Quote:
Originally Posted by HeelToeShift
Fair point Max has had none, however, Hamilton, esp in his MB days, never had anyone to beat other than a teammate because their car was so much faster that no other car was really competing - the gaps between cars were cavernous and beyond that the talent until the new gen came in was atrocious. There still existed the F2 cars running after an F1 car. Furthermore, there was no budget, no testing restrictions, and generally speaking a free for all for MB (including free tire tests and MANY penalties that the FIA turned away from).
Max not only took down the MB in 2021 with a slower car, but now has won 3 WDC (including one with the 3rd fastest car) in the regulation cycle that has been the most competitive, most talented (by good margin), and done it with limited budget, massive testing restrictions, and has had to beat many cars vs just 1.
Just to prove how tight it is, here are the gaps from P1-P10 from 2012 to current
2012 1.3 seconds
2013 1.2
2014 1.6
2015 1.4
2016 1.3
2017 1.5
2018 1.2
2019 1.1
2020 1.05
2021 .95
2022 .85
2023 .75
2024 .65
Easy to see that the margins were much smaller, and if you were to index on P1-P3 you'd be talking so much tighter than it was earlier meaning winning was more difficult. Max's 4 WDC are equal if not more impressive than Ham's 7. Max's were like playing the F1 game on 100 difficulty while Ham's were like playing 65 difficulty.
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One year max was gifted the wdc. People even try to cite metrics like his # of wins, discounting that one of those was the shameful spa "race" certification. In a driver takes all race, max wilted and was a no-show. He was saved by a decision so erroneous, it led to the individual's firing. Even newey said he was getting away with murder for his driving (see Brazil).
Another year he won it was with the team/car having gone above the cost cap, so yet another asterisk.
Will be interesting to see if he can win in a car not led developmentally from the greatest f1 designer of all time that literally also happened to have his phd in ground effect 30+ years ago.
RB won't get a competitive driver in the seat by design. How else could you explain the 2nd seat not being a meritocracy all this time?