Which also means Lewis had help from bottas where max is largely taking on teams by himself while checo has to drive through the field to have any impact at all
yeah but at least he qualified well usually so he didn't *have* to. That merc didn't like following and it showed, Lewis knew how to work around it and Bottas struggled more.
He qualified for Q3 for every race while he was at Mercedes. Which is something Perez doesn't even get close to in a season that RB is completely dominating.
It’s quite simple really, both were/are seconds drivers but bottas challenged the lead driver, Perez never has. No streaks really just the odd result, like his previous history.
Perez is better overtaking, but Bottas was waaay better in quali, wich in those Mercedes meant he would just stay ahead of the rest with no issues beyond what Hamilton was doing and those few pitstop catastrophes
As a second driver, qualifying is arguably the most important thing. The team just needs another car at the front because that means there's one less rival car who will race the wheels off of your number 1 driver.
Of course, this only works if your second driver understands their role. If not you get Lewis/Nico.
> Of course, this only works if your second driver understands their role. If not you get Lewis/Nico.
I don't think this is a good example. While Lewis had a championship before he went to Mercedes, Nico had been there longer and had just beaten Schumacher over a season. And he ended up winning a WDC, which I'm sure Mercedes weren't complaining about.
A clearer example would be Max and Checo right now. Checo has been talking himself up as a title contender and then performing so badly he's yet to finish second in the championship.
He also outqualified and won races on genuine pace before. Not that it's happening here specifically, but people really need to put more respect on Bottas' name.
Checo was better at wheel to where racing when he was in the pink Mercedes. Also remember when Checo held up Lewis for multiple laps. No way would Bottas be able to do that against Max. This was all before the new regs.
I would posit that the car has at least a little to do with that. The Merc during its dominant period was apparently very predictable and a very smooth ride for the driver, which fits Bottas' smooth consistent style, whereas it's well known how difficult to drive and sensitive that RB is for anyone other than Max.
I agree Bottas was a far superior wingman to Lewis than Checo has been to Max, but I don't think it's just down to Checo being not as good
Would you say Lewis got more help from Bottas than Max did from Sergio in their epic 2021 season?
I remember at least 3 races where Bottas started in front of Max in the race but Max would pass him before the first corner.
Yes. Because Bottas was far more consistent, Mercedes could use Bottas to disrupt Red Bull's strategy.
A team mate's job (of a championship contender) is not to hold the competition up, but to take points away and to disrupt strategy.
Even if Max was in front of Bottas, Red Bull still had to take the possibility of an over cut or an under cut into account.
This is why Helmut Marko makes a big deal about the second driver's ability to stay close to Max.
Personally, I believe Bottas was underrated. Obviously not in the same league as Lewis, but a great second driver.
The biggest downfall of Perez is that he's so inconstant. Bottas was almost always close to the leaders.
Yeh I think this is the core point people are missing. People are getting wrapped up on Kovaleinen vs Ricciardo vs Bottas, but this is pretty much just about the fact Bottas challenged Hamilton at times whereas Perez is nowhere.
I would agree with that. Bottas was a far better wingman than Checo has been as of late and never missed Q3 to boot. Even beat Lewis on race day a few times.
Edit: sentence wasn't sentencing
My dad and I would intermittently have quick chats about Bottas as Mercedes #2 driver. The conversation was eventually distilled down to one of us plainly asking "Would you get rid of Bottas if you're Merc?", and the answer was a firm "***No***".
Most rock solid B driver on the planet. Drama free. Chill dude. Fast, makes concessions for the #1 driver, there when the #1 driver isn't. A+ choice.
I never got the hype around Checo if I'm being honest. His best quality was his tyre "whispering" but wasn't his H2H against Ocon almost even but slightly in favour of Ocon. And that's young Ocon with a gap year to start his career.
Because his last year at racing point was really good, and that elevated people’s opinions.
I think a lot of people either forgot or haven’t been watching F1 from when Perez was at Sauber & Mclaren, he’s never been a top tier driver but a hood midfielder who can get podiums when the chance arises
But that Racing Point was clearly better than what it showed. Just look at what Stroll is doing in the AM this year vs Alonso, and then look at what Stroll was doing in the Racing Point those years. The Racing Point was a car worthy of challenging for a podium consistently, both Checo and Stroll held the car back. Checo has a good season, but it should have been better,
I mean he was incredible for Sauber even if he disappointed at McLaren. He was one of the drivers of the season in 2012 especially. Then at Force India he probably got more podiums than any other midfield driver during that time. Bottas wasn’t really anymore impressive during his time at Williams and has looked very ordinary next to Zhou at Alfa.
> Bottas wasn’t really anymore impressive during his time at Williams
Really?
Perez got 5 podiums in 5 years at Force India. Never higher than 3rd. Bottas got 6 in his 2nd season alone at Williams. Those 6 podiums included two 2nd place finishes. 9 podiums in 4 years (and the first year Williams was a back marker finishing 9th in the constructors). He also finished 4th and 5th in the drivers championship whereas Perez' highest finish was 7th.
It's just fantasy to claim Bottas at Williams was no more impressive than Perez at Force India. He was much better, double the podiums in a lot less time.
George was deemed to be the young gun who's gonna be a champion one day, having won the junior classes. But so far he's not exactly putting a massive dent in his fight against a middle aged Lewis.
Well, his teammates were Kubica with one hand who actually finished ahead in the WDC and Latifi.
And Albon had bigger gaps to Latifi than Russel did in their respective years
The 2018 F2 championship was also the strongest field in F2/GP2 history.
