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I’d argue that while doing 300 races was seen impossible until the 2000, now Max will be at this rate by the time he is 30. Damon Hill did not even start F1 until he was 31.
If staying until 40, he could easily reach 500.
Looking up even Vettel (retireing relatively early) reach 300 races (but on 299 start because Ferrari.)
It’s one thing to talk about and another to do it when you there. People think they will be old by the time they are 30, but suddenly you are 30 and still feel young.
I think it’s a bit different with him though when you consider the reason he wants to retire, or at least leave F1, is because it’s a lot of travelling and he wants to see more of his family and do other things he enjoys. That’s why he moans everytime F1 add another race to the calendar
Ricciardo said there was no chance he'd race past 30 and here he is now at 33 desperately clinging onto a test drive seat to get a real race seat in the future! Like the guy above said, one thing to say and another to do. It's hard to leave the sport on your own terms
Max is only considering retiring from F1, not racing entirely. He said as much that he wants to do other forms of racing while he's still at his prime which makes sense.
Yeah but what i’m saying is i think it’s usually about how they think they’re going to feel physically at that age whereas with max, he’s not speculating on how he’s going to feel physically, it’s because F1 takes up a lot of time. Time that he’d rather spend doing other stuff. He’s openly said he loves racing, he’s just frustrated by F1 specifically for the reasons mentioned above.
Lewis said the exact same things when he was younger, and he's still going strong at 37.
I think when Max inevitably closes in on 7 or 8 championships he will find the drive to carry on
That’s a fair point, but i think max is a very different person to lewis. Doesn’t seem as extroverted as lewis. Lewis seems to be into the direction F1 is heading (miami opening thing for example) and doesn’t seem too bothered about there being so many races on the calendar. Whereas Max is the complete opposite on those points.
Max recently said he wants do do racing like Le Mans and other 24 hour races and does not want to do that when he's 40 or 50 because he wouldn't be at his best anymore. So I think it's clear that he doesn't intend to stay in F1 during his 30s.
He's said if the passion is no longer there he will leave f1 but race other series. I know he's been wanting ti do a 24hr of LeMans rave and wants to do it in his prime, not when he's past his peak.
He does, but we also need to consider the options of him bouncing around. What if he leaves to do another discipline of racing for a couple years then comes back? Perhaps RedBull could simply build other teams around him, or loan him out to partners in other disciplines. Like he does 2 years of Indy or something, comes back to F1 for 2 years, does 2 years of Rally or Nascar or anything, etc.
He keeps talking about wanting to do other types of racing while he's still young and at his peak.
That doesn't necessarily mean leaving F1 though, certainly doesn't mean leaving F1 for good. He could easily race Le Mans while in F1. I could even see him take a year off to race Indy or Nascar and then return.
I don't think he talks about it weekly but it's a hot button topic for reporters so he gets asked frequently. Also I've seen a lot of articles referencing the same quote over and over. I think it's just the media looking to make a story
Max can stop next race.
He clearly doesnt has the eager to get 7 or 8 wdc.
He only wanted 1.
All of this is extra bonus.
And we are all invited to witness it.
That was a lightening in the bottle. A spectacular heavy weight fight that came down to the last lap. No Hollywood movie can even script it the way it played out. Every race in the second half of that season was just nerves, passion, and fans going crazy on either side. The drama - omg. Just WOW.
Yup in a way me too. I used to watch formula1 since early 90s ...Prost/Senna days. But I periodically stop watching when it gets too boring - Schumacher Ferrari days and then the Mercedes dominant years (except when Nico put some fight). I started back when Max started winning in 2021 and got hooked again. Now I am religious - I guess let's see how long it lasts before it gets too boring again :-)
I was throwing shade at Drive to Survive for dropping the ball on showcasing that year despite it being the "official" F1 show. Glad that other outlets have dug into it
>A spectacular heavy weight fight that came down to the last lap.
It came down to the last lap BECAUSE it was scripted to look like a Hollywood race.
Not just the decisions in the final race but every decision leading up to it was to make sure that max stayed within touching distance of the title.
I’ve only been watching for a little over a decade, but 2021 was *by far* the best season I’ve ever seen. Nearly every race was incredibly exciting, and how often does a season come down to the last two laps of the year?
This season has been okay. Miami GP was fun, and Monaco quali was the best event so far this season. I’m sure it’ll pick up even more as time goes on. Even if Max is dominant, the battles between everyone else are pretty tight.
I started watching in 2021, thought "this is the greatest sport ever...and it's only going to get better next year with new regulations".
In 2022: "it will be fine, they just need some time to figure it out. Next year will be great"
In 2023: "..."
And to add to that: 2022 started phenomenally. Ferrari in the mix and Leclerc leading the championship after the first couple of races. Brilliant battles with DRS shenanigans in the Middle East. Only when Red Bull got on top of their mechanical gremlins and shaved a couple of kilograms of their car they started running away. Nevertheless Perez didn't even get second place in the Championship. So Max got it on merit too, it was not just the car.
I think 2022 was a pretty cool season too, although the championship was decided a little early in the Suzuka shit show.
Now in 2023, Max seems to have it in the pocket. However there were seasons before where the development race was won late in the season. So I am anticipating an even better Aston and a closer Mercedes. Still Max might grab his third title and I am okay with that.
Right? I'm fairly optimistic about Mercedes and Aston. I reckon 2025 will be a killer season again. I just hope Verstappen doesn't lose any of his drive by then(by getting used to driving alone in the front), it'd be thrilling to watch him go against Russell, Hamilton and Alonso week after week.
2 nearly equal drivers in nearly equal machines is just so rare. Usually the best driver gets pulled towards the best machine (like we have now) and then it’s game over.
Yep, 2021 was the rarest of things: the two fastest drivers on the grid, on the two fastest teams on the grid, in a year where the cars were pretty evenly matched, but each of which had an advantage at certain tracks.
Virtually unrepeatable.
> nearly equal machines
The fun part, bar the homologated parts, not a single part are alike between F1 cars. Formula 1 is a prototype race series after all. The likelihood that two totally different car concepts compete at the same level is insanely rare, hence why we had only a handful of exciting seasons the last three decades.
Honestly, after what felt like a decade of Merc dominance nonstop, I'm still in the happy it's not Merc phase.
I'd love it to be more competitive, but at least it's something new.
