Lewis Hamilton - One of the Greats?

[Tylda]

Every teammate that Lewis partnered with had the same car with the same technology giving them the same chance to show greatness, and still he (Lewis) was the only driver to utilized the car and its technology to its fullest potential to win, and that includes Fernando Alonso.

Ekhem, Alonso, Button and Rosberg, ekhem.

 

[morsify]

For me, modern F1 drivers need to do much more to be considered a 'great' or 'greatest'.

Firstly, it is not realistic to compare them with a driver like Fangio, who drove with hardly any protection, little or nothing in the way of a seat belt, extremely poor tyres, bumpier road surfaces, dangerous barriers and zero runoff areas.

So anyone considering Fangio or a driver from his era to be the greatest has a strong argument.

Then, moving on to the 70s/80s/90s, the speeds became much higher and the risks were still very high, with famous high speed dangerous circuits/bends like the final turn at Mexico or the high speed old Silverstone layout, which have since been removed or dumbed down with chicanes, revised bends and tarmac run offs. So the likes of Senna, Prost and Mansell can also be considered as the greats.

And the same argument stands for for Clark/Hill in the 60s, Stewart/Fittipaldi/Hunt in the 70s, and definitely, Niki Lauda would be very high on the list.

This is only my own opinion, but these drivers, including Mansell's single championship, and certainly Senna's three, are easily worth a good handful of modern day titles.

 

[KittX]

For me, modern F1 drivers need to do much more to be considered a 'great' or 'greatest'.

Firstly, it is not realistic to compare them with a driver like Fangio, who drove with hardly any protection, little or nothing in the way of a seat belt, extremely poor tyres, bumpier road surfaces, dangerous barriers and zero runoff areas.

So anyone considering Fangio or a driver from his era to be the greatest has a strong argument.

Then, moving on to the 70s/80s/90s, the speeds became much higher and the risks were still very high, with famous high speed dangerous circuits/bends like the final turn at Mexico or the high speed old Silverstone layout, which have since been removed or dumbed down with chicanes, revised bends and tarmac run offs. So the likes of Senna, Prost and Mansell can also be considered as the greats.

And you can use the same argument for Clarke/Hill in the 60s, Stewart/Ffittipaldi/Hunt in the 70s, and definitely Lauda would be high on the list.

This is only my own opinion, but these drivers, including Mansell's single championship, and certainly Senna's three, are easily worth a good handful of modern day titles.

None of them were suffereng from having a massive thong in front of their eyes, though

 

[Andy_J]

Like I stated earlier, some stupid people commenting here.
If a football team wins more championships than another football team ever, they are the best ever so far. That's how it works. If a horse wins more horse races than any other horse in history, that horse is the best ever so far.

Hence it's Schumacher 1st, Lewis and Fangio joint 2nd. That's just the facts. You cannot argue against the facts but some will try.

 

[apex11]

None of them were suffereng from having a massive thong in front of their eyes, though

James Hunt did......

 

[morsify]

Like I stated earlier, some stupid people commenting here.
If a football team wins more championships than another football team ever, they are the best ever so far. That's how it works. If a horse wins more horse races than any other horse in history, that horse is the best ever so far.

Hence it's Schumacher 1st, Lewis and Fangio joint 2nd. That's just the facts. You cannot argue against the facts but some will try.

Having an opinion doesn't make a person stupid.
Your statement is true on paper, but I prefer to judge a level playing field, and from 1950 to 2018, it is definitely not.

 

[danraz3r]

Yeah hi is fast, at least faster than me . One of the bests of the actual grid. Absolutely not the best of all the times, neither the best of his time but yeah the faster of his time in the fast car, of course better than his companions (except when he competed versus alonso). There are others that has shown better skills in non winning cars.

But yeah he is good. I hope F1 could improve and make the drivers compete in similar conditions...i feel ****ing sad about ricciardo...next season is gonna suffer and verstappen is gonna have nice times because the cars they are gonna drive will be slightly different , this great gap is killing F1.

Ok i am ready to recieve some love .

 

[Boby Kim]

No absolutely NOT, that is why he became five times wdc. And that was only because he had a good car and because...well...because...he was lucky five times in a row accidentally, because MAX is way better and if MAX would have been in that car than the moon would be the sun and grass would have been purple because MAX is the universe and so..you know...thus...

 

[danraz3r]

Same cars for everyone!, hamilton is so quick we know that but if there are no posible competition....is like Pete Sampras without Roger Federer, he would be the greatest player , hahaha .

So let roger exist, let roger compete in equal conditions and we will se who is who.

F1 is a bad game these days cuz there are many great pilots and so few good cars, poor guys that wont get good cars...

We need to watch the pilot skills and not the car performance. End of story.

 

[Jozsusz]

No doubt he deserve to be one of the greats but I always ask his fan this, where were they in 2012 and before, 2007 and 2000?

Supporting him since his GP2 day, before I was supporting Kimi, and Mika.
Here you go...

 

[Terry Rock]

He came into F1 in one of the best cars.... He has never been in a bad F1 car.
He has only ever been in the best since he was 12 years old.....
AND he was Ron's pet project. Ron and Alonso did not gel well.... I think Ron favored Lewis that season and Alonso has hinted at that....but whatever.
If we look at Lewis and Alonso over the years we can be clear can we not that Alonso is better than both Nico and Bottas?

Alonso in the Merc even if Lewis was marginally better, could of been 2nd WDC for the last few seasons...instead he was in the McLaren unable to dent top 5....