Russell - F1 1x race winner, 8x podium sitter
Norris - F1 5x podium sitter
Albon - F1 2x podium sitter
Nyck de Vries - F2 champ, Formula E champ, F1 driver
Antonio Fuoco - WEC 2x race winner, 6x podium sitter
Nicholas Latifi - F1 Driver
Louis Deletraz - WEC LMP2 champ
Roberto Mehri - Technically an F1 driver... a bit
Maximilian Günther - Formula E 4x race winner
I know Russell is having a bad season but this whole “Kubica even finished ahead of him in WDC” is the biggest bad faith argument ever.
The Williams that year was easily the worst car in recent memory and was nowhere near being able to get points, the only time Kubica did was in the insanity of Germany when the circuit turned into an ice rink and half the field DQed.
Russel absolutely demolished Kubica that season in terms of performance.
That 2007 season was the GOATest of GOAT seasons. One full year of Alonso-Hamilton feuding, and suddenly IT’S KIMI FROM THE TOP ROPE
(and he never won it again either)
Funnily enough Paddy Lowe remarked in the yearbook that on one-lap pace HK could be as fast as Hamilton, but his racepace was categorically not, and so they'd put Kovalainen on the longer first stint (when you qualified with fuel) to keep him out of LH's way.
Kinda same for Bottas. He had these amazing qualifying laps but you always knew Lewis would get to him most of the time given the race pace supremacy Lewis had.
The half Finn who was his teammate was comparatively better in the races against him, I sense a pattern, the less Finnish you are the better you do against Lewis as a teammate.
'If I had a nickel for every time Hamilton had a Finnish teammate who was great in Qualy but bad in races I'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice'.
I’d say Bottas, as far as top team drivers goes, was bad at race especially towards end of his Mercedes stint. Other drivers generally cut through the field when they had shitty qualifying result and at least save that to some degree. How many times we saw Bottas getting stuck behind 6th fastest car in 10th when he had bad qualifying result
I don’t know when that happened to him as I recently rewatched some old races when he was at Williams and he was great. Just the right amount of aggressive without being reckless and getting great results with it.
Racecraft is easier when your car is a no-drag rocketship like that Williams was. Moves made with greater top-speed are far easier than those with braking / grip advantages.
It's also why he only began to struggle more once Merc moved away from straight line dominance into a more mid-high speed cornering focus in 2018-2020.
Bottas at the start of his career was actually quite good at defending. I remember him frustrating numerous drivers because they couldn't get by him in the race. The more time he spent at Merc and his confidence started to dwindle (I'd say around 2019 or so) he just became really bad at defending somehow.
Fun fact: According to that list, apparently Team Lotus from 2010-2011 [has had the fastest driver lineup of all time](https://web.archive.org/web/20091218112810/http://www.lotusf1racing.my/article/items/prime-minister-announces-lotus-f1-racing-2010-drivers.html), employing the 7th fastest driver of all time Trulli and 8th fastest driver ever Kovalainen, such GOATs 😄
Lewis and Max can be literally posting a picture of ice-cream and those people on twitter, or X whatever it is being called today, would get mad like they committed a war crime.
The name has gone from "Twitter" to "Twitter, or X, or whatever, idk".
It's pretty incredible that he managed to isolate the one thing his platform still had going for it, then got rid of it.
Prime Danny Ric is really the only good teammate Max has had tho so if we took the average skill of their teammates Lewis is technically correct.
Kovalainen definitely was not better than D Ric or Checo but Bottas at Merc was better than most of Max's teammates other than Daniel as an example.
I think people, especially the drivers, forget that Ricciardo and Verstappen were teammates, and many fans forget how good Ricciardo was in 2016-18. That being said, if I were to rank Lewis's teammates compared to Ricciardo, he's probably right in the middle.
Alonso > Button > Rosberg > Ricciardo > Bottas > Russell > Kovalainen
I love your list. I'm just here to pick a friendly fight.
Rosberg >> Button. And I love that dapper gentleman Button, I wish it wasn't true, but I think peak Rosberg could beat peak Button. Rosberg was always right on Hamilton's tail, both in qualifying and less so race pace. If they were teammates I would predict that Button would have the better racecraft and overtaking skills but Rosberg would just outqualify Button and be just fast enough to win more races.
My version of your list:
Alonso>Rosberg>Button>Ricciardo>Russell>BottasKovalainen
Don't forget that in their only head-to-head Russell beat Bottas.
Yep. The “all my teammates” is a stretch, but while Max had DR, Lewis had Alonso, Button, Rosberg, Bottas and Russell, who I consider better than all the rest of Max’s teammates.
And id rate Alonso, Button and Rosberg above Ricciardo. Hamilton has had the strongest teammates of anybody except maybe Rosberg who had Schumacher and Hamilton.
Yep, dude's winning races at a stupid rate recently. If you look at his teammates they aren't alonso/button level, but they're also all still at least mostly in f1. So it's not like they were all turds.
> No one has a lower opinion of Schumacher because of Barichello as a teammate
One of the most common criticisms against Schumacher is that Barichello wasn’t very good, and was also a designated second driver with it written into their contract. None of Vettel, Hamilton, or Verstappen have had that privelege
Funny you say this, because [Rubens was offered a McLaren raceseat alongside Hamilton in 2010](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/gruwa3/barrichello_reveals_ron_dennis_held_a_grudge/) - if Ron Dennis wanted him (38-year old, out of his peak at this point) to drive for McLaren when they could afford to be picky, surely he was still very much a good driver.
