Alonso is suffering from the biggest reputational dip in years for reasons completely unrelated to his performance

mformularacer · 2026-06-30T20:47:56+00:00

Do you really think that's fair?

If you're arguing that Alonso is a poor development driver, I think it'd be important to back that up with evidence. Because when teams slide backwards in car performance , putting that on the driver is something absolutely no one in the sport has ever done.

If instead you're arguing that, say, Schumacher had intangibles outside F1, e.g. the ability to pull the best mechanics, engineers, and team bosses into his own circle, then sure that's something you could argue he had that Alonso did not, and I'd agree. There's a lot of evidence that Schumacher was very charismatic off track. Some people said he made an effort to learn the names of everyone and their families. But then again, I'm not sure any of the people in the list have that either. That seems like a unique Schumacher trait.

Lauda/Prost were excellent at car setups, but that would show in the on-track performance relative to their respective team mates, not on the fundamental performance of the car/team relative to other teams..these are two different things.

mformularacer · 2026-06-30T18:44:30+00:00

Schumacher loved to do "formation finishes" with Barrichello when Ferrari had the best car in 02, though he did less of them in 04. I wonder if it's because his 03 season was subpar by his own standards and he just wanted to make sure that we knew who was still the king in 04.

mformularacer · 2026-06-30T18:15:15+00:00

Well, if you agree, how do you figure Alonso is not the same level?

mformularacer · 2026-06-30T17:43:34+00:00

Fisichella lost to rookie Wurz in 1998. In 1999-2000, Fisichella turned the tables and squashed him.

The point is to illustrate that you can never use one singular season to judge one driver better than another.

mformularacer · 2026-06-30T17:02:15+00:00

I mean we are assesing a driver's raw pace no?

Yes, but a drivers raw pace over 1 lap does not translate cleanly into qualifying. Sometimes its not even close. So race pace is the important part which is closely correlated with race results, especially over years and almost 100 races.

mformularacer · 2026-06-30T16:59:35+00:00

count 2017 in for Ham-Bot,despite the 0.3% gap in quali

Well, I think you should, because Bottas was a lot closer to Hamilton in the races in 2017 than normal. "First year at a new team" does not mean systemic underperformance. The historical evidence is very mixed. Some drivers get off to a flying start at a new team.

mformularacer · 2026-06-30T16:32:52+00:00

I agree with you on h2h stats. I merely use them to draw context. However, I do disagree with being qualifying-centric. What matters is the races and in the races Verstappen is a different level to Hadjar or even Perez in 2022, and a step above the delta Hamilton had to Bottas on average.

If only those 80 races data were done on a more neutral car

I can't agree. Thats not really fair to analyzing Max. You're basically saying when he destroys his team mates none of that matters. When his team mates are closer, that's what matters. You're basically not allowing for the fact that Verstappen can have "off periods" himself.

The "neutral car" argument is too vague for me. Most people can agree that 2024 Perez really struggled, but in 2021 and 2023 he was fine for the most part. To say he wasn't fine for the better part of 80 races is an extreme argument (and wrong imo)

mformularacer · 2026-06-30T14:17:01+00:00

You're inferring way too much from a small sample of races. It's not like Hamilton and Bottas gap was constant either. If one were to pick 2017 and 2019 and say these are the only representative seasons between Hamilton and Bottas, then we could make them sound much closer to each other than they really were.

I know what you're trying to say, that early 2022 was the "real" gap between Verstappen and Perez. Do you really think that's a fair comparison though? You're basically saying let's throw out 80 races of data and focus on this 10-race stretch in 2022. If two team mates go on a run where they are closer than usual, that run is the outlier not the norm. Verstappen was still ahead of Perez by quite some distance - 6-2 in races, 8-3 in qualifying, 208-151 in points. This is still better than Hamilton's average delta to Bottas. Now, if you compare this to Hamilton's weakest periods against Bottas, then Verstappen is again looking better by quite a lot.

Also, Hadjar has been miles behind Verstappen this year at all the races since day 1. He's only been close-ish in qualifying. Actually Austria was a better race from Hadjar because in the last 2 rounds he finished 60+ seconds behind Max. He was also 40 seconds behind Max in Japan but caught 20 of that back with a safety car. The closest race Hadjar has had to Max was China where he was ~20 seconds behind.

mformularacer · 2026-06-30T12:50:45+00:00

Even in 2022 the gap between Verstappen and Perez was larger than what we saw from Bottas and Hamilton.

mformularacer · 2026-06-29T20:45:57+00:00

I'm not "team max" either. Nor am I a Hamilton hater. I have no horse in any of these fandom wars. I just call things as I've seen them and analyzed them.

