Poll: Portugese Grand Prix 2020, Portimao - Race 12/17

Rate the 2020 Portuguese Grand Prix out of ten

  • 1

    Votes: 2 3.0%
  • 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3

    Votes: 2 3.0%
  • 4

    Votes: 7 10.6%
  • 5

    Votes: 9 13.6%
  • 6

    Votes: 11 16.7%
  • 7

    Votes: 21 31.8%
  • 8

    Votes: 12 18.2%
  • 9

    Votes: 2 3.0%
  • 10

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    66
Soldato
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Thing I take most from that is remember Michael Schumacher was driving in the Mercedes from 2010 to 2012 and decided to retire as the car had not progressed as much as he had liked.

From 2012 to 2013 there were no major technical changes, so the cars were as near as damn it identical to each other.

In 2012 Michael got one fastest lap, no poles no race wins.

In 2013 Lewis had 1 fastest lap, 5 pole positions, and one race win, in basically the same car.

But Schumacher had 7 non-finishes and 5 non-points finishes to Hamilton's 1 and 1.
And if you look at Rosberg having been in the car both seasons, he went from 1 win, 7 non-points finishes and 3 non-finishes in 2012, to 2 wins, 1 non-points finishes and 1 non-finish.

I don't think you can say they were near identical cars, or at least the team as a whole cannot have been the same.
 
Caporegime
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But Schumacher had 7 non-finishes and 5 non-points finishes to Hamilton's 1 and 1.
And if you look at Rosberg having been in the car both seasons, he went from 1 win, 7 non-points finishes and 3 non-finishes in 2012, to 2 wins, 1 non-points finishes and 1 non-finish.

I don't think you can say they were near identical cars, or at least the team as a whole cannot have been the same.

He was also sporting a proper neck injury which always meant he was never as fast as he used to be.

He also raced in a time where there were a lot fewer races on the calendar. If Schumacher had the race calendar of today he would be on 100+ wins easy. He also won double championships in a Benetton and brought Ferrari back from the dead. For me at least he will always be the master but I was teenager of the 90's so will always have that bias but for all the wins Lewis has I never thought wow that was a awesome performance. Mansell had his Hungary, Schumacher had is Spain, Button had his Canada.

I have nothing against Lewis and he is a fantastic driver but he absolutely lucked out big time with the move to Mercedes. Imagine at the time if any of Kimi, Button, Alonso had signed for Mercedes that year we would more than likely be seeing them as multiple world champions instead.
 
Man of Honour
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He was also sporting a proper neck injury which always meant he was never as fast as he used to be.

He also raced in a time where there were a lot fewer races on the calendar. If Schumacher had the race calendar of today he would be on 100+ wins easy. He also won double championships in a Benetton and brought Ferrari back from the dead. For me at least he will always be the master but I was teenager of the 90's so will always have that bias but for all the wins Lewis has I never thought wow that was a awesome performance. Mansell had his Hungary, Schumacher had is Spain, Button had his Canada.

I have nothing against Lewis and he is a fantastic driver but he absolutely lucked out big time with the move to Mercedes. Imagine at the time if any of Kimi, Button, Alonso had signed for Mercedes that year we would more than likely be seeing them as multiple world champions instead.

The timing of his move to Merc is a good point and your right; if it has been Alonso or Kimi they would have won multiple titles; they were in their prime as fast as Lewis.
Also a good point regards the calendar; we tended to have 16-18 race calendars back in the 90's and early 00's - certainly that early 00 period where Schumacher dominated he would have won more races with a larger calendar like today.

Its the almost endless F1 debate (The GOAT) - and based on records and titles it can only really be Hamilton or Schumacher; I also believe though its almost impossible to really compare to the legends of the past like Prost, Senna, Fangio and even Stewart - F1 evolves so much each "era" that its effectively a different sport
 
Soldato
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Don't think Shuy can be in even top 5 to be honest. He crashed out opponents to win, and the way Ferrari treated Barracello to let Shuy win a lot was just embaressing.
 
Soldato
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Don't think Shuy can be in even top 5 to be honest. He crashed out opponents to win, and the way Ferrari treated Barracello to let Shuy win a lot was just embaressing.


Merc has done the same many times to let Hamilton win.

No one will ever break Schus record of using 3 different engines to win WDCs
 
Caporegime
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Schumacher’s legacy will always be tainted with the cheating of ‘94 IMO

Indeed, Schumi was undoubtedly an amazing talent but it'll always be soured by his bad behaviour and insistence on getting a car and strategy advantage over his teammates.

