Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Goodall
That doesn't really take away any of the facts of his success though, i just literally can't understand people saying 90% of his success was down to the car / team, how can that even be possible??
You could say that in any motorsport, but people rarely say Button only won last year because of his car or the same with Hill, Mansell, Villeneuve, Hakinen, Alonso - and in those cases, i think they're far more related to having the best car at the time.
Schumacher lapped everyone up to 3rd place in one wet race, when was the last time anyone did that?
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HE wasn't great, he was successful. Like all successful drivers he put in a few awesome performances. However...
He started getting good once the great drivers had gone - Prost, Senna, Mansell, Piquet et al - and there was no one even close to his ability or his team's budget until Alonso came along. Faced with one really good driver, the WCs dried up. All the above-mentioned were teamed with each other at some time, and they won despite that. I just don't think that you can ever call him great, whatever the numbers say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by telboy
Agreed Nick, These days the cars have SO much downforce that even an average car struggles against a very good one if it doesn't have the downforce.
Back in the 80's./90's they had little downforce and so it was all about chassis and mechanical grip....and driver talent. So there was more chance of a mid-bottom grid car to have good results....like the Minardi in the hands of Pier Luigi Martini, who had some awesome races with a bit of a shed....and the Leyton house car, under powered but had an awesome Adrian Newey designed chassis.
....Also the Lotus in the hands of Senna. 
but that is what made that era so exciting as it was so close. |
Beg to differ Tel, but not so as to make a thing of it! The original Lotus 79 generated about 2 tonnes of downforce what with its closed skirts and full body-length diffusers. The Williams FW08 was reckoned to surpass that. Over the years, the Rule changes have served to reduce that until the current reckoning is they generate about 1200kg.
Your point is still well made, but a bit in reverse??!! If one car generates 50kg more than another, today that is 4% more downforce, whereas in the 80s that would have been about 2.5% more. So although I would argue the total downforce is less, I do agree that the difference is more, and it makes more difference to lap times now than it did then.
What amazes me is that do far this year, most cars would have qualified even if we had a 107% rule. Try that at the average BRCA National in any class - more like 120% between top and bottom. Having said which, 7% over a 70-lap race like Hungary is almost five laps, so it's still a huge gap!!