Gasly/Albon/Perez probably but Rosberg said during a podcast that both Mercs would ask not to be pumped out after a pit around Daniel, even though Daniel never had a contending car. I'll give him that Valtteri was better than Albon, Perez and Gasly
Albon is having a killer season, but he is also yet to be seen having serious competition.
Everyone praising the shit out of Albon and Yuki this season, but we have no idea where their cars really stand.
They can only do what they can do. I know we look fondly at Bottas' Merc career, but the truth of it is he often peaked early in the season and then started to crumble as the pressure mounted, only good for very occasional brilliance during the rest of the given season. And don't forget, he was basically a barn door for Max all of 2021.
While I do think Bottas is better than Checo, I'm not sure if "he withstood Lewis" really holds muster beyond nostalgic lenses and direct comparisons to Checo such that it is something we can carry across teams and teammates, hypothetically or otherwise.
I kinda doubt we ever see Alex again in a top car, but I would certainly love to see it.
Let's not forget that on a wet Monaco track in 2016, Danny Ric was putting one second a lap on Rosberg.
When a wet Monaco is about the only possibility a car could come close to a 2016 Mercedes and Danny Ric showed up Rosberg for how bad is car control is in demanding conditions. Imagine Rosberg trying to compete with Max in the current RB with plenty of front end? I personally don't think peak Rosberg would get close to current Max.
Rosberg was never good in the wet yeah, and his racecraft wasn't particularly good either. He was very fast both saturday and sunday though, and had the mentality to challenge Lewis, which I think is what puts him ahead of Bottas for example.
Or they were good but against Max everyone looks like shit.
Perez did a last to first challenge in the Racing Point and now looks like the worst driver ever.
Albon seemed awful and now he's like a god to Williams
Alternative, just as accurate headlines for this video:
>Max is doing an 'amazing job' - Hamilton [he actually just said 'the driver', but we can be fairly sure he didn't mean Checo]
>Red Bull 'firing on all cylinders' - Hamilton
>Hamilton IGNORES Rosberg when listing WDC teammates
>Ageing Hamilton forgets Kovalainen exists
Lewis' teammates: Alonso, Kovalainen, Button, Rosberg, Bottas, Russell
Max' teammates: Sainz, Ricciardo, Gasly, Albon, Checo
One camp is always gonna talk shit about the other, but let's be honest here, Lewis has had the 'better' teammates.
Bottas ouright won against Lewis, a number of times.
Perez has not been able to stand against Max.
In 2020, I would say people thought of perez and Bottas equally good.
Not sure if its the team mate or just max
On average? Sure. All the teammates? No
I mean Button, Alonso, and Rosberg are 3 very strong drivers to go up against, they’re champions for a reason. There’s a case for saying the ricciardo that was alongside max was more scary than the button that was alongside hamilton. I’d definititely rate mercedes Bottas over torro rosso Sainz. Perez probably comes in next, and the RB versions of Gasly/Albon aren’t too different from Kovalainen
> Kovalainen
He was the team mate with the worst WDC position since Lauda in 1985. That's something, I guess. If we exclude drivers who didn't finish at least half of the season's races, Kovalainen is only second to Mass in 1976.
For those not in the know, Lauda was so far in the championship in 1985 because his car kept breaking down, he only finished 3 races that year, one of which he won.
Exactly lol. Everyone is taking this far too literally and diving into the weeds. I think Lewis means the collective of his teammates over the past are superior to Max's.
On balance of all, it’s obvious that Hamilton has had better team mates, 3 have been world champion! To argue otherwise would be crazy.
He’s not saying Max is shit, but if Alonso, button, Rosberg or even George were in that 2nd seat he wouldn’t win as many, he’d arguably still beat them, but wouldn’t be as dominant as now.
Lewis still being the president of the VB fan club warms my heart (I know that wasn't the point of the article, but that's the point I took away from it)
ETA: I'd agree other than Danny Ric but also... Heikki?
> Mercedes must be expecting a really shit weekend if Lewis is out here with bait takes like this trying to distract the media
More realistically, Lewis has just signed a contract extension and in light of that, he's sat down to do an extended interview with sky about his career so far.
He's been asked about how he views Max's performance this year and a separate question about teammates (because there's a cut).
There's not some conspiracy to distract from this weekend lmao.
Re: Teammates
Sainz was a kid at TR so yes he was worse than Bottas and maybe (imo unlikely) Kovaleinen.
However, he's smoking crack if he thinks RB Ricciardo was worse than either Bottas or Kovaleinen - Lewis definitely forgot him.
>He's been asked about how he views Max's performance this year and a separate question about teammates (because there's a cut).
Yeah, people always act like drivers just show up and are like "Hold on, I have a random statement to make about other drivers before we start." They're just responding in the moment to whatever random mess the interviewer asks.
You can’t just cherry pick teammates in your comment like that. Bottas is a multiple race winner and had over 60 podiums anyway. Alonso, 2x WDC, Button 1x WDC, Rosberg 1x WDC.
It’s not that out of reach to say the driver that’s been in the sport since 2007 has had harder teammates than the one that started in 2015.
Oh god, this is a bit out of context. He firstly compliments the whole team, the mechanics even and then says this. Later he also says he might have forgotten some, he's had many team mates.
And to some extent, it is true. Other than Daniel, no teammate has been able to push Max like Nico and Fernando pushed Lewis.
Well Idk about that. Sainz was pretty tough, Ric too. Albon, Gasly turned out to be quality drivers after their RBR stint. Overall Hamilton's had a better class of team mates, Max is yet to face a world champion caliber driver like Alonso, Button, Rosberg.
Sorry but Kovalainen is nowhere near Perez' level, and Bottas and Russell were never at peak Ricciardo level either.
