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')

[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.

[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.

[BritishRacinGrin]

tight fart said:

Have any of you sat on the grid waiting for the flag to drop, or are you all armchair enthusiast?

Have you not read your competitor's MSA blue book recently? Races are more often started with the red lights on the overhead gantry going out, wouldn't you agree- maybe you're an armchair enthusiast?

Edited by BritishRacinGrin on Monday 1st December 09:37