Ayrton Senna is overrated. Discuss...
Discussion
I did a topic dedicated to much the same thing, namely Senna's accident and the same footage related to it.
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
There will always be people who don't want to discuss it, or go with the 'official' explanation, but that is up to them of course.
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
There will always be people who don't want to discuss it, or go with the 'official' explanation, but that is up to them of course.
Edited by BlimeyCharlie on Friday 30th June 12:35
Evangelion said:
amgmcqueen said:
Some context....
Ayrton Senna - 162 entries / 65 poles / 40.12%
Lewis Hamilton - 195 entries / 65 poles / 33.33%
Yep Senna was definitely overrated!
You missed one out:Ayrton Senna - 162 entries / 65 poles / 40.12%
Lewis Hamilton - 195 entries / 65 poles / 33.33%
Yep Senna was definitely overrated!
Jim Clark - 73 entries / 33 poles / 45.21%
Ooh, stats! Can I join? 
A slightly nuanced view based on some stats.
Driving a dominant car (with an added bonus of a weak team mate), can hugely inflate the pole stats which might not reflect true driving ability.
A better way to judge Senna's (or any driver for that matter) record could be looking at his pole stats and see what percentage of his pole positions were achieved during highly competitive seasons. One way of judging dominance is to simply look at the number of different teams that achieved pole positions during a season. The greater that number, the more drivers one had to beat to gain that pole position. Even if the competitive order is quite fluid, those seasons would be given more weight as it lessens the chance that one driver continues to rack up pole positions.
The table below is taking the top 20 drivers in the all time pole position list and breaking down that stat into number of pole positions achieved when 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 different teams achieved pole position in the same season the driver in question put it on pole:
I've ordered it based on the % of poles achieved when 3 or more cars were on pole position in those seasons.
I mean to a large degree, all of this is influenced by having a car capable of achieving pole, but it looks like Senna's pole record is heavily inflated by that dominant period with McLaren. This isn't to say he wasn't one of the fastest drivers to ever compete in F1 as some of his other performances show, but it makes you think. Some of his peers had a better record in more competitive seasons.
Interesting to note the bottom two in the list are the beneficiaries of Mercedes domination in last few years. It's a counterpoint to above. If you consider Hamilton to be one of the fastest drivers to ever compete in F1, then it makes Rosberg's record look slightly better. Same for Senna, if you consider Prost to be one of the fastest ever to compete in the sport. IMO, it still doesn't come close to having competed in a close field and putting your car on pole.
A slightly nuanced view based on some stats.
Driving a dominant car (with an added bonus of a weak team mate), can hugely inflate the pole stats which might not reflect true driving ability.
A better way to judge Senna's (or any driver for that matter) record could be looking at his pole stats and see what percentage of his pole positions were achieved during highly competitive seasons. One way of judging dominance is to simply look at the number of different teams that achieved pole positions during a season. The greater that number, the more drivers one had to beat to gain that pole position. Even if the competitive order is quite fluid, those seasons would be given more weight as it lessens the chance that one driver continues to rack up pole positions.
The table below is taking the top 20 drivers in the all time pole position list and breaking down that stat into number of pole positions achieved when 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 different teams achieved pole position in the same season the driver in question put it on pole:
I've ordered it based on the % of poles achieved when 3 or more cars were on pole position in those seasons.