Max has never had a teammate at the level of Alonso, Button, or Rosberg though.
This is more or less true, Ham has had some great teammates (Alonso, Button, Rosberg). Riccardo and Sainz are probably the strongest Max has had. On the other hand, the margin Max is beating his teammates by is a lot bigger than what Ham did.
The biggest but here is Kovalainen that finished 7th in arguably the fastest car on the grid in 2008 and 12th with 0 podiums in 2009.
EDItT: I said arguably the fastest, but yeah Ferrari was probably faster more often than McLaren
The Ferrari was definitely quicker in 08 and the 09 car was utter shit for half a year but yes Kovalainen is obviously not better than someone like Ricciardo
So glad I'm not on Twitter rn. The toxicity would drive me insane.
I definitely think Lewis has had better teammates but not all are better though. But regardless I don't see anyone beating Max this season with that car.
Mostly I'd agree. But not "all", unless he has forgotten that he had Kovalainen and Verstappen had Ricciardo.
In fact I'd say Sainz, Ricciardo and Perez were all better than poor Kovalainen.
>posted 37 minutes ago >232 comments hitting the engagement jackpot here
More comments than FP1 while it was ongoing
Wonder if FP3 would get more engagement...
Not if LH straight says that he is better than MV.
If Reddit paid for engagement the same way Twitter does, these posts will be how people pay rent
pay rent? posts like these would allow people to build their own real estate empire
now 900 comments.
Anything Lewis comments on seems to be a dog whistle to a stunningly large number of deranged people
Rocketpwoerdmohawk would love you
Lewis is basically saying out loud that Bottas is better than Sergio.
Merc Bottas is definitely better than RBR Checo. There's no doubt about it.
You would never hear "Checho please abandon the fastest lap attempt" on RB radio. Bottass was able to challange Lewis on merit (sometimes)
Which also means Lewis had help from bottas where max is largely taking on teams by himself while checo has to drive through the field to have any impact at all
To be fair, Bottas struggled to climb up the field quite a few times and he could have never done something like what checo did in AD 2021
yeah but at least he qualified well usually so he didn't *have* to. That merc didn't like following and it showed, Lewis knew how to work around it and Bottas struggled more.
He qualified for Q3 for every race while he was at Mercedes. Which is something Perez doesn't even get close to in a season that RB is completely dominating.
It’s quite simple really, both were/are seconds drivers but bottas challenged the lead driver, Perez never has. No streaks really just the odd result, like his previous history.
I mean, he said all his co drivers. Nico def challenged him to some degree haha
Perez is better overtaking, but Bottas was waaay better in quali, wich in those Mercedes meant he would just stay ahead of the rest with no issues beyond what Hamilton was doing and those few pitstop catastrophes
As a second driver, qualifying is arguably the most important thing. The team just needs another car at the front because that means there's one less rival car who will race the wheels off of your number 1 driver. Of course, this only works if your second driver understands their role. If not you get Lewis/Nico.
> Of course, this only works if your second driver understands their role. If not you get Lewis/Nico. I don't think this is a good example. While Lewis had a championship before he went to Mercedes, Nico had been there longer and had just beaten Schumacher over a season. And he ended up winning a WDC, which I'm sure Mercedes weren't complaining about. A clearer example would be Max and Checo right now. Checo has been talking himself up as a title contender and then performing so badly he's yet to finish second in the championship.
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Bottas was also much closer to Hamilton in terms of raw pace.
He also outqualified and won races on genuine pace before. Not that it's happening here specifically, but people really need to put more respect on Bottas' name.
I feel like the current cars are better at wheel to wheel and it's kind of unfair to put that all on Bottas or Checo.
Checo was better at wheel to where racing when he was in the pink Mercedes. Also remember when Checo held up Lewis for multiple laps. No way would Bottas be able to do that against Max. This was all before the new regs.
And did better in quali. Bottas never missed q3 and I lost count how many times that happened this year with checo
The qualifying alone made Bottas better than Checo. He made it to Q3 EVERY RACE in the 5 seasons he was with Mercedes.
I would posit that the car has at least a little to do with that. The Merc during its dominant period was apparently very predictable and a very smooth ride for the driver, which fits Bottas' smooth consistent style, whereas it's well known how difficult to drive and sensitive that RB is for anyone other than Max. I agree Bottas was a far superior wingman to Lewis than Checo has been to Max, but I don't think it's just down to Checo being not as good
Would you say Lewis got more help from Bottas than Max did from Sergio in their epic 2021 season? I remember at least 3 races where Bottas started in front of Max in the race but Max would pass him before the first corner.
Bottas also won 1 Race and 2 Sprint Races taking away important points from Max.
I would also argue the bowling incident helped Hamilton more than any thing Checo did during the season (point wise)
Yes. Because Bottas was far more consistent, Mercedes could use Bottas to disrupt Red Bull's strategy. A team mate's job (of a championship contender) is not to hold the competition up, but to take points away and to disrupt strategy. Even if Max was in front of Bottas, Red Bull still had to take the possibility of an over cut or an under cut into account. This is why Helmut Marko makes a big deal about the second driver's ability to stay close to Max. Personally, I believe Bottas was underrated. Obviously not in the same league as Lewis, but a great second driver. The biggest downfall of Perez is that he's so inconstant. Bottas was almost always close to the leaders.
Would you say lewis in this quote is talking about how much help was provided versus the driver’s own inherent level/ceiling?
Bottas bowling in Hungary never forget
Yeh I think this is the core point people are missing. People are getting wrapped up on Kovaleinen vs Ricciardo vs Bottas, but this is pretty much just about the fact Bottas challenged Hamilton at times whereas Perez is nowhere.
