Champions, But Not Greats

I remember people talking aboutt his (Prost's) calculations, did he need to win or would second place keep him ahead, that sort of thing. Passionless, in my view. Obviously your view is different, but it's your view.
 
It's not a view Titch . It's a statistic.

The Pits Better nickname than "The Rat" though. :)

Whatever happened to drivers' nicknames? We no longer seem to get drivers' nicknames these days. "Il Maestro", "The Flying Scotsman", "Super Rat" "Hunt The Shunt", "The Flying Finn", "Magic Senna", "Il Leone", "The Professor"... how come drivers' nicknames seem to be a thing of the past?
 
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Jdghgh said:
Hard to disagree with this. I would add Stewart.
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I agonised for a while about JYS, then concluded that the agonising in itself was probably reason enough to leave him out. By Stewart's own admission, Clark was regarded as the fastest overall right up until April '68; from then on he only drove for Tyrrell, and with capable but not outstanding team mates - this sounds very harsh, because he was certainly the leading driver of the time, but others - Ickx, Rindt, Amon, Fittipaldi, Andretti, Peterson - were able to match him at times, and suffered from unreliable machinery, unstable teams and, admittedly, some poor career decisions at times. I certainly wouldn't question others excluding him from their lists though, of course.
 
Galahad.

What convinced me of Stewart's greatness were his performances in the Indy 500 (in his first appearance) and the stellar drives he turned in in the Can Am in the Lola T260, which is generally acknowledged to be the worst car Lola ever designed. I remember one crewman on the McLaren team saying that the Lola might be up front, but Stewart carried it there on his back.

That's good enough for me!
 
Most fast Finns have been labelled Iceman

Spanish drivers are usually " Il Matador"

Button is the Frome Flyer

Max Verstappen at the moment is Mad Max

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Stewart not a great :whistle: the man won more races in the most openly competitive era in F1 when just about anyone could win.his main rivals

Rindt died before his career could go further
Peterson - just seemed to always end up in the wrong car for his ability -therefore inconsistent

Ickx another one who's career went downhill
Fittipaldi was his main rival for 3 years and it was competitive not quite the needle of Hunt vs Lauda though


Prost not a great
:whistle:

His record says he was world champion and his teammates who he beat were world champions and two of them were reigning world champions to every title he won

The nearest any driver has managed this feat Hamilton beating Alonso and Button but finishing 2nd and 4th in the championship

Reutemann beating Jones in 81 - 2nd in the championship and Andretti in 1979 - outside top 4
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Piquet was considered the best driver alongside Prost in the early 80 to mid 80's It was only when his reputation came to question when he could not put away Nigel Mansell who was not rated by many given his record

Then having openly moaned he was promised No 1 at Williams - he won 87 title though consistency but he left Williams for Lotus - more money and No 1 status only with Honda engines. His limitations were exposed given he could not deliver the same results as Senna against Nakajima . He questioned Senna's sexuality who was having more success at Mclaren

His reputation did plummet like a stone and his greatness called and quite rightly
 
Since someone was disputing that Prost as a champion was not a great then I am going to have question both Vettel and Schumacher then

Both were undisputed No 1'a in their team

Schumacher had it contracted his teammate could not beat him and he was not in a hurry to help Irvine back in 1999 seeing it would ruin the plan that he would land Ferrari's driver's title

Shall I go through again 1994 - an illegal Benetton not proven

2001-2004 the most one sided driver domination with traction control, all the rules , tyres in their favour,, 2003 Ferrari apparently were going to protest about Michelin's after a trouncing in Hungary. Barrichello had to move over twice even though both occasions he was the faster driver
 
then I shall start on Vettel then

Similar dominant car and his teammate was Mark Webber who felt he was no 2 driver certainly with some of the decisions the management took

When he finally goes up against a really competitive teammate in Ricciardo he got trounced it has to be said . A move to Ferrari seems to be turning into a nightmare for him
 
JYS though he won many races had a great control over the behaviour of the other drivers in regard to safety, he controlled how one overtook and was the instigator of no overtakes on the outside, when he retired I believe it was Andretti who did the first outside overtake, when questioned about it being unfair, said it wasn't in the rules not to and those days are gone. For that reason he is not a great, The JYS train was famous, no one went for it due to being castigated as dangerous if they did. Had Graham hill not been seriously injured at Watkins Glen due to tyre failure his record would have been poorer.
 
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cider_and_toast said:
A lot of these debates do hinge on personal opinion. I disagree with teabagyokel on his assessment of Damon Hill. He qualified a truly awful Brabham, he beat Prost, lifted the team after Senna died (much the same as his father did after Jim Clark), almost won the 94 title but for a number of suspect reasons,
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I am as much of a Damon Hill fan as anyone, but, in retrospect, the only reason that Hill was in contention in 1994 was due to unreliability and FIA interference.

Look at the races when Schumacher didn't win
Spain: gearbox stuck in 5th
British GP: Schumacher given penalty for something no-one had ever been punished for before. (Overtaking on parade lap). Probably should have been penalised but...
German GP: engine failure
Belgian GP: Spurious disqualification
Italian GP, Portuguese GP: 2 race ban
Japanese GP: beaten on the track
Australian GP: took out hill, when car may have been crippled.

All season, he was beaten on the track once.
 
I'd say he was beaten on track twice though. Car was crippled in Australia, but due to his own fault. And Hill may have been a bit eager to overtake, but schumacher crashed into him on purpose, otherwise he woould have been overtaken.
 
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