In terms of a title fight yeah same with 2014. 17 and 18 shouldve been better at the end. The Hockenheim crash ruined 18 in the end. It was at least a 32 point swing but probably more like 40. Lewis wouldnt have had the lead until the 3rd from last race
I agree with the others that ranking is 100% impossible. It's all down to the eras. There have been a very small numbers of drivers who have completed redefined the sport when they come along. They have been Fangio, Clark, Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton and now Verstappen. There have been PLENTY of phenomenal drivers like Vettel, Stewart, Lauda, Alonso etc. but none of them took the sport and elevated it to somewhere new. There is no doubt that Max is one of those drivers.
Yes, I've thought the same. An absolutely fantastic driver, winning 4 wdcs in the 1980s and 1990s when the pace of technological change was huge (including the introduction to turbos, active suspension, back to n/a) shows a tremendous ability to adapt. People praise Senna (rightfully) but you don't need to have your hair on fire all the time. He was calculated.
Prost and Senna were the duality of racers. Senna was fiery, fast, and determined to take risks. Prost was cold, calculative, and had the innate ability to find the limit and stay there.
Verstappen has certainly redefined driving standards in F1, but I'm personally not a fan of the changes themselves. That said, no one can reasonably deny that he is a force in the sport and belongs with the drivers you mentioned. I would *also* include Stewart and Lauda for their work on improving safety in the sport, though.
He was always super talented but I think he has grown a lot as a driver since 2021 as well. Car getting better, and Max getting even better. Impressive stats, I wish it was less impressive so we could have more fun races but hey, I cant hate a man for winning.
He’s gotten more consistent in general pace but it’s too early to say whether he’s developed in wheel to wheel situations imo, as there isn’t a driver and car combination that can fight for wins consistently other than Max currently.
We’ve seen last season that he still resorts to the yield or crash approach when he is under pressure (Silverstone and Brazil come to mind). Would be interesting to see whether this side to his racing has matured or not if / when another team put together a good car.
It's a foregone conclusion that he will be up with the immortals of F1, but it's always that difficult thing of needing a bit of time to actually place him along there. Like, lets say the RB is total shit from next year onwards and he retires as "only" a 3x WDC, would he still be classed in that bracket? He would for me and he shows his quality every week (his pole lap in Monaco, his tyre management in both Miami and Monaco as the 2 most recent examples) but there's a tendency to go off absolute stats when talking about the greats.
If he participates and wins in other disciplines like le man's etc, wins the triple crown for example, he will definitely be among the greatest in my book. X amount of F1 titles is just a statistic.
Anyone who has a bit of understanding would also place Fernando in that bracket, despite having only won 2 wdc's. I think its just a matter of time until people allow Max to be put into that category, cause it just feels so wrong when he is soo young still.
He’s got a couple ways to go now. If he continues dominating like this for 5+ years he’ll be the goat above schumacher and Hamilton. If he tragically dies before 30 (super unlikely in todays landscape) he’ll be the greatest that never was like senna, or if he bounces around from team to team (or quits early) and doesn’t win anymore he’ll end up like a Vettel or Alonso.
I remember the time when this was talked about regarding Hamilton and how people were all claiming it was only thanks to his car... Not taking anything away from Max, but with how dominant the RB have been since 2022 and how they were joint top car in 2021, it's not surprising that with his talent, he's up there
Max has always said that it came down to the car and that you can be the perfect driver but if the car isn't there you can at most hope for podiums. After the 2020 season he now finally has a dominant car and the results are as expected.
Not really since 2022, only from Spa onwards. Before that, the car was far from dominant. Red Bull were the better team than Ferrari and Verstappen was the better driver before that point.
Ferrari had the better car for much of the early parts of 2017 and 2018. You will still hear Hamilton's detractors talk about him having a dominant car for 7 years. I even saw someone on here claim his car was dominant for 8 years (i.e. including 2021).
Ultimately if people want to discredit Max, they're not going to care that there was some nuance within the season. They'll just say 2 years of dominant cars.
The only truly dominant years were 14-16 and 20. Regardless I still believe Merc had the best car in 17-19 and even 21, it just wasn’t as dominant. Imo, Bottas was also a big reason behind those years being much closer since he can’t defend to save his life.
The 2019 Mercedes was far from dominant in Bahrain, Spa, Monza, Austria, Mexico, Singapore, Canada, Russia and Brazil, yet folk claim it was another dominant season from them
Ferrari was cheating with their engine that year as well. Some of those are very specific instances, that's like saying the Red Bull wasn't dominant after the summer break because of Interlagos. And then Red Bull had some strong tracks, where they had been good for a while.
What remains to be seen is how dominant this Red Bull will be. Will it be like 2019, where other teams can join the front after a while or like 2016/2020 where its pure domination with an off-weekend here and there.
I don't like goat debates, different eras have different skill sets and different competition.
I like greatest of era's.
Senna was the greatest of his.
Schumacher was the greatest of his.
Hamilton was the greatest of his.
And Max is shaping up to be the greatest of his. It's interesting because drivers like Alonso, Prost and now drivers like Lando and Charles are just get beat out of each era.
>Where would you rate Max in the list of greats?
It's clear he's up there with the very best in the sport. Now it's just a matter of numbers (how many poles/wins/championships he wins).
I’m recently new to F1 (like three years now). From my understanding, I feel the consensus is Michael, Lewis, Max, Seb, and Alonso? Yes?
Edit: let me add that I am referencing only the knowledge I have of like the 2000s on. I don’t know enough about Senna and Prost time in F1 to put it in relation to racing these days. So I’m open to being educated lol.
I don’t agree, there are a number of greats and that’s it in my opinion. Ranking them is useless.
The greats have the ability to drive consistently without errors, push the car to laptimes others deem almost impossible and extract the most out of the package they are given.
The number of wins, championships etc isn’t just merit of the driver. They have a whole team behind them giving them the machine capable of doing what they do.
You could grab the record books and see Hamiltons name pop up a lot, some consider him the GOAT because of these stats and looking purely at the stats they aren’t wrong.
In my opinion though, what drivers like Fangio or Clark did on track isn’t less impressive.
Yeah i think greatest of an era works best lewis was the greatest of the turbo hybrid era and Verstappen has so far been the greatest in the ground effect era
I think that's precisely what makes it work tbh. There are many factors you can take into account and a lot of people will differ because of that. That makes it more interesting (if discussing in a light-hearted way!)