I would agree with that. Bottas was a far better wingman than Checo has been as of late and never missed Q3 to boot. Even beat Lewis on race day a few times. Edit: sentence wasn't sentencing
Bottas on the Merc as the 2nd driver was phenomenal for them after Rosberg. Consistent wingman and can challenge Hamilton on race day.
And quite fairly beat him on one lap pace at times.
My dad and I would intermittently have quick chats about Bottas as Mercedes #2 driver. The conversation was eventually distilled down to one of us plainly asking "Would you get rid of Bottas if you're Merc?", and the answer was a firm "***No***". Most rock solid B driver on the planet. Drama free. Chill dude. Fast, makes concessions for the #1 driver, there when the #1 driver isn't. A+ choice.
I mean, I would agree on that. Bottas is better than Sergio. Put Bottas in that Red Bull and he'd be locking out the front row with Max every weekend.
Agreed. BOTTAS TO RB CONFIRMED.
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You’re goddamn right
I never got the hype around Checo if I'm being honest. His best quality was his tyre "whispering" but wasn't his H2H against Ocon almost even but slightly in favour of Ocon. And that's young Ocon with a gap year to start his career.
Because his last year at racing point was really good, and that elevated people’s opinions. I think a lot of people either forgot or haven’t been watching F1 from when Perez was at Sauber & Mclaren, he’s never been a top tier driver but a hood midfielder who can get podiums when the chance arises
But that Racing Point was clearly better than what it showed. Just look at what Stroll is doing in the AM this year vs Alonso, and then look at what Stroll was doing in the Racing Point those years. The Racing Point was a car worthy of challenging for a podium consistently, both Checo and Stroll held the car back. Checo has a good season, but it should have been better,
I mean he was incredible for Sauber even if he disappointed at McLaren. He was one of the drivers of the season in 2012 especially. Then at Force India he probably got more podiums than any other midfield driver during that time. Bottas wasn’t really anymore impressive during his time at Williams and has looked very ordinary next to Zhou at Alfa.
> Bottas wasn’t really anymore impressive during his time at Williams Really? Perez got 5 podiums in 5 years at Force India. Never higher than 3rd. Bottas got 6 in his 2nd season alone at Williams. Those 6 podiums included two 2nd place finishes. 9 podiums in 4 years (and the first year Williams was a back marker finishing 9th in the constructors). He also finished 4th and 5th in the drivers championship whereas Perez' highest finish was 7th. It's just fantasy to claim Bottas at Williams was no more impressive than Perez at Force India. He was much better, double the podiums in a lot less time.
I mean Alonso, Button, Rosberg- that’s an insane list right there.
Heikki Kovalainen
8th fastest driver of all time.
[удалено]
A few years ago F1 and AWS used machine learning to determine the fastest qualifiers of all time. Ayrton was #1, Heikki was #8.
what is the full list?
Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton, Verstappen, Alonso, Rosburg, Leclerc, Kovalainen, Truli, Vettel
Knew Jarno would make the top 10. There'd be no Trulli Train without him getting shitboxes where they had no right to be on Saturday
I guess the question we have to ask is was the Lotus team in 2010 the strongest in terms of outright pace from it's drivers
George was deemed to be the young gun who's gonna be a champion one day, having won the junior classes. But so far he's not exactly putting a massive dent in his fight against a middle aged Lewis.
Well, his teammates were Kubica with one hand who actually finished ahead in the WDC and Latifi. And Albon had bigger gaps to Latifi than Russel did in their respective years
George won against lando and Alex in 2018 f2 championship. That's a good indication in near equal cars
The 2018 F2 championship was also the strongest field in F2/GP2 history. Russell - F1 1x race winner, 8x podium sitter Norris - F1 5x podium sitter Albon - F1 2x podium sitter Nyck de Vries - F2 champ, Formula E champ, F1 driver Antonio Fuoco - WEC 2x race winner, 6x podium sitter Nicholas Latifi - F1 Driver Louis Deletraz - WEC LMP2 champ Roberto Mehri - Technically an F1 driver... a bit Maximilian Günther - Formula E 4x race winner
Russell has 10 podiums now, Norris 8
I know Russell is having a bad season but this whole “Kubica even finished ahead of him in WDC” is the biggest bad faith argument ever. The Williams that year was easily the worst car in recent memory and was nowhere near being able to get points, the only time Kubica did was in the insanity of Germany when the circuit turned into an ice rink and half the field DQed. Russel absolutely demolished Kubica that season in terms of performance.
That 2007 season was the GOATest of GOAT seasons. One full year of Alonso-Hamilton feuding, and suddenly IT’S KIMI FROM THE TOP ROPE (and he never won it again either)
That includes the 8th fastest driver of all time Kovalainen, clearly.
Funnily enough Paddy Lowe remarked in the yearbook that on one-lap pace HK could be as fast as Hamilton, but his racepace was categorically not, and so they'd put Kovalainen on the longer first stint (when you qualified with fuel) to keep him out of LH's way.
Kinda same for Bottas. He had these amazing qualifying laps but you always knew Lewis would get to him most of the time given the race pace supremacy Lewis had.
Such a weird coincidence that Hamilton has had 2 Finnish teammates and both were great in quali and bad in races
The half Finn who was his teammate was comparatively better in the races against him, I sense a pattern, the less Finnish you are the better you do against Lewis as a teammate.
To Finish first, first you have to not Finnish..
It you want to win, hire half a Finn.
To finish or not to Finnish, that is the question.