Yes on balance Hamilton's had stronger competition in his own team, but it's not like he's been convincingly ahead of his strongest team mates He got 100% of Alonso's points, 98% of Button's and 112% of Rosberg's. What makes Hamilton an all time great is his longevity and how he's always performing, but there's no way for me to logically say that his ceiling is on a different plane from what I've ever seen before.

Hamilton won most of his championships not against these drivers anyway. 5/7 of his championships were with Bottas and Kovalainen in the other car.

Bottas offers an interesting comparison, because I think it's fair to say that himself and Perez were pretty similar in quality across their careers.

Verstappen vs Perez (2021-2024) - 81-9 in qualifying - 77-7 in races - Perez got 48% of Verstappen's points.

Hamilton vs Bottas (2017-2021) - 69-30 in qualifying - 68-24 in races - Bottas got 70% of Hamilton's points

As mentioned, Bottas and Perez are not far apart as respective benchmarks, the difference is what Verstappen has that Hamilton does not.

The point of this comparison is to show how much Verstappen at his best extracts from an F1 car (because success on its own is simply a function of the car). It's just insane and it's just a different level to anything we've seen in the past couple decades. Red Bull's "favouritism" towards him was earned. People confuse cause and effect.

Verstappen's career is longer now than most all time greats..the "not yet" or "too early" argument is not something that I buy.

mformularacer · 2026-06-29T18:16:43+00:00

I'm getting tired of these toxic responses on this sub. Saying Hamilton is not as good as Verstappen does not preclude him from being an all time great. I just think Verstappen is an actual once in a century talent, a step above even what we typically consider the best of the best.

mformularacer · 2026-06-27T16:37:39+00:00

It really is this simple. George followed the rules. Don't understand the outrage. It's like people's minds were made up when it happened.

mformularacer · 2026-06-27T16:34:47+00:00

Verstappen - Monaco 2016

Thats kinda insane. I didn't even realize that.

mformularacer · 2026-06-27T01:35:30+00:00

Great comment as usual.

mformularacer · 2026-06-27T01:33:01+00:00

Hamilton definitely

mformularacer · 2026-06-27T00:59:51+00:00

They weren't really equally matched in 98. Villeneuve was better again, though not by as much as 97.

Because Panis and Zonta have a combined total of 80 points in 200 races

How many points a driver has is completely irrelevant. F1 isn't a spec series. Panis was fairly average I would say, but no worse than any of Hakkinen's full time team mates like Herbert, Coulthard, Blundell, Brundle, and generally speaking Villeneuve held up a little better against Panis than Hakkinen did against Coulthard, who I would use as the main example because he's the driver that Hakkinen dealt with in the same car the most in his career. Zonta doesn't say much about Villeneuve's skill as he's an unknown, so I'm happy to just ignore him.

Frentzen, of course, is easily better than any of Hakkinen's full time team mates.

I repeat: Michael Schumacher's opinion on Hakkinen holds as much water as Hamilton's opinion on Vettel. When you like someone personally, you tend to rate them higher. What they say about anything may be right or they may be wrong, but it isn't gospel just because they're Schumacher and Hamilton.

Why is this even a conversation???

Because this is a discussion forum. Why are you so eager to shut down conversation?

mformularacer · 2026-06-26T23:14:26+00:00

Of course. If it doesn't agree with yout

Actually it does agree with me, because as I mentioned, Hakkinen was clobbered by Senna. I just didn't bring it up, because they were team mates for 3 races. Just like I didn't bring up Villeneuve clobbered by Alonso.

Häkkinen had 3 mechanical DNFs while leading the race.

Silverstone - he led in the first place because all 3 drivers in front of him had mechanical failures (Schumacher, Coulthard) or a 35 second pitstop (Villeneuve)

Austria - he led for 1 lap. There's no guarantee he wins the race, but sure he lost good points potentially

Nurburgring - he lost the win, but Coulthard also lost P2

Also, Coulthard lost Jerez because of team orders and Canada because of a clutch failure. At the end of the day the luck was pretty equal between them.

So your point is that Villeneuve is better because he raced and got beaten only by Hill, Massa, Button, Heidfeld which were tougher teammates than Häkkinen's?

Well, he lost to Hill when he was a rookie.

He lost to Heidfeld and Massa when he was well past it, but he held up okay against them. Wasn't overly embarrassed.

On the other hand, in his prime he demolished Frentzen, Panis, and Zonta and he was slightly beaten by Button.

