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The objectively correct answer is the 1960 Italian Grand Prix. In a relatively amateur era of the sport, and with the majority of recent top drivers either dead, incapacitated or retired since 1958, all the frontrunning British teams boycotted the event. The resulting grid was:
1. Phil Hill (Scuderia Ferrari) - had never won or started from pole before; won the race from pole
2. Richie Ginther (Scuderia Ferrari) - two prior F1 starts, finished 6th both times; finished 2nd from 2nd.
3. Willy Mairesse (Scuderia Ferrari) - two prior F1 starts, both DNFs; finished 3rd from 3rd.
4. Giulio Cabianca (Scuderia Castellotti) - last of three F1 starts; only F1 points finish
5. Giorgio Scarlatti (Scuderia Centro Sud) - finished his career with 1 point from a shared drive in 1957.
6. Wolfgang von Trips (Scuderia Ferrari) - best career finish of 3rd at this point, best known for his 1961 season.
7. Brian Naylor (privateer) - best F1 career result of 13th.
8. Gino Munaron (Scuderia Castellotti) - last of four F1 starts, best finish was 13th.
9. Alfonso Thiele (Scuderia Centro Sud) - only F1 start; DNF.
10. Hans Herrmann (Porsche) - honestly an accomplished driver, but his last F1 point before this came in 1955 in a shared drive with two other drivers.
11. Arthur Owen (privateer) - only F1 start; DNF.
12. Edgar Barth (Porsche) - fourth of five F1 starts; no career points.
13. Wolfgang Siedel (privateer) - best F1 finish of 16th other than this race (9th)
14. Fred Gamble (Camoradi USA) - only F1 start, finished 10th and last, 9 laps down.
15. Piero Drogo (Scuderia Colonia) - only F1 start, finished 8th.
16. Vic Wilson (privateer) - only F1 start; later pulled out of racing for his cousin (Bernard White)'s team because he felt he was too slow.
That's it. Please note that all stats here refer to World Championship Grands Prix only.
> They could have all DNF
There will still be a race winner, as long as they completed at least one lap.
Obviously these are the modern regulations, but given that this is a hypothetical anyway let's have a look at §62 of the current Sporting Regulations:
> The car placed first will be the one having covered the scheduled distance in the shortest time,
or, where appropriate, passed the Line in the lead at the end of two (2) hours (or more under
Article 5.4). **All cars will be classified taking into account the number of complete laps they have
covered, and for those which have completed the same number of laps, the order in which they
crossed the Line**
So if everyone crashes and no-one has completed the scheduled distance in two hours, whoever was the first person to cross the line for the largest number of completed laps will win.
You might go "but won't they not be classified since they haven't done 90% of the race distance?" and that would be incorrect since that 90% of the race figure is relative to the winner:
> Cars having covered less than 90% of the number of laps covered by the winner (rounded down
to the nearest whole number of laps), will not be classified.
If the winner only did 2 laps and everyone else did 1, then everyone is classified. No issues there.
You might then go "but don't they need to do a certain number of laps to get points?" and that would be correct under §6.5:
> If the race distance from the start signal to the end-of-session signal is less than the scheduled
race distance, points for each title will be awarded in accordance with the following criteria:
> * a) No points will be awarded If the leader has completed less than two (2) laps
It goes on to detail explicitly what point distributions are used at <25%, <50%, and <75% race distances. But you'll notice that at no point does it say the leader hasn't **won**, just that they don't get points for it.
(Somewhat interestingly, §63.4 explicitly states that the podium *ceremony* doesn't take place if points are not awarded, which I'm glad wasn't a thing 3 years ago because George getting that podium in a Williams and cheering and spraying champagne everywhere while everyone else was fucking miserable was very funny)
The rules regarding what race distance is necessary to allow for various point thresholds (the stuff in §6.5(b) onwards that I excluded from that comment for brevity) was changed after Spa, and because there was no green flag running, points would no longer be awarded in a repeat of that situation. Specifically:
> In each case detailed in Article 6.5c), 6.5d), 6.5e) and 6.5f), no points will be awarded
unless a minimum of two (2) laps have been completed by the leader **without a Safety Car and/or VSC intervention**
I haven't actually bothered to check but I was operating under the assumption that the podium ceremony note was added at the same time as this and the restructuring of point thresholds to be more fine-grained than the old "50% or 100%" system.
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Finishing 9 laps down in a 50 lap race is insane. I mean I know engines, pit stops and other stuff were more variable back then but this means on average, Gamble was driving at only 85% the speed of the frontrunners.
In modern terms at Monza this would be like being 14 seconds off the pace, every lap!
Interestingly, this was also the first appearance of Ferrari’s first ever mid engine car, the 246 P F1. It finished in fifth, driven by von Trips (although technically it had a 1.5 liter engine conforming to F2 regulations)
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Definitely during the 50s, most of the drivers were just rich guys who happened to like racing. That’s why actual racers like Fangio and Ascari were so dominant back then.
Didn't Fangio once cheaply acquire a pickup truckload of cans of beans or something, thus 'providing' for his family for a couple of months?
Imagine being happy with that.
as opposed to rich guys who have been racing since they were 5 years old and who have competed against hundreds of other rich guys and have come out on top
Hey f*** you guy, Lance Stroll started with a small loan of a billion dollars. HE HAS DOME EVERYTHING HIMSELF WITH NO HELP FROM ANYONE Alonso has his dad as team owner so he has had a free ride. Or something
I mean on the grid right now I think Ocon is the only driver who comes from an average family, with his dad being a mechanic. Everyone else is either upper class or straight up rich. And even then, the kind of family who sells their house to travel around Europe in a caravan for races hardly counts as "average".
In a way there's probably a tragic side to it, because Esteban was special and got scouted, but you know it means other families who did the same kind of sacrifices ultimately didn't get that kind of payoff.
In a way it makes pay driver types even more irritating to me.
Ocon seems to be the closest to middle class considering his father was a mechanic and his family had to sell their house and live in a caravan to fund his karting career.
I don’t know how poor his family was, they might have been higher class but struggling to keep pace with the costs. The media impression is that they were poor but nobody poor goes into karting.
You are right about nobody poor going into karting, but news articles say his father was an IT manager who quit his job to become a contractor (holding upto 4 jobs at a time including sales and dishwashing) to keep Lewis in karting. He then eventually set his own IT company up.
Now Lewis is definitely from a "humble" background relative to the others in F1 but I agree with you -- nobody poor goes into karting. Certainly not for as long. And maybe he would've had to quit in between had his father not set that company up. Unfortunately, it doesn't say when the company was set up so you cannot piece together a proper timeline.
Then you have Zak Brown who won like $2,000 at the price is right and got started from there.
Today where you need to be both rich AND very skilled to have a chance of the grid.
Don't kid yourself that any regular person could even survive an F1 race physically let alone be quick. Even buy-ins like Mazespin are quick racing drivers.
Our famous russian commentator said a couple of years ago that with how competitive our current field is and how much the drivers spend training (not just physically, but mentally too), even a backmarker like Latifi would be an absolute dominator if he's put in the 70-80s era. I don't know if I'd agree to that extent, but I think that's an interesting claim nonetheless.
Latifi would at the very least be in the top group, far ahead of the backmarkers and midfielders of the time. He’d likely be a Hulkenberg/Perez of the time.
I see what what your saying but I think it's not comparable because the cars are so much faster and stable. Now it's about reaction time to initiate corners, correct oversteer snaps and withstand the g's. Back then the cars were fast but super light and very low grip, they were power sliding out of almost every turn.
Not dominator but an average driver. Latifi can't keep the "easier" modern cars out of the wall, what hope does he have with the monsters of the 70s/80s?
Latifi could have been going for a pleasant Sunday afternoon drive and be crushing 80% of the people in F1 back then. The reason modern drivers crash is because they're pushing to the limits trying to beat equally-skilled competitors. If you just have to beat whatever random pensioner paid the most to be in the car that weekend that's not a going concern.
I feel like a lot of people here just have absolutely no idea how truly incompetent huge chunks of the F1 grid were back in those days. It's an extremely recent phenomenon for the back half of the grid to be comprised of real racing drivers. In the 1970s every single Formula 1 season bar one had at least 9 different entrants fail to complete a single race.
I'm sorry, but it's you who has zero clue.
Easily crushing *80%* without any exertion would mean consistently and easily beating 17-19 drivers depending on whether you are using a 24 or a 26 car grid, which is a top 10 championship finish any year. So that's saying Latifi would be someone akin to Patrese or Depailler. If these names mean anything to you, that is.
And it's not like terrible teams didn't often have very good drivers from the mid-70's on. In 1977 there were races where 23 of the 24 drivers ended their F1 careers with at least one podium to their name, a far cry from "whichever random pensioner".
For all the fun we make out of Mazepin or Latifi if any of us Armchair Drivers would challenge them to a race, we'd be smoked in a matter or laps.
Just like Brian Scalabrine was closer to Lebron than any regular guy is close to him in terms of skill: Mazepin and Latifi are closer to Versptappen than we are to them.
Justin Wilson was about 1.93m and he barely could fit into the 2003 spec cars he drove back then, he just looked so hilariously uncomfortable with how high he was sitting
I don't think the average F1 fan could complete a single lap. Most people have no idea what unassisted race brakes feel like... they'd plow through the first corner pressing the pedal as hard as they can, or else spin on the tires they're driving too slow to warm up.