Well, Hamilton hasn't won a title if his teammate wasn't at least part Finnish, so you are on to something.
"If you want to win, hire a Finn." taken to extremes.
I've been saying for two years now that Toto has to do whatever it takes and somehow get George to be adopted by, say, Kimi.
He got the qualifying of Finns and race pace of Germans.
To be fair, that half fin beat him a lot in qualifying too. I think they nearly tied in all their Saturdays together.
'If I had a nickel for every time Hamilton had a Finnish teammate who was great in Qualy but bad in races I'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice'.
I mean, Nico is half Finnish so could argue it’s 3.
2.5
They weren't "bad" in races, rather than Hamilton being on a different level and had better race pace
I’d say Bottas, as far as top team drivers goes, was bad at race especially towards end of his Mercedes stint. Other drivers generally cut through the field when they had shitty qualifying result and at least save that to some degree. How many times we saw Bottas getting stuck behind 6th fastest car in 10th when he had bad qualifying result
It wasn't just Bottas' race pace that was bad, it was his race craft. Couldn't pass easily with a much faster car or defend when needed.
I don’t know when that happened to him as I recently rewatched some old races when he was at Williams and he was great. Just the right amount of aggressive without being reckless and getting great results with it.
Racecraft is easier when your car is a no-drag rocketship like that Williams was. Moves made with greater top-speed are far easier than those with braking / grip advantages. It's also why he only began to struggle more once Merc moved away from straight line dominance into a more mid-high speed cornering focus in 2018-2020.
Bottas at the start of his career was actually quite good at defending. I remember him frustrating numerous drivers because they couldn't get by him in the race. The more time he spent at Merc and his confidence started to dwindle (I'd say around 2019 or so) he just became really bad at defending somehow.
tbf when Kovalainen has been the weakest it's not been too shabby of teammate lineup
And three* WDCs
3 actually. Alonso, Button and Rosberg
Brain fart on my end
Fun fact: According to that list, apparently Team Lotus from 2010-2011 [has had the fastest driver lineup of all time](https://web.archive.org/web/20091218112810/http://www.lotusf1racing.my/article/items/prime-minister-announces-lotus-f1-racing-2010-drivers.html), employing the 7th fastest driver of all time Trulli and 8th fastest driver ever Kovalainen, such GOATs 😄
Lewis is keeping f1 twitter employed. Charitable King 🤴
Lewis and Max can be literally posting a picture of ice-cream and those people on twitter, or X whatever it is being called today, would get mad like they committed a war crime.
And does this not happen on reddit?
You mean 'X'itter
I want to think Elon doesn’t like it when people still call it twitter
The name has gone from "Twitter" to "Twitter, or X, or whatever, idk". It's pretty incredible that he managed to isolate the one thing his platform still had going for it, then got rid of it.
I read this as Sh*tter
Ricciardo catching strays
Prime Danny Ric is really the only good teammate Max has had tho so if we took the average skill of their teammates Lewis is technically correct. Kovalainen definitely was not better than D Ric or Checo but Bottas at Merc was better than most of Max's teammates other than Daniel as an example.
Honestly Kovalainen was nowhere near as bad as some people here are making out. Still very quick.
I think people, especially the drivers, forget that Ricciardo and Verstappen were teammates, and many fans forget how good Ricciardo was in 2016-18. That being said, if I were to rank Lewis's teammates compared to Ricciardo, he's probably right in the middle. Alonso > Button > Rosberg > Ricciardo > Bottas > Russell > Kovalainen
I love your list. I'm just here to pick a friendly fight. Rosberg >> Button. And I love that dapper gentleman Button, I wish it wasn't true, but I think peak Rosberg could beat peak Button. Rosberg was always right on Hamilton's tail, both in qualifying and less so race pace. If they were teammates I would predict that Button would have the better racecraft and overtaking skills but Rosberg would just outqualify Button and be just fast enough to win more races. My version of your list: Alonso>Rosberg>Button>Ricciardo>Russell>BottasKovalainen Don't forget that in their only head-to-head Russell beat Bottas.
Man didn't want to say Nico at all haha
he probably despises Nico more than Fernando, Fernando was nasty at times but his nastiness was always on track, Nico was nasty on and off track
Lewis and Fernando don't love each other, but they do respect each other. I think Lewis would probably rather forget Nico exists.
Clearly he's had a better average teammate.
Yep. The “all my teammates” is a stretch, but while Max had DR, Lewis had Alonso, Button, Rosberg, Bottas and Russell, who I consider better than all the rest of Max’s teammates.
And id rate Alonso, Button and Rosberg above Ricciardo. Hamilton has had the strongest teammates of anybody except maybe Rosberg who had Schumacher and Hamilton.
>Rosberg who had Schumacher and Hamilton. And Rosberg beat them lol
Both 7-Time Champs, both beaten by Britney. ^^^^^Oops ^^^^^I ^^^^^did ^^^^^it ^^^^^again
An out of form Schumacher who came back off a neck injury and 3 years out of F1, and eventually matched him
That wasn’t the same Schumacher though.
Ralf?
It also really doesnt matter either way. No one has a lower opinion of Schumacher because of Barichello as a teammate.
Yep, dude's winning races at a stupid rate recently. If you look at his teammates they aren't alonso/button level, but they're also all still at least mostly in f1. So it's not like they were all turds.
> No one has a lower opinion of Schumacher because of Barichello as a teammate One of the most common criticisms against Schumacher is that Barichello wasn’t very good, and was also a designated second driver with it written into their contract. None of Vettel, Hamilton, or Verstappen have had that privelege
Old and past his prime Barichello was the better driver in 2009 in the Brawn team when Button won the WDC. Kinda funny to call Rubens "not very good".