| Driver | Total | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Niki Lauda | 24 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 11 | 3 | 100% |
| Mario Andretti | 18 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 100% |
| René Arnoux | 18 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 4 | 100% |
| Jackie Stewart | 17 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 0 | 2 | 100% |
| Nélson Piquet | 24 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 13 | 5 | 92% |
| Stirling Moss | 15 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 87% |
| Fernando Alonso | 22 | 3 | 0 | 11 | 1 | 7 | 86% |
| Mika Häkkinen | 26 | 5 | 9 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 81% |
| Kimi Räikkönen | 18 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 78% |
| Michael Schumacher | 70 | 20 | 18 | 23 | 8 | 1 | 71% |
| Jim Clark | 32 | 12 | 7 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 66% |
| Felipe Massa | 16 | 7 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 56% |
| Nigel Mansell | 32 | 16 | 11 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 50% |
| Alain Prost | 33 | 17 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 4 | 48% |
| Ayrton Senna | 65 | 36 | 11 | 11 | 0 | 7 | 45% |
| Sebastian Vettel | 47 | 26 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 4 | 45% |
| Damon Hill | 20 | 10 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 45% |
| Juan Manuel Fangio | 25 | 14 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 36% |
| Lewis Hamilton | 65 | 45 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 4 | 31% |
| Nico Rosberg | 30 | 29 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3% |
I mean to a large degree, all of this is influenced by having a car capable of achieving pole, but it looks like Senna's pole record is heavily inflated by that dominant period with McLaren. This isn't to say he wasn't one of the fastest drivers to ever compete in F1 as some of his other performances show, but it makes you think. Some of his peers had a better record in more competitive seasons.
Interesting to note the bottom two in the list are the beneficiaries of Mercedes domination in last few years. It's a counterpoint to above. If you consider Hamilton to be one of the fastest drivers to ever compete in F1, then it makes Rosberg's record look slightly better. Same for Senna, if you consider Prost to be one of the fastest ever to compete in the sport. IMO, it still doesn't come close to having competed in a close field and putting your car on pole.
heebeegeetee said:
Do correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Prost have a much better conversion rate than Senna, of converting qualifying position to race finish position?
Probably. of Senna's 41 race victories, 29 were from pole. 5 each from 2nd and 3rd, 1 each from 4th and 5th. I don't have the full figures for Prost or Hamilton (or indeed anyone else), but can tell you that Prost won 18 of his 51 races from pole, and Hamilton 44 of his 56.But what this seems to show is that Senna's ability to win a race when he didn't start right up the front, is practically non-existent!
ETA - just found the figures for Schumacher - 40 out of 91 from pole and Mansell, 17 out of 31. However, Mansell once won a race from 12th on the grid, and Schumacher from 17th.
Edited by Evangelion on Friday 23 June 09:18
Evangelion said:
Probably. of Senna's 51 race victories, 29 were from pole. 5 each from 2nd and 3rd, 1 each from 4th and 5th. I don't have the full figures for Prost or Hamilton (or indeed anyone else), but can tell you that Prost won 8 of his 41 races from pole, and Hamilton 44 of his 56.
But what this seems to show is that Senna's ability to win a race when he didn't start right up the front, is practically non-existent!
This would seem to back that up somewhat:But what this seems to show is that Senna's ability to win a race when he didn't start right up the front, is practically non-existent!
Edited by Evangelion on Friday 23 June 08:56
http://www.statsf1.com/en/statistiques/pilote/vict...
But if you've already got a large percentage of poles, allied to a large number of wins, it's not that much of a surprise.
Halmyre, you inadvertently misquoted my post!
My fault, I got some of my figures wrong, corrected them and added some more but by then you'd already quoted!
Does go to show, though, that the ability to put in one fast lap is perhaps the most important skill for a driver to have. Starting at the front makes it so much easier (inasmuch as anything to do with F1 can be described as easy in the first place!).
My fault, I got some of my figures wrong, corrected them and added some more but by then you'd already quoted!
Does go to show, though, that the ability to put in one fast lap is perhaps the most important skill for a driver to have. Starting at the front makes it so much easier (inasmuch as anything to do with F1 can be described as easy in the first place!).
heebeegeetee said:
Do correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Prost have a much better conversion rate than Senna, of converting qualifying position to race finish position?
