Have Your Say: Tell Us Who You Rate as the All Time Best British F1 Driver

The older cars are pretty straight forward they have less to worry about and a simple learning curve. Even the F1 cars from the early years of the aero era are pretty straight forward. Modern cars with a multitude of settings for a multitude of systems makes it very difficult to extract the most out of the car. They go so fast and change so much with that speed that it's just another level compared to cars that just have a steering wheel, pedals and a gearstick.

That's not "driving the car" though, that's faffing around with the engine settings etc. The tyres, aero and safety are a millions times better than how they were in Jim Clarks time. Yes they go faster. not because they are necessarily better but because the cars allow them to. PS modern era of F1 is truly crap.
 
That's not "driving the car" though, that's faffing around with the engine settings etc. The tyres, aero and safety are a millions times better than how they were in Jim Clarks time. Yes they go faster. not because they are necessarily better but because the cars allow them to.

Not only that, there's an army of specialists analysing obscene amounts of telemetry so it's not even necessarily up to the driver.

In addition, other than putting it off the road it's extremely hard for the driver to break a modern car, no real need to balance speed with preserving the machinery. I can remember Graham Hill talking about how drivers used to try and kick stones up in the face of the guy behind, it's not just the car or track trying to kill those guys...
 
Not only that, there's an army of specialists analysing obscene amounts of telemetry so it's not even necessarily up to the driver.

In addition, other than putting it off the road it's extremely hard for the driver to break a modern car, no real need to balance speed with preserving the machinery. I can remember Graham Hill talking about how drivers used to try and kick stones up in the face of the guy behind, it's not just the car or track trying to kill those guys...
The problem today is we know too much, and we can't unlearn it. But I think old F1 was more about the spectacle of seeing men do insane things in insane machines, it was more amaturer and less of a sport than it is today. They were less clear on the rules and less likely to enforce them. The drivers were not really athletes like they are today. While F1 cars are much more robust that's because they have to do more than one race, whereas in the old days the cars barely lasted one season, never mind race. The modern F1 driver has to be thinking about how he's diving is going to affect his engines performance months down the line.

I'm pretty sure if you could go back in time with this years F1 car to just about any other era of Formula 1 they'd all be mesmerised by the current F1 car. Jim Clarke would probably see it as some sort of unfathomable spaceship.

Don't get me wrong, the guys like Jim were legends, pioneers and the maddest feckers that ever walked the face of planet earth, but comparing them to modern F1 drivers is like comparing a kid on his first day in school to a college graduate with 4 years of work experience under his belt.
 
I'm pretty sure if you could go back in time with this years F1 car to just about any other era of Formula 1 they'd all be mesmerised by the current F1 car. Jim Clarke would probably see it as some sort of unfathomable spaceship.

Yes because Jim was a driver and not a spaceship pilot.

Look just drive any old F1 car in any sim then a modern F1 car and tell me which is the hardest to drive, also considering crashing the older F1 car would in all likelihood kill you.
 
Mansell. It would've been Hamilton before, but since the second half of 2015 I've seen nothing to suggest that he's actually as good as he should be given the generation gap.

Yes because Jim was a driver and not a spaceship pilot.

Look just drive any old F1 car in any sim then a modern F1 car and tell me which is the hardest to drive, also considering crashing the older F1 car would in all likelihood kill you.
I've driven the old Lotuses in multiple sims by now. They're pretty easy, frankly. If anything, it shows that the average driver back then was mediocre, thus making Clark even less of a serious option than he was before. In general, the skill required to succeed prior to Lauda's entrance was significantly lower than it is today. Drivers like him, Gilles, Piquet and Prost forever changed the sport, with Mansell and especially Senna and Schumacher taking it even further beyond.

It's always old people like you who are blind to the challenges of today. Little wonder you're trying so hard to minimize what the current drivers are doing by saying that what they're doing is not "driving".
 
Yes because Jim was a driver and not a spaceship pilot.

Look just drive any old F1 car in any sim then a modern F1 car and tell me which is the hardest to drive, also considering crashing the older F1 car would in all likelihood kill you.
By far and away the modern F1 car. There's no doubt the old cars were extremely dangerous and that the guys who drove them needed balls of steel but that's got nothing to do with driving talent/knowledge. Older F1 cars are predictable and don't change their behaviour at different speeds and you don't have to worry too much about tyres. Just look at the wheel from any older F1 car and compare it to today's it's easy to see which car is harder to drive.