How do you think Lewis would of got on had he stayed with McLaren??
Honestly please give me your answer....

You've made the argument that Alonso is better than Nico and Bottas.
That's probably true, though all three are great drivers.
What you are conveniently overlooking, is the fact that Alonso had the exact same equipment as Lewis in 2007.
Are you going to go with the conspiracy theory that other have spouted...namely that Ron paid Alonso millions of pounds then sabotaged his car...or are we going to be honest and agree that Lewis matched Fernando point-for-point in his first year in an F1 car?
What makes people think that given the same Mercedes drive, the outcome would be different?
I have a lot of respect for Alonso's driving ability, but this silly notion that Lewis would be trounced by anybody else in the same car is just that....a notion.

 

[Patrik Marek]

Like I stated earlier, some stupid people commenting here.
If a football team wins more championships than another football team ever, they are the best ever so far. That's how it works. If a horse wins more horse races than any other horse in history, that horse is the best ever so far.

Hence it's Schumacher 1st, Lewis and Fangio joint 2nd. That's just the facts. You cannot argue against the facts but some will try.

I don't think your comparison works though

Take players from Real Madrid and put them into some second tier team and see how great Real Madrid is
and same way, take Ronaldo and put him into some bad team and see how many championships he wins !!!

putting Ronaldo into a bad team will not make him worse player!, but he will not win the championships , therefore judging them purely on how many wins they achieved is just silly

if you take some really bad player and put him int a best football team there is, he will probably win quite a few championships and score goals, but he will not become the best player in the world

and your analogy with the horse, well that's more like talking about Mercedes, rather then Hamilton , not saying that horse rider is there just to tag alone, but if you have amazing horse, if you put average rider on him, he will probably still keep winnig

 

[Deleted member 503495]

One aspect I mentioned in my previous post was the work laid upon the driver regarding setup and testing. Lewis took Fernando's adjustments and followed that pattern for most of his career. Brabham, Stewart, Fittipaldi and Lauda were masters of setting up a car which funnily enough you couldn't say about Clark - who was like Senna, the perfect driver to get everything out of the car. In the eighties there was Piquet (a neo-Lauda) as perhaps the top driver in that aspect. The Benetton that Schumacher inherited had previously gone through a year of Piquet's guidance. Senna could setup a car but he wasn't at the level of the aforementioned drivers although, his results with the Toleman scoring points and placing the Lotus in contention for the title - even in 1987! - speaks volumes.

By no means this response should be seen as negative or against Lewis Hamilton. It is to show what kind of select "club" he would be accompanying.

I think Lewis's greatest achievement is advertising F1 better then anyone before

Without him makes me wonder where it would be today

The rest of them have personality like wet sponges

Senna x Prost took F1 to even higher levels not previously achieved and helped strengthen the brand name and power across the globe.

 

[Turk]

For me, modern F1 drivers need to do much more to be considered a 'great' or 'greatest'.

Firstly, it is not realistic to compare them with a driver like Fangio, who drove with hardly any protection, little or nothing in the way of a seat belt, extremely poor tyres, bumpier road surfaces, dangerous barriers and zero runoff areas.

I don't really accept that just because something is more dangerous it requires more skill. For all we know they never extracted the maximum from their cars because they were all too afraid of dying. It was a matter of luck who survived those races, catastrophic failures could happen at any time killing the driver. So many great drivers died before they had the chance to achieve anything in those days, so it's hard to judge anyone from that era as anything other than lucky.

I don't think it takes more skill to drive the older cars, if anything it takes more skill to drive a car that doesn't behave like any other car, and requires 10 times more inputs to get around the same track.

 

[Cote Dazur]

5,enough said!

 

[UOPshadow]

He is the most childlike of the Greats - that's for sure.

 

[Theodore 2019]

Yeah he had the dominant car from 2014 up to now but didn't Schumacher had? And Senna who drove an unbeatable McLaren 1988-1989-1990?

Lewis is one of the greatest that's why he often drives the best car as well as other monsters.

Sorry crap English

 

[Shadowoff]

Yeah he had the dominant car from 2014 up to now but didn't Schumacher had? And Senna who drove an unbeatable McLaren 1988-1989-1990?

Lewis is one of the greatest that's why he often drives the best car as well as other monsters.

Sorry crap English

But Senna (Toleman) and Schuhmacher (Benetton) both showed that they are competitive in a slower car, same as Vettel (Toro Rosso)

 

[danraz3r]

5,enough said!

5, hehe then Hamilton is greater than Senna?

Numbers means championships, not been more skillful or deserving being with the BEST EVER DRIVERS.

But dont take me wrong hamilton is so fast and has his head above his shoulders, i have respect for him but you know he has been always driving a bugatti versus toyota supras . (and i love supras)

 

[danraz3r]

No absolutely NOT, that is why he became five times wdc. And that was only because he had a good car and because...well...because...he was lucky five times in a row accidentally, because MAX is way better and if MAX would have been in that car than the moon would be the sun and grass would have been purple because MAX is the universe and so..you know...thus...

yeah you are right, no question of luck...

but is a bit related with best cars. But yeah he is a very skilled driver. And may be if you give a great car to kimi and make hamiltn go to ferrari may be kimi will win some champs and hamilton will know what is to handle with a frustrating car?

For me is the difference of car performance that is defining 80% of who wins.... sad but its the actual situation.