I've said it before, and I'll doubtless say it again: the reality is that each generation of sports people are better than the last. One of the things that made Schumi peerless was that he was the first to really push fitness as a key performance factor. Now that's just normal for F1 drivers. Drivers today are better prepared, have come through better training programmes, get better physical and mental support, and more time in simulators. In something like athletics you can see this improvement in falling numbers: the qualification time for the Olympic 100m in 2016 was faster than the World Record in the 1950s. F1 obscures it with the changing technical rules but it's still there. Fangio was amazing in his day but he didn't race at all until he was 25 and started F1 at an age drivers retire at these days. He wouldn't stand a chance against drivers like Max who have been groomed to race from an early age.

Hamilton is the GOAT.
 
Caporegime
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Indeed, Schumi was undoubtedly an amazing talent but it'll always be soured by his bad behaviour and insistence on getting a car and strategy advantage over his teammates.

I've said it before, and I'll doubtless say it again: the reality is that each generation of sports people are better than the last. One of the things that made Schumi peerless was that he was the first to really push fitness as a key performance factor. Now that's just normal for F1 drivers. Drivers today are better prepared, have come through better training programmes, get better physical and mental support, and more time in simulators. In something like athletics you can see this improvement in falling numbers: the qualification time for the Olympic 100m in 2016 was faster than the World Record in the 1950s. F1 obscures it with the changing technical rules but it's still there. Fangio was amazing in his day but he didn't race at all until he was 25 and started F1 at an age drivers retire at these days. He wouldn't stand a chance against drivers like Max who have been groomed to race from an early age.

Hamilton is the GOAT.

Id agree. I don't know so much about history. And I'm not really a Hamilton fan.

But he always Makes something out of a race. He very very rarely has a bad weekend.
Unlike Alonso he made good team change choices and never really threw a paddy. (I love Alonso in the Renault says)

The sheer hate Hamilton gets shows how good he is. And how people have to jump on the 'luck' bandwagon to justify why he isn't amazing.

You can't be lucky everytime. That's skill.

He sometimes goes through a lag period and gets a bit down but seems to always come back.

I always quite like his on track and pitlane attitude and interviews.

Not such a fan of his social media stuff.



I guess the one niggle I have is getting into that Mercedes. And what a Verstappen would do against him. Many of us would love that. I wouldn't care if merc were 3 laps ahead of the field if that battle was available.

Without the merc if someone like verstappen was Hamiltons seat and Hamilton in the rbr.. Would Hamilton be GOAT? It would be a lot harder to argue
 
Soldato
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And what a Verstappen would do against him.

We've seen Verstappen beat Bottas a time or three, haven't we? So I'm entirely comfortable saying that the Red Bull cars are almost on a par with the Mercedes and that the difference is mostly down to driver skill. Remember that Hamilton has a decade's more experience than Verstappen. Bottas has years on Verstappen too.
 
Caporegime
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Don't think Shuy can be in even top 5 to be honest. He crashed out opponents to win, and the way Ferrari treated Barracello to let Shuy win a lot was just embaressing.

This is a sign of a racing driver that will win at all costs. Both Senna and Prost were exactly the same.

If Hamilton and Schumacher had raced in the same period. Hamilton would have come off worse. His character just isn't as strong. People have very short memories especially in his McLaren days. Unable to make decisions relying on his engineer, crashing into the back of Kimi in the pits at Canada. Schumacher never made those mistakes and always made the decisions. Lewis has always been about raw pace but has been equalled before. Jenson Button was able to keep up and even beat him comfortably in 2011 simply because he was more intelligent at his racecraft whilst not having the raw pace of Hamilton.

Schumacher also turned a deficit or racing against the best car on the grid after the 1998 rule change. Hamilton just went into the best team after the 2014 rule change which has just stormed into the distance because F1 now is so constrained other manufacturers cannot catch up.
 
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Caporegime
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We've seen Verstappen beat Bottas a time or three, haven't we? So I'm entirely comfortable saying that the Red Bull cars are almost on a par with the Mercedes and that the difference is mostly down to driver skill. Remember that Hamilton has a decade's more experience than Verstappen. Bottas has years on Verstappen too.

No it is more Verstappen is a lot better driver than Bottas. There is no mistake Verstappen is a talent which is a surprise as most kids with rich dads end up average or worse (Stroll, Palmer, Latifi etc). He would demolish Bottas in the same car.
 
Caporegime
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That's a downright weird thing to say. The overwhelming majority of F1 drivers come from money, for the boring reason that it costs a big ol' pile of money to motor race at all.

Schumacher's father was a bricklayer. Same with Alonso his parents were working class. I guess today is different which is an underlying reason why the competition is rubbish. Especially when looking back into the 80's and 90's.

Stroll and Latifi would never have gotten a seat if they didn't have the super rich dads. Verstappen is an exception to that rule but 9 times out of 10 that is normally the case.
 
Soldato
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I guess the one niggle I have is getting into that Mercedes. And what a Verstappen would do against him. Many of us would love that. I wouldn't care if merc were 3 laps ahead of the field if that battle was available.

