Quote:
Originally Posted by SlowOne
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.
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He qualified 7th in his first race for Jordan, in a car far less superior - and that was with all these top drivers you mention? He was 3rd in his 2nd season of F1 behind the two Williams cars that had all the clever active suspension/downforce and paddle shifts etc.
He was 4th in his 3rd season and then started to dominate the next couple of years so i don't think he was only successful only once the good drivers had gone? That's basically saying that Hill, Villeneuve, Hakinen, Coulthard, Montoya, Berger, Alesi, Frentzen, Irvine, Barrichello, Fisichella etc were all just average Joe's then? Not comparable to Mansell, Piquet, Prost & Senna?
They were just a different generation, not really fair to say Michael didn't match up to them as he was a young gun in the early days of his career and those guys were all coming to the end - The drivers in his generation were all proved to be slower then him in my opinion.
I also think he would have been close to Senna in the 1994 season, it was shaping up to be a good battle between them and I would have loved to see them wheel to wheel as neither would have given in
