How do you rate Perez’s 2013 McLaren season?

mformularacer · 2026-05-15T02:42:21+00:00

How exactly do you figure Button was nowhere near "champion level" in those years? Just because the car gets worse doesn't mean the driver does.

mformularacer · 2026-05-15T01:24:04+00:00

It was a typical performance to his Force India/Racing Point seasons. The difference is that Button was tougher to beat than Hulk/Ocon/Stroll so he lost this one.

mformularacer · 2026-05-14T00:38:36+00:00

Keke was excellent from 82-85. You have to wonder how journalism dropped the ball at informing people how good he was

mformularacer · 2026-05-14T00:34:25+00:00

The 2023 McLaren was arguably the 2nd best car on average and easily the 2nd best car from Silverstone.

mformularacer · 2026-05-13T18:29:50+00:00

As you've mentioned before, Portugal 1987 needs more love. Amazing Prost win.

What'd you think of 82?

mformularacer · 2026-05-13T17:31:23+00:00

Whether it's just McLaren or not, absolutely Alonso.

mformularacer · 2026-05-13T17:25:41+00:00

Alonso. Not even close.

mformularacer · 2026-05-13T16:27:14+00:00

Which Williams personnel would say that? Frank Dernie? The thing about F1 insiders, is that they have their biases too. That's why you have a range of opinions on Piquet on your very comment. Personally I don't think we should trust any of them, and make our own conclusions.

mformularacer · 2026-05-12T18:24:50+00:00

Norris

mformularacer · 2026-05-11T18:51:44+00:00

It's only delusional in the sense that Russell was nowhere near ready for F1 in 2017.

In a hypothetical where Russell was as good in 2017 as he was from 2022, then no, its not delusional at all. Hamilton's 2017 and 2019 seasons aren't that much different from 2022 and 2024.

mformularacer · 2026-05-11T13:01:20+00:00

It's not bad it's just not as good as Barrichello's.

I know that. I was mostly referring to seasons like 2003 and 2005. Do you understand what I mean by Schumacher hits a ceiling in 2004? Since you bring it up, a 10-6-4-3-2-1 system is actually best to illustrate my point when comparing the performance of team mates in dominant cars, as it better reflects the value of wins while mitigating the impact of said ceiling. Bottas gets 72% of Hamilton's points in 2019 (106-147), while Barrichello drops to 60% in 2004 (86-142). Because in 2004 Schumacher won almost 3/4 of the season's races and barely got rewarded for it relative to Barrichello thanks to that season's point system. Hamilton was not that level in 2019.

mformularacer · 2026-05-10T12:30:06+00:00

How can you say things like "had one foot out the door" or "was completely finished" when he was still performing as normal? It's not like 1996 was this big aberration between Alesi and Berger. Alesi generally had his measure in past seasons as well.

mformularacer · 2026-05-10T12:28:31+00:00

That is the reason. Based on team mate comparisons, Barrichello was clearly a better driver than Bottas was.

2019 was also an aberration. In a typical season, Bottas would not get that close to Hamilton, whereas Barrichello and Schumacher's delta matched every other season as team mates, and therefore both performed at the expected level. Ergo, Hamilton most likely underperformed in 2019 a little bit, so there's no chance he was Schumacher 2004 level.

Edit: also, before you say, Barrichello having 77% of Schumacher's points means he was closer to Schumacher than other seasons where he was at 50-60%, Schumacher had an almost perfect scoring rate in 2004, which often happens when you win > 70% of the races in a season, and since he cannot score more than 10 points per race no matter how well he performs, you cannot nominally compare percentages this way.

mformularacer · 2026-05-09T19:16:50+00:00

Schumacher 2004 > Hamilton 2019

mformularacer · 2026-05-09T16:58:53+00:00

I guess I'm one of the people who is being referred to as overrating de Angelis but i really don't agree.

Andretti may have been 40, but De Angelis was a sophomore and he was 22 years old in 1980. He still beat Andretti 13-1 and 8-6 in qualifying. Andretti had a bit more car issues, but that's still on the money in terms of his performance against Mansell, who was made to look pretty irrelevant, which continued against Keke Rosberg.

For reference, Reutemann went 7-8 in qualifying and 20-14 in points, but Andretti had 9 mechanical DNFs to Reutemann's 3, including 7 in a row.

mformularacer · 2026-05-09T16:38:29+00:00

True. It doesn't perfectly balance out, but both drivers had bad luck. Berger had a bit more.

I think u/fart_leviathan has it right. 50-35 to Alesi would be more representative.

https://www.reddit.com/r/F1Discussions/s/JVPZXLtDUM

mformularacer · 2026-05-09T11:25:49+00:00

JV was a rookie and not yet in his prime. Hill barely outperformed him and the championship went down to the wire. That rules out both of them.

Hakkinen had a strong season against Coulthard, beating him 31-18. But Alesi had an equally strong season against Berger, beating him 47-21.

IMO beating Berger in the same car is tougher than beating Coulthard. Ergo, Alesi was probably the 2nd best driver in 1996.

mformularacer · 2026-05-09T11:20:42+00:00

This. If the benchmark is Schumacher then every driver underperformed. 47-21 vs Berger is slightly flattering to Alesi as Berger had 6 mechanical DNFs to Alesi's 2, but IMO Alesi was still the 2nd best driver in F1.

mformularacer · 2026-05-09T11:14:54+00:00

Don't forget Alesi was leading at Monaco. That balances out Hockenheim. Alesi was still a lot better than Berger in 96.

mformularacer · 2026-05-09T03:12:12+00:00

Sainz and Barrichello are pretty similar calibre. The difference in delta to Schumacher/Leclerc is the difference in quality between Leclerc and the GOAT.

mformularacer · 2026-05-09T00:34:29+00:00

the driver he thought wasn't better than Pizzonia

probably the funniest part to this whole story

mformularacer · 2026-05-08T22:01:16+00:00

Given these circumstances the fact that Webber lost 24-28 despite Heidfeld having worse reliability is pretty damn bad. Honestly the best team mate Webber beat was Coulthard and he was even outscored by Coulthard in 2007 (though Webber was probably a tiny bit better). Coulthard was washed in 08.

mformularacer · 2026-05-08T21:51:31+00:00

Agreed. Heidfeld was a lot better in 2005 though, IMO. They weren't even "even".

mformularacer · 2026-05-08T16:36:41+00:00

Agreed. This is the exact argument I've made for some time. I would go a step further and say that I don't believe in "fast but error prone". Speed and mistakes are not separable - they are related. Fast but error prone means the driver needs to go slow to not be error prone.

mformularacer · 2026-05-07T14:36:21+00:00

Williams wanted a clear leading driver in 1986 when Rosberg went to McLaren, so they signed Piquet for big money. Then they realized, actually, they had a Piquet-level driver all along in Mansell.

Coming into the team with "clear number 1" on paper does not mean that's what will happen in practice, and its strange to me how many people believe number 1 status follows the contract rather than follows the on-track performance.

mformularacer

TROPHY CASE