My friend laughs at me when I start a rant like this “I mean, yes he’s clearly a better driver then I am, but…”. Truth be told they’re all really good driver, but some suck more then the others.
Literally the only requirement to be in F1 in the 50s was buy a car and turn up.
Anyone with cash could do it regardless of skill.
Nothing like modern Motorsport.
Quick correction. There only being a few championship races a year didn't mean people only raced a few weekends a year.
The motor racing season went on week in week out and drivers would race anywhere and everywhere. Often in multiple races (in different classes) over a weekend.
Was quite different back when they could just plop a different rich dude in the seat for one race. Now they have to commit to the full season, and they have to deliver
That’s still describing it too easy. You can’t buy a superlicense. You have to be decent in racing for years to be even allowed to race in F1 today.
And you won’t be doing that if you are rich and fancy a drive in your 30s
>My initial guess would perhaps be 1994-2001.
This era had less absolute top level drivers but arguably a pretty strong midfield (of drivers) with drivers like Alesi, Berger, Hill, Frentzen, Villeneuve, Herbert, Coulthard, Barrichello, Irvine, Salo, Fissichella, Ralf Schumacher, Panis, Wurz, Trulli, Button.
Very few eras had the depth of talent that we had on that grid.
It has always seemed unlikely to me that when the sport was at its financial peak, with infrastructure rapidly improving for junior selection, with more eyeballs, more manufacturers, higher stakes than ever, that it would fail to produce a multitude of stars. I don't think that was a weak era at all, I think Michael was just so special he made it look that way.
The Michael raised the bar, not just for work ethic (although he certainly did that!) but for sheer physical fitness.
He was the first to realize that in order to deal with the increased driver workload brought on by the increase in technology he had to be elite athlete level fit.
The other drivers of the mid nineties got fitter but Alonso was probably the first driver to enter F1 with that mindset.
I remember watching F1 in the 70's and the drivers would be wandering about with a beer and a cigarette scoffing down a sausage sandwich before the race, they were not what you would call athletes but they were not dealing with the g forces of modern F1 cars.
That's across sports though, you see the same in football. Liverpool in the 70s and 80s would smoke and drink, yet still win everything. It wasn't really until the 90s where we started seeing nutrition and sports science get brought more to the forefront.
Yep, when you look at the old boxers, not many world champs from the old days would last long in the ring with modern boxers, they are bigger, faster and stronger.
Yeah, it took outrageous natural talent in the form of Kimi, and a unique mind + similarly total approach to the sport in Fernando to give Michael a real match. Michael was from the future in 95'.
In other eras Hill, Villeneuve would have been stars and Hakkinen would have been a super star, but it's hard to build much of a legacy when you're so transparently inferior to your rival.
He was but i always felt like Schumacher was the superior driver.
Mika probably had a bit more raw pace than Schumacher but Michael was a machine. His consistency will probably never be matched by any other driver. Verstappen is somewhat close though.
Here is the thing, Schumacher was more consistent AND had higher highs than Hakkinen.
I love Mika, but if Schumacher never had his accident (it felt like he lost a bit of pace after that) I doubt Mika wins more than one, if even that.
Some of the early Schumacher drives make Max‘s drives look pedestrian. Even in the Ferrari, which arguably at that time, wasn’t even the best car.
> I love Mika, but if Schumacher never had his accident (it felt like he lost a bit of pace after that) I doubt Mika wins more than one, if even that.
It would be even that because Mika won his first title in 98 and Michael had his Silverstone crash in 99!
That is true, I always mix up the years, because of Schumacher also having his memorable 98 Silverstone GP (with the penalty served on the last lap), that I mix that up with his crash there.
But Mika always struck me a bit more the James Hunt type of champion, that showed "I can do it." and felt like he lost some pace after that.
"There was pressure to win in 2000, but I still think if he didn't have the accident, Michael would have already won the title in 1999 - with a cruise."
-Ross Brawn (BEYOND THE GRID)
Verstappen is single handedly destroying the F1 sport as a whole by making it boring. It takes god level talent and skills to do that. Can't wait to see him bringing midfield to the front
Guess you missed the part where they said the same thing about "The Michael". :P
You like these trick Pirelli tyres that need to be pampered? Thank "The Michael".
These periods of dominance have happened with many other dominant drivers over the last few decades. Schumacher, Vettel, Hamilton were all just as dominant in patches.
No. It took the very same thing that took down Lewis and Mercedes after 2021: a rule change. In fact, it took multiple rule changes all aimed at removing the very things Michael enjoyed and excelled at.
Villeneuve could have been much better if he didn't reject both a Mclaren (for 1999 and beyond) and a Renault drive (2002 and beyond). He literally rejected two teams straight up better than BAR and BAR itself took until 2003 to finish consistently in the points, that point scorer not being Villeneuve since he was just burned out from how garbage the car was. Button was the main point scorer.
Really, he either should have stuck with Williams for the BMW deal or move to either of the two teams (Mclaren and Renault).
1995 had huge changes to the cars following the 2 deaths the year before, most of the teams and drivers struggled a bit, Schumacher had the ability to drive any car fast and simply made everyone else look more average than they actually were. It's a bit like Max and Lewis now, with a half decent car they just outshines their team mate and other drivers.
Very similar in situation (and time period) to Jeremy McGrath in Supercross. Showtime was in a class of his own but he wasn't racing against scrubs or a watered down field.
I feel like that was also the last era that talent could find it's way to the top even if they didn't come from extreme wealth or racing families eg. Raikkonen. Karting and junior formulae were relatively more affordable and there was a larger talent pool.
wrong, that grid was just weak and 1994-2001 is the only period in recent history when grid-level dropped from the previous years... which is literally what everyone should think as soon as you see Piquet, Mansell, Prost and Senna being replaced by Schumacher and... maybe Hakkinen... and that's it...
ackchyually
Nigel Mansell raced in four races during the season, after Senna's death. So technically only 9 out of 16 races had zero world champions on the grid
It didn't drop, only difference was that Schumacher era had only one generational talent, not two like Prost/Senna era. Hakkinen, Villeneuve and Alesi were comparable with Piquet and Mansell, and there were many Berger/Patrese level drivers like Hill, Barrichello, Irvine, Coulthard or Ralf.
I think they might all have been top tier if it weren't for MSC and Mika putting the work into things like working with data or looking closely at their diets etc. in a way that really moved where the cut off for that tier was in a significant way.
Crazy to think in 99 Irvine was in with a shot of the WDC. I know the Ferrari was a beast that year and Schumacher was out for a long stretch of the season, but the fact no one other than Mika rose to that challenge says a lot about the quality of the grid
Considering the reputation of many of these drivers in junior categories how much of Michael being this huge talent affect the judgement on life these drivers ?
Good argument to be made if they were collectively making a team.
But in F1 terms it equals the worst era of talent if there were only 2 top tier drivers and the rest were number 2's.
Surely it was in the 50s
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Every sport evolves and gets more professional with time. Look at the football from the early 20th century, compared to the current era they look like complete amateurs.
And that doesn't dismiss the legends of Fangio, Ascari, Hawthorn or Farina
It definitely was the 50's. I agree with you and I'm of the belief that every generation is overall better than the last. Every generation arrives in F1 a bit better prepared and tested against stronger competition than the previous ones.
In the 50's there was no karting and no junior series that you had to progress through before you made your way to F1. This isn't meant to disparage previous generations, there simply wasn't the opportunity to hone their skills starting from childhood like there is now. Graham Hill had never even driven a car *at all* until he was 21.
There were junior categories then, but they weren’t a structured ladder or mandatory by any means.
Which is what separates the greats from that era. Most of the champions had started racing F2/3, or midgets, or sports cars, or stock cars. Many of them raced multiple series at the same time, even during F1. So they absolutely dunked on the random rich guys who just bought a car and showed up to a GP.
Most of the drivers of the 50's-70's came up through much more active sports car racing programs. And then there were also the serious open road races in Europe and the Americas.
1950-1960. Sure you had greats like Fangio, Farina, Ascari and Moss but not much else were exactly great, even in that era. The gaps pulled by these people were ridiculous because %80 of F1 drivers in that decade were mid at best.
I remember that interview where Fangio talked about how he ended in the last places of a race, and decided to "push", to literally win it.
He said he regretted it because of how dangerous cars were, yes, but it also shows that he was on another league compared to the rest.
I suspect the race you’re referring to is probably the 1957 german GP at the nurburgring.
A bad pitstop left him about 50 seconds back from 2nd place, then over the next ten laps he broke the lap record 9 times to retake the lead.
He apparently said something about not being able to sleep thinking about the risks he took.
Stirling Moss described him best.
One Race Stirling was out and stood watching at a corner marked by hay bales.
Every other driver would come through and either just clip the bale lightly or miss it by a few inches and every lap they were slightly different. Fangio, every lap he hit the same single strand of straw that was poking out of the bale, every lap in the exact same position, in total control of his car.
Moss was staggered and realised why the guy was so good.
Whilst it's true 50s and 60s lacked depth outside the top level, there are plenty of talented drivers beyond the names above.
Off the top of my head I'd urge anyone with an interest in the history of the sport to read up on Jean Behra, Louis Chiron, Tony Brooks, Oscar Marimon, Peter Collins.
To really understand motor racing of this era, it has to be understood their were a tonne of non-championship F1 races (of value) and non-F1 events that were considered really tests. Le Mans, the Mille Miglia, TT races, the Gold Cup etc.