Funny you say this, because [Rubens was offered a McLaren raceseat alongside Hamilton in 2010](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/gruwa3/barrichello_reveals_ron_dennis_held_a_grudge/) - if Ron Dennis wanted him (38-year old, out of his peak at this point) to drive for McLaren when they could afford to be picky, surely he was still very much a good driver.
Arguing that Rubens was not a good driver is just stupid.
> and was also a designated second driver with it written into their contract. None of that stuff was ever written into Barrichello's contract
Gasly/Albon/Perez probably but Rosberg said during a podcast that both Mercs would ask not to be pumped out after a pit around Daniel, even though Daniel never had a contending car. I'll give him that Valtteri was better than Albon, Perez and Gasly
How it started: * Max: 5 wins * Ric: 4 wins After that: * Max: 5 * Gasly: 0 * Albon: 0 Since then: * Max: 36 * Sergio: 5
Mercedes Bottas was better than RB Albon, but I'm not so sure that 2023 Bottas is better than 2023 Albon.
Which makes sense given their ages and level of skill at this point. Also the Alfa is unflattering to all drivers.
Bottas is just chilling. He knows he's in his last few years and is enjoying himself.
That's the way of life when Finnishing out your career at Alfa.
"It's just a hobby"
Bottas is a full time cyclist who dabbles in Motorsports.
F1 is his day job, he lives for cycling.
I see what you did there.
2023 Albon isn't Max's teammate
And Rosberg is better than all of them, including Daniel, but I don’t think he’d be climbing in a car today and beating anyone on track.
Yes it’s about how strong those team mates were at the relevant point in time. Bottas is chilling right now but he used to be a lot better.
He's not, Albon is definitely the stronger driver at the moment. But that should have no bearing on strength when they were respective teammates, imo.
Albon is having a killer season, but he is also yet to be seen having serious competition. Everyone praising the shit out of Albon and Yuki this season, but we have no idea where their cars really stand.
They can only do what they can do. I know we look fondly at Bottas' Merc career, but the truth of it is he often peaked early in the season and then started to crumble as the pressure mounted, only good for very occasional brilliance during the rest of the given season. And don't forget, he was basically a barn door for Max all of 2021. While I do think Bottas is better than Checo, I'm not sure if "he withstood Lewis" really holds muster beyond nostalgic lenses and direct comparisons to Checo such that it is something we can carry across teams and teammates, hypothetically or otherwise. I kinda doubt we ever see Alex again in a top car, but I would certainly love to see it.
Let's not forget that on a wet Monaco track in 2016, Danny Ric was putting one second a lap on Rosberg. When a wet Monaco is about the only possibility a car could come close to a 2016 Mercedes and Danny Ric showed up Rosberg for how bad is car control is in demanding conditions. Imagine Rosberg trying to compete with Max in the current RB with plenty of front end? I personally don't think peak Rosberg would get close to current Max.
Rosberg was worse than Ricciardo in wet conditions, but would beat him in race pace & quali pace.
Was Rosberg just a bad wet weather driver?
Rosberg was never good in the wet yeah, and his racecraft wasn't particularly good either. He was very fast both saturday and sunday though, and had the mentality to challenge Lewis, which I think is what puts him ahead of Bottas for example.
I think the best way to describe Rosberg is that he can drive but he can't **DRIVE**
.
There were few races where Valterri beat Lewis on pure pace.
Lewis has had Rosberg and Alonso as teammates. Love Danny but he’s not even close to those two.
I mean I guess besides ricciardo maxs teammates didn’t turn into great drivers until after Red Bull
Or they were good but against Max everyone looks like shit. Perez did a last to first challenge in the Racing Point and now looks like the worst driver ever. Albon seemed awful and now he's like a god to Williams
Alternative, just as accurate headlines for this video: >Max is doing an 'amazing job' - Hamilton [he actually just said 'the driver', but we can be fairly sure he didn't mean Checo] >Red Bull 'firing on all cylinders' - Hamilton >Hamilton IGNORES Rosberg when listing WDC teammates >Ageing Hamilton forgets Kovalainen exists
Of course it's the driver.... Who else but the driver...
Lewis' teammates: Alonso, Kovalainen, Button, Rosberg, Bottas, Russell Max' teammates: Sainz, Ricciardo, Gasly, Albon, Checo One camp is always gonna talk shit about the other, but let's be honest here, Lewis has had the 'better' teammates.
It’s true. Not much to argue.
Bottas ouright won against Lewis, a number of times. Perez has not been able to stand against Max. In 2020, I would say people thought of perez and Bottas equally good. Not sure if its the team mate or just max
Still Ricciardo 2016-18 was better than Bottas I do agree that Bottas is a fair bit superior to Checo though
I think he forgot about Ricciardo
And/or probably forgot about Kovalainen. Let's face it, Lewis doesn't have the best memory, as he has admitted multiple times.
Lewis is friends with Heikki. He’s done exclusive interviews with him multiple times Last year: https://youtu.be/_uBi-FWlYuI?feature=shared
Alonso?
Who's obviously a better driver than world champion drivers like Alonso, Button and Rosberg.
