[quote author=Herr Onceared link=topic=26559.msg661502#msg661502 date=1220044742]
[quote author=Delinquent link=topic=26559.msg660840#msg660840 date=1220001866]
[quote author=Herr Onceared link=topic=26559.msg660827#msg660827 date=1220000979]
Senna v Schumacher.
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Oooooooooh. Toughie. Schumacher. No Senna. Probably.
It's always hard when one is a hateful cunt and also taking into account the dominance of Ferrari over Schumacher's reign. I'm inclined to go with Senna as I think he had to defeat a higher calibre of driver for large parts of his career. I don't think there is a comparable rivalry in Schumacher's career to that of Senna and Prost.
In terms of success though, it's Schumacher without question. It would've been amazing to see them line up as team mates in the same era.
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I have to say Del that in all the time i've known you this is the wrongest ive known you to be. I have been an F1 fan my whole life and was lucky enough to see both drivers in their pomps.
I followed the F1 round Europe when i was younger and richer than i am now, and i collected (untill the last few years) all the best races on video/dvd and .............wait i have just realised how writing this kind of thing looks like im saying i know more than you. Im not saying that, as of course it is subjective. But please allow me to explain why 'subjectively' you should think schumacher is the greatest.
Senna won his first world championship in THE car of its time, it was head and shoulders above any other car in the field, and was again the following year when Senna shared 10 race wins with his team mate and eventual world champion Alain Prost. The following season (1990) the Williams was probably the best car, but was driven by two average drivers (boutsen and patrese) and the two best drivers aside from Senna were at a very hit and miss Ferrari (Prost and Mansell), Senna's team mate was the always average Gerhard berger. All this basically meant that Williams who should have been winning races didnt have the drivers, and Ferrari who won a few didnt have the reliability (11 retirements for the season).
It was pretty much the same story the following year, with the notable difference being that Mansell went to Williams, but a shocking start to the season (4 different drivers finished in second) meant that after 5 races the title was all but in the bag for Senna.
The following year, the Williams was TOTALLY untouchable winning 10 races comfortably, and as Patrese was so weak Mansell walked the title with Ayrton stuck in a very poor Mclaren that retired as often as it finished. In this season Schumacher made his breakthrough in the Benetton and actually finished ahead of Senna in the title race (with SEVEN podiums in his first season in a mediocre car)
1993 was (for me) Sennas best ever year. The car he drove was a total fucking dog. His team mates had NINE retirements and only finished in the points 3 times, and yet somehow he got five wins and 7 podiums out of it and dragged 73 points out of a car that deserved fuck all really his team mates (andretti and later hakkinen) took 11 points all year. Meanwhile Schumachers Bennetton only finished 9 races all year and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM was on the podium. Prost again won the title in a ridiculously good Williams.
1994 the best car was the Williams, although the Benetton was much much stronger. It was going to be close and it looked like there would be a real battle between the best and crowd hero and this young upstart in similar cars (the benetton and williams having 8 fastest laps each in the season, although the Benetton retired a lot more)
Race 1 - Senna has pole, streaks away to a large lead, Schumacher reels him in and takes him the pits, Senna spins out trying to catch Schumacher. WINNER - SCHUMACHER
Race 2 - Senna has pole, Schumacher passes him at the start, Senna crashes out - WINNER - SCHUMACHER
Race 3 - Senna has pole, suspension failure causes him to lose control and he fatally crashes. WINNER - Irrelevant.
The astonishing thing about Schumachers win in this season is that he was disqualified for 2 races and also not allowed to race in a further 2 races, and his car retired from 2 races. So his car was only competing in 10 of 16 races against a superb car in the Williams, that only failed to finish 3 times all year. Schumachers record in the races he was allowed to compete in (or his car finished) was 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd. WOW eh? this wasnt the best car although it proved over the year to be a match for the Williams, he just drove the wheels off it. I know a lot is spoken about how he is the senior partner in any team he was in, but not then he wasnt, he had talent anyone could see it, but he was just a kid and wasnt afforded any specific help (presumably untill he won the first 4 races) and yet he amassed 92 0f his teams 103 constructors points and even though Williams won the constructors (it was much more reliable than the benetton) he managed to win the title by a single point. I know everyone points to the incident with Hill in Australia and rightly so, but look at it from his point of view he led the championship 66 points to 19 against Hill, had been the driver of the year by miles (Beating Senna twice on the track) and then was punished for missing a black flag with a disqualification. Then another disqualification for a worn barge board, and even worse than that given an unheard of two race ban for the offence. In the four races he was banned Damon Hill took a maximum FORTY points. Schumacher was in his eyes being robbed of the title he had earned beating Hill, Senna, Mansell, Hakkinen, Alesi etc it was hardly suprising that he was ready to do what it took to win in Australia. I dont blame him a bit and prefer to think of the fact he won a title he should never ever have won by rights.