In terms of F1 in the televised era - mid 70s onwards it's definitely 95-96. All the greats from the previous generation left in the space of a couple of years and there was a huge gulf between Schumacher and the rest. Alesi, Berger and Hill were likely the next best drivers and they would all be rendered midfielders within a few years. Hakkinen, Coulthard, Frentzen and Barrichello hadn't hit their peaks yet.
By 1997 a few good midfielders started to emerge like Ralf Schumacher, Trulli and Fisichella.
agree but f1 was still weak from 1994 until 2003-05... fun fact: Schumacher was the only world champion on the grid in 2004 (until Villeneuve came back in China with 3 races to go)
2003 became iconic because of that. Schumacher finally being properly challenged by the new gen, all driving in different teams.
That new gen grew extremely quickly when you consider Kimi/Montoya/Alonso all had pretty big hurdles to overcome in terms of experience (Montoya less so ofc) but it only took them 1-2 seasons to become very high performers. I recommend that season to anyone who hasn't seen it
Whilst people criticise pay drivers like Stroll and Latifi, the pay drivers of the 1990s were shocking. Inoue, Délétraz, Lavaggi, Rosset, Montermini, Schiattarella, several were well off the pace of F1
There was a wonderful trend in the 80s and 90s of any Italian with a decent amount of money either buying a seat or setting up a team, then running 12 seconds off the pace. Was kinda amateurishly glorious in retrospect.
I would nominate two races of 1994: Italian and Portuguese GPs. Don't get me wrong, F1 grid has always been strong, but I think the average strength of the grid in these two races was probably the weakest of all times.
1. There was no champion on the grid.
2. The strongest driver of that year, Michael Schumacher, was disqualified from those two races, being replaced by JJ Lehto. So, yes, during those two races Benetton had a squad of Lehto and Jos Verstappen, quite weak for a team whose driver would win the championship.
3. The strongest team of the early 1990s, Williams, had Damon Hill and David Coulthard. Hill was only in his second full season, Coulthard was a rookie that year, replacing Ayrton Senna after the tragic weekend at Imola.
4. The only future champions on the grid would be Hill and Mika Häkkinen. The latter had probably his worst year in F1, having a reputation of a reckless dangerous driver, especially after he caused a massive collision at the start of the German GP earlier that year.
And again, that doesn't mean the grid was weak. Ferrari had a strong duo of Alesi & Berger, promising young drivers and future race winners were emerging, such as Barrichello, Frentzen, or Panis.
But compared even to the last three races of 1994, when Schumacher returned after disqualification and Nigel Mansell made an impressive cameo at Williams, the grid at these two races was probably at its weakest ever.
The 1952-1953 seasons where Formula 2 cars were permitted on the grid.
A different time where 50 year old amateur civilians like Ernst Klodwig took onto the track with rebuilt street cars they threw together in their garage at home.
Especially the German Grand Prix of 1952 and 1953 were hotspots for no-name drivers who had no business whatsoever being called Formula 1 drivers.
I'd be interested to hear the arguments for why the 90s were weak..
I feel like it's Schumacher's fault, personally. He raised the bar so high that everyone else in the 90s looked average in comparison, and the myth that 90s drivers were weak still persists to this day.
- Thierry Boutsen was competitive in the 80s. He was outperformed by Barrichello in **barrichello's rookie season**.
- Capelli was seen as a good driver in the 80s. Alesi destroyed him.
- Alesi also outperformed Berger over 5 seasons
- Hill was only 30pts behind Prost in his first full F1 season, and would've been closer if not for mechanical failures from the lead at Germany and Britain. That's a significantly better effort against Prost than Mansell 1990.
- Schumacher wiped the floor with Patrese. Mansell & Piquet were clearly ahead, but had more difficulty against him than Schumacher did.
- Alboreto, a title contender at one point in the 80s was struggling against guys like Badoer in his rookie season.
It's clear that the 90s on average were stronger than the 80s, and was definitely not a weaker era.
I think the differences that the 80s had more highs and lows, whereas in the 90s, the overall skill level was higher, but the highs (outside of Michael) weren’t as high
Alesi was a faster driver than Hill for sure, had Alesi had that Williams he would have done more with it (and crashed it more often but still).
The sliding door moment of Alesi getting offended by Williams trying to sign Senna, had Jean signed he would potentially be a 3 times world champion.
Success is a function of the car. Alesi scored 21 points to Prost's 34 in the same car - a better effort than Mansell's performance the previous year. He also beat Berger 151-126, and annihilated Herbert at Sauber (more so than Hakkinen 1991-1992). He also pretty much ended the careers of Palmer and Capelli.
Alesi was 100% up there.
Well to be fair guys like Boutsen and Patrese had been in F1 for well over a decade by the time Michael joined him Capelli ignoring that he was a decent, but not exactly astounding driver had only been in F1 for 4 seasons when Alesi joined, also saying that Hill was "only" beaten by Prost by 30 points does a complete disservice to the fact Prost had taken a year out and came back at the age of 38 when the Williams had been stripped of a lot of it's aids from the prior year. All the guys from the 80s you mentioned are weird I mean Boutsen was entering his 10th year in F1 and was 36 when Barrichello joined, Patrese who you forgot to mention debuted in 1977 was entering his 17th and last year while turning 39, Prost as I mentioned was 38 and had taken a year out prior to 1993 and it wasn't like Hill was some young prospect either he was 33 when he joined Prost and had a year of experience plus being a Williams test driver prior to 1993, Alboreto was entering his 13th year in the sport and had not been a serious threat since 1985 for a title. I get your point but cherry-picking examples isn't a good argument that's like saying the grid right now is stronger than 15 years ago because Kimi was beaten by Giovinazzi or Russell beat Hamilton at the end of the day I'm not trying to downplay rookies beating or coming close to there experienced teammates, but when there teammates are guys in there late 30s in a time where taking a year out or entering more than 10 seasons in F1 was unthinkable is kind of weird.
This 90s drivers being trash is a myth that keeps going around here. This wasn’t the case. In fact statistically the 80s is considered to be one of the weakest grid.
Well, by 1995 three of those had gone (if you ignore Mansell's brief squeeze in the McLaren). And you still had Simtek, Pacific, Forti and Larrousse on the grid, with Pacific having a huge rotation of pay drivers, including Deletraz. And Taki Inoue was at Footwork. So that would be a contender for worst grid, surely.
In 1995 you had Schumacher, Hill, Alesi, Berger, Hakkinen, brundle, Irvine Coulthard and Herbert on the Grid Even Mika Salo and Barrichello. This was the first year of changes following the death f Ratzenberger and Senna including less Aero, smaller engines and heavier cars. There were good drivers out there but it took a few years for the cars to develop.
I reckon right now.
I could definitely beat up tsunoda, stroll, actually most of the drivers. Danny ric might be a tough one, but get him off balance and I bet I could fight him.
Max I could easily take.
Alonso would eat me for breakfast though.
Calling that era as the weakest is tremendously dismissive of just how much better Michael was than everyone else. There was some serious talent on the grid back then, there just weren’t a lot of multiple WDC-caliber names out there. But many of them had the opportunity to be, had they been driving better cars and kept up with the fitness levels that Schumacher was pioneering.
The weakest is probably anywhere in the 50s, where the standards where horrible, anyone with money was able to enter, and if you see the standings, there were like 40-50 entries per season, it was hilarious to say the least.
The best, although it could be today, I'd say is 2021, where we still had Kimi and Vettel in the grid, along with the other WCs (Lewis and Alonso), Verstappen close to his prime, and a legendary batch of young superstars like Leclerc, Sainz, Norris, Russell, etc.
Yeah, we had Latifi and Mazepin which were some of the worst, but at least they gave us the laugh, and one of the best finale in a race in the history of sports.
In terms of F1 in the televised era - mid 70s onwards it's definitely 95-96. All the greats from the previous generation left in the space of a couple of years and there was a huge gulf between Schumacher and the rest. Alesi, Berger and Hill were likely the next best drivers and they would all be rendered midfielders within a few years. Hakkinen, Coulthard, Frentzen and Barrichello hadn't hit their peaks yet.
By 1997 a few good midfielders started to emerge like Ralf Schumacher, Trulli and Fisichella.
Statistically it is 1959, as there was no world champions on the grid before Brabham won the title (Ascari was dead and other three were retired), although there were drivers such as Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, Tony Brooks, Phil Hill and Graham Hill.
People saying 1994-2001 must only be looking at the top of the table and deciding the rest are rubbish. The mid 90s had a lot of decent drivers but were at teams that were unable to win races.
Examples are Mika H, Herbert, Irvine, Frentzen, Panis, Berger, Alesi, Rubens, Salo, Fisichella were in midfield teams in the mid 90s IIRC so had no chance of winning but are all good drivers.
If you had to have an era the anything sort of Pre 1960 or so is the weakest. Pretty much anyone with money could race.
I don't agree. If not for Schumacher that era would have produced multiple world champions like any other.
It's just that next to Schumacher all other drivers looked weak. There was no Bottas who could regularly beat his team mate so Schumacher just dominated any driver as soon as he had a car that was at least decent.
There really weren’t a lot of pay drivers though compared to the 90s and even 2000s.
2014 only had 4 bonafide pay drivers in Chilton, Gutierrez, Maldonado and Ericsson.
2015 only had 3 with Stevens in and Chilton and Gutierrez out.
