Is it the car in F1, or is it the driver?
07-19-2010, 12:32 PM
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Is it the car in F1, or is it the driver?
These last two years have really revived the disparity of the Driver vs Car debate.
Last year, a mid pack runner (Button) gets to drive a car at the technical front of the class (Braun) when a year before -- as a Honda -- it could barely compete. Button becomes WDC , while Hamilton falls from WDC grace with an ill-handling McLaren/Mercedes. Meanwhile, Vettel and Webber struggled initially with a so-so Red Bull car that got much better by mid season.
This year, McLaren/Mercedes still struggles, while the Red Bull has advanced to the top of the class, leaving either Webber (heretofore a midpack runner at best) or Vettel to lead the championship.
Alonso's less-than-topflite Ferrari and 7-time WDC Schumacher in his newcomer Mercedes are also rans... doubtless both would do better if they had better cars. Kovalainen, the darling second driver at McLaren last year, has fallen to the bottom of the grid in his upstart ride.
This leads me to believe that the top 2/3 of the drivers are all pretty much equal in skill, and that it is the serendipity of which team has the top tier car, that determines which driver bubbles to the top.
What do you think?
Last year, a mid pack runner (Button) gets to drive a car at the technical front of the class (Braun) when a year before -- as a Honda -- it could barely compete. Button becomes WDC , while Hamilton falls from WDC grace with an ill-handling McLaren/Mercedes. Meanwhile, Vettel and Webber struggled initially with a so-so Red Bull car that got much better by mid season.
This year, McLaren/Mercedes still struggles, while the Red Bull has advanced to the top of the class, leaving either Webber (heretofore a midpack runner at best) or Vettel to lead the championship.
Alonso's less-than-topflite Ferrari and 7-time WDC Schumacher in his newcomer Mercedes are also rans... doubtless both would do better if they had better cars. Kovalainen, the darling second driver at McLaren last year, has fallen to the bottom of the grid in his upstart ride.
This leads me to believe that the top 2/3 of the drivers are all pretty much equal in skill, and that it is the serendipity of which team has the top tier car, that determines which driver bubbles to the top.
What do you think?
07-21-2010, 10:08 AM
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The current drivers are so close together in skill that they are really fractions of a second apart. Having said that any gains in the car's performance is where one can see that extra level of speed and performance. Mansell said of the Williams when he won the WDC that a Chimpanze driving that car could win the WDC. That pretty much sums up what I'm trying to say here. Are there drivers that are head and shoulders above other drivers in F1. The answer is an absolute YES! I'm not a big Alonso fan but he is in my opinion probably the best driver out there "now". He is always thinking about tactics as Schumacher did in his better years. There is raw talent out there but at the F1 level raw talent ain't enough... The car is the deciding factor in most cases.
07-22-2010, 09:18 PM
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These last two years have really revived the disparity of the Driver vs Car debate.
Last year, a mid pack runner (Button) gets to drive a car at the technical front of the class (Braun) when a year before -- as a Honda -- it could barely compete. Button becomes WDC , while Hamilton falls from WDC grace with an ill-handling McLaren/Mercedes. Meanwhile, Vettel and Webber struggled initially with a so-so Red Bull car that got much better by mid season.
This year, McLaren/Mercedes still struggles, while the Red Bull has advanced to the top of the class, leaving either Webber (heretofore a midpack runner at best) or Vettel to lead the championship.
Alonso's less-than-topflite Ferrari and 7-time WDC Schumacher in his newcomer Mercedes are also rans... doubtless both would do better if they had better cars. Kovalainen, the darling second driver at McLaren last year, has fallen to the bottom of the grid in his upstart ride.
This leads me to believe that the top 2/3 of the drivers are all pretty much equal in skill, and that it is the serendipity of which team has the top tier car, that determines which driver bubbles to the top.
What do you think?
Last year, a mid pack runner (Button) gets to drive a car at the technical front of the class (Braun) when a year before -- as a Honda -- it could barely compete. Button becomes WDC , while Hamilton falls from WDC grace with an ill-handling McLaren/Mercedes. Meanwhile, Vettel and Webber struggled initially with a so-so Red Bull car that got much better by mid season.
This year, McLaren/Mercedes still struggles, while the Red Bull has advanced to the top of the class, leaving either Webber (heretofore a midpack runner at best) or Vettel to lead the championship.
Alonso's less-than-topflite Ferrari and 7-time WDC Schumacher in his newcomer Mercedes are also rans... doubtless both would do better if they had better cars. Kovalainen, the darling second driver at McLaren last year, has fallen to the bottom of the grid in his upstart ride.
This leads me to believe that the top 2/3 of the drivers are all pretty much equal in skill, and that it is the serendipity of which team has the top tier car, that determines which driver bubbles to the top.
What do you think?
11-08-2010, 08:08 PM
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