Speaking of Lewis, no denying his skill but one has to wonder how much role equipment plays.
Well, wonder no more!
I stumbled upon this article today that I found quite interesting. A team fro University of Sheffield put out a paper attempting to suss out driver skill from equipment using mathematical modeling and etc
The article is here to read in full http://newatlas.com/computer-modelled-top-50-f1-drivers-of-all-time/43147/" rel="nofollow - http://newatlas.com/computer-modelled-top-50-f1-drivers-of-all-time/43147/
But the fun results. Their top 10 F1 drivers of all time, regardless of what they were driving: 1: Fangio 2: Prost 3: Schumacher (based on his 1991-2006 stint) 4: Jim Clark 5: Senna 6: Alonso 7: Piquet 8: Jackie Stewart 9: Emerson Fittipaldi (or Schumacher when taking his full career into account) 10: Vettel
Suppose nothing really too shocking there. Rest of the top 50 include names like Lewis, Kimi, Stirling Moss, Damon Hill, Ricciardo appears as does Nico. Kubica slots in at 26th (makes me even more heartbroken to think about how he was about to drive for Ferrari) and sweet validation for Rubens who was famous for being #2 but was rated 31st all time Some interesting ones: 11th Christian Fittipaldi 23rd Nick Heidfeld 28th Tom Pryce (I didnt even know that name) 30th Martin Brundle 43rd Prince Bira (???? Apparently a Thai driver from the 50s)
Not in the top 50: Niki Lauda, James Hunt (guess Jackie and Emerson would've been better!) Mario Andretti, Nigel Mansell. A little weird to see Brundle (who I always saw kind of mocked on forums) Heidfeld or Christian Fittipaldi ranked above Kimi or Lauda but this is what, according to these folk, the numbers say. I get some 5ths and 4ths in a Minardi is impressive but does this cold hard stat outweigh a career like Lauda? If the 2 were put in the same car would Brundle outperform Hakkinen? Hard to put stats over human performance.
I get equipment matters but was a little surprised to see that in 1980, the paper estimates, 30% of success was driver determined. Today its 10% A little harsh to see that the drivers are like "light bulbs" you screw in and work, and that the best quality drivers are there to squeeze that extra out. But guess that's the diff between good, and great. Some of the best teams ever were 88 McLaren 92 Williams 02 Ferrari and 14 Merc but all were driven by top 50 (often 15) caliber drivers. So just an interesting analysis I thought, and good to see driver does still matter even if its just about taking an A car and making it an A+ vs the "real skill" of taking a D and making a B
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