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I feel this has gone off topic.....

I agree... sorry about that.

You've missed the point entirely haven't you? The point was that Hamilton, even when he was not bringing home the points he should have been, was still FASTER than Jenson. He was not bringing home as many points because of all of the collisions and DNFs he had in the second half of that year; not because Button was outpacing him.

Ricciardo, on the other hand, was FASTER than Vettel. You have to understand that that is a critical element of what we should be assessing here. Compare the difference between the Dan/Max matchup and the Dan/Seb matchup for example. Dan is beating Max because he is avoiding the collisions and incidents that Max is getting caught up in. He beat Vettel by outqualifying and outracing him. There is a substantial difference. Many people would tell you that, if Max can start using his head and making better decisions, he'll beat Daniel simply because Max is perhaps slightly faster. With Sebastian, there was no real way to say that other than in wet weather situations because Daniel was faster than him.

To me it's not just the performance against the teammates that distinguishes them. You take the pace difference with his teammate aside and Vandoorne just appears bland, doesn't show any race craft, never does anything exciting.
You do the same with Leclerc and you still have him defending brilliantly against faster cars, making good starts, forcing the tv production feed to focus on him.
But when you do factor in the relative pace difference to their teammates, Leclerc is thrashing Ericsson, who himself beat Nasr and ran Wherlein close. So Leclerc is clearly better than those guys too.
Vandoorne has been able to run Alonso close sometimes in qualifying, but in the races he is never in the same league as Alonso in terms of pace.
To me it's clear that Leclerc > Vandoorne
But is he a future champ? That is not certain yet. Let's wait and see how he does with a car that is expected to get good results.

Vettel needs to finish behind his teammate to get out of his contract yet needs to beat his teammate to prevent Hamilton fans on forums from using it against him regardless of anything else he accomplishes. Tough Decision.

What are you talking about? Vettel didn't need to finish behind his teammate to "get out of his contract". His contract was up and he had already signed with Ferrari before Daniel beat him that year. The world is not divided into two types of people (Vettel fans and Hamilton fans) contrary to what you seem to think. Some people just want the conversation in here to be sensible when possible.

Vettel was actually ahead of Ricciardo in the WDC after 5 rounds in 2014 so he wasn't doing a very good job of being out scored by his team mate approaching the period in which contract negotiations would occur. Fortunately for Vettel he broke down in 2 of the next 3 races so Ricciardo moved clear of him by mid season.

Red Bull had an option to keep Vettel but he was free to go if he didn't have a certain percentage of points of the WDC leader at I think it was the half way point and given how the Mercedes pair were scoring that year he was nowhere near it. I think I heard 70% at mid season. Vettel had more like 35%.

Right then Ladies and Gentlemen, lets steer this back onto the original topic.

If you really want to do Vettel vs Ricciardo 2014 again, feel free to make a new thread.

Well, before being partnered with Mansell, Piquet never had any good teammates after his rookie season. Giving him much merit for beating drivers like Rebaque, Zunino, Hesnault, Fabi, etc. would be very rose-tinted. And even the strongest among his teammates at Brabham, guys like Patrese and Winkelhock, hardly belong to the top driver category.

Well Lauda thought very highly of him when they were partnered. And he was consistently viewed s one of the best in the early 80s. Indeed, many rated him as THE best, including Prost IIRC. To be fair to him Piquet did tend to annihilate his team mates and it's not his fault who he gets partnered with. But anyway, it was just for purposes of illustration. Don't want to derail the thread with it

Piquet's problem is that he spent his best years in, effectively, one car teams. It makes it extremely difficult to judge how good he was in the early 80s.

Back on topic.

Who of the current grid would be the best team mate to partner in a rookie season?

Grosjean for my money. Sticks it in the wall/makes mistakes often enough to easily even up qualy over the season if you are genuinely slower, and enough to make the scoreboard look a lot closer than it probably should be if you are slower. If you are faster than him, and more consistent, then it'll just exaggerate the advantage further, something I believe Magnussen is currently benefitting from.

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Most drivers back then would have / have annihilated the likes of Rebaque, Zunino, Hesnault, etc. Compared to them Ericsson looks like superstar.


But yes, Piquet was overrated for quite some time in the 80s.

you forgot to add "IMO" there

Ericsson and Stroll would be the easiest to beat.

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Trouble with that is beating them lacks kudos. Not so much of a problem if the cars good and you score regular points but more of an issue if you're at the back.

The fact is that LeClerk has generally been closer to Alonso on the track than Vandoorne has this season.

Stoffel was probably one of the most experienced F1 rookie to enter the sport since the 90s. I wouldn't have expected him to beat Alonso, but he should have run him closer more often. He hasn't looked 'special' against a very good yardstick.

Ericsson is very ordinary. But he ran Wehrlein very closely in qualifying last year and Pascal wasn't a rookie. LeClerk has beaten him by some substantial margins in his rookie year.

Perhaps the Sauber is better than the Mclaren

I'm no Ericsson fan, but I do actually think he's underrated. He was terrible in 2014, agreed, but since then he's obviously improved massively. People need to readjust their impression of him IMO.

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I think Ericsson started out this year well, but has just been having a bad run of qualifying sessions recently. Often making mistakes on his lap or not getting a clean run. I don't think the substantial margins of Leclerc beating him in qualifying are a very accurate indication of how much better Leclerc is. You certainly can say Leclerc is significantly better given it is his rookie season, but I still think Ericsson is under rated. There have only been 3/7 races that he's been beaten by quite a margin. Then in Canada, Ericsson had to do 69 laps on one set of tyres due to having to pit on the first lap so maybe the gap between them in the race doesn't reflect the true difference. However, I still expect it will have been a similar difference to Spain.