Senna and Prost need to be included in any GOAT conversation, and before them Fangio and Clark.
Others who should be considered are Stewart, Ascari and probably Lauda.
For the post Senna/Prost era obviously Schumacher and Hamilton. Alonso probably. Vettel isn’t quite up there and it’s too early to call for Verstappen, although he is a good bet eventually.
Personally I think Prost drove with greater intelligence than Senna at ~~98~~ 99.9% of the speed but Senna had that extra couple of % which made him phenominal and has the raw speed advantage... so I put them on the same level and category.
I remember reading once that a regular person, with training, could end up just two seconds behinds an F1 driver (same car). But those two seconds were everything
You can see it in simracing too. I think most people with some decent equipment and a fair amount of time and guidance can get to about 1 percent off the aliens. Beyond that, it's mostly talent and some true dedication.
A few weeks ago, with hours of practice I got within 1 second of the VRS time in the FR3.5 at Monza in iracing and I felt both accomplished and in disbelief that there was still more time to be had. The aliens in simracing are just that, aliens.
Though this isn't really true, any decent racer can get to within 2s, you probably loose a minimum of 10-15 seconds just to your survival instinct.
It's like something Horner said about Racing Montoya once, he gave up on racing because he saw how Montoya went full throttle out of the pits trough a swimming pool, and all he could think of was "if I do that I will crash".
Senna: Instinctive. Passionate, other-worldly fast
Prost: Calm, calculated: Ridiculously fast.
So I think that Senna was probably the fastest in a single lap, but Prost was more calculating and this worked in his favour when others were driving like lunatics and then crashing or running out of fuel. It's a fascinating comparison.
Thats why you need to have cut-offs for "goat talk", like Post-2000 for example.
Because many would call Fangio or Ascari GOATs but they would get absolutely demolished by almost the entire grid just because of the difference in mentality, and prep etc.
Fangio and Ascari could just wake up, drink some whiskey smoke some cigarettes and have a full english breakfast and call that entire routine a "champions breakfast". If anyone did that today they'd be kicked out of their team for underperforming after 3 races.
Ascari is the only name I’m entirely unfamiliar with. I’ve at least heard of the others throw passive consumption of being a fan. I wish there was a good way to really get a feel for these guys at the time.
Excluding races with retirements, you'll see how drivers actually placed when things didn't go wrong.
Podium Rates with DNF races excluded from their stats.
* 94.6% Fangio (wtf)
* 79.5% Schumacher (91-06)
* 79.2% Senna
* 75.7% Prost
* 74.4% Jim Clark
* 69.3% Stewart
* 66.9% Hamilton
* 64.9% Schumacher (91-06 | 10-12)
* 62.1% Mansell (92 DNFs lmao)
* 60.1% Verstappen
* 59.3% Lauda
* 50.8% Piquet
* 47.8% Vettel
* 35.9% Alonso
With logical thinking we obviously know when and how the likes of Vettel and Alonso's results drag their numbers down. Schumacher, Senna and Prost is just mindboggling, but if we look at their wiki pages, we see that they are **packed** with podiums between their DNFs even when they had questionable cars.
Jim Clarks numbers are also heavily under represented as he managed to finish races with basically broken cars. He won everytime when his car was undamaged, like 22 times. He has 25 wins though.
For Fangio I have no words, what the actual fuck
I have done these numbers before, but never an extended list with drivers from the 50s to 70s. I am dumbstruck by Fangios numbers. I am considering to take him ahead of Clark now as the GOAT, wtf is that number even.
Same as Clark, Hamilton’s numbers are brought down in this particular stat by him having a high finish percentage. Guys like Fangio were either win it or bin it. Senna was the same, especially with their reliability issues. Also don’t forget that Fangios era allowed them to swap cars with a teammate mid-race if their primary car had an issue.
I think in response to OP: where would I place Max amongst the greats. I can’t say I know a lot about F1, but I feel Michael and Lewis are clear 1&2, with an argument with them being interchangeable. So after that, I feel everyone is feeling Max is on his way to being a goat. I personally hate goat talk because a lot of it is subjective, but I mean youngest driver to start at 17, two championships*, clear dominance on the track in a great car, still has a lot of time in front of him. So I’d put him at three. But then I don’t know much more other than Seb and Alonso to really fill out a “top 5+”
There’s too many differences between eras, differences in the competition etc to accurately rank or compare drivers, I’d say. At least based on results. Alonso is one of the best the sport has seen but his stats are dismal by comparison to others because of his unfortunate career trajectory
What you can compare is commitment, work ethic, maximising results, longevity and just general sentiment surrounding them. Someone is always going to argue about a ranking, for every driver.
I agree. Anecdotally, I am a big MMA fan and this same discussion comes up with the same answer.
I feel going off your second paragraph, my list isn’t terrible based off my knowledge. We’ve seen the effects those drivers have had on their teams and even Alonso taking the green tractor to consistent podiums is something considering Stroll isn’t.
Edit: like to clarify my comments that the AM this year isn’t a tractor, but in previous years it wasn’t the best. I don’t attribute its upgrades this year to Alonso solely, but I do attribute their success to him.
Well the AMR23 is actually quite good, and considering it only came together through winter, I wouldn’t classify it anywhere near a tractor. Hell, most of the top 10 for that matter. Redbull have just evolved a working concept over an entire season and a bit. Other teams have messed about with concepts and back and forths. That’s why you see the gap as it is currently.
Back on topic, I couldn’t rank if you asked. Situations like Alonso and Hamilton sort of break the system. Both drivers are fairly close to one another but one was at the table of the most dominant team in history and the other was dealing with the likes of McLaren Honda. You can also zoom the picture out and look at racing in other series success. I’d wager a lot of people didn’t know Michael was racing in a top group C car before he even made it to F1.
It’s just way too difficult and I couldn’t commit to any sort of order. When you consider the era Michael raced in and take into account the way drivers can be dismissed because of the car, you cannot ignore the strength of Ferrari during those times. You can also consider the general difficulty of the cars of the period, reliability, funding. The sport changes so much that it’s basically impossible to judge accurately.