Without the merc if someone like verstappen was Hamiltons seat and Hamilton in the rbr.. Would Hamilton be GOAT? It would be a lot harder to argue

Would Mercedes have developed so consistently and well with Verstappen driving the development work? How much of the problems (especially at the start of the season when the car was unstable on corner turn in) down to the feed back, or lack of it, from Max? If Lewis had been driving the dev of that car would it had entered the season in better shape?

Schumacher's father was a bricklayer. Same with Alonso his parents were working class. I guess today is different which is an underlying reason why the competition is rubbish. Especially when looking back into the 80's and 90's.

Stroll and Latifi would never have gotten a seat if they didn't have the super rich dads. Verstappen is an exception to that rule but 9 times out of 10 that is normally the case.

I would say the overall level of the grid is higher than in the 80s and 90s. There were some shockingly bad drivers out there. Now with the requirements for Super Licence points and primarily having to do well in F2, that will remove the journey men with deep pockets as they won't get into the top 4.
 
Caporegime
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Schumacher's father was a bricklayer. Same with Alonso his parents were working class.

As was Hamilton's. But these guys are the exceptions. Rich parents, certainly at the Max level, is the norm.

Stroll and Latifi would never have gotten a seat if they didn't have the super rich dads.

Stroll has a glowing pre-F1 record. He might have entered F1 early due to his father's money but the idea he doesn't have a background that comfortably deserved an F1 seat is tosh. Many a driver has done less well than him. Latifii is another matter; he's one of only three current F1 drivers who never got a season win in multi-race single seat formula. See if you can guess the other two correctly without looking it up.
 
Soldato
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This is a sign of a racing driver that will win at all costs. Both Senna and Prost were exactly the same.

If Hamilton and Schumacher had raced in the same period. Hamilton would have come off worse. His character just isn't as strong. People have very short memories especially in his McLaren days. Unable to make decisions relying on his engineer, crashing into the back of Kimi in the pits at Canada. Schumacher never made those mistakes and always made the decisions. Lewis has always been about raw pace but has been equalled before. Jenson Button was able to keep up and even beat him comfortably in 2011 simply because he was more intelligent at his racecraft whilst not having the raw pace of Hamilton.

Schumacher also turned a deficit or racing against the best car on the grid after the 1998 rule change. Hamilton just went into the best team after the 2014 rule change which has just stormed into the distance because F1 now is so constrained other manufacturers cannot catch up.
Ahh the ole Hamilton isnt mentally tough enough. Even though he has shirked that off so many times yet people keep spouting this utter nonsense.
Their was a fair few times Barracello beat Shuy over those years. Then was told to slow down and stop for Shuy. At least Hamilton always had to race his team driver.
I wonder if we had the dam coverage of radio talk I'm willing to bet Shuy was on the radio as much for decisions.
So because Hamilton could read how the wind was changing that something to hold against him?
Moving to ferrari wasn't seen as a huge mistake as people said Hamilton had made.
Crashing your opponent isn't a strength, it's utter weakness in not believing in your own ability.
 
Caporegime
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As was Hamilton's. But these guys are the exceptions. Rich parents, certainly at the Max level, is the norm.

This is why Hamilton is so far out ahead of other drivers because he actually got to where he was on skill. Ocon is about the only other driver I can think of on that grid that has come from poor stock. All others are essentially pay drivers. In the 80's and 90's being filthy rich wasn't as much or a requisite. You still had normal people coming through who got through on talent alone.
 
Caporegime
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Ahh the ole Hamilton isnt mentally tough enough. Even though he has shirked that off so many times yet people keep spouting this utter nonsense.
Their was a fair few times Barracello beat Shuy over those years. Then was told to slow down and stop for Shuy. At least Hamilton always had to race his team driver.
I wonder if we had the dam coverage of radio talk I'm willing to bet Shuy was on the radio as much for decisions.
So because Hamilton could read how the wind was changing that something to hold against him?
Moving to ferrari wasn't seen as a huge mistake as people said Hamilton had made.
Crashing your opponent isn't a strength, it's utter weakness in not believing in your own ability.

Barrichello (You can't even spell his name right) signed as a number two driver and knew what he was getting himself into. Hamilton has plenty of times made massive mistakes with strategy because his team has made wrong calls but he never had the ability to make his own choices. This is something Button had over Lewis and was pretty much his even in his McLaren days on race results whilst not being as fast he was a far more intelligent driver. Akin to Prost and Senna.

Schumacher had to fight his way up through the field and even then had to fight the Ferrari before it became dominant which didn't come till 2001. There were plenty of times when he won the championship where he was in the inferior car. 1994,1995,2000 I would argue. Hamilton with the exception of 2009-2011 has had a championship winning car for all his seasons and the dominance of Mercedes in F1 is something that has never been seen before.
 
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