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Though he appears to struggle at times, I've little doubt in my mind he'd have been able to challenge the likes of Senna if he was born 20 years earlier. The man is one of the quickest things on four wheels. He's cool, calm and collected, hiding his fierce determination and mind-blowing ability behind an unassuming smile. If Vettel is only successful because of Red Bull's designers, then Karthikeyan is only unsuccessful because of the designers of the EJ15 and the F111 and '12 failing to meet competitive standard. One of the true losses to motorsport is that Karthikeyan never received a position in a top-tier team. The Vettel incident in Malaysia last year was caused by a clash of egos: two great men battling it out for the ultimate prize; two gladiators of the modern Colosseum vying for supremacy over the other. Unfortunately I fear that, much as with Senna and Prost, and Hamilton and Alonso, top teams have not yet hired Karthikeyan because of the likelihood of him upsetting the balance of power in their squad. He's a commanding figure and though the long-term gains may be bountiful, few teams can risk a championship or two now in order to try and win five in the hands of Narain. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes Narain Karthikeyan, the pride of India, will be back. The powers that be may believe they have finally rid the grid of this bad boy, but few obstacles can hold back the fastest thing this side of Delhi.

A close field could also be a lack of talent, its only a relative measure.

Remove Schumacher from 1994-1997 and possibly even beyond and that is a pretty weak field with hindsight. Remove Schumacher and Damon Hill and Hakkinen would be talked about in the same breath as Prost, Senna, Fangion as multiple World Champions.

Fickle, funny old game.

1997 you had the emergence of Trulli, Fisichella, Ralf Schumacher, not too bad drivers.

I agree 94-96 weren't as strong as today.

I wouldn't say 2001, for example, was any weaker than today though. Schumacher Hakkinen Button Alonso Barrichello etc.

Kai: your positive comment is appreciated.

My rating stats are for drivers alone, car-neutral. So if de la Rosa was in the Red Bull, he'd be 1.2% slower than Vettel. That is about 1.2 secs per lap which translates to about 72 secs behind in a 60 lap race, which could be about one lap on some circuits.

I don't consider this slow; PdlR is a very accurate,technically experienced driver, obviously had too much time out of racing in his career.

I think it is too easy for fans to slam anyone who is not absolute top, like Murray or Henman in tennis, or many 'number two' drivers in F1.

The top F1 drivers have always been so very competitive and competent, and they do get the most support from their teams, whatever anyone says; just psychological favouritism is an enormous help and confidence booster. The 'number-twos' are really up against it, as the usual win-rate discrepancies show; and those who get within 0.1 to 0.3 of their 'number-ones' as Webber,Button, Massa, Barrichello,Coulthard, etc have done, all the way back to the fifties drivers Brooks, Castellotti, Gonzalez and Farina, are really very good, and fast.

Back to the OP's topic: according to my ratings Narian in the 2012 Ferrari would finish a race only about one minute behind Alonso. Imagine being that fast against world-class drivers?

So many drivers have been downgraded by off-pace cars; one of the inspirations for doing my ratings system.

If he weren't Indian, would he have had a seat these last few years?

The major things that I think separates the best drivers from the 'not quite there' drivers are consistency and adaptability. When someone asks a question such as 'how slow is 'x'' I find it difficult to answer precisely because I don't think that the raw speed is the biggest issue in the equation. You talk about the 'number-twos' and I think they're a good example of it. Webber is almost as quick as Vettel over one lap - occasionally he beats him and otherwise he's a couple of tenths off. But the results over the course of a season look totally different to that.

Which brings me to my next question, I've also wondered if your system takes consistency into account? Karthikeyan might on raw pace finish approximately a minute behind Alonso, but IMO he'd have more laps where he wasn't on the pace and Alonso was.

EDIT: I saw your subsequent post about why you don't explain how you derive your ratings and I fully understand - it's why I stated that I wouldn't expect you to reveal it in the first place. I've got a lot of respect for you based on your posts and based on that I don't need you to back up what you're saying with your methods as 'proof'. I also hope you don't think I'm being negative by bringing up questions because that's certainly not my intention. I value your data very highly.

My rating stats are for drivers alone, car-neutral. So if de la Rosa was in the Red Bull, he'd be 1.2% slower than Vettel. That is about 1.2 secs per lap which translates to about 72 secs behind in a 60 lap race, which could be about one lap on some circuits.

I don't consider this slow; PdlR is a very accurate,technically experienced driver, obviously had too much time out of racing in his career.

He has been consistently slower than every driver he has ever been paired with in F1. He has had plenty of races in F1 which gives him plenty of opportunities to prove himself. In my opinion he has acheived absolutely nothing, he did not even deserve the point(s) he scored in Indy 2005, he was way off his team-mate and just had to keep off the wall to not fall asleep at the wheel to avoid the Minardis behind him.

My rating stats are for drivers alone, car-neutral. So if de la Rosa was in the Red Bull, he'd be 1.2% slower than Vettel. That is about 1.2 secs per lap which translates to about 72 secs behind in a 60 lap race, which could be about one lap on some circuits.

Back to the OP's topic: according to my ratings Narian in the 2012 Ferrari would finish a race only about one minute behind Alonso. Imagine being that fast against world-class drivers?

Centauri: my 2012 rating for De la Rosa results from my calculations.
Is this so slow compared with Vettel, assuming same cars?

Other examples may place PdlR's 2012 performance/rating in perspective: Graham Hill best-rated at 100.5, which means about 30-40 secs behind a top-rater in a race. Exactly where Graham finished behind Lotus team-mate Clark in Jim's last race at Kyalami in 1968. Damon and Jacques Villenueve I have also best-rated at 100.5; it does not seem unreasonable that Michael Schumacher would beat them by about 30 secs in same-cars.

Other WDC's Brabham and Fittipaldi also best rated at 100.5. IN 1973 Emmo finished on average about 25 secs behind Lotus team-mate Peterson. None of these 100.5-rated drivers was slow, and were capable enough to put together WDCs. Considering Pedro''s age and lack of race time, his losing about 70 secs to Vettel (or Alonso, Hamilton) in same-cars does not seem unreasonable.

Really? 1.2 seconds per lap is huge in F1, particularly in present day. If over a lap de la Rosa was as quick as Kobayashi in 2010 - then is Kobayashi 1.2 seconds per lap slower than Vettel as well according to your ratings? Just trying to understand - most of the stuff I've read about your system I've tended to agree with.