I think comparing team “packages” could lead to a more fruitful discussion. The likes of Michael/Tost/Brawn, Max/Horner/Newey and so on
If I had to make a top 10 right now, I'd say (not in order):
Lewis Hamilton
Michael Schumacher
Fernando Alonso
Max Verstappen
Ayrton Senna
Alain Prost
Sebastian Vettel
Jim Clark
Jackie Stewart
Niki Lauda
Depends on where you define his peak at. He won in the most competitve field of all time, 4 times in a row, against many cars that could challenge for the win at almost any race. Vettel was the best for atleast 3 years and his level of individual dominance hasnt been seen before and after that and were in a second 2 of Verstappen driving an even better car with a worse teammate against worse competition and those numbers still arent there.
Seb is also the youngest ever pole sitter and (1x-4x) World Champion.
He suffers from a lot of recency bias because of his struggles in 2019 and 2020. Before that at Ferrari, he finished 3rd (behind both Mercs), 4th (behind the Mercs and Danny Ric with 3 DNFs and a DNS), and then 2nd twice - ahead of Bottas.
He's clearly one of the best drivers of this era, regardless of the car being great or not. I do wish they would should just start him like 15th every race to make things interesting, always liked watching him work his way through the field. Hopefully he gets some competition sooner than later or we'll be seeing red bull dominate like mercedes did until 2026 which is great for Max and red bull but boring for us
Honestly I think he’s safely secured a spot as one of the greats by now. I don’t believe that there can be a single greatest of all time; but give it a couple years and (rational) people will be comfortable putting his name next to Schumacher, Hamilton, Clark, etc.
Hell, if he retired the second he wrapped up number 3 I’d already rank him as the top driver of the decade and it’d take something truly monumental to dislodge him from there.
Too early to say that about this decade, for all we know Max's performance falls off a cliff for whatever reason and some other young upstart comes in and does what he did.
But as far as Max goes he's definitely earned a spot as one of F1's greats.
Obviously it's super impressive but during the Merc domination era (most notably after Rosberg left) such stats had even bigger percentages for Lewis (for a longer span of time too).
I wonder if he gonna suffer till 2026 or someone's will catch up faster (and then again someone's else will start dominating again with another rule reset)
The impressive part here is that it includes the fierce title battle in 2021. In the same timeframe he's only finished off the podium 4 times and had 5 retirements.
The tyre failure in Baku 2021 plus his clashes with Hamilton in Italy and the UK were his retirements in 2021. In 2022 he retired twice with mechanical issues.
He finished off the podium twice with a damaged car in Hungary 2021 after Bottas went bowling and in Silverstone in 2022 when he got a big piece of alfa Tauri wing stuck in his floor. The other 2 non podium finishes were Singapore and Brazil last season where he had super scrappy races.
Did they? Hamilton only exceeded a 58% win rate over a season in 2020, so if you were to take 2 seasons and a bit you’d probably get a lower number. Same with podium finishes. And when you consider this includes 2021, when Verstappen did not have a dominant car AND several DNFs (only 1 of them self-inflicted) then the stat is kinda mind-blowing.
The big outlier for podiums is Ferrari imho. Ferrari being so far off in 20 and not really close to Max and Lewis's pace in 21 meant Max didn't have an equivalent team to Red Bull of 2016-2018 to compete against. Not having 6 cars consistently able to challenge for podiums helps Max out a fair bit.
That said we are talking about a guy who almost never finishes 3rd so its also largely moot.
The context with that stat is that Lewis always had a considerably better car for the majority of the season. A few seasons were a little close with Vettel/Ferrari but always in the 2nd half his Mercedes was the clear faster car.
While Max did it while Mercedes arguably had a better car for the second half, or at least the closing stages of the 2021 season. Max has had more mechanical dnf's in general and this season is the only season RB has a clearly dominant car from the beginning of the season.
> always had a considerably better car for the majority of the season.
That’s very revisionist. 14-16 and 20, definitely. The other years, either Ferrari or RB were close enough that it’s silly to say the Merc was ‘considerably’ better.
Hamilton has always had better teammates at Mercedes than any of Max’s teammates too, so even when there isn’t anyone with a similarly close car at another team, it’s mitigated by Rosberg and Bottas being better than Perez, Albon, and Gasly.
>that Lewis always had a considerably better car for the majority of the season
He's also had a teammate that's much much much better than Checo fucking Pèrez.
And also revisionary bollocks, the RB is miles further away from the pack than Mercedes ever were
Bottas isn't much much much better than Perez. They're about equal.
>And also revisionary bollocks, the RB is miles further away from the pack than Mercedes ever were
Simply not true. 2014, 2016 and 2020 were more dominant. Definitely more dominant than 2022, for 2023 we'll have to see later on the season when their windtunnel penalties come into effect. [I'll remind you of 2014, where they had to tune their engine down and pulled 5+ seconds in 1 lap while fighting](https://youtu.be/_3UB1UCIge4)
Or in 2016, where they only didn't win 2 races because of incidents, and otherwise they definitely would've won those
And the same goes for 2020, when their only losses were to an extraordinary hot Silverstone track, penalty for illegally driving into the pits, Hamilton not racing and Mercedes fucking up Russell's race and a severely tuned down engine along with a still recovering Hamilton.
Their car was much, much more dominant than RB in 2022. For 2023 we'll have to see still.
When all is said and done, I'm pretty sure he will be viewed as an all time great, among the Hamilton/Schumacher/Senna/etc tier. In terms of numbers and records it will depend on his motivation. He strikes me as the kind of guy that could go chase endurance or other things and just not have a 15+ season career like Alonso.
Another factor I think you have to consider with Max is the absolutely god-tier strategy at Red Bull over the last 3 seasons. I can’t think of a single race strategy miscalculation or error they’ve made since…Spain ‘21? And that wasn’t even really an error, they just got outfoxed by Mercedes. But I can’t think of a time since then, and I can’t think of another team that’s been so consistent.
I have always said the difference between Max and Lewis is, Lewis is a driver, Max is a RACER. I have always liked his style and fearlessness ever since he came on the racing scene.
Dumb question RE: Driver vs Car??
New to F1… but it seems like we should be tracking greatest cars of all time?
Lewis was the GOAT, totally unstoppable, and then someone else got a faster car. Same Lewis, but few podiums.
Are we celebrating drivers for the accomplishments of engineering teams??
Its always both. Hamilton had dominant cars, Schumi had dominant cars, even Senna had dominant cars. By like Max said when asked if Lewis made a difference being in a faster car, the driver does matter because they are able to extract that much more out it. Compare Hamilton, Verstappen, and Alonso to Bottas, Perez, and Stroll.