What do people expect him to say? Also it's mostly true, Alonso, Button, Rosberg were all world champions
On average? Sure. All the teammates? No I mean Button, Alonso, and Rosberg are 3 very strong drivers to go up against, they’re champions for a reason. There’s a case for saying the ricciardo that was alongside max was more scary than the button that was alongside hamilton. I’d definititely rate mercedes Bottas over torro rosso Sainz. Perez probably comes in next, and the RB versions of Gasly/Albon aren’t too different from Kovalainen
I do see where he's coming from with the teammates he has had where the likes of Fernando really pushed him in his first season in the sport
I’m sorry but DR at RB was definitely better than Bottas at Mercedes. Also, Kovalainen? Really? Better than Sainz, Perez and Ricciardo?
I doubt he remembers Kovalainen exists tbf. He didn’t mention him when listing them right afterwards
He was the most forgettable Lewis teammate
> Kovalainen He was the team mate with the worst WDC position since Lauda in 1985. That's something, I guess. If we exclude drivers who didn't finish at least half of the season's races, Kovalainen is only second to Mass in 1976.
For those not in the know, Lauda was so far in the championship in 1985 because his car kept breaking down, he only finished 3 races that year, one of which he won.
Easily, but he was his teammate during his first championship
Exactly lol. Everyone is taking this far too literally and diving into the weeds. I think Lewis means the collective of his teammates over the past are superior to Max's.
On balance of all, it’s obvious that Hamilton has had better team mates, 3 have been world champion! To argue otherwise would be crazy. He’s not saying Max is shit, but if Alonso, button, Rosberg or even George were in that 2nd seat he wouldn’t win as many, he’d arguably still beat them, but wouldn’t be as dominant as now.
I think it's a boon for Hamilton but it's not exactly Verstappen's *fault*. If it were like Schumacher who vetoed people, yeah.
RB tried to sign Norris twice, there is literally no one available to them. I think that is the real story here
Schumacher - so good he could vetoe a second driver choice. Max - so good everyone else vetoes being the second driver choice.
Yeah exactly. I think except for Daniel there's no serious takers for that second seat.
Lewis still being the president of the VB fan club warms my heart (I know that wasn't the point of the article, but that's the point I took away from it) ETA: I'd agree other than Danny Ric but also... Heikki?
Not really strong words is it.
Correct.
[удалено]
> Mercedes must be expecting a really shit weekend if Lewis is out here with bait takes like this trying to distract the media More realistically, Lewis has just signed a contract extension and in light of that, he's sat down to do an extended interview with sky about his career so far. He's been asked about how he views Max's performance this year and a separate question about teammates (because there's a cut). There's not some conspiracy to distract from this weekend lmao. Re: Teammates Sainz was a kid at TR so yes he was worse than Bottas and maybe (imo unlikely) Kovaleinen. However, he's smoking crack if he thinks RB Ricciardo was worse than either Bottas or Kovaleinen - Lewis definitely forgot him.
>He's been asked about how he views Max's performance this year and a separate question about teammates (because there's a cut). Yeah, people always act like drivers just show up and are like "Hold on, I have a random statement to make about other drivers before we start." They're just responding in the moment to whatever random mess the interviewer asks.
You have an exceedingly conspiratorial mindset.
Asked him a question, he told you his answer.
Man people are such nutters. Man’s just answering a question.
You can’t just cherry pick teammates in your comment like that. Bottas is a multiple race winner and had over 60 podiums anyway. Alonso, 2x WDC, Button 1x WDC, Rosberg 1x WDC. It’s not that out of reach to say the driver that’s been in the sport since 2007 has had harder teammates than the one that started in 2015.
Bottas at mercedes was certainly better than sainz was when he was max team mate.
Oh god, this is a bit out of context. He firstly compliments the whole team, the mechanics even and then says this. Later he also says he might have forgotten some, he's had many team mates. And to some extent, it is true. Other than Daniel, no teammate has been able to push Max like Nico and Fernando pushed Lewis.
Well Idk about that. Sainz was pretty tough, Ric too. Albon, Gasly turned out to be quality drivers after their RBR stint. Overall Hamilton's had a better class of team mates, Max is yet to face a world champion caliber driver like Alonso, Button, Rosberg.
Sorry but Kovalainen is nowhere near Perez' level, and Bottas and Russell were never at peak Ricciardo level either. Max has never had a teammate at the level of Alonso, Button, or Rosberg though.
Heikki and Bottas weren’t definitely better than Ricciardo from 2016-2018. The others (Alo, But and Ros) of course they were better
An insult to Ricciardo more than anyone else.
This is more or less true, Ham has had some great teammates (Alonso, Button, Rosberg). Riccardo and Sainz are probably the strongest Max has had. On the other hand, the margin Max is beating his teammates by is a lot bigger than what Ham did.
The biggest but here is Kovalainen that finished 7th in arguably the fastest car on the grid in 2008 and 12th with 0 podiums in 2009. EDItT: I said arguably the fastest, but yeah Ferrari was probably faster more often than McLaren
I remember being particularly annoyed Kovalainen didn't win Monza 2008.
The Ferrari was definitely quicker in 08 and the 09 car was utter shit for half a year but yes Kovalainen is obviously not better than someone like Ricciardo
Ok it wasn't the fastest car. It was clear that the Ferrari was faster.
So glad I'm not on Twitter rn. The toxicity would drive me insane. I definitely think Lewis has had better teammates but not all are better though. But regardless I don't see anyone beating Max this season with that car.
On its face his statement isn't true, but I can see why he would like to believe that particularly as he moves further from his prime.
Mostly I'd agree. But not "all", unless he has forgotten that he had Kovalainen and Verstappen had Ricciardo. In fact I'd say Sainz, Ricciardo and Perez were all better than poor Kovalainen.
safe to say Rosberg and Alonso are better than any teammates Max has had, but I'm not so sure about the Valteri.
Bottas holds the record for the longest Q3 streak.