Pole position conversion rate:| Driver | Total pole pos | Wins from pole | % conversion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alberto Ascari | 13 | 9 | 69% |
| Sebastian Vettel | 47 | 28 | 60% |
| Fernando Alonso | 22 | 13 | 59% |
| Michael Schumacher | 70 | 40 | 57% |
| Alain Prost | 33 | 18 | 55% |
| Nigel Mansell | 32 | 17 | 53% |
| Juan Manuel Fangio | 25 | 13 | 52% |
| Lewis Hamilton | 65 | 33 | 51% |
| Felipe Massa | 16 | 8 | 50% |
| James Hunt | 14 | 7 | 50% |
| Jackie Stewart | 17 | 8 | 47% |
| Jim Clark | 32 | 15 | 47% |
| Nico Rosberg | 30 | 14 | 47% |
| Stirling Moss | 15 | 7 | 47% |
| Jack Brabham | 13 | 6 | 46% |
| Ayrton Senna | 65 | 29 | 45% |
| Mario Andretti | 18 | 8 | 44% |
| Gerhard Berger | 12 | 5 | 42% |
| Mika Häkkinen | 26 | 10 | 38% |
| Niki Lauda | 24 | 9 | 38% |
| Rubens Barrichello | 14 | 5 | 36% |
| Damon Hill | 20 | 7 | 35% |
| Kimi Räikkönen | 18 | 6 | 33% |
| Graham Hill | 13 | 4 | 31% |
| Jacky Ickx | 13 | 4 | 31% |
| Jochen Rindt | 10 | 3 | 30% |
| Mark Webber | 12 | 3 | 25% |
| Ronnie Peterson | 14 | 3 | 21% |
| Nélson Piquet | 24 | 5 | 21% |
| David Coulthard | 12 | 2 | 17% |
| Juan Pablo Montoya | 12 | 2 | 17% |
| René Arnoux | 18 | 2 | 11% |
| Jacques Villeneuve | 13 | 1 | 8% |
This table is for all drivers who had 10 or more poles in the all time list. Ascari is king here (Vettel the modern day version). Obviously, for drivers in the bottom, you could also take it to mean that they were so bloody fast in a quali lap that they put the car on pole when it's pace over a GP distance didn't enable them to win races with it and/or due to reliability. Need the extra context to judge.
If you mean, % of races won from at or worse than 3rd position perhaps:
| Driver | Total | Wins from >=3rd | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keke Rosberg | 5 | 5 | 100% |
| Denny Hulme | 8 | 7 | 88% |
| Nélson Piquet | 23 | 16 | 70% |
| David Coulthard | 13 | 8 | 62% |
| Jody Scheckter | 10 | 6 | 60% |
| Niki Lauda | 25 | 13 | 52% |
| Kimi Räikkönen | 20 | 10 | 50% |
| Emerson Fittipaldi | 14 | 7 | 50% |
| Ronnie Peterson | 10 | 5 | 50% |
| Jackie Stewart | 27 | 13 | 48% |
| Rubens Barrichello | 11 | 5 | 45% |
| Fernando Alonso | 32 | 14 | 44% |
| Alain Prost | 51 | 22 | 43% |
| Jack Brabham | 14 | 6 | 43% |
| Jenson Button | 15 | 6 | 40% |
| Graham Hill | 14 | 5 | 36% |
| Michael Schumacher | 91 | 24 | 26% |
| Mika Häkkinen | 20 | 5 | 25% |
| Jim Clark | 25 | 5 | 20% |
| Ayrton Senna | 41 | 7 | 17% |
| Nigel Mansell | 31 | 5 | 16% |
| Lewis Hamilton | 56 | 6 | 11% |
I've only included drivers who had won 5 or more races from 3rd or lower in the grid. These stats will make those guys who had a car capable of winning, but not great qualifiers look good--as a general rule. Again, if one knows the context/followed the sport when these guys competed, it might confirm or give a different perspective on how one rated them then.
coppice said:
Any system which puts Rene Arnoux above Clark , Schumacher and Fangio is deeply , farcically flawed....
So you don't think Arnoux was as fast as those drivers over a lap then? Happy to defer, as this was well before my time. The order simply suggests that during those top 4 drivers' career they never had the outright quickest car over a full season, and even so they were fast enough to grab pole positions when the car was competitive enough or not. Gassing Station | Formula 1 | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff