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After race number 9 of 2014, the British GP, a comparison of the stats:
2014 Mercedes-Benz: 8 poles, 8 wins, 7 seconds, 0 third places; 15 podiums; 3 retirements.
1988 McLaren-Honda: 9 poles, 9 wins, 6 seconds, 0 third places; 15 podiums; 3 retirements.

Personally I think the 2014 Mercedes car has a greater car-speed advantage than the 1988 McLaren-Honda had. And imo Senna-Prost were probably a stronger pair? Of course there is no direct comparison, but coincidentally the domination stats are close.

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Had it not been for a backmarker in 1988, McLaren-Hondas would have won 16/16. It will be interesting to see if the 2014 Mercedes retirements match those of the McLaren-Hondas of 1988: only 4 of 16 races. Allows the Mercedes team just one more.
Poles: true about the 2014 pole score potential at 9/9. The McLaren-Hondas scored 15/16 poles; that allows the 2014 Mercedes no more rival poles (as Massa/Williams-Mercedes did in Austria) to equal the 1988 pole score.

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Begging your pardon, Sir, but didn't the Ferraris qualify on the front row for the 1988 British GP?

After 11 races:


And fastest laps:

Hi Guia,
Of course you are correct, the Berger and Alboreto Ferraris were on the 1988 Brit GP front row.
I'm only about 16 months late answering your post! Apologies, and I cannot blame a grid penalty either for being late. I've not been very Forum-active for the past two years. Thanks for your usual politeness; definitely ott in my case!

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Don't underestimate the MP4/4. That car was incredible. Lotus also has Honda power that year and was nowhere near as fast.

Now, IMO Rosberg is the weak link in the Mercedes combination vs McLaren-Honda. Hamilton is competitive against the old greats but Rosberg isn't. He's nearly as quick as Hamilton in qualifying but lags behind in races. Prost was quite the opposite since he wasn't fond of needlessly thrashing his car like Senna, and Senna himself was a one-of-a-kind talent when it came to flying laps.

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"Ask any racer, any real racer... It don't matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning is winning." (Dominic Toretto, "The Fast and The Furious")

Agree with your assessment Pole2Win, of Hamilton-Rosberg in 2015 and Senna-Prost as drivers in 1989. Proof that Prost was so good at racing, was that despite Senna getting better engines from Honda, Prost won 4 races to Senna's 6. Senna retired 6 times to Prost's 3. Had the cars been equal Prost could surely have won more; he scored six seconds, one or more of which could have been wins, making his score almost/or equal to Senna's. Consequently on my rating System Senna and Prost equal top driver-rate at 100.0 for 1989. The strongest pair in F1 history imo.

In 2015 Hamilton vs Rosberg wins were 10:6. So no question that Prost was stronger than Rosberg, as you explained.

Now for the cars (according to my Rating System):
In 1989 the Senna McLaren-Honda was only 0.2 % faster than the Ferrari 640.
In 2015 the Mercedes W06 was 0.5% faster than the Ferrari 2015.

This means that Ferrrari drivers Vettel and Raikkonen in 2015 had harder job chasing the Mercedes, than had the 1989 Ferrari drivers Berger and Mansell in 1989 chasing the McLaren-Hondas. In both 2015 and 1989 the Ferraris scored 3 wins.
The win scores prove that 2015 was more difficult than 1989 for the Ferrari drivers:
2015 Mercedes vs Ferrari 16:3 (Ferrraris 19% of Mercedes wins)
1989 McLaren-Honda vs Ferrari 10:3 (Ferraris 30% of McLaren-Honda's wins)

Another factor to consider is the drivers: imo Vettel-Raikkonen 2015 were slightly faster on average than were Berger-Mansell 1989. By my driver-ratings:
in 2015 Vettel scored 100.0, Raikkonen 100.3
in 1989 Mansell scored 100.2 and Berger 100.3.
With a 0.3% wider car gap between their 2015 Ferrraris and the Mercedes than the 1989 Ferraris and the McLaren-Honda, the 2015 Ferrari pair did better than the 1989 Ferrari pair.

By my System's driver-rating for 2015: Hamilton 100.0 and Rosberg 100.2. Ie Rosberg was racing at the same gap from Hamitlon as Mansell was from Senna and Prost in 1989, a pretty high standard.

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