planetf1.com

Interesting, particularly rating Alonso above Schumacher - maybe it's because they were teammates for longer, but I wouldn't have expected him to give that response without hesitation.

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For Massa, I think it's easy to say Alonso, Hamilton and Schumacher being the best - the order you place them in is pretty much interchangeable and nobody could disagree too much.

I am also surprised he has clearly picked Alonso as #1 though, I would have expected Schumacher.

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Don't forget Massa faced a 37 year old Schumacher and a prime 29-33 yr old Alonso.

... and never faced Hamilton, Vettel or Verstappen.

Not in the same car, but he certainly faced them on the same track at the same time.

He did face Kimi and Bottas though.

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Sure, it’s just pretty easy to guess what he would say in that situation although Verstappen was unexpected I must say. Not that I disagree much anyway, I’d have Schumacher above Alonso, above Vettel/Hamilton so pretty similar.

same here. I don't think there's an awful lot to argue about in his views, but I'd rejig the order just slightly. I suspect if he'd faced Schumacher earlier in his career he may have felt differently, but OTOH I don't think putting Alonso above is a contentious choice

Seems Felipe has been caught up in the Verstappen hype too. How many times could he possibly have come up against him on-track to know he's one of the top five rivals he faced in 15 years of racing in the series?

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Yeah, I fully expected to read this post and come away from it wondering that on Earth Felipe had been smoking.

But, frankly, I can't really argue. I'd rate them 1 = Alonso/Hamilton, 2 = Schumacher, 3 = Verstappen, 4 = Vettel.

But as they're all undeniably extremely fast drivers, the difference is purely subjective isn't it?

I'm fairly sure F1 drivers, and others inside F1 (and even fans), can form an opinion on someone without being involved in constant battles with them.

Verstappen does look special, but currently inconsistent, which is precisely what Massa says.

While no one can say how Massa views the situation, It has been a long time since he raced against Michael.

The thing with these things is that time allows people to view things slightly differently and what was once viewed a certain way tends to diminish or change over time, but only in our minds. While Alonso & Hamilton are certainly among the greatest elite drivers ever, against a prime Schumacher they'd have a difficult time looking as supreme as they do and quite frankly, I don't know that they could beat him. Both Alonso and Hamilton are able to driver tenths faster than teammates whereas with Michael it was an almost Secretariat-like distance to his teammates and he had a few that were highly regarded in their own right.

To place Verstappen into the top 5 when he raced against a young, as well as a prime Kimi who was as good as the rest of the guys on his list is indicative as to what I'm talking about. Fisichella beat him pretty handily when they were teammates on pure pace but I imagine one season against him as a rookie isn't enough to go off of in order to judge or rate him in this list?

Either way that's a good list but I think it's a bit premature to list Verstappen with all the quality drivers he's raced against. I'm also surprised he didn't list his good friend Ricciardo, but I guess listing his teammate is telling about how he rates them both?

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HAMILTON :: VERSTAPPEN :: LECLERC :: BOTTAS :: VETTEL :: SAINZ :: NORRIS
KVYAT :: RAIKKONEN :: RUSSEL :: ALBON :: RICCIARDO :: HULKENBURG :: PEREZ
STROLL :: MAGNUSSEN :: GROSJEAN :: GASLY :: GIOVANAZZI :: KUBICA

Massa wasn't faster than Schumacher in a single race in 2006. I thought this was interesting, because even in Alonso's prime, there were usually a couple of weekends per year where Massa had his number.

As for how he rates Hamilton, Vettel and Verstappen - it's all subjective and based on who impressed him the most.

Like I pointed out he has a good idea of how good both Kimi and Bottas are and their current teammates are Vettel and Hamilton so I think there would be a certain amount on insight involved rather than it being purely subjective.

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I would lean towards believing an experienced driver who has shared the track with other drivers. Not only do they encounter them a lot in practices, they also receive comprehensive briefings from their team on all drivers, with data we do not have access to. For example, each team have observers stationed around the track, recording video and high quality audio. When that audio is run through a detailed analysis, not only can the engineers determine with great accuracy the power levels of the engine, but when and where the driver gets on the gas, and applies other control inputs.

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Blinky, it seems the world has allowed time to haze over the reality of Michael's ability. Oddly Herbert is so contradicting of himself in initially saying Michael is nothing extra special and then goes on to explain how vastly different his technique was in that he was so precise he didn't have to feather the throttle and could control it with a precision NO ONE before or since ever has.

His ability to control chaos consistently for the entire duration of a lap for entire race distances is something I feel comfortable in saying no one has ever been able to reproduce, though of everyone currently in F1, I'd have to lean towards Lewis coming closest and WHEN he puts it down consistently Verstappen seems to be edging closer to Alonso, though Alonso is more on the edge than both. Hamilton's greatest asset is being able to brake deeper than everyone else more consistently which allows him to get back on the throttle sooner which costs him less time than everyone else, resulting in faster lap times.

Michael could have braked later like everyone else, like Herbert, but he knew that minimizing speed gradually he could remain on the ragged edge for longer over the entire radius of corners and therefore come out faster. All anyone has to do to see this for themselves is watch back any of the races he drove in throughout his (pre-Mercedes) career. The difference between him and everyone else is apparent no matter how you view it. In 2005 Fernando & Kimi enjoyed a bit of a car advantage and Michael was still able to overcome the deficit to match them both closely at times finishing 3rd in the championship whilst Rubens who was a quality driver, finished in 8th as he struggled mightily with the same car by comparison.

