driving for Mercedes.

You can look at their performance relative to one another and then their performance against other team-mates in the same car. That's what this thread is about.

[RYH64E]

BritishRacinGrin said:

You can look at their performance relative to one another and then their performance against other team-mates in the same car. That's what this thread is about.

So how do you justify the statement that Hamilton is arguably the best driver on the grid? From his days at Mclaren you could argue that he's equally matched with Button (who McLaren are probably going to drop in favour of Alonso), and from his single season with Rosberg you could say that he's faster in race pace but slower in qualifying, but there's little if any evidence that Rosberg is up there with the greats.

[BritishRacinGrin]

I'm going to wait for some other responses because I take little enjoyment from debating with people who won't read and would, no doubt, selectively quote me if I were to call them out on it.

[Tony2or4]

Catatafish said:

If you've won 5xWDC, do you really have as much motivation as the other guy who has none?

Or even if you've won 7x WDC.

[anonymous-user]

Tony2or4 said:

Catatafish said:

If you've won 5xWDC, do you really have as much motivation as the other guy who has none?

Or even if you've won 7x WDC.

Just about says it all..........

[LDM]

At the time I thought Schumacher's performance seemed fine given the performance of the car at the time and relative to his team mate.

I don't doubt that with age your attitude will change and reflexes will slow but equally I suspect age and experience can also have benefits.

I have no doubt that if he had been in this years car he would have been challenging for the championship and to be honest think he would have had a very good go at it.

I have watched f1 for quite a while and know you can't just judge a driver by the championships they have or have not won.
I will always rate Senna as one of the best despite not winning more championships and more because of his drives in the Lotus than the McLaren!

[RYH64E]

BritishRacinGrin said:

I'm going to wait for some other responses because I take little enjoyment from debating with people who won't read and would, no doubt, selectively quote me if I were to call them out on it.

How about this then, at Torro Rosso Ricciardo and Vergne were equally matched yet this season Ricciardo has comprehensively out performed a 4 times WDC. How would Vergne perform in a top car? I'm pretty sure he would do better in a Mercedes than Hamilton would in a Torro Rosso, but that wouldn't make him arguably the best driver on the grid.

Much though people like to support individual drivers, it's clear that the best driver on the grid would struggle to even get podiums in a mid-field car (as Alonso has proved this year), yet most drivers on the grid would win (or come second to their team mate) if they had a car that was 1-1.5 seconds per lap faster than the competition as has been the case with this year's Mercedes. The drivers get the rewards and the praise, but it's the engineers and designers who win races.

[Himself]

RYH64E said:

Maldonado and Chilton would have finished first and second had they been driving for Mercedes.

Chilton wouldn't have beaten either Williams driver, he was on the grid for one reason and it wasn't his driving skill.

[iandc]

Himself said:

Chilton wouldn't have beaten either Williams driver, he was on the grid for one reason and it wasn't his driving skill.

And Maldonado would have been leading by 20 seconds on the last lap and still crashed. Oh hang on he would have never made it to the last lap!!

[Catatafish]

REALIST123 said:

Tony2or4 said:

Catatafish said:

If you've won 5xWDC, do you really have as much motivation as the other guy who has none?

Or even if you've won 7x WDC.

Just about says it all..........

hehe, I must have drifted off after the fifth...

[IanMorewood]

To be fair once you've got your super licence you are capable of winning races so in theory you could win a WDC in your F1 rookie year if you happened to luck into the right team.

Is Rosberg as good as LH? Yes although 2WDC's say no, they have different skill sets and LH skills came to the fore towards the end of last season.

Was Rosberg as good as MS in a Mercedes age 41? I would say on track there was very little in it with Rosberg possibly marginally better, MS possibly never 100% fit and a car that despite his best efforts was never quite what he wanted (2010 wouldn't turn in for example) he still racked up a hefty number of points. I'm sure that lots of the development in Mercedes F1 is in part down to MS and the people that he helped in the two years he raced for them, I'm not stating that the current car is anything that a lucid MS would be able to say that's the same but his experience and inspiration will have helped others to develop the car as it was at the end of last season.

[RYH64E]

iandc said:

And Maldonado would have been leading by 20 seconds on the last lap and still crashed. Oh hang on he would have never made it to the last lap!!