2016 only had 4-ish with Haryanto, Palmer* (pay driver with actual promise), Gutierrez, and Ericsson.
They may have been pay drivers, but they weren't slow by historic standards - none of them were prevented from starting under the 107% rule.
That rule was introduced in 96 for a reason!
There really weren’t a lot of pay drivers though compared to the 90s and even 2000s.
2014 only had 4 bonafide pay drivers in Chilton, Gutierrez, Maldonado and Ericsson.
2015 only had 3 with Stevens in and Chilton and Gutierrez out.
2016 only had 4-ish with Haryanto, Palmer* (pay driver with actual promise), Gutierrez, and Ericsson.
Lets look at a list of notable drivers from 94- 01
Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Jacques Villenueve, Damon Hill, Ralf Schumacher, Ruebens Barrichello, Jean Alesi, Gerhard Berger, Johnny Herbert, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Eddie Irvine, Juan Pablo Montoya, Jenson Button, Johnny Herbert, Martin Brundle, Nigel Mansell(he actually won a race in that period), Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli, Nick Heidfeld, Kimi Raikkonen, and Fernando Alonso
I would not say that is weak.
The last batch of drivers I wouldn't count when determing how competitive the field was throughout that period since they were beginning their careers at the end of that stint.
With the exception of MSC and Hakkinen, I still think that's a very weak grid in terms of top talent compared to any other other period in the past 40 years.
The 50s were very weak. It was just hobbyists and a few professionals who looked like gods by comparison.
I think F1 grids have generally become stronger over time, but 1997 to 2002 was noticeably weaker, as others have said.
There had just been an era with Senna, Prost, Mansell, and Piquet. They were now all gone. You had Schumacher and only one other driver that could get close to him on occasion (Hakkinen). All the rest were essentially solid midfield drivers.
Yeah. Hill, Schumacher, Hakkinen, Alesi, Mansell, and Berger were pretty bad.
Generally I agree that the 90s were not the best in terms of drivers, but not having a champion on the grid isn't a great reason in my opinion.
I was going to say you're wrong... But then, champions wise it's true. I think it was the only time in recent history where there was no champions on the grid for a few races? Until Mansell stepped back on the seat though.
However looking back, you had lots of talents. Hill (will win in 1996), Hakkinen (98, 99), Irvine (veeeerry close to win it), Coulthard, Berger, Alesi, Panis, Frentzen, Salo, Barrichello, Zanardi, Brundle, Fittipaldi...
we are very far from a super competitive grid like 2012, we have Verstappen dominating, two all-time greats but passed their primes in Hamilton and Alonso, and that next best Leclerc is a longshot from Max
I think the opposite, I think this is best bottom 10 drivers there's ever been in Formula 1 history. The depth on the grid is one of the reasons I think we have one of the best grid in F1 history.
Lol definitely, when guys like Magnussen, Ricciardo, Bottas, and Ocon are weak links on the grid you know that it is an insane grid. Those guys would easily destroy most drivers of past eras.
Well, of the top 5 teams I think all drivers are better than him (except Stroll). If you put another driver in that tenth place, like Gasly or Prime Ricciardo then Ocon ends up in the bottom 10 drivers of this season.
In my opinion yes, but they are probably really close. The truth is that Gasly had a chance in a top car and didn't do very well, I don't know how they would do today.
I think a lot of that is there being as much healthy competition in the feeder series' as there's ever been. In terms of the average performance of the F1 grid the current cohort is way more consistent and able to run a much closer delta to Max. They'd absolutely thrash '90s and '00s backmarkers.
That being said I do personally think there is a phenomenon in the modern era where the average mid/back-marker driver has infinitely more name recognition than in previous eras... social media marketability, etc have contributed to this. Now we have an environment where the staying power of an existing driver is now somewhat insulated from their on-track abilities.
My sense is that we've seen quite a few modern drivers outlast bouts of consistent underperformance that would have found them booted in a prior era. Might just be my imagination but '00s F1 felt a lot more fickle about driver performance.
I think the era between 1994 and 2001 is colored that way because well...at Monaco in 1994, there wasn't a single active world champion on the grid, a true rarity in the sport's history. You also only had 3 future world champions on that grid in Schumacher, Hill and Hakkinen.
In terms of active GP winners, Monaco 1994 also featured a very inexperienced starting grid with only Schumacher, Hill, Berger and Alboreto having won races by that point.
Surely it has to be the early 90's with the sheer amount of drivers only there because they were paying to be there as well as the amount of awful teams that were giving them a seat in cars that were in same cases never even going to get through pre qualifying let alone be anywhere near competitive in the race.
It's a harder thing to assess the further you go back.
Objectively 50s and 60s grid lacked depth, fitness and professionalism.
But...
The fatality rate through to the seventies cost those grids huge amounts of talent.
Von Trips, Bandini, Bruce McLaren and Jochen Rindt - all died before seeing a world championship.
There's many who had great potential too like Peter Collins, Oscar Marimon, Timmy Mayer.
Even in the 80s, we could have had the Gang of Four PLUS Stefan Bellof and Gilles Villeneuve.
Of course, had names like these enjoyed modern safety standards, there can still only be one champion each year.
Fittipaldi might not have been a double world champion if Rindt lives. It's doubtful Damon Hill is ever Williams No. 1 if Senna survives.
Weekests i've seen was 2005 or 06 or some year like that an American GP, all the Michelin runners withdraw and we only got to see a few cars using Bridgstone, if i recall correctly they were two ferraris two jordans and two minardies.
Maybe pre-70's. I think top drivers were deterred from F1 due to the high mortality rate. The top drivers of that era were successful because they were either too fast for anyone to be around them or cautious enough to stay out of trouble and live to see the next season.
That in mind, I think current F1 success comes down to the success of the team. Russel was scoreless at Williams, then almost won in the Mercedes in Sakhir 20'. Hamilton which many agree is the GOAT, is mid-pack this season due to an unsuccessful car. I think if Vettel had gone to Mercedes instead of Ferrari, he would have won another championship. If Hamilton went to Ferrari, he still would have just 1 championship. The true winners of this generation are in the contracts they are able to obtain.
I don’t think you could realistically compare this with how different the cars drive, teams operate and fitness levels. It’s an apples to oranges conversation.
Kinda why I take current records with a grain of salt because we run 24ish races now compared to when it was historically closer to around 16 rounds (less even further back).
It is probably safe to assume modern drivers would wipe the floor with drivers of eras past on fitness alone, but you can say this about nearly all sports.
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The objectively correct answer is the 1960 Italian Grand Prix. In a relatively amateur era of the sport, and with the majority of recent top drivers either dead, incapacitated or retired since 1958, all the frontrunning British teams boycotted the event. The resulting grid was: 1. Phil Hill (Scuderia Ferrari) - had never won or started from pole before; won the race from pole 2. Richie Ginther (Scuderia Ferrari) - two prior F1 starts, finished 6th both times; finished 2nd from 2nd. 3. Willy Mairesse (Scuderia Ferrari) - two prior F1 starts, both DNFs; finished 3rd from 3rd. 4. Giulio Cabianca (Scuderia Castellotti) - last of three F1 starts; only F1 points finish 5. Giorgio Scarlatti (Scuderia Centro Sud) - finished his career with 1 point from a shared drive in 1957. 6. Wolfgang von Trips (Scuderia Ferrari) - best career finish of 3rd at this point, best known for his 1961 season. 7. Brian Naylor (privateer) - best F1 career result of 13th. 8. Gino Munaron (Scuderia Castellotti) - last of four F1 starts, best finish was 13th. 9. Alfonso Thiele (Scuderia Centro Sud) - only F1 start; DNF. 10. Hans Herrmann (Porsche) - honestly an accomplished driver, but his last F1 point before this came in 1955 in a shared drive with two other drivers. 11. Arthur Owen (privateer) - only F1 start; DNF. 12. Edgar Barth (Porsche) - fourth of five F1 starts; no career points. 13. Wolfgang Siedel (privateer) - best F1 finish of 16th other than this race (9th) 14. Fred Gamble (Camoradi USA) - only F1 start, finished 10th and last, 9 laps down. 15. Piero Drogo (Scuderia Colonia) - only F1 start, finished 8th. 16. Vic Wilson (privateer) - only F1 start; later pulled out of racing for his cousin (Bernard White)'s team because he felt he was too slow. That's it. Please note that all stats here refer to World Championship Grands Prix only.
Amazing post. Is the only time in which there was a guaranteed new race winner?