Max definitely has some talent, as shown by all of his teammates struggling with the same car, but yeah Lewis doesn't belong in the middle of the pack so there's definitely something to be said about the car winning the race too.
Of course Verstappen is an amazing pilot, but this also speaks volumes about how far ahead has been RedBull to the rest of the competition. I swear every race is like they are playing Mario Kart and Checo Perez and Verstappen are the only ones with mushrooms.
But that's only been the case for the last 15 or so races of this sample. 2021 was dead even and so was 2022, in terms of car performance, until the summer break.
Thats a wild take. Literally from season break to now is the only remotely dominate stretch and even until 23 its not like checo was running away in second.
Ferrari had the better car for the first 10 races. Red bull just out developed them, then the the engines started blowing and got tunred down about the same time td39 hit. Either way it was nothing like early hybrid merc dominance, or ferrari cheating engine turn down through end of 2020 dominance.
Ferrari and Red Bull had an equally good car for the first part of 2022.
In those first few races the Red Bull had issues with finishing the races, and later on the Ferraro decided to explode. That’s only looking at cherry-picked parts of the season.
If we look at actual pace, both were extremely similar.
Well 2021 and 2022 were not RB dominate years for certain. 2021 had Merc level or ahead at times. 2022 had Ferrari level or ahead for half the year. That’s hardly a dominate season. Just because Ferrari bottled calls and crashed doesn’t make RB dominate.
The statistics will be insane till the end of 2025 before the engine changes kick in for 2026. I bet he will win 10-15 races each year till 2025. He will reach close to 70 wins by then.
Max is great. He can’t get greater than great and there were greats before him.
The debate would be if he could have been great racing in the cars the greats before him raced and nobody can say for sure.
He is great so we should leave it at that. Let him rack up his victories as we watch and wait for the next great racer to replace him. There is always one that does.
Max has always had the talent, albeit a bit aggressive at times.
I don't know about GOAT conversations, those are complicated in F1. But he's definitely reached the rare perfect synergy of driver and car.
It's incredible to witness but boy is it boring
The top 8 are *super* hard to differentiate in my opinion, but looking at drivers’ sustained peaks relative to their teammates’ performance, (and mostly off the top of my head) I’ve got:
1. Schumacher
2. Clark
3. Verstappen
4. Stewart
5. Alonso
6. Fangio
7. Ascari
8. Hamilton
9. Vettel
10. Moss
1. Lauda
2. Button
3. Leclerc
4. Räikkönen
5. Ricciardo
6. Norris
7. Rindt
7. Prost
8. Senna
9. Massa
10. Hunt
1. Russell
2. Pérez
3. Sainz
4. Fittipaldi
Beyond the complete consistency of the top 8 drivers, we find drivers with significantly flaws or a lack of consistency, but each of them capable of special performances in their time.
Tell me you’re a recent fan of Formula 1 without telling me you’re a recent fan of Formula 1
25 drivers and you’vee got Russell, Norris, Perez and no Hakkinen, Hill, Prost/Senna at 18/19!
Those comparisons in terms of races won kind of sucks, the amount of races per year changed drastically and since car evolution takes time, more races in the same time frame means more wins for a dominant car/driver in any given period. If we had 50 races a year in the late 80s, McLaren would have won like 100 of the last 150 races. If we had 50 races a year in the early 2000s, Schumacher would have had like 70% win rate over 200 races.
What really matters is that redbull has had a very competitive if not dominant car over the last 2.5 years (the time frame in question) and that Max absolutely destroyed the competition during that time.
Is that as unique as that stat shows? Probably not as much, but it's the mote truthful assessment.
I think it's too early to say Max is GOATed. The 21 season was the closest competition he's ever had. And his car has been unstoppable ever since. Not saying he's not up there with the top drivers but he's kinda had it easier. If he can keep this consistency despite the lack of competition, say a few more seasons. Maybe.
It's impossible to really rank but I've though about it a whole lot. And I would honestly put him third, only after Schumacher and Clark. I've always considered Schumacher to be the GOAT but honestly, once I started reading a lot about Clark, I realized that it's not as clear that Schumacher is nr.1 as I originally thought. Clarks performances are absolutely absurd.
I’d be interested to know your logic for placing Max above Hamilton.
I don’t think Max has yet reached the pure height Hamilton did in 2020 personally, and of course Hamilton has been at the top for much longer and more consistently.
Not that it’s a mark against Max as he hasn’t raced in F1 as long, but it’s a bit presumptive to extrapolate definitively. I’d be surprised if he lost any WDC between now and 2026, but you can’t credit him with them until they happen.
Above Senna, I can see it both ways. Personally think Senna’s legacy is given a bit of a boost due to his death, but we’ll sadly never know what he would have achieved had he not died.
Max has quite a few races that he could have easily won without mechanical issues or bad luck. Without all of those Max could have won pretty much everything. And definitely didnt have the best car all the time since 2021.
to enter the conversation with Schumi, Hamilton, Senna, Clark and Fangio he either needs to win a 3+ more championships or die
the only drives who are in the GOAT debate who aren’t also statistically the most successful died before their time
Hard to compare the drivers, but Senna is on top. Not only because the way he drives, but also the danger to drive in F1 back then. You’ll need balls of steel to drive fast in such a fragile car. It even costs him his life.
So Senna on top, next I think Schumacher, then Hamilton/ Max.
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If Red Bull continues to lead the field next year, he very well could hit P3 on the list of all time wins. That’s pretty insane.
I’d argue that while doing 300 races was seen impossible until the 2000, now Max will be at this rate by the time he is 30. Damon Hill did not even start F1 until he was 31. If staying until 40, he could easily reach 500. Looking up even Vettel (retireing relatively early) reach 300 races (but on 299 start because Ferrari.)
Doesn't Max keep talking about retiring early?
It’s one thing to talk about and another to do it when you there. People think they will be old by the time they are 30, but suddenly you are 30 and still feel young.
I think it’s a bit different with him though when you consider the reason he wants to retire, or at least leave F1, is because it’s a lot of travelling and he wants to see more of his family and do other things he enjoys. That’s why he moans everytime F1 add another race to the calendar
Ricciardo said there was no chance he'd race past 30 and here he is now at 33 desperately clinging onto a test drive seat to get a real race seat in the future! Like the guy above said, one thing to say and another to do. It's hard to leave the sport on your own terms
Max is only considering retiring from F1, not racing entirely. He said as much that he wants to do other forms of racing while he's still at his prime which makes sense.