So If people are rating Leclerc so highly, I think Ericsson needs a bit more respect. He hasn't been that bad overall. If people think he's terrible, then basically a terrible driver has been close to and sometimes has beaten Leclerc.

I think Ericsson is just OK. Much better than he used to be. Leclerc is already looking better than him and I do expect him to keep getting better. Ericsson does seem to be having a bad run in qualifying. Given that he basically matched Wehrlein, I do think he will be able to get back up to speed and sometimes run close to Leclerc and occasionally beat him. But I do still think Ericsson is worse than the majority of the grid. But I just feel some are too harsh on him. In a Sauber, it is going to be tough judging how good Leclerc is when against him.

How many drivers on the grid are worse than Ericsson?

Leclerc is a rookie. Even average drivers almost always beat rookies.

Ericsson is probably slightly below average for F1. I think hes definitely better than Stroll, Palmer, Chilton, Hartley or the usual backmarker types of drivers. He is good enough to make the grid imo, while the other guys I mentioned arent.

That's 3rd worst on the current grid. That's a fair way below average.

In all seriousness I don't have an issue with Ericsson. It's just frustrating that he's still in F1 whilst better drivers have been and gone. I think he's probably the worst driver that has lasted more than 3 seasons this decade?

If you are talking about just below average out of the drivers on the current grid, then yes, maybe I can agree. But I think several of the worse drivers have since gone. And that doesn't change how good he is. I think he started off reasonably strong this season and is just having a bit of a dip at the moment. I think I agree with kleefton. He is decent enough to be on the grid, but a bit below average. Just many of the worse drivers have now gone, making him look worse than he is. I think he looked to have a better season last year for the ability of his car then Maldonado ever did. To me anyway. Then I also think he is better than Gutierrez. Both have gone now. So yeas, he is near the back of the current grid, but still don't think he's a bad driver like many seem to think. Despite Spain being a big gap to his team mate, he did some really good defending there which it seems few respect him for that. Then his good start in Australia was probably forgotten because he had to retire pretty soon after.

Don't think I should go on about this too long as people get fed up with me going on about Ericsson. But I don't get frustrated that he's still here. I think he's good enough to deserve a seat. And on top of that, his money is a bonus. But I can agree that there are drivers that have gone that did look better than him. Though Nasr certainly didn't at the end of 2016.

It's difficult to say he deserves a seat when betters drivers have lost theirs and are still of F1 age...

This is another example of the debate on what 'average' means in the context of F1 drivers. One meaning would be that an average driver is in the middle of the existing pack, e.g. that there are 9-10 better drivers and 9-10 worse drivers.

The other meaning - and the one that I feel most people are actually intending to use when they call a driver average - would be that an average driver is at the average skill level for an F1-level driver, meaning nothing about their position on the current grid. It's hard to reduce it to numbers, but let's say that for example over all the drivers who have raced in F1, the largest segment of them are approximately +0.500 off the pace of the front runners. That would make that the average for an F1 driver, even if we might happen to have a grid that tends toward the strong end at the moment (which I think we do).

So in terms of placing Ericsson on the current grid, I'd say he's probably in the lower 30% or so. But compared to the body of F1 drivers over time, he's probably right around average. Good enough to hold down a seat somewhere down the grid, not good enough to make much of an impression. A Sutil type driver.

(For the record, I would put Ericsson higher than Hartley, Stroll and Sirotkin, and pretty much inseparable with Grosjean, Magnussen)

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It's the level of the beating that stands out, that's why Alonso stood out in a Minardi, Bianchi in the Sauber against Chilton and now Leclerc also in a Sauber against Ericsson.

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I disagree I wouldn't be placing Ericsson as one of the top 20 single seater drivers in the world, all things being equal Wehrlein should have been kept by Sauber and not Ericsson but he doesn't have Ericsson's level of backing that let's face it got Ericsson into F1 in the first place.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

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Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
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Ericsson appeared to start out reasonably strong because Leclerc was still getting up to speed.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

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2017: 9th Place
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Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
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I think you are overrating Ericsson.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition

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Neither would I, but I think it's an idealistic stretch to say that the 20 drivers in F1 are the 20 best single-seater drivers in the world. They're not, and I doubt there's even been a time when they were. I think there's an easy dozen drivers scattered across other series who are likely better than the lower half of the F1 grid. The top section of the F1 grid - the Big Five at least - are probably the best single-seater drivers in the world, and maybe even the best drivers in the world bar none. But that isn't true of the whole grid.

As for Wehrlein, he was barely - if at all - better than Ericsson. If Ericsson doesn't belong on the grid, Wehrlein doesn't either. Despite all the belief Mercedes seemed to have in him, there were never any indications that Wehrlein was more than average at the F1 level himself.

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 14 podiums): 3rd in 2016
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So you think Wherlein is much better than him? I think they are evenly matched, as proven by their tenure together. But when you are talking about the top 20 drivers in the world, I'm not so sure Ericsson belongs either, but what I meant to say is that there are much worse drivers than him that have been in F1. I agree with what Exediron said about how people may interpret the term "average". He may not be average on the current grid, but for F1 level over the years he is not that bad. That's all I was saying.

It doesn't matter how much better Wehrlein was than Ericsson it's merely an example of Ericsson being kept in F1 for economic reasons whilst the better Wehrlein has gone back to DTM I believe?

_________________
PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (6)

Well in that regards F1 driver standards are higher than what they have ever been, there are no bad drivers as such.

_________________
PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (6)