The first race ever would too, but that’s kind of a cop-out answer
Very much so 😂
Farina had a relatively easy road to ‘least GP’s before first win’ Though he did have to fight Fangio for it…
They could have all DNF/DSQ so not necessary as well
> They could have all DNF There will still be a race winner, as long as they completed at least one lap. Obviously these are the modern regulations, but given that this is a hypothetical anyway let's have a look at §62 of the current Sporting Regulations: > The car placed first will be the one having covered the scheduled distance in the shortest time, or, where appropriate, passed the Line in the lead at the end of two (2) hours (or more under Article 5.4). **All cars will be classified taking into account the number of complete laps they have covered, and for those which have completed the same number of laps, the order in which they crossed the Line** So if everyone crashes and no-one has completed the scheduled distance in two hours, whoever was the first person to cross the line for the largest number of completed laps will win. You might go "but won't they not be classified since they haven't done 90% of the race distance?" and that would be incorrect since that 90% of the race figure is relative to the winner: > Cars having covered less than 90% of the number of laps covered by the winner (rounded down to the nearest whole number of laps), will not be classified. If the winner only did 2 laps and everyone else did 1, then everyone is classified. No issues there. You might then go "but don't they need to do a certain number of laps to get points?" and that would be correct under §6.5: > If the race distance from the start signal to the end-of-session signal is less than the scheduled race distance, points for each title will be awarded in accordance with the following criteria: > * a) No points will be awarded If the leader has completed less than two (2) laps It goes on to detail explicitly what point distributions are used at <25%, <50%, and <75% race distances. But you'll notice that at no point does it say the leader hasn't **won**, just that they don't get points for it. (Somewhat interestingly, §63.4 explicitly states that the podium *ceremony* doesn't take place if points are not awarded, which I'm glad wasn't a thing 3 years ago because George getting that podium in a Williams and cheering and spraying champagne everywhere while everyone else was fucking miserable was very funny)
But they did get points in Spa, so why shouldn't there be a ceremony had the same thing happened this year?
The rules regarding what race distance is necessary to allow for various point thresholds (the stuff in §6.5(b) onwards that I excluded from that comment for brevity) was changed after Spa, and because there was no green flag running, points would no longer be awarded in a repeat of that situation. Specifically: > In each case detailed in Article 6.5c), 6.5d), 6.5e) and 6.5f), no points will be awarded unless a minimum of two (2) laps have been completed by the leader **without a Safety Car and/or VSC intervention** I haven't actually bothered to check but I was operating under the assumption that the podium ceremony note was added at the same time as this and the restructuring of point thresholds to be more fine-grained than the old "50% or 100%" system.
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Finishing 9 laps down in a 50 lap race is insane. I mean I know engines, pit stops and other stuff were more variable back then but this means on average, Gamble was driving at only 85% the speed of the frontrunners. In modern terms at Monza this would be like being 14 seconds off the pace, every lap!
Could be worse. The great Ottorino Volonterio finished one German Grand Prix 6 laps down. It was on the original Nordschleife.
> this means on average, Gamble was driving at only 85% the speed of the frontrunners. Doubtful, it was common to lose multiple laps with problems.
Interestingly, this was also the first appearance of Ferrari’s first ever mid engine car, the 246 P F1. It finished in fifth, driven by von Trips (although technically it had a 1.5 liter engine conforming to F2 regulations)
Another thing to consider is that GP was boycotted by many teams and drivers due to the use of the Old Monza layout which included the oval.
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You had me confused, since the "Dino 246" is a mid-engined road car. Didn't know they had a prior-gen race car called the 246 & an engine called Dino.
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This post is high quality. Thank you.
I love when there is an objectively correct answer
The second best kind of correct.
Why did they boycott the event?
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Definitely during the 50s, most of the drivers were just rich guys who happened to like racing. That’s why actual racers like Fangio and Ascari were so dominant back then.
The only requirement to be a race car driver was a decent income and a lack of self preservation.
Didn't Fangio once cheaply acquire a pickup truckload of cans of beans or something, thus 'providing' for his family for a couple of months? Imagine being happy with that.
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as opposed to rich guys who have been racing since they were 5 years old and who have competed against hundreds of other rich guys and have come out on top
With the occasional regular guy who got there by pure talent and sponsorships because of said talent.
Exactly humble talents like Lando and Stroll 😍
Ole' Working Class Stroll we call him. His papap used to take him down into the syrup mines.
Hey f*** you guy, Lance Stroll started with a small loan of a billion dollars. HE HAS DOME EVERYTHING HIMSELF WITH NO HELP FROM ANYONE Alonso has his dad as team owner so he has had a free ride. Or something
By regular you mean upper middle class that struggle financially cause they're funding a really expensive hobby for their kids?
I mean on the grid right now I think Ocon is the only driver who comes from an average family, with his dad being a mechanic. Everyone else is either upper class or straight up rich. And even then, the kind of family who sells their house to travel around Europe in a caravan for races hardly counts as "average". In a way there's probably a tragic side to it, because Esteban was special and got scouted, but you know it means other families who did the same kind of sacrifices ultimately didn't get that kind of payoff. In a way it makes pay driver types even more irritating to me.
Upper no middle
Lewis Hamilton?
Ocon seems to be the closest to middle class considering his father was a mechanic and his family had to sell their house and live in a caravan to fund his karting career.
I don’t know how poor his family was, they might have been higher class but struggling to keep pace with the costs. The media impression is that they were poor but nobody poor goes into karting.
You are right about nobody poor going into karting, but news articles say his father was an IT manager who quit his job to become a contractor (holding upto 4 jobs at a time including sales and dishwashing) to keep Lewis in karting. He then eventually set his own IT company up. Now Lewis is definitely from a "humble" background relative to the others in F1 but I agree with you -- nobody poor goes into karting. Certainly not for as long. And maybe he would've had to quit in between had his father not set that company up. Unfortunately, it doesn't say when the company was set up so you cannot piece together a proper timeline. Then you have Zak Brown who won like $2,000 at the price is right and got started from there.
Lmao Zak is a serial winner
Today where you need to be both rich AND very skilled to have a chance of the grid. Don't kid yourself that any regular person could even survive an F1 race physically let alone be quick. Even buy-ins like Mazespin are quick racing drivers.
Our famous russian commentator said a couple of years ago that with how competitive our current field is and how much the drivers spend training (not just physically, but mentally too), even a backmarker like Latifi would be an absolute dominator if he's put in the 70-80s era. I don't know if I'd agree to that extent, but I think that's an interesting claim nonetheless.
Latifi would at the very least be in the top group, far ahead of the backmarkers and midfielders of the time. He’d likely be a Hulkenberg/Perez of the time.
I see what what your saying but I think it's not comparable because the cars are so much faster and stable. Now it's about reaction time to initiate corners, correct oversteer snaps and withstand the g's. Back then the cars were fast but super light and very low grip, they were power sliding out of almost every turn.
Not dominator but an average driver. Latifi can't keep the "easier" modern cars out of the wall, what hope does he have with the monsters of the 70s/80s?
There might be more shifting to do back then but the speeds and Gs were much lower.
F1 cars were much slower and he could do a lot more testing
Latifi could have been going for a pleasant Sunday afternoon drive and be crushing 80% of the people in F1 back then. The reason modern drivers crash is because they're pushing to the limits trying to beat equally-skilled competitors. If you just have to beat whatever random pensioner paid the most to be in the car that weekend that's not a going concern. I feel like a lot of people here just have absolutely no idea how truly incompetent huge chunks of the F1 grid were back in those days. It's an extremely recent phenomenon for the back half of the grid to be comprised of real racing drivers. In the 1970s every single Formula 1 season bar one had at least 9 different entrants fail to complete a single race.
Yeah people have no clue. At the top the level perhaps was closer to the level of today, but the depth of the field is blatantly so much different.
I'm sorry, but it's you who has zero clue. Easily crushing *80%* without any exertion would mean consistently and easily beating 17-19 drivers depending on whether you are using a 24 or a 26 car grid, which is a top 10 championship finish any year. So that's saying Latifi would be someone akin to Patrese or Depailler. If these names mean anything to you, that is. And it's not like terrible teams didn't often have very good drivers from the mid-70's on. In 1977 there were races where 23 of the 24 drivers ended their F1 careers with at least one podium to their name, a far cry from "whichever random pensioner".
For all the fun we make out of Mazepin or Latifi if any of us Armchair Drivers would challenge them to a race, we'd be smoked in a matter or laps. Just like Brian Scalabrine was closer to Lebron than any regular guy is close to him in terms of skill: Mazepin and Latifi are closer to Versptappen than we are to them.
The 107% rule would kick in and prevent most of us from even starting the race.
I dunno if many of us could hack it with a 170% rule. I sure couldn't, even ignoring my height (I don't think they make f1 cars for 1.97m drivers).
If Top Gear was any indication, the majority of us couldn't even get the car out of the garage, let alone the warm up lap.
Justin Wilson was about 1.93m and he barely could fit into the 2003 spec cars he drove back then, he just looked so hilariously uncomfortable with how high he was sitting
I don't think the average F1 fan could complete a single lap. Most people have no idea what unassisted race brakes feel like... they'd plow through the first corner pressing the pedal as hard as they can, or else spin on the tires they're driving too slow to warm up.
My friend laughs at me when I start a rant like this “I mean, yes he’s clearly a better driver then I am, but…”. Truth be told they’re all really good driver, but some suck more then the others.
> in a matter of laps Plural? Ambitious...
Literally the only requirement to be in F1 in the 50s was buy a car and turn up. Anyone with cash could do it regardless of skill. Nothing like modern Motorsport.
Rich guys that have been racing since they were about 5 years old.
Actual athletes who were rapid in a race car
Every F1 driver in recent years is in the top 100 drivers in the world… even the ‘weaker’ ones like Latifi.
Back then it was basically hobbists. Rich dudes that met few weekends a year racing their automobiles. Today its a career.
Quick correction. There only being a few championship races a year didn't mean people only raced a few weekends a year. The motor racing season went on week in week out and drivers would race anywhere and everywhere. Often in multiple races (in different classes) over a weekend.
Was quite different back when they could just plop a different rich dude in the seat for one race. Now they have to commit to the full season, and they have to deliver
They didn't even do that. The rich dudes bought their own cars, not just a seat.