Modern F1 takes the driver and car to the limits of what's physically possible. Tyre materials are being pushed to their limits and as such can be unpredictable.
 
It's always old people like you who are blind to the challenges of today. Little wonder you're trying so hard to minimize what the current drivers are doing by saying that what they're doing is not "driving".

And it's youth who have NO real knowledge of the past, who don't know squat.
Hamilton is a poster boy for the Millenial generation snowflake.
 
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By far and away the modern F1 car. There's no doubt the old cars were extremely dangerous and that the guys who drove them needed balls of steel but that's got nothing to do with driving talent/knowledge. Older F1 cars are predictable and don't change their behaviour at different speeds and you don't have to worry too much about tyres. Just look at the wheel from any older F1 car and compare it to today's it's easy to see which car is harder to drive.

Modern F1 takes the driver and car to the limits of what's physically possible. Tyre materials are being pushed to their limits and as such can be unpredictable.

What?!! The modern F1 cars are piss easy to drive fast, yes like all forms of motorsport the upper end of the speed envelope is hard to balance, but even a mediocre time in a modern F1 car is blisteringly quick. With FAR less grip and no or very little aero the old F1 cars can be easily overdriven. A modern F1 car just wants to be driven fast with tonnes of grip both mechanical and aero.
 
What?!! The modern F1 cars are piss easy to drive fast, yes like all forms of motorsport the upper end of the speed envelope is hard to balance, but even a mediocre time in a modern F1 car is blisteringly quick. With FAR less grip and no or very little aero the old F1 cars can be easily overdriven. A modern F1 car just wants to be driven fast with tonnes of grip both mechanical and aero.
Which is the point of race cars, to be as fast as possible. That just means the modern F1 car is a better tool for the job. I still think managing all the modern F1 cars systems makes them harder by default. I can't manage them on my wheel, my thumbs aren't long enough. Whenever I driver the SFH70 I simply ignore the hybrid systems and it becomes more like a normal race car but that's like ignoring fifth gear in any other car. The speed everything happens at also makes them very mentally fatiguing to drive.

I placed 155th with the SFH70 @ silverstone on RSR, while I can place 62nd with the lotus 49 @ Monza 66. So clearly I'm more competitive in the lotus and to get a similar placing with the Ferrari I think it would take some serious practice and learning to utilise the systems properly. The lotus works just like any other car, it doesn't even have that weird turn in then countersteer through the corners behaviour that the older F1 cars had.

I don't really buy into the argument that old cars are real driving and modern cars aren't though, I think nostalgia plays a big part in people's love of the old days.
 
I'm not saying "managing" a modern F1 car is easy, don't forget (someone else mentioned this above) a Modern F1 driver has an extensive TEAM of people around him, coaching him, organising I'd imagine 75+% of the setup and engine management going from previous data. As a gamer you are basically on your own so yes learning it all is a daunting experience.

May I enquire do you (or others on that leaderboard) drive the Lotus 49 WITH clutch, WITH H shift, WITH heel and toe for throttle blipping? ALL aids off? Because that's the only way to get any sort of reality with the car.

LOL nostalgia has nothing to do with it, my personal F1 era is the 80's and 90's. I've read up on the history of F1 and come to the conclusion that it was harder in the days earlier than that from the evidence. Not this "faster = better/harder" malarky. This modern era of F1 is the most criticised era for being boring and crap, by people who have seen the previous decades. Also there's nothing wrong with Nostalgia, I'd rather have that than the ignorance of youth.
 
May I enquire do you (or others on that leaderboard) drive the Lotus 49 WITH clutch, WITH H shift, WITH heel and toe for throttle blipping? ALL aids off? Because that's the only way to get any sort of reality with the car.
Of course. Blipping the throttle is one of my most favorite things to do in the whole world. I'll try to do everything the hard way, I want to learn driving skills. Driving the car in it's most raw form is still straight forward, it's no harder than driving any other car with a manual gear stick.

LOL nostalgia has nothing to do with it, my personal F1 era is the 80's and 90's. I've read up on the history of F1 and come to the conclusion that it was harder in the days earlier than that from the evidence. Not this "faster = better/harder" malarky. This modern era of F1 is the most criticised era for being boring and crap, by people who have seen the previous decades. Also there's nothing wrong with Nostalgia, I'd rather have that than the ignorance of youth.
F1 is a victim of progress, every part of the process of making an F1 car and driving an F1 car has improved, and there's no way to really undo that. I grew up on 80's and 90's cars too and most people describe that era as watching the red car go around in circles winning everything.

