Lewis Hamilton G.O.A.T. ?

[anonymous-user]

It's just too reliant on the performance of the car to call it - if Alonso or Vettel had ended up at Mercedes, we would have been talking about Alonso taking his 10th or Vettel taking his 12th title right now.

If the hybrid rules hadn't come in, Red Bull would probably have continued dominance, but we may have also seen Alonso get his Ferrari title.

Even further back, what would have happened if Button had not been dumped after winning the title? Would Button now be a multiple world champion?

It's just a shame that the hybrid complexities have robbed us of a whole era of competition.

I haven't watched a single live race this season, whereas a decade ago, I'd get up in the middle of the night to watch.

[paulguitar]

Landcrab_Six said:

if Alonso or Vettel had ended up at Mercedes, we would have been talking about Alonso taking his 10th or Vettel taking his 12th title right now.

Not if Hamilton was in the other one, and that's kind of the point.

[Harry H]

clarki said:

Red Bull have quite a good driver in their car!!

Quite, we'll never know how good Hamilton is until they put Max in the other Merc. A young gun that has little respect for his elders.

Won't happen, but we can live in hope.

[paulguitar]

Harry H said:

clarki said:

Red Bull have quite a good driver in their car!!

Quite, we'll never know how good Hamilton is until they put Max in the other Merc. A young gun that has little respect for his elders.

Won't happen, but we can live in hope.

I think we'd all love to see this, but it makes no sense from Merc's point of view.

We do have a year of Lewis and Fernando in the same cars for reference, when Lewis was a rookie. Seem to remember he did rather well.

[mat205125]

paulguitar said:

Harry H said:

clarki said:

Red Bull have quite a good driver in their car!!

Quite, we'll never know how good Hamilton is until they put Max in the other Merc. A young gun that has little respect for his elders.

Won't happen, but we can live in hope.

I think we'd all love to see this, but it makes no sense from Merc's point of view.

We do have a year of Lewis and Fernando in the same cars for reference, when Lewis was a rookie. Seem to remember he did rather well.

..... and Button did even better

[paulguitar]

mat205125 said:

..... and Button did even better

It's hard to get much of a meaningful comparison from that car when were comically slower than the others, however, Alonso beat Button overall over those two years both in quali and race results.

[mat205125]

paulguitar said:

mat205125 said:

..... and Button did even better

It's hard to get much of a meaningful comparison from that car when were comically slower than the others, however, Alonso beat Button overall over those two years both in quali and race results.

Button, Alonso, Hamilton ....... McLaren's Rock, Paper, Scissors of who's the best

[paulguitar]

Gives us something to do on a Monday afternoon though.

[Mark13]

I posted this on another forum. It is impossible to compare drivers from different eras.

"This is a pointless debate.

It is the same when people discuss decades of music. In the 80's many said that era was rubbish, but some of the 70's was OK and the 60's were awesome. Fast forward to the noughties and all of a sudden 80's music was cool again. Perhaps in 20 years, Lewis will be more respected.

You cannot compare drivers from different eras. They drove to the conditions of their time, against the other drivers of that era and with vast differences in technology and circuits. Race wins are incomparable because of the number of Grand Prix per year were far less and the same applies to differences in points awarded.

Several drivers who won a single title were unfortunate to be racing against very strong fields. Mansell's name crops up regularly in these debates and we all know he should have won 2 titles, but had he won the first, may not have stuck around for the second etc

I prefer to think of the greats as a group, without needing to compare them directly. Lewis is definitely in that category, along with Alonso, Hakkinen, Schumacher, Senna, Prost, Lauda, Andretti, Piquet, Fittipaldi, Stewart, Rindt, Brabham, Clark etc. Those who never won a title deserve a special mention, including Moss, Villeneuve (snr), Peterson, Ickx."

[paulguitar]

Mark13 said:

Wise words.

[SeeFive]

I love it when people cite “no competition” for Hamilton.

He raced against numerous world champions during his career, many times all in the same race. Jenson(1), Fred(2), Kimi(1), Michael(7), Seb(4) and the not then crowned Nico(1) etc were all around at the same time and he still has an astonishingly good record. He has had some fairly warm team mates (Jenson, Fred, Nico) and has never shied away from any appointment to the other side of the garage or expected preferential status. He has won races in less than the best cars too giving him at least one win in each of his 14 seasons. For season after season the F1 team bosses have voted him #1.

I think his achievements are comparable to many of the true greats, and while it is impossible to compare the likes of a Fangio, Clark, Prost, Senna etc across an age directly, it is clear that he is in the very same select group, thoroughly deserves his seat in the best car and has pretty much maximised the opportunity. I think there is more to come for as long as he wants to continue, and hope he does it too.