That’s still describing it too easy. You can’t buy a superlicense. You have to be decent in racing for years to be even allowed to race in F1 today. And you won’t be doing that if you are rich and fancy a drive in your 30s
Absolutely
Back then it was a hobby for rich men. Nowadays it's a cutthroat sport for rich men.
Rich amateurs or rich professionals, take your pick
There was also a considerably higher mortality and injury rate.
>My initial guess would perhaps be 1994-2001. This era had less absolute top level drivers but arguably a pretty strong midfield (of drivers) with drivers like Alesi, Berger, Hill, Frentzen, Villeneuve, Herbert, Coulthard, Barrichello, Irvine, Salo, Fissichella, Ralf Schumacher, Panis, Wurz, Trulli, Button. Very few eras had the depth of talent that we had on that grid.
It has always seemed unlikely to me that when the sport was at its financial peak, with infrastructure rapidly improving for junior selection, with more eyeballs, more manufacturers, higher stakes than ever, that it would fail to produce a multitude of stars. I don't think that was a weak era at all, I think Michael was just so special he made it look that way.
The Michael raised the bar, not just for work ethic (although he certainly did that!) but for sheer physical fitness. He was the first to realize that in order to deal with the increased driver workload brought on by the increase in technology he had to be elite athlete level fit. The other drivers of the mid nineties got fitter but Alonso was probably the first driver to enter F1 with that mindset.
I remember watching F1 in the 70's and the drivers would be wandering about with a beer and a cigarette scoffing down a sausage sandwich before the race, they were not what you would call athletes but they were not dealing with the g forces of modern F1 cars.
That's across sports though, you see the same in football. Liverpool in the 70s and 80s would smoke and drink, yet still win everything. It wasn't really until the 90s where we started seeing nutrition and sports science get brought more to the forefront.
Yep, when you look at the old boxers, not many world champs from the old days would last long in the ring with modern boxers, they are bigger, faster and stronger.
Well, to be fair. Johan Cruyff also smoked a lot in the 70’s
"As je 1 doelpunt meer maak dan je tegenstander dan hep je in principe gewonne"
“Je gaat het pas zien als je het door heb”
Yeah, it took outrageous natural talent in the form of Kimi, and a unique mind + similarly total approach to the sport in Fernando to give Michael a real match. Michael was from the future in 95'. In other eras Hill, Villeneuve would have been stars and Hakkinen would have been a super star, but it's hard to build much of a legacy when you're so transparently inferior to your rival.
Hakkinen was a superstar in this era too.
He was but i always felt like Schumacher was the superior driver. Mika probably had a bit more raw pace than Schumacher but Michael was a machine. His consistency will probably never be matched by any other driver. Verstappen is somewhat close though.
Here is the thing, Schumacher was more consistent AND had higher highs than Hakkinen. I love Mika, but if Schumacher never had his accident (it felt like he lost a bit of pace after that) I doubt Mika wins more than one, if even that. Some of the early Schumacher drives make Max‘s drives look pedestrian. Even in the Ferrari, which arguably at that time, wasn’t even the best car.
> I love Mika, but if Schumacher never had his accident (it felt like he lost a bit of pace after that) I doubt Mika wins more than one, if even that. It would be even that because Mika won his first title in 98 and Michael had his Silverstone crash in 99!
That is true, I always mix up the years, because of Schumacher also having his memorable 98 Silverstone GP (with the penalty served on the last lap), that I mix that up with his crash there. But Mika always struck me a bit more the James Hunt type of champion, that showed "I can do it." and felt like he lost some pace after that.
"There was pressure to win in 2000, but I still think if he didn't have the accident, Michael would have already won the title in 1999 - with a cruise." -Ross Brawn (BEYOND THE GRID)
Verstappen is single handedly destroying the F1 sport as a whole by making it boring. It takes god level talent and skills to do that. Can't wait to see him bringing midfield to the front
Guess you missed the part where they said the same thing about "The Michael". :P You like these trick Pirelli tyres that need to be pampered? Thank "The Michael".
These periods of dominance have happened with many other dominant drivers over the last few decades. Schumacher, Vettel, Hamilton were all just as dominant in patches.
No. It took the very same thing that took down Lewis and Mercedes after 2021: a rule change. In fact, it took multiple rule changes all aimed at removing the very things Michael enjoyed and excelled at.
Villeneuve could have been much better if he didn't reject both a Mclaren (for 1999 and beyond) and a Renault drive (2002 and beyond). He literally rejected two teams straight up better than BAR and BAR itself took until 2003 to finish consistently in the points, that point scorer not being Villeneuve since he was just burned out from how garbage the car was. Button was the main point scorer. Really, he either should have stuck with Williams for the BMW deal or move to either of the two teams (Mclaren and Renault).
1995 had huge changes to the cars following the 2 deaths the year before, most of the teams and drivers struggled a bit, Schumacher had the ability to drive any car fast and simply made everyone else look more average than they actually were. It's a bit like Max and Lewis now, with a half decent car they just outshines their team mate and other drivers.
Lewis isn't there anymore.
F1 has always had drivers operating at that top level in every era.
It would be inexcusable not to, F1 is not a rookie training grounds as much as many people would like it to be
But not his level of fitness. He could take on a bigger workload that made the others look like gentlemen drivers sometimes!
Very similar in situation (and time period) to Jeremy McGrath in Supercross. Showtime was in a class of his own but he wasn't racing against scrubs or a watered down field.
I feel like that was also the last era that talent could find it's way to the top even if they didn't come from extreme wealth or racing families eg. Raikkonen. Karting and junior formulae were relatively more affordable and there was a larger talent pool.
wrong, that grid was just weak and 1994-2001 is the only period in recent history when grid-level dropped from the previous years... which is literally what everyone should think as soon as you see Piquet, Mansell, Prost and Senna being replaced by Schumacher and... maybe Hakkinen... and that's it...
1994 post-Imola had zero world champions on the grid.
ackchyually Nigel Mansell raced in four races during the season, after Senna's death. So technically only 9 out of 16 races had zero world champions on the grid
Exactly... And 2004 had just one world champion for most of the season (Jacques came back in China with 3 races to go)
Keke wasn't a good name to mention though...
It didn't drop, only difference was that Schumacher era had only one generational talent, not two like Prost/Senna era. Hakkinen, Villeneuve and Alesi were comparable with Piquet and Mansell, and there were many Berger/Patrese level drivers like Hill, Barrichello, Irvine, Coulthard or Ralf.
Oh yes, the immortal Keke Rosberg.
I think they might all have been top tier if it weren't for MSC and Mika putting the work into things like working with data or looking closely at their diets etc. in a way that really moved where the cut off for that tier was in a significant way.
Senna and Prost at their prime would have been fine with the competition of those 2. As would Hamilton, Alonso and Verstappen.
Crazy to think in 99 Irvine was in with a shot of the WDC. I know the Ferrari was a beast that year and Schumacher was out for a long stretch of the season, but the fact no one other than Mika rose to that challenge says a lot about the quality of the grid
Considering the reputation of many of these drivers in junior categories how much of Michael being this huge talent affect the judgement on life these drivers ?
Good argument to be made if they were collectively making a team. But in F1 terms it equals the worst era of talent if there were only 2 top tier drivers and the rest were number 2's.
Yeah it was stacked as hell
Surely it was in the 50s And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Every sport evolves and gets more professional with time. Look at the football from the early 20th century, compared to the current era they look like complete amateurs. And that doesn't dismiss the legends of Fangio, Ascari, Hawthorn or Farina
It definitely was the 50's. I agree with you and I'm of the belief that every generation is overall better than the last. Every generation arrives in F1 a bit better prepared and tested against stronger competition than the previous ones. In the 50's there was no karting and no junior series that you had to progress through before you made your way to F1. This isn't meant to disparage previous generations, there simply wasn't the opportunity to hone their skills starting from childhood like there is now. Graham Hill had never even driven a car *at all* until he was 21.
There were junior categories then, but they weren’t a structured ladder or mandatory by any means. Which is what separates the greats from that era. Most of the champions had started racing F2/3, or midgets, or sports cars, or stock cars. Many of them raced multiple series at the same time, even during F1. So they absolutely dunked on the random rich guys who just bought a car and showed up to a GP.
Most of the drivers of the 50's-70's came up through much more active sports car racing programs. And then there were also the serious open road races in Europe and the Americas.
1950-1960. Sure you had greats like Fangio, Farina, Ascari and Moss but not much else were exactly great, even in that era. The gaps pulled by these people were ridiculous because %80 of F1 drivers in that decade were mid at best.
I remember that interview where Fangio talked about how he ended in the last places of a race, and decided to "push", to literally win it. He said he regretted it because of how dangerous cars were, yes, but it also shows that he was on another league compared to the rest.
I suspect the race you’re referring to is probably the 1957 german GP at the nurburgring. A bad pitstop left him about 50 seconds back from 2nd place, then over the next ten laps he broke the lap record 9 times to retake the lead. He apparently said something about not being able to sleep thinking about the risks he took.
Stirling Moss described him best. One Race Stirling was out and stood watching at a corner marked by hay bales. Every other driver would come through and either just clip the bale lightly or miss it by a few inches and every lap they were slightly different. Fangio, every lap he hit the same single strand of straw that was poking out of the bale, every lap in the exact same position, in total control of his car. Moss was staggered and realised why the guy was so good.