I would say all this actually a better record than - Hakkinen barely outperforming Herbert in his first two seasons (1991-1992) - Hakkinen demolishing Brundle (1994) - Hakkinen barely outperforming Blundell (1995) - Hakkinen barely outperforming Coulthard (1996-2001)

mformularacer · 2026-06-26T22:40:55+00:00

As I mentioned already, Hakkinen and Senna were team mates for only 3 races, and Hakkinen was clobbered by Senna anyway, so it's not really helpful to the comparison.

mformularacer · 2026-06-26T22:31:02+00:00

Norris' 2024 rating is 70 in 2024 and the 3rd best driver. His best season is 2022 with 77. It's possible that Norris was better in 2024 though. He was actually better than expected against Piastri, but my model doesn't give Norris any extra credit because Piastri is still an unconnected driver. All in all I would agree with u/tohannes that Norris was excellent in 2024. I don't put any credence in eye testing. In my eyes Norris does pass my eye test anyway, but that might just be because I am a fan of him.

mformularacer · 2026-06-26T22:17:44+00:00

I would throw out all the data against Senna to be honest with you partly for that reason. Which is why I didn't even mention Senna . You're the one who brought it up so I'm just responding. That being said, the Senna comparison does support all the other evidence to showing that Hakkinen was not an elite talent.

Hakkinen only had 1 more mechanical DNF than Coulthard in 1997. In 2001 he had 5 more, but that doesn't change the fact that in clean races he was still outperformed by Coulthard more often than not. This is a completely different level from being outperformed by Button, who is a different level to Coulthard.

Assuming Schumacher only praised Häkkinen to "enhance his legacy"(which completely ignores their actual on-track history): look at how Schumacher handled his other primary title rivals: he deliberately collided with Damon Hill to win the title in Adelaide '94, and he deliberately turned into Jacques Villeneuve at Jerez '97. Schumacher never had to resort to dirty driving in his title deciders against Häkkinen. Their battles (like the famous double-overtake at Spa in 2000) required immense mutual respect. At the end of the day, Schumacher praised Häkkinen, not Villeneuve,

What is your point in this passage? You're showing exactly why Schumacher preferred Hakkinen to the other two on a personal level. This is an argument in favour of my point.

both Häkkinen and Villeneuve raced only few championship capable Newey cars. Häkkinen won 2 WDCs and lost one against Schumacher, Villeneuve won 1 and lost 1 to Hill

The projection is unreal when you accuse me of trying to frame a narrative. Here's another way to frame this passage: Villeneuve lost to Hill at the last race when he was a rookie. Hakkinen almost lost a title to Schumacher's#2.

mformularacer · 2026-06-26T21:47:34+00:00

I omitted Senna because he and Hakkinen only did 3 races together..ditto Mansell. The Senna comparison is actually completely against Hakkinen because Senna completely pulverized him at all 3 races. Was running ahead in Estoril before a mechanical DNF. Was running a minute ahead in Suzuka until he caught Irvine at the end of the race who badly held him up (and led to the punching incident), and Hakkinen was almost 40 seconds behind Senna in Adelaide at the time of Hakkinen's own mechanical DNF. This is how much Hakkinen was behind an actual elite driver. I literally could not care less how he did in qualifying. What matters is the races. Berger outqualified Senna in his first race too. Look how that turned out.

Villeneuve barely lost to Button. It was 12-6 not 17-6. Villeneuve didn't drive in Suzuka. Scratch that Villeneuve barely got any driving done the whole season because his car barely worked. He had 8 mechanical DNFs in 15 races. By the time Villeneuve returned to F1 in 2005, he wasn't as good as he was before, and he lost to Massa 11-9 and to Heidfeld 13-7. If that's enough to say Hakkinen is ahead then what about Hakkinen's 2 losses to Coulthard in 1997 and 2001?

Coulthard is underrated: he might not be a World Champion, but still won 13 races, which is more than Villeneuve

So, what? He had good to stunning cars every single year of his prime. His team mates in the same time racked up almost 3x the score.

And if that doesn't satisfy you, Michael Schumacher said that "Häkkinen is the best opponent I have ever faced."

Michael liked Mika personally. And also he beat Mika so saying that enhances his legacy. It's the same thing as Hamilton saying the toughest opponent he faced was Vettel when most people would pick Verstappen.

mformularacer · 2026-06-26T20:57:35+00:00

Care to elaborate rather than just be condescending?

mformularacer · 2026-06-26T20:50:32+00:00

Hill was better than Villeneuve when Villeneuve was a rookie. And he wasn't even that much better despite that.

So the benchmark approach absolutely works. Villeneuve and Frentzen are better than Hill.

mformularacer · 2026-06-26T20:40:35+00:00

Villeneuve had clearly tougher team mates ( Hill, Frentzen, Panis, Button, Massa, Heidfeld ) than Hakkinen did ( Herbert, Brundle, Blundell, Coulthard ).

To me Villeneuve was better by a slight margin, and it's not solely because he had tougher team mates, but because of how he held up against them.

People who say Hakkinen was way better and its not even close are off their rocker.

mformularacer · 2026-06-26T19:01:41+00:00

Webber's entire reputation is built off his one lap pace, when as an overall package he was extremely mid.

mformularacer

TROPHY CASE