That would be the same Maldonado who won a race for Williams in 2012? Many F1 drivers go their whole career without ever winning.

[LDN]

I for one understand the op. And I always thought that Rosberg was a hell of a lot better than people realised and that MS may have lost the edge but that, the fact Rosberg was beating him consistently was less to do with MS 'losing it' and more to do with Rosberg being better than most could see. Which ever way you cut it, Rosberg consistently out performed MS and I don't think he was given enough credit for that. It was easier for people to think that MS had lost it.

Rosberg is the real deal and my gut always felt that. He's ridiculously quick but it's pure racecraft where Lewis edges Rosberg and that's what won Lewis the WDC this year.

It's said that Rosberg sets his car up for quali and Lewis moreso, with race pace in mind and that does explain somewhat; how things have played out this year.

[TimmieE]

The start of the 2012 was a bit of a weird one, but whenever I look back at the results I feel Schumacher could have been right up there (not just with Rosberg) for the first halve of the season if things had gone a little bit different.

Gearbox failure in Australia while on for a podium.
Started third in Malaysia (got?) spun around on a wet first lap. Finished 10th
Lost a wheel in China were he would have probably finished second.
Had a DRS failure in Bahrain qualifying so had to start pretty much from the back. Finished 10th
Crashed himself (and Senna) out of the Spanish grand prix after not setting a time in Q3.
Which let to him not starting on pole in Monaco, retired with a mechanical problem anyway.
Canadian grand prix wasn't very impressive but retired from 9th with another DRS failure.

After the first 7 races of the season the pecking order normalized a bit and the Mercedes slowly became more of a midfield car. Managed a podium in race 8 (Valencia) which was more luck then skill. After that there were some good and some bad races in which all in all I feel Schumacher and Rosberg were pretty equal.

The end result shows Rosberg 93 - Schumacher 49. Standings after the first seven events: Rosberg 67 - Schumacher 2.

Let's hope he recovers to lead a relatively normal life.

[entropy]

LDN said:

I for one understand the op. And I always thought that Rosberg was a hell of a lot better than people realised and that MS may have lost the edge but that, the fact Rosberg was beating him consistently was less to do with MS 'losing it' and more to do with Rosberg being better than most could see. Which ever way you cut it, Rosberg consistently out performed MS and I don't think he was given enough credit for that. It was easier for people to think that MS had lost it.

Rosberg is the real deal and my gut always felt that. He's ridiculously quick but it's pure racecraft where Lewis edges Rosberg and that's what won Lewis the WDC this year.

He was inconistent in his rookie year: showed greatness in his first race but then crashed into team mate Webber in Brazil being notable examples.

Then had mediocre team mates, Williams seemingly going downhill/stuck in midfield rut and there weren't exceptional moments that comes to mind apart from the podium in Canada.

Personally I'd put Nico with Button and Kimi (and perhaps Vettel now): not quite great enough to belong at the apex with Alonso and Hamilton. The consistency to reach those levels isn't quite there and Lewis getting twice as more wins bears this out IMO.

[RYH64E]

entropy said:

Personally I'd put Nico with Button and Kimi (and perhaps Vettel now): not quite great enough to belong at the apex with Alonso and Hamilton. The consistency to reach those levels isn't quite there and Lewis getting twice as more wins bears this out IMO.

And yet Button scored more points than Hamilton in their McLaren years.

[LDN]

RYH64E said:

entropy said:

Personally I'd put Nico with Button and Kimi (and perhaps Vettel now): not quite great enough to belong at the apex with Alonso and Hamilton. The consistency to reach those levels isn't quite there and Lewis getting twice as more wins bears this out IMO.

And yet Button scored more points than Hamilton in their McLaren years.

... yes yes; Jenson is as good as Lewis ... lets trot that line out. That's why Jenson is 'almost' done in F1 and Lewis has another how many years. Jenson kept Lewis honest and I hope JB stays in F1 but; lets be frank; he's not on the same level. When all is well; he's up there but he's no Alonso / Hamilton. Jenson admitted some months ago; talking about his time with Lewis that Lewis is the faster driver - but he felt that he had more of a handle on managing the car. This edge he had is no more; as Lewis has proven this year that he manages both tyres and fuel better than his team-mate.

Not knocking JB.