I do think the engineering side of things is almost too good. Those engineers can do almost anything, especially the ones with the budget to do it. I also don't like how the "sport" has been hijacked by big business making it less accessible and locked behind paywalls, but that's happened to every sport.

I don't really know what to do about it, engineers can't forget what's been learned over the years, if big players like Ferrari can't spend their way into better positions they'll probably leave the sport. There's no room for small teams anymore and there's probably no amount of restrictions they can introduce to stop the well funded teams from using their money to tip the balance in their favour.

F1 is still fundamentally what it's always been it's just the modern world has changed everything and there's no going back.

The only thing to do about it as a racing fan is to have other motorsports to watch, cause F1 can't really do anything about where they are now. Youtube is a great place for motorsport, there's loads of smaller series from around the world published on there. And if you don't like how F1 is now make sure they get none of your money, how we spend our money is almost as powerful as how we vote in elections, it's the only sure fire way to get the attention of the multinationals in control of everything these days.
 
Personally, I think the hardest cars to drive in F1 were the ground effect era cars and the early turbo cars.

They make modern F1 look like indoor karting quite honestly.

1000hp, tons of throttle lag, proper gearbox, no powered steering, crap aerodynamics, proper fuel economy that you had to rely on gauges not a bloke shouting in your ear every 10 seconds. Gravel traps, awful road surfaces, different tyres for lots of teams.

It was a different sport, which is why people who saw it will rarely acknowledge modern F1 as even being close in appeal.

The top drivers are still amazing, talented and would be just as quick in any era, but they certainly have it easier now.
 
Of course. Blipping the throttle is one of my most favorite things to do in the whole world. I'll try to do everything the hard way, I want to learn driving skills. Driving the car in it's most raw form is still straight forward, it's no harder than driving any other car with a manual gear stick.

F1 is a victim of progress, every part of the process of making an F1 car and driving an F1 car has improved, and there's no way to really undo that. I grew up on 80's and 90's cars too and most people describe that era as watching the red car go around in circles winning everything.

I do think the engineering side of things is almost too good. Those engineers can do almost anything, especially the ones with the budget to do it. I also don't like how the "sport" has been hijacked by big business making it less accessible and locked behind paywalls, but that's happened to every sport.

I don't really know what to do about it, engineers can't forget what's been learned over the years, if big players like Ferrari can't spend their way into better positions they'll probably leave the sport. There's no room for small teams anymore and there's probably no amount of restrictions they can introduce to stop the well funded teams from using their money to tip the balance in their favour.

F1 is still fundamentally what it's always been it's just the modern world has changed everything and there's no going back.

The only thing to do about it as a racing fan is to have other motorsports to watch, cause F1 can't really do anything about where they are now. Youtube is a great place for motorsport, there's loads of smaller series from around the world published on there. And if you don't like how F1 is now make sure they get none of your money, how we spend our money is almost as powerful as how we vote in elections, it's the only sure fire way to get the attention of the multinationals in control of everything these days.

Heh I don't drive the old cars true to life and I still struggle in them compared to modern style F1 cars. I realise the "physical" demands on a driver have gone up considerably, but I still think the fancy footwork (when I get to see it) is amazing to behold (for someone with no ability to do so).

Yeah I watch almost every form of motorsport I can get my hands on, also a two wheeled motorsports fan so it's doubled.
 
Heh I don't drive the old cars true to life and I still struggle in them compared to modern style F1 cars.
I suppose it's horses for courses, I find the old cars very intuitive, I like throttle blipping (I even do it in the real world in just about every vehicle I drive) I spent a lot of time learning and developing it. So don't get me wrong, I love the old cars with a passion, but. The modern race cars are tools designed to do a specific job and they do that job exceedingly well, it's true they need a team of engineers on the bleeding edge of science to make the thing run but I find that all very impressive and extremely intimidating when it comes to driving them competitively. The old F1 cars were experimental, nobody really knew what they were doing, it was all undiscovered territory. Even in today's world motorsport becomes more thrilling when people don't know what's going to happen.
 
I guess that's my point about older cars being harder, less technology to help with understanding what exactly was happening/going to happen....so the drivers were also more like test pilots than todays drivers. I understand that modern cars can be taken closer to the edge than in the old days, but there's a lot more technology and help for the modern driver to be able to do that. Olden days was far more "seat of your pants" driving whereas today it's a bit more button pushing and plugging in a laptop! I bet f1 driver debriefings are more about the techs telling the driver where he can push it more on the track.
 

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