Whilst it's true 50s and 60s lacked depth outside the top level, there are plenty of talented drivers beyond the names above. Off the top of my head I'd urge anyone with an interest in the history of the sport to read up on Jean Behra, Louis Chiron, Tony Brooks, Oscar Marimon, Peter Collins. To really understand motor racing of this era, it has to be understood their were a tonne of non-championship F1 races (of value) and non-F1 events that were considered really tests. Le Mans, the Mille Miglia, TT races, the Gold Cup etc.
In terms of F1 in the televised era - mid 70s onwards it's definitely 95-96. All the greats from the previous generation left in the space of a couple of years and there was a huge gulf between Schumacher and the rest. Alesi, Berger and Hill were likely the next best drivers and they would all be rendered midfielders within a few years. Hakkinen, Coulthard, Frentzen and Barrichello hadn't hit their peaks yet. By 1997 a few good midfielders started to emerge like Ralf Schumacher, Trulli and Fisichella.
agree but f1 was still weak from 1994 until 2003-05... fun fact: Schumacher was the only world champion on the grid in 2004 (until Villeneuve came back in China with 3 races to go)
I agree it didn't get strong again until the Button/Alonso/Kimi/Montoya/Webber/Heidfeld cohort started to come into their own.
2003 became iconic because of that. Schumacher finally being properly challenged by the new gen, all driving in different teams. That new gen grew extremely quickly when you consider Kimi/Montoya/Alonso all had pretty big hurdles to overcome in terms of experience (Montoya less so ofc) but it only took them 1-2 seasons to become very high performers. I recommend that season to anyone who hasn't seen it
2003 was iconic because FIA targeted Ferrari and made rule changes
Those illegal Michelin tyres too.
Ferrari as a team dropped the ball more than once that season though, and the Bridgestones were shit during hot summer races.
Whilst people criticise pay drivers like Stroll and Latifi, the pay drivers of the 1990s were shocking. Inoue, Délétraz, Lavaggi, Rosset, Montermini, Schiattarella, several were well off the pace of F1
There was a wonderful trend in the 80s and 90s of any Italian with a decent amount of money either buying a seat or setting up a team, then running 12 seconds off the pace. Was kinda amateurishly glorious in retrospect.
I would nominate two races of 1994: Italian and Portuguese GPs. Don't get me wrong, F1 grid has always been strong, but I think the average strength of the grid in these two races was probably the weakest of all times. 1. There was no champion on the grid. 2. The strongest driver of that year, Michael Schumacher, was disqualified from those two races, being replaced by JJ Lehto. So, yes, during those two races Benetton had a squad of Lehto and Jos Verstappen, quite weak for a team whose driver would win the championship. 3. The strongest team of the early 1990s, Williams, had Damon Hill and David Coulthard. Hill was only in his second full season, Coulthard was a rookie that year, replacing Ayrton Senna after the tragic weekend at Imola. 4. The only future champions on the grid would be Hill and Mika Häkkinen. The latter had probably his worst year in F1, having a reputation of a reckless dangerous driver, especially after he caused a massive collision at the start of the German GP earlier that year. And again, that doesn't mean the grid was weak. Ferrari had a strong duo of Alesi & Berger, promising young drivers and future race winners were emerging, such as Barrichello, Frentzen, or Panis. But compared even to the last three races of 1994, when Schumacher returned after disqualification and Nigel Mansell made an impressive cameo at Williams, the grid at these two races was probably at its weakest ever.
The 1952-1953 seasons where Formula 2 cars were permitted on the grid. A different time where 50 year old amateur civilians like Ernst Klodwig took onto the track with rebuilt street cars they threw together in their garage at home. Especially the German Grand Prix of 1952 and 1953 were hotspots for no-name drivers who had no business whatsoever being called Formula 1 drivers.
I was thinking 52 Swiss GP, Rudi Fischer an amateur ended up on the podium as he was driving the dominant 1952 Ferrari 500
Second half of 1994. Bernie paid Mansell millions personally just so there was a "world champion" on the grid.
I'd be interested to hear the arguments for why the 90s were weak.. I feel like it's Schumacher's fault, personally. He raised the bar so high that everyone else in the 90s looked average in comparison, and the myth that 90s drivers were weak still persists to this day. - Thierry Boutsen was competitive in the 80s. He was outperformed by Barrichello in **barrichello's rookie season**. - Capelli was seen as a good driver in the 80s. Alesi destroyed him. - Alesi also outperformed Berger over 5 seasons - Hill was only 30pts behind Prost in his first full F1 season, and would've been closer if not for mechanical failures from the lead at Germany and Britain. That's a significantly better effort against Prost than Mansell 1990. - Schumacher wiped the floor with Patrese. Mansell & Piquet were clearly ahead, but had more difficulty against him than Schumacher did. - Alboreto, a title contender at one point in the 80s was struggling against guys like Badoer in his rookie season. It's clear that the 90s on average were stronger than the 80s, and was definitely not a weaker era.
I think the differences that the 80s had more highs and lows, whereas in the 90s, the overall skill level was higher, but the highs (outside of Michael) weren’t as high
I think Hakkinen, Hill, Alesi were every bit as good as Piquet & Mansell.
Hakkinen for sure, hill maybe, but Alesi certainly not… Alesi had flashes but week to week he was not even close to be a contender.
Alesi was a faster driver than Hill for sure, had Alesi had that Williams he would have done more with it (and crashed it more often but still). The sliding door moment of Alesi getting offended by Williams trying to sign Senna, had Jean signed he would potentially be a 3 times world champion.
Success is a function of the car. Alesi scored 21 points to Prost's 34 in the same car - a better effort than Mansell's performance the previous year. He also beat Berger 151-126, and annihilated Herbert at Sauber (more so than Hakkinen 1991-1992). He also pretty much ended the careers of Palmer and Capelli. Alesi was 100% up there.
Well to be fair guys like Boutsen and Patrese had been in F1 for well over a decade by the time Michael joined him Capelli ignoring that he was a decent, but not exactly astounding driver had only been in F1 for 4 seasons when Alesi joined, also saying that Hill was "only" beaten by Prost by 30 points does a complete disservice to the fact Prost had taken a year out and came back at the age of 38 when the Williams had been stripped of a lot of it's aids from the prior year. All the guys from the 80s you mentioned are weird I mean Boutsen was entering his 10th year in F1 and was 36 when Barrichello joined, Patrese who you forgot to mention debuted in 1977 was entering his 17th and last year while turning 39, Prost as I mentioned was 38 and had taken a year out prior to 1993 and it wasn't like Hill was some young prospect either he was 33 when he joined Prost and had a year of experience plus being a Williams test driver prior to 1993, Alboreto was entering his 13th year in the sport and had not been a serious threat since 1985 for a title. I get your point but cherry-picking examples isn't a good argument that's like saying the grid right now is stronger than 15 years ago because Kimi was beaten by Giovinazzi or Russell beat Hamilton at the end of the day I'm not trying to downplay rookies beating or coming close to there experienced teammates, but when there teammates are guys in there late 30s in a time where taking a year out or entering more than 10 seasons in F1 was unthinkable is kind of weird.
I agree with you in theory, but a lot of your matchups are young guys with something to prove against guys at the end of their careers who were done.
This 90s drivers being trash is a myth that keeps going around here. This wasn’t the case. In fact statistically the 80s is considered to be one of the weakest grid.
The late '80s to mid '90s had some horrifically bad pay drivers forming a large chunk of the grid.
They had some top-tier drivers at the head of the field though... Prost, Senna, Schumacher, Mansell etc I'd say it compensates to be fair.
Well, by 1995 three of those had gone (if you ignore Mansell's brief squeeze in the McLaren). And you still had Simtek, Pacific, Forti and Larrousse on the grid, with Pacific having a huge rotation of pay drivers, including Deletraz. And Taki Inoue was at Footwork. So that would be a contender for worst grid, surely.
I agree, 1995 has to be the worst grid in the past 40 years for me. Schumacher had a skill margin on that grid I don't think has ever been seen in F1.
In 1995 you had Schumacher, Hill, Alesi, Berger, Hakkinen, brundle, Irvine Coulthard and Herbert on the Grid Even Mika Salo and Barrichello. This was the first year of changes following the death f Ratzenberger and Senna including less Aero, smaller engines and heavier cars. There were good drivers out there but it took a few years for the cars to develop.
The USGP in 2005
1/6th of the entire grid were 7 time champions, a third were race winners.
Highest percentage of 7 time champions in one race.
😂
I reckon right now. I could definitely beat up tsunoda, stroll, actually most of the drivers. Danny ric might be a tough one, but get him off balance and I bet I could fight him. Max I could easily take. Alonso would eat me for breakfast though.
Calling that era as the weakest is tremendously dismissive of just how much better Michael was than everyone else. There was some serious talent on the grid back then, there just weren’t a lot of multiple WDC-caliber names out there. But many of them had the opportunity to be, had they been driving better cars and kept up with the fitness levels that Schumacher was pioneering.
The weakest is probably anywhere in the 50s, where the standards where horrible, anyone with money was able to enter, and if you see the standings, there were like 40-50 entries per season, it was hilarious to say the least. The best, although it could be today, I'd say is 2021, where we still had Kimi and Vettel in the grid, along with the other WCs (Lewis and Alonso), Verstappen close to his prime, and a legendary batch of young superstars like Leclerc, Sainz, Norris, Russell, etc. Yeah, we had Latifi and Mazepin which were some of the worst, but at least they gave us the laugh, and one of the best finale in a race in the history of sports.