1995 - The williams was still the car to beat (taking pole after pole all year) but with average drivers Hill and Coulthard they basically blew their chances of a title with Schumacher taking advantage with 11 podiums from 13 finishes and 9 wins. His car wasnt the fastest but it was more reliable than the williams and from mid season, it was never really in doubt.
1996 - Schumacher made the bravest move of his career joining an ailing Ferrari who had won just a handfull of races over the past 10 years. It wasnt a massive risk given the budget the team had coupled with his technical ability they were always going to succeed eventually. But the fist season was a pig and Hill in a different class car and no real competition romped to a title, and Murray cried and i said yeah yeah.
1997 - None of Schumachers points for the season stood after a disgraceful attempt to steal the title from a deserving Jaques Villeneuve. Villeneuve suffered the same kind of problems Schumacher himself had in his first title winning season with five failures and one disqualification. Schumacher knew that his car wasnt good enough over the season, but still managed to beat the other Williams over the course of the season. I know we were all outraged at the time at what he tried to do in Jerez, but Villeneuve himself said that he would have done the same thing, and eveyone should be given a second chance? Ultimately he was ONE victory from winning a third title in a massively inferior car.
1998 - Hakkinen was the better driver (and one of the most underrated of all time) and the Mclaren was the better car by some distance, yet once again Schumacher managed to take the title down to the wire in Japan but a combination of rotten luck (a stall on the grid) and even more rotten luck (a blow out after driving his way back through the entire field into contention for the title).
1999 - Not really worth mentioning due to an injury for the first time in years Senna or Schumacher werent in the race.
2000 - 2004 Michael Schumacher won every title and dozens of races (including 9 out of the first 10 in 2004) the only thing worth noting over these years of total dominance is that the FIA and Bernie spent every winter trying to stop him winning and he just went from strength to strength winning mercilessly. He created an unbeatable team around him from scratch and he singlehandedly ressurected the fortunes of an ailing team.
NO other driver has ever done this. Every successful driver from Fangio to Senna moved TO the best team not from it, year in year out champions left the team they were with when they felt they were on a downturn and hotfooted it to the next big thing. Schumacher left the two time world championship team and did he go to the brilliant Mclaren or the invincible Williams? No he went to the shitfest Ferrari and he built something extraordinary. He built a team that could not even be stopped by the might of the FIA, he crushed every other driver with merciless control and with mindboggling consistency.
Here are just a few of his records
RECORD - 7 World championships
RECORD - 91 race victories
RECORD - 154 podiums
RECORD - 1369 points
RECORD - 68 pole positions
RECORD - 76 fastest laps
RECORD - 7 successive wins
RECORD - 4700 Laps leading
Just to take a couple of those in isolation SEVEN world championships, a huge record that will never ever be broken, but what blows my mind is that on THREE other occasions he finished one race win away from the title. He took it to the wire THREE more times, and could easily be looking at 10 Championships for him if luck had gone his way. He was in fact a lucky driver in general, but then when your that good you make your own luck.
Okay and this one is the one for me that makes him just without a doubt the greatest of all time.
He started 248 grand prix and finished on the podium 154 times, he even went the whole season in 2002 finishing EVERY SINGLE RACE on the podium Can you believe that? I mean every fucking race? No one has ever got close to his consistency ever.
So who's faster? Probably Senna, who's better Undoubtably Schumacher.
If you put them both in a car and said do one lap, i think 9 times out of ten Senna would come out on top. If you asked them to do 10 laps Schumacher would win all day every single day, there isnt a doubt in my mind.
He was a phenomenon, and i was lucky enough to see him race live maybe 10 times and i tell you what he was fucking awesome.
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I think it's quite clear that you know more than me. And I'm sure I've been wrong in the past too!
To be honest, there may be a parallel to be drawn between this and the discussion I was having with LTW about Federer. That is, that a lack of rivalries may be more down to the overwhelming supremacy of one competitor, than a reflection of the lack of talent around him. When someone is that good, it has the effect of making everyone else look ordinary.