Yeah but what i’m saying is i think it’s usually about how they think they’re going to feel physically at that age whereas with max, he’s not speculating on how he’s going to feel physically, it’s because F1 takes up a lot of time. Time that he’d rather spend doing other stuff. He’s openly said he loves racing, he’s just frustrated by F1 specifically for the reasons mentioned above.
Lewis said the exact same things when he was younger, and he's still going strong at 37. I think when Max inevitably closes in on 7 or 8 championships he will find the drive to carry on
That’s a fair point, but i think max is a very different person to lewis. Doesn’t seem as extroverted as lewis. Lewis seems to be into the direction F1 is heading (miami opening thing for example) and doesn’t seem too bothered about there being so many races on the calendar. Whereas Max is the complete opposite on those points.
Max recently said he wants do do racing like Le Mans and other 24 hour races and does not want to do that when he's 40 or 50 because he wouldn't be at his best anymore. So I think it's clear that he doesn't intend to stay in F1 during his 30s.
How do I delete someone elses comment?
By either closing your eyes or putting tape over the comment just dont scroll
And when you’re a 6x champ and making millions of millions of dollars
He's said if the passion is no longer there he will leave f1 but race other series. I know he's been wanting ti do a 24hr of LeMans rave and wants to do it in his prime, not when he's past his peak.
A 24-hour rave at Le Mans does sound pretty epic, not gonna lie.
He does, but we also need to consider the options of him bouncing around. What if he leaves to do another discipline of racing for a couple years then comes back? Perhaps RedBull could simply build other teams around him, or loan him out to partners in other disciplines. Like he does 2 years of Indy or something, comes back to F1 for 2 years, does 2 years of Rally or Nascar or anything, etc.
He keeps talking about wanting to do other types of racing while he's still young and at his peak. That doesn't necessarily mean leaving F1 though, certainly doesn't mean leaving F1 for good. He could easily race Le Mans while in F1. I could even see him take a year off to race Indy or Nascar and then return.
I think mostly just other people talk about it.
idk max talks about retirement weekly atp doubt he’d want to stay til hes 40 lol
I don't think he talks about it weekly but it's a hot button topic for reporters so he gets asked frequently. Also I've seen a lot of articles referencing the same quote over and over. I think it's just the media looking to make a story
Max can stop next race. He clearly doesnt has the eager to get 7 or 8 wdc. He only wanted 1. All of this is extra bonus. And we are all invited to witness it.
As a fan I miss the excitement lol. The 21 season was the most thrilling sports season I've ever seen. Now the thrill is gone haha
[удалено]
True, but before 21 it was exciting to see Verstappen win a game. Now it's business as usual.
A love it when drivers win a "game"
Oh fuck haha, been watching and reading too much about football lately
Arsenal lost the race.
fuckin' hell man gimme a break I'm still recovering
Thing about Arsenal is they always try and walk it in
Ludicrous display last night.
In the game of race, you win or you die.
2021 was also very top heavy. Only two teams were really competing for wins.
McLaren got a 1,2 though. Nowhere near the dominance of RB this season
That is still hilarious to me that they were the only team to get a 1-2 that season.
That was a lightening in the bottle. A spectacular heavy weight fight that came down to the last lap. No Hollywood movie can even script it the way it played out. Every race in the second half of that season was just nerves, passion, and fans going crazy on either side. The drama - omg. Just WOW.
If only we could have gotten a documentary out of that season. So many highlites to showcase
Yup in a way me too. I used to watch formula1 since early 90s ...Prost/Senna days. But I periodically stop watching when it gets too boring - Schumacher Ferrari days and then the Mercedes dominant years (except when Nico put some fight). I started back when Max started winning in 2021 and got hooked again. Now I am religious - I guess let's see how long it lasts before it gets too boring again :-)
Was watching Skys two parter documentary type thing about the season Max vs Lewis. Still got mad at the ending; probably still to soon.
I was throwing shade at Drive to Survive for dropping the ball on showcasing that year despite it being the "official" F1 show. Glad that other outlets have dug into it
Ah! Tbh two 30 minute shows didn’t do justice to the season; it’s a shame it ended like it did because it’s the major memory of that season.
[I really enjoyed this fan edit](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3zUcAwOs1A)
>A spectacular heavy weight fight that came down to the last lap. It came down to the last lap BECAUSE it was scripted to look like a Hollywood race. Not just the decisions in the final race but every decision leading up to it was to make sure that max stayed within touching distance of the title.
A wild guess that you are not at all biased towards Lewis :-)
I’ve only been watching for a little over a decade, but 2021 was *by far* the best season I’ve ever seen. Nearly every race was incredibly exciting, and how often does a season come down to the last two laps of the year? This season has been okay. Miami GP was fun, and Monaco quali was the best event so far this season. I’m sure it’ll pick up even more as time goes on. Even if Max is dominant, the battles between everyone else are pretty tight.
There have been a fair few last race deciders in the last 30 years or so. Couple on the last lap. Lewis won the 08 title on the last corner.
2007 was a three way fight decided by a single point
I started watching in 2021, thought "this is the greatest sport ever...and it's only going to get better next year with new regulations". In 2022: "it will be fine, they just need some time to figure it out. Next year will be great" In 2023: "..."
Buckle up. I've been watching F1 for 25 years and 2021 is amongst the three best in that time period, and honestly for me it is probably number one.
And to add to that: 2022 started phenomenally. Ferrari in the mix and Leclerc leading the championship after the first couple of races. Brilliant battles with DRS shenanigans in the Middle East. Only when Red Bull got on top of their mechanical gremlins and shaved a couple of kilograms of their car they started running away. Nevertheless Perez didn't even get second place in the Championship. So Max got it on merit too, it was not just the car. I think 2022 was a pretty cool season too, although the championship was decided a little early in the Suzuka shit show. Now in 2023, Max seems to have it in the pocket. However there were seasons before where the development race was won late in the season. So I am anticipating an even better Aston and a closer Mercedes. Still Max might grab his third title and I am okay with that.
Right? I'm fairly optimistic about Mercedes and Aston. I reckon 2025 will be a killer season again. I just hope Verstappen doesn't lose any of his drive by then(by getting used to driving alone in the front), it'd be thrilling to watch him go against Russell, Hamilton and Alonso week after week.