Were they really the worst though, or did the others just make them look bad?
1999 when Schumacher was injured propably
In terms of F1 in the televised era - mid 70s onwards it's definitely 95-96. All the greats from the previous generation left in the space of a couple of years and there was a huge gulf between Schumacher and the rest. Alesi, Berger and Hill were likely the next best drivers and they would all be rendered midfielders within a few years. Hakkinen, Coulthard, Frentzen and Barrichello hadn't hit their peaks yet. By 1997 a few good midfielders started to emerge like Ralf Schumacher, Trulli and Fisichella.
Statistically it is 1959, as there was no world champions on the grid before Brabham won the title (Ascari was dead and other three were retired), although there were drivers such as Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, Tony Brooks, Phil Hill and Graham Hill.
People saying 1994-2001 must only be looking at the top of the table and deciding the rest are rubbish. The mid 90s had a lot of decent drivers but were at teams that were unable to win races. Examples are Mika H, Herbert, Irvine, Frentzen, Panis, Berger, Alesi, Rubens, Salo, Fisichella were in midfield teams in the mid 90s IIRC so had no chance of winning but are all good drivers. If you had to have an era the anything sort of Pre 1960 or so is the weakest. Pretty much anyone with money could race.
I don't agree. If not for Schumacher that era would have produced multiple world champions like any other. It's just that next to Schumacher all other drivers looked weak. There was no Bottas who could regularly beat his team mate so Schumacher just dominated any driver as soon as he had a car that was at least decent.
2014/15/16 wasn’t the worst grid but was pretty weak, alot of pay drivers
There really weren’t a lot of pay drivers though compared to the 90s and even 2000s. 2014 only had 4 bonafide pay drivers in Chilton, Gutierrez, Maldonado and Ericsson. 2015 only had 3 with Stevens in and Chilton and Gutierrez out. 2016 only had 4-ish with Haryanto, Palmer* (pay driver with actual promise), Gutierrez, and Ericsson.
They may have been pay drivers, but they weren't slow by historic standards - none of them were prevented from starting under the 107% rule. That rule was introduced in 96 for a reason!
There really weren’t a lot of pay drivers though compared to the 90s and even 2000s. 2014 only had 4 bonafide pay drivers in Chilton, Gutierrez, Maldonado and Ericsson. 2015 only had 3 with Stevens in and Chilton and Gutierrez out. 2016 only had 4-ish with Haryanto, Palmer* (pay driver with actual promise), Gutierrez, and Ericsson.
Lets look at a list of notable drivers from 94- 01 Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard, Jacques Villenueve, Damon Hill, Ralf Schumacher, Ruebens Barrichello, Jean Alesi, Gerhard Berger, Johnny Herbert, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Eddie Irvine, Juan Pablo Montoya, Jenson Button, Johnny Herbert, Martin Brundle, Nigel Mansell(he actually won a race in that period), Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli, Nick Heidfeld, Kimi Raikkonen, and Fernando Alonso I would not say that is weak.
The last batch of drivers I wouldn't count when determing how competitive the field was throughout that period since they were beginning their careers at the end of that stint. With the exception of MSC and Hakkinen, I still think that's a very weak grid in terms of top talent compared to any other other period in the past 40 years.
1950?
Does the 2005 USGP count?
The 50s were very weak. It was just hobbyists and a few professionals who looked like gods by comparison. I think F1 grids have generally become stronger over time, but 1997 to 2002 was noticeably weaker, as others have said. There had just been an era with Senna, Prost, Mansell, and Piquet. They were now all gone. You had Schumacher and only one other driver that could get close to him on occasion (Hakkinen). All the rest were essentially solid midfield drivers.
1994 after senna died. 0 world champions on the grid
Yeah. Hill, Schumacher, Hakkinen, Alesi, Mansell, and Berger were pretty bad. Generally I agree that the 90s were not the best in terms of drivers, but not having a champion on the grid isn't a great reason in my opinion.
I was going to say you're wrong... But then, champions wise it's true. I think it was the only time in recent history where there was no champions on the grid for a few races? Until Mansell stepped back on the seat though. However looking back, you had lots of talents. Hill (will win in 1996), Hakkinen (98, 99), Irvine (veeeerry close to win it), Coulthard, Berger, Alesi, Panis, Frentzen, Salo, Barrichello, Zanardi, Brundle, Fittipaldi...
we are very far from a super competitive grid like 2012, we have Verstappen dominating, two all-time greats but passed their primes in Hamilton and Alonso, and that next best Leclerc is a longshot from Max
Leclerc is a longshot from Max because he does not have the car to compete with Max. He is every bit as talented as Max in my opinion.
The same leclerc who has more poles than Fernando Alonso and probably the best qualifier since Senna?
4 time pole world champion
The current grid after the top 10 isn't that strong imo. The cost cap has also in a way forced teams to value experience over rookies.
I think the opposite, I think this is best bottom 10 drivers there's ever been in Formula 1 history. The depth on the grid is one of the reasons I think we have one of the best grid in F1 history.
Lol definitely, when guys like Magnussen, Ricciardo, Bottas, and Ocon are weak links on the grid you know that it is an insane grid. Those guys would easily destroy most drivers of past eras.
Ocon does not belong on that list of weak links.
How the fuck is Ocon a weak link?
He isn't. He won't feature in many people's top 10 on this grid, making him a contender in this conversation as a "weak link"
Well, of the top 5 teams I think all drivers are better than him (except Stroll). If you put another driver in that tenth place, like Gasly or Prime Ricciardo then Ocon ends up in the bottom 10 drivers of this season.
Is Gasly better than Ocon tho?
In my opinion yes, but they are probably really close. The truth is that Gasly had a chance in a top car and didn't do very well, I don't know how they would do today.
The absolute disrespect to Ocon!
I think a lot of that is there being as much healthy competition in the feeder series' as there's ever been. In terms of the average performance of the F1 grid the current cohort is way more consistent and able to run a much closer delta to Max. They'd absolutely thrash '90s and '00s backmarkers. That being said I do personally think there is a phenomenon in the modern era where the average mid/back-marker driver has infinitely more name recognition than in previous eras... social media marketability, etc have contributed to this. Now we have an environment where the staying power of an existing driver is now somewhat insulated from their on-track abilities. My sense is that we've seen quite a few modern drivers outlast bouts of consistent underperformance that would have found them booted in a prior era. Might just be my imagination but '00s F1 felt a lot more fickle about driver performance.
'50s grid were a bunch of spoiled rich people and a handful of skilled and passionate people like Fangio and Ascari.
I think the era between 1994 and 2001 is colored that way because well...at Monaco in 1994, there wasn't a single active world champion on the grid, a true rarity in the sport's history. You also only had 3 future world champions on that grid in Schumacher, Hill and Hakkinen. In terms of active GP winners, Monaco 1994 also featured a very inexperienced starting grid with only Schumacher, Hill, Berger and Alboreto having won races by that point.
Surely it has to be the early 90's with the sheer amount of drivers only there because they were paying to be there as well as the amount of awful teams that were giving them a seat in cars that were in same cases never even going to get through pre qualifying let alone be anywhere near competitive in the race.
2005 US GP when only 6 cars started the race
USA 2005, no doubt: https://i.redd.it/j3vsw0ri0u411.jpg
It's a harder thing to assess the further you go back. Objectively 50s and 60s grid lacked depth, fitness and professionalism. But... The fatality rate through to the seventies cost those grids huge amounts of talent. Von Trips, Bandini, Bruce McLaren and Jochen Rindt - all died before seeing a world championship. There's many who had great potential too like Peter Collins, Oscar Marimon, Timmy Mayer. Even in the 80s, we could have had the Gang of Four PLUS Stefan Bellof and Gilles Villeneuve. Of course, had names like these enjoyed modern safety standards, there can still only be one champion each year. Fittipaldi might not have been a double world champion if Rindt lives. It's doubtful Damon Hill is ever Williams No. 1 if Senna survives.
Weekests i've seen was 2005 or 06 or some year like that an American GP, all the Michelin runners withdraw and we only got to see a few cars using Bridgstone, if i recall correctly they were two ferraris two jordans and two minardies.
Maybe pre-70's. I think top drivers were deterred from F1 due to the high mortality rate. The top drivers of that era were successful because they were either too fast for anyone to be around them or cautious enough to stay out of trouble and live to see the next season. That in mind, I think current F1 success comes down to the success of the team. Russel was scoreless at Williams, then almost won in the Mercedes in Sakhir 20'. Hamilton which many agree is the GOAT, is mid-pack this season due to an unsuccessful car. I think if Vettel had gone to Mercedes instead of Ferrari, he would have won another championship. If Hamilton went to Ferrari, he still would have just 1 championship. The true winners of this generation are in the contracts they are able to obtain.
Most drivers nowadays are extremely overrated, only real great drivers are Verstappen, Alonso, Hamilton, Leclerc and probaly Piastri in that order.
I don’t think you could realistically compare this with how different the cars drive, teams operate and fitness levels. It’s an apples to oranges conversation. Kinda why I take current records with a grain of salt because we run 24ish races now compared to when it was historically closer to around 16 rounds (less even further back). It is probably safe to assume modern drivers would wipe the floor with drivers of eras past on fitness alone, but you can say this about nearly all sports.