Sure the car has had no competition for some seasons if you view Ferrari and at least one of their drivers constantly screwing up a competitive car over the last few years, but neither did many of the other of his peers in that group. And he has never taken over his team mates car in the way that Fangio did when his broke, in addition to all the other issues with certain drivers already raised in the last few pages - the likes of Michael and others with huge “given” advantage over team mates dulling their achievements, poor driving decisions from Michael and Ayrton, and Prost’s politics souring their achievements IMHO. I don’t think that can be said about Lewis.

The major difference today is the high reliability of the cars. A car / driver combination with an edge will win more frequently if they break down less often.

For me, it is simply between Lewis Hamilton and Jim Clark, the other candidates just fall a little below that pinnacle.

[M5-911]

Landcrab_Six said:

It's just too reliant on the performance of the car to call it - if Alonso or Vettel had ended up at Mercedes, we would have been talking about Alonso taking his 10th or Vettel taking his 12th title right now.

Yes, and there is a reason why Alonso and Vettel didn't find themselves in a Mercedes seat. As simple as not good enough for Brawn or Lauda to give them a seat. As Wolff said, the ones who critisize should wonder why they haven't been in a Mercedes.

[M5-911]

SeeFive said:

I love it when people cite “no competition” for Hamilton.

He raced against numerous world champions during his career, many times all in the same race. Jenson(1), Fred(2), Kimi(1), Michael(7), Seb(4) and the not then crowned Nico(1) etc were all around at the same time and he still has an astonishingly good record. He has had some fairly warm team mates (Jenson, Fred, Nico) and has never shied away from any appointment to the other side of the garage or expected preferential status. He has won races in less than the best cars too giving him at least one win in each of his 14 seasons. For season after season the F1 team bosses have voted him #1.

I think his achievements are comparable to many of the true greats, and while it is impossible to compare the likes of a Fangio, Clark, Prost, Senna etc across an age directly, it is clear that he is in the very same select group, thoroughly deserves his seat in the best car and has pretty much maximised the opportunity. I think there is more to come for as long as he wants to continue, and hope he does it too.

Sure the car has had no competition for some seasons if you view Ferrari and at least one of their drivers constantly screwing up a competitive car over the last few years, but neither did many of the other of his peers in that group. And he has never taken over his team mates car in the way that Fangio did when his broke, in addition to all the other issues with certain drivers already raised in the last few pages - the likes of Michael and others with huge “given” advantage over team mates dulling their achievements, poor driving decisions from Michael and Ayrton, and Prost’s politics souring their achievements IMHO. I don’t think that can be said about Lewis.

The major difference today is the high reliability of the cars. A car / driver combination with an edge will win more frequently if they break down less often.

For me, it is simply between Lewis Hamilton and Jim Clark, the other candidates just fall a little below that pinnacle.

Let's not forget that for most of 2018-19, Ferrari was the faster car. I still don't understand how they manage to lose the driver's title... yes, i forgot, Hamilton constant pressure and regularity race after race without making a single mistake.

[Teddy Lop]

M5-911 said:

Let's not forget that for most of 2018-19, Ferrari was the faster car. I still don't understand how they manage to lose the driver's title... yes, i forgot, Hamilton constant pressure and regularity race after race without making a single mistake.

Even with the cheat-car that was demonstrably quicker on repeated occasions, Lewis still beat them.

Some prople just don't want to risk hurting their brains with anything more than the simple narrative.

[anonymous-user]

Teddy Lop said:

M5-911 said:

Let's not forget that for most of 2018-19, Ferrari was the faster car. I still don't understand how they manage to lose the driver's title... yes, i forgot, Hamilton constant pressure and regularity race after race without making a single mistake.

Even with the cheat-car that was demonstrably quicker on repeated occasions, Lewis still beat them.

Some prople just don't want to risk hurting their brains with anything more than the simple narrative.

I'm not convinced the Ferrari was faster. It had some spells where it looked good - when it could use the power. But Mercedes were better more often - they usually got their advantage back by mid-season.

[Teddy Lop]

Landcrab_Six said:

Teddy Lop said:

M5-911 said:

Let's not forget that for most of 2018-19, Ferrari was the faster car. I still don't understand how they manage to lose the driver's title... yes, i forgot, Hamilton constant pressure and regularity race after race without making a single mistake.

Even with the cheat-car that was demonstrably quicker on repeated occasions, Lewis still beat them.