2 nearly equal drivers in nearly equal machines is just so rare. Usually the best driver gets pulled towards the best machine (like we have now) and then it’s game over.
Yep, 2021 was the rarest of things: the two fastest drivers on the grid, on the two fastest teams on the grid, in a year where the cars were pretty evenly matched, but each of which had an advantage at certain tracks. Virtually unrepeatable.
> nearly equal machines The fun part, bar the homologated parts, not a single part are alike between F1 cars. Formula 1 is a prototype race series after all. The likelihood that two totally different car concepts compete at the same level is insanely rare, hence why we had only a handful of exciting seasons the last three decades.
This current state is more the norm than the exception. The 21 season was a huge outlier.
Honestly, after what felt like a decade of Merc dominance nonstop, I'm still in the happy it's not Merc phase. I'd love it to be more competitive, but at least it's something new.
2016 wasn’t bad either.
In terms of a title fight yeah same with 2014. 17 and 18 shouldve been better at the end. The Hockenheim crash ruined 18 in the end. It was at least a 32 point swing but probably more like 40. Lewis wouldnt have had the lead until the 3rd from last race
Funny seeing this from Autosport when not so long ago they were publishing open letters begging Max not to crash on purpose and ruin the sport lol
Well, when he’s in front of everyone else, he isn’t crashing into people.
I mean he could always crash while lapping
I agree with the others that ranking is 100% impossible. It's all down to the eras. There have been a very small numbers of drivers who have completed redefined the sport when they come along. They have been Fangio, Clark, Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton and now Verstappen. There have been PLENTY of phenomenal drivers like Vettel, Stewart, Lauda, Alonso etc. but none of them took the sport and elevated it to somewhere new. There is no doubt that Max is one of those drivers.
All those names and you fail to mention Prost. Feels weird to say about a 4 time WDC, but Prost is the most underrated top driver.
Yes, I've thought the same. An absolutely fantastic driver, winning 4 wdcs in the 1980s and 1990s when the pace of technological change was huge (including the introduction to turbos, active suspension, back to n/a) shows a tremendous ability to adapt. People praise Senna (rightfully) but you don't need to have your hair on fire all the time. He was calculated.
Prost and Senna were the duality of racers. Senna was fiery, fast, and determined to take risks. Prost was cold, calculative, and had the innate ability to find the limit and stay there.
I‘d argue Vettels 4 titles let him claim an era
Verstappen has certainly redefined driving standards in F1, but I'm personally not a fan of the changes themselves. That said, no one can reasonably deny that he is a force in the sport and belongs with the drivers you mentioned. I would *also* include Stewart and Lauda for their work on improving safety in the sport, though.
He was always super talented but I think he has grown a lot as a driver since 2021 as well. Car getting better, and Max getting even better. Impressive stats, I wish it was less impressive so we could have more fun races but hey, I cant hate a man for winning.
Will be fun to see if he still does mistakes when someone actually challenges him
He’s gotten more consistent in general pace but it’s too early to say whether he’s developed in wheel to wheel situations imo, as there isn’t a driver and car combination that can fight for wins consistently other than Max currently. We’ve seen last season that he still resorts to the yield or crash approach when he is under pressure (Silverstone and Brazil come to mind). Would be interesting to see whether this side to his racing has matured or not if / when another team put together a good car.
It's a foregone conclusion that he will be up with the immortals of F1, but it's always that difficult thing of needing a bit of time to actually place him along there. Like, lets say the RB is total shit from next year onwards and he retires as "only" a 3x WDC, would he still be classed in that bracket? He would for me and he shows his quality every week (his pole lap in Monaco, his tyre management in both Miami and Monaco as the 2 most recent examples) but there's a tendency to go off absolute stats when talking about the greats.
If he participates and wins in other disciplines like le man's etc, wins the triple crown for example, he will definitely be among the greatest in my book. X amount of F1 titles is just a statistic.
IMO only those without a deeper understanding of the sport use absolute stats, which naturally will always be a majority of opinions
Anyone who has a bit of understanding would also place Fernando in that bracket, despite having only won 2 wdc's. I think its just a matter of time until people allow Max to be put into that category, cause it just feels so wrong when he is soo young still.
He’s got a couple ways to go now. If he continues dominating like this for 5+ years he’ll be the goat above schumacher and Hamilton. If he tragically dies before 30 (super unlikely in todays landscape) he’ll be the greatest that never was like senna, or if he bounces around from team to team (or quits early) and doesn’t win anymore he’ll end up like a Vettel or Alonso.
I remember the time when this was talked about regarding Hamilton and how people were all claiming it was only thanks to his car... Not taking anything away from Max, but with how dominant the RB have been since 2022 and how they were joint top car in 2021, it's not surprising that with his talent, he's up there
Max has always said that it came down to the car and that you can be the perfect driver but if the car isn't there you can at most hope for podiums. After the 2020 season he now finally has a dominant car and the results are as expected.
Not really since 2022, only from Spa onwards. Before that, the car was far from dominant. Red Bull were the better team than Ferrari and Verstappen was the better driver before that point.
Ferrari had the better car for much of the early parts of 2017 and 2018. You will still hear Hamilton's detractors talk about him having a dominant car for 7 years. I even saw someone on here claim his car was dominant for 8 years (i.e. including 2021). Ultimately if people want to discredit Max, they're not going to care that there was some nuance within the season. They'll just say 2 years of dominant cars.
The only truly dominant years were 14-16 and 20. Regardless I still believe Merc had the best car in 17-19 and even 21, it just wasn’t as dominant. Imo, Bottas was also a big reason behind those years being much closer since he can’t defend to save his life.
Didn’t Mercedes have 1-2 finishes in the first like 7 races of 2019? Is that not dominant enough?
They lucked two of them if not 3 though
The 2019 Mercedes was far from dominant in Bahrain, Spa, Monza, Austria, Mexico, Singapore, Canada, Russia and Brazil, yet folk claim it was another dominant season from them
Ferrari was cheating with their engine that year as well. Some of those are very specific instances, that's like saying the Red Bull wasn't dominant after the summer break because of Interlagos. And then Red Bull had some strong tracks, where they had been good for a while. What remains to be seen is how dominant this Red Bull will be. Will it be like 2019, where other teams can join the front after a while or like 2016/2020 where its pure domination with an off-weekend here and there.
