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Greatest Driver Discussions: Food for Thought

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Post by dyrewolfe Wed Dec 26, 2012 10:36 am

After reading various threads on who is the greatest driver of all time, I thought I'd post a link to a thought-provoking article by the BBC's Andrew Benson, in which he says stats aren't everything. Have to say I agree with him:

F1 history has been shaped by the smallest of margins

In the article, Bernie Ecclestone calls Vettel the new yardstick against which all drivers of his era should be measured. Benson argues it is difficult to look any further than Alonso.


But if one is forced to pick a yardstick for modern-day F1 drivers after the 2012 season, it would be hard to look beyond Alonso after the year he has just had.

In a demonstrably slower car, the Spaniard took the title to the final race of the season and - even allowing for the Spa incident, among others - would still have won had Vettel not been fortunate in being able to continue following a first-lap crash, for which he was at least partly to blame, that might have inflicted terminal damage to his car.

Likewise, Lewis Hamilton was in superlative form for McLaren, but poor reliability and operational mistakes by the team stopped his title challenge short. Does McLaren's poor reliability reflect badly on Hamilton's ability?

Let's put it another way. Had history turned out differently and Alonso had by now won four titles and Vettel one, would it make either a better or worse driver than he is?

And that's the point. Statistics don't mean everything. In fact, in the big picture, they mean very little. They're just numbers. They can't be ignored, but the real truth lies elsewhere.
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Post by CaledonianCraig Wed Dec 26, 2012 11:15 am

Sorry but can we disqualify Lewis Hamilton from any 'greatest of all-time- debates please. He has one world title and I'd say Nigel Mansell meritas more adulation than Hamilton and he is still nowhere in GOAT debates.


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Post by bogbrush Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:16 am

Benson is an Alonso fanboy and best read for light amusement value. He can't write a sentence without crying over Alonso's loss this last year.

His latest effort was to tell us that if Vettel won in 2013 & 2014 he'd be the first to win 5 in a row. When he was reminded that Schumacher did it he altered without acknowledgement, but forgot to change the next paragraph where the same error was implicit.

The guys a clown.
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Post by dyrewolfe Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:49 am

Thats not the point I was trying to make.

I think his argument about the stats not telling the full story is very true.

If you'd actually read the article, you'd see he also references Schumacher and Senna and what might have happened to them.

Also, look at a guy like Stirling Moss. Never won a title but was considered one of the best drivers of his era.

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