Some prople just don't want to risk hurting their brains with anything more than the simple narrative.

I'm not convinced the Ferrari was faster. It had some spells where it looked good - when it could use the power. But Mercedes were better more often - they usually got their advantage back by mid-season.

the fez had a better turn of speed. Whether it was a better racecar is a different question and that comes down to the mettle of the pilot - and I think the level at which Hamilton has been driving the last few years he'd have won it in either.

But the result was he keeps on keeping on winning it in the silver car so that must be the conclusion

[vdn]

SeeFive said:

I love it when people cite “no competition” for Hamilton.

He raced against numerous world champions during his career, many times all in the same race. Jenson(1), Fred(2), Kimi(1), Michael(7), Seb(4) and the not then crowned Nico(1) etc were all around at the same time and he still has an astonishingly good record. He has had some fairly warm team mates (Jenson, Fred, Nico) and has never shied away from any appointment to the other side of the garage or expected preferential status. He has won races in less than the best cars too giving him at least one win in each of his 14 seasons. For season after season the F1 team bosses have voted him #1.

I think his achievements are comparable to many of the true greats, and while it is impossible to compare the likes of a Fangio, Clark, Prost, Senna etc across an age directly, it is clear that he is in the very same select group, thoroughly deserves his seat in the best car and has pretty much maximised the opportunity. I think there is more to come for as long as he wants to continue, and hope he does it too.

Sure the car has had no competition for some seasons if you view Ferrari and at least one of their drivers constantly screwing up a competitive car over the last few years, but neither did many of the other of his peers in that group. And he has never taken over his team mates car in the way that Fangio did when his broke, in addition to all the other issues with certain drivers already raised in the last few pages - the likes of Michael and others with huge “given” advantage over team mates dulling their achievements, poor driving decisions from Michael and Ayrton, and Prost’s politics souring their achievements IMHO. I don’t think that can be said about Lewis.

The major difference today is the high reliability of the cars. A car / driver combination with an edge will win more frequently if they break down less often.

For me, it is simply between Lewis Hamilton and Jim Clark, the other candidates just fall a little below that pinnacle.

[heebeegeetee]

RichB said:

Landcrab_Six said:

... the signs are that he'd have competed just as hard as Senna and Schumacher if the same pressures had been there...

There's competing hard and there's parking up before the end of your qualifying lap at Monaco to prevent anyone else beating your time.

Or running Rubens all but into the wall for no apparent reason. Schumacher and Senna would lose control of themselves on occasion. Drivers obviously have a career before F1, and both drivers had a reputation before F1, most certainly Senna did.

I don’t agree that those tactics are hard racing, it’s just losing control under pressure. To me hard racing is doing it on the track fair and square and doing it repeatedly. That’s impossible to beat.

[mat205125]

heebeegeetee said:

RichB said:

Landcrab_Six said:

... the signs are that he'd have competed just as hard as Senna and Schumacher if the same pressures had been there...

There's competing hard and there's parking up before the end of your qualifying lap at Monaco to prevent anyone else beating your time.

Or running Rubens all but into the wall for no apparent reason. Schumacher and Senna would lose control of themselves on occasion. Drivers obviously have a career before F1, and both drivers had a reputation before F1, most certainly Senna did.

I don’t agree that those tactics are hard racing, it’s just losing control under pressure. To me hard racing is doing it on the track fair and square and doing it repeatedly. That’s impossible to beat.

I hope that we get to see Hamilton in a mercedes that's on the same performance planet as the rest of the grid, to see him tested in a situation that gives him a chance to shine like Senna did in Monaco 84 or Donnington 93

[Exige77]

mat205125 said:

heebeegeetee said:

RichB said:

Landcrab_Six said:

... the signs are that he'd have competed just as hard as Senna and Schumacher if the same pressures had been there...

There's competing hard and there's parking up before the end of your qualifying lap at Monaco to prevent anyone else beating your time.

Or running Rubens all but into the wall for no apparent reason. Schumacher and Senna would lose control of themselves on occasion. Drivers obviously have a career before F1, and both drivers had a reputation before F1, most certainly Senna did.

I don’t agree that those tactics are hard racing, it’s just losing control under pressure. To me hard racing is doing it on the track fair and square and doing it repeatedly. That’s impossible to beat.

I hope that we get to see Hamilton in a mercedes that's on the same performance planet as the rest of the grid, to see him tested in a situation that gives him a chance to shine like Senna did in Monaco 84 or Donnington 93

How about Hamilton in a GP2 car ? Their pretty similar aren’t they ? I’d like to see that .