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HAMILTON :: VERSTAPPEN :: LECLERC :: BOTTAS :: VETTEL :: SAINZ :: NORRIS
KVYAT :: RAIKKONEN :: RUSSEL :: ALBON :: RICCIARDO :: HULKENBURG :: PEREZ
STROLL :: MAGNUSSEN :: GROSJEAN :: GASLY :: GIOVANAZZI :: KUBICA

I doubt that Massa is using your flawed cross comparisons.

You know, the method which supposedly proves that Raikkonen > Alonso using the Alonso-Trulli-Ralf-Montoya-Kimi pathway.

I remember Shumacher's 2006 Monaco race where he overtook 11 cars on that very narrow track starting from the pit lane. Just imperious. For nigh on a decade he was the King although Hakkinen ran him close. Unfortunately he came back with these crappy cheese pirellis which masked his abilities but still there were flashes of his past brilliance.

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In 2010, season when he returned, Bridgestone was still tyre supplier.

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I fully agree. I remember watching Schumacher back in his Benetton days and his pace and how he went through corners was amazingly thrilling.

What separates amazing drivers from us mortals is that they continually, (dozens of times a lap) run at the ragged edge of disaster, but due to their amazing talent can sense and collect the car without any discernible loss of speed.

And what separates us fans from insiders is that they have access to telemetry and data that display such amazing abilities.

Massa has basically retired from Formula One, he has no agenda or reason to promote anyone.

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Maybe he watched the races on TV?

I for one think Massa is telling it how he sees it, not trying to big up himself by choosing the 'right' guy. People talk about Ric being a future WDC, but I'd bet Max will get there first.

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Bear in mind that the cars are different now, compared to Schumacher's era (late 90s and early 00s). The cars are much easier to drive now.

they were still different to what he was used to:

https://adamcooperf1.com/2010/04/22/schumacher-admits-to-lack-of-intermediate-tyre-knowledge/

but I agree the big change was 2011 onwards, when he made the raw eggs comment

He's referring to intermediate tyres in that article, not the slick tyres.

Ironically he actually got looked better against Rosberg on the Pirelli tyres.

sure, but the bottom line is the tyres were still different.

He just improved as he got used to the different style the Pirelli tyres demanded. He complained quite a lot that the tyres didn't allow a driver to push like he was used to, which was echoed by drivers such as Webber, amongst others. I think many don't quite understand just how much of a difference the tyres made to the racing.

As he got more used to the tyres, the gap to Rosberg closed.

You've missed the point.

The Bridgestone slicks from 2010 were rock hard. You could push forever on them and they would barely degrade. This directly contradicts your statement in bold.

Are they?

The cars are much, much faster now, and they're totally unforgiving. We've seen that the slightest mistake can cause them to pivot uncontrollably from the rear. In Schumacher's era the cars had traction control, less torque, and were a good deal lighter. Why would they be harder to drive?

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I think they've all been relatively easy since power steering and suspension systems became more advanced in the early 90's-ish.

Vandoorne,K-Mag and Gasly all said Super Formula cars were far harder to drive because they're not allowed power steering.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

I suppose it's a question between harder to drive and just more physical to drive. I don't doubt that pre-power steering cars were more physical do drive, but I'm not sure that makes them harder to achieve the best lap time with, which is more of what I was thinking of.

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Yeah I see what you mean.

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"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

No he wouldn't have noticed how Hamilton beat Bottas and how Vettel beat Kimi.

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Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
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I don't think that it was to long ago that some of the current drivers also said that today's cars are too easy to drive...but whatvwould they know?

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Yes, they did - before the 2017 rule change, I believe.

But what's new? F1 drivers have been complaining about the cars being too easy to drive since at least the 1990s. It's the job of the engineers to make the cars easy to drive, and besides, if they were really that easy why was Palmer unable to get within half a second of Hulk? You'd think if the cars were easy to drive the gaps between teammates would be small, but they're not.

"The current cars are physically easier to drive, but they're not easier to keep on track..." - Martin Brundle

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He would have noticed that Vettel beat Kimi convincingly, crunching together qualifying gaps and comparing them (when this is something that is inconsistent among teammates even from season to season) is something that you are doing.

He wouldn't need to. He'd just need to know that Vettel beat Kimi far more convincingly than he could, which would have potentially impressed him (same with Hamilton/Bottas, particularly since he couldn't beat Bottas at all).

Really though, I think he just picked the ones that have impressed him the most. It's not a particularly controversial list, is it? Four of the five drivers currently regarded as the best - and probably four of the four best at that - plus one of the all-time greats.

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It doesn't. I was responding to your second line regarding closing the gap to Rosberg. And the preceding sentence explicitly mentions the Pirellis, so it should have been clear from that.

So I haven't missed the point

"Michael drove some difficult and temperamental cars in his career. People tend to forget that cars in the 90’s and early 00’s were completely different beasts to contemporary F1 cars, which are extremely well designed, predictable, and have huge amounts of driveable downforce. We have now reached a point that a driver can make little difference in lap times (certainly much less than in the past). The cars don’t twitch under breaking, don’t power slide, you can’t miss a gear change and you can’t over-rev the engine. But it was a different story back then. Up until 1998, Schumacher used to out-qualify his team-mates by 1 -1.5 seconds on average, each year. "

https://abulafiaf1.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... chumacher/

Yes they clearly were more difficult to drive.

The original quote from armchair fan was talking about the Bridgestones.

You have missed the point.

now you're just getting silly. You were the one who brought up his improvements vs Rosberg, which I then replied to. So no, I haven't missed the point. If you'd wanted it to remain wholly focused on the Bridgestones, you shouldn't have digressed in the first place.

Besides which, the original quote which armchair fan was replying to referenced Schumacher's entire 2nd career. It's not for you to determine which are the only valid parts for discussion