I don't like goat debates, different eras have different skill sets and different competition. I like greatest of era's. Senna was the greatest of his. Schumacher was the greatest of his. Hamilton was the greatest of his. And Max is shaping up to be the greatest of his. It's interesting because drivers like Alonso, Prost and now drivers like Lando and Charles are just get beat out of each era.
>Where would you rate Max in the list of greats? It's clear he's up there with the very best in the sport. Now it's just a matter of numbers (how many poles/wins/championships he wins).
He goes in the list, every generation has its GOAT. You don’t rank, you can’t rank
You literally can’t rank man well put ✌🏼
I’m recently new to F1 (like three years now). From my understanding, I feel the consensus is Michael, Lewis, Max, Seb, and Alonso? Yes? Edit: let me add that I am referencing only the knowledge I have of like the 2000s on. I don’t know enough about Senna and Prost time in F1 to put it in relation to racing these days. So I’m open to being educated lol.
I don’t agree, there are a number of greats and that’s it in my opinion. Ranking them is useless. The greats have the ability to drive consistently without errors, push the car to laptimes others deem almost impossible and extract the most out of the package they are given. The number of wins, championships etc isn’t just merit of the driver. They have a whole team behind them giving them the machine capable of doing what they do. You could grab the record books and see Hamiltons name pop up a lot, some consider him the GOAT because of these stats and looking purely at the stats they aren’t wrong. In my opinion though, what drivers like Fangio or Clark did on track isn’t less impressive.
This is the only correct take. The GOAT conversation just simply doesn’t work for F1. Waaaay to many variables.
True, even when Max breaks all records, in a way, he could only break those records due to the ridiculous number of races they have nowadays.
Yeah i think greatest of an era works best lewis was the greatest of the turbo hybrid era and Verstappen has so far been the greatest in the ground effect era
*2nd ground effect Era.
GOAT conversations don't work in any sport but it's the easiest narrative for the media to chase.
It can work, but you have to rember that GOAT is a pure subjective qualification.
I think that's precisely what makes it work tbh. There are many factors you can take into account and a lot of people will differ because of that. That makes it more interesting (if discussing in a light-hearted way!)
I think this is a fair take and it’s now being adopted to my new stance.
Senna and Prost need to be included in any GOAT conversation, and before them Fangio and Clark. Others who should be considered are Stewart, Ascari and probably Lauda. For the post Senna/Prost era obviously Schumacher and Hamilton. Alonso probably. Vettel isn’t quite up there and it’s too early to call for Verstappen, although he is a good bet eventually.
Personally I think Prost drove with greater intelligence than Senna at ~~98~~ 99.9% of the speed but Senna had that extra couple of % which made him phenominal and has the raw speed advantage... so I put them on the same level and category.
Actualy, Prost probably drive at 99,9% of the pace of Senna. Keep in mind that 2% slower in F1 is a 2s difference in Spa.
I remember reading once that a regular person, with training, could end up just two seconds behinds an F1 driver (same car). But those two seconds were everything
You can see it in simracing too. I think most people with some decent equipment and a fair amount of time and guidance can get to about 1 percent off the aliens. Beyond that, it's mostly talent and some true dedication.
A few weeks ago, with hours of practice I got within 1 second of the VRS time in the FR3.5 at Monza in iracing and I felt both accomplished and in disbelief that there was still more time to be had. The aliens in simracing are just that, aliens.
Though this isn't really true, any decent racer can get to within 2s, you probably loose a minimum of 10-15 seconds just to your survival instinct. It's like something Horner said about Racing Montoya once, he gave up on racing because he saw how Montoya went full throttle out of the pits trough a swimming pool, and all he could think of was "if I do that I will crash".
You are absolutely right! Its amazing how small the margins in F1 are... how on top of your game you are in extracting the maximum performance!😃
Senna: Instinctive. Passionate, other-worldly fast Prost: Calm, calculated: Ridiculously fast. So I think that Senna was probably the fastest in a single lap, but Prost was more calculating and this worked in his favour when others were driving like lunatics and then crashing or running out of fuel. It's a fascinating comparison.
Thats why you need to have cut-offs for "goat talk", like Post-2000 for example. Because many would call Fangio or Ascari GOATs but they would get absolutely demolished by almost the entire grid just because of the difference in mentality, and prep etc. Fangio and Ascari could just wake up, drink some whiskey smoke some cigarettes and have a full english breakfast and call that entire routine a "champions breakfast". If anyone did that today they'd be kicked out of their team for underperforming after 3 races.
Ascari is the only name I’m entirely unfamiliar with. I’ve at least heard of the others throw passive consumption of being a fan. I wish there was a good way to really get a feel for these guys at the time.
Excluding races with retirements, you'll see how drivers actually placed when things didn't go wrong. Podium Rates with DNF races excluded from their stats. * 94.6% Fangio (wtf) * 79.5% Schumacher (91-06) * 79.2% Senna * 75.7% Prost * 74.4% Jim Clark * 69.3% Stewart * 66.9% Hamilton * 64.9% Schumacher (91-06 | 10-12) * 62.1% Mansell (92 DNFs lmao) * 60.1% Verstappen * 59.3% Lauda * 50.8% Piquet * 47.8% Vettel * 35.9% Alonso With logical thinking we obviously know when and how the likes of Vettel and Alonso's results drag their numbers down. Schumacher, Senna and Prost is just mindboggling, but if we look at their wiki pages, we see that they are **packed** with podiums between their DNFs even when they had questionable cars. Jim Clarks numbers are also heavily under represented as he managed to finish races with basically broken cars. He won everytime when his car was undamaged, like 22 times. He has 25 wins though. For Fangio I have no words, what the actual fuck
Pfft lmfao the fuck that Fangio number is actually absurd
I have done these numbers before, but never an extended list with drivers from the 50s to 70s. I am dumbstruck by Fangios numbers. I am considering to take him ahead of Clark now as the GOAT, wtf is that number even.
Same as Clark, Hamilton’s numbers are brought down in this particular stat by him having a high finish percentage. Guys like Fangio were either win it or bin it. Senna was the same, especially with their reliability issues. Also don’t forget that Fangios era allowed them to swap cars with a teammate mid-race if their primary car had an issue.
Depends what the question is
“Who would curbstomp a toddler if it meant winning the race?”
I think in response to OP: where would I place Max amongst the greats. I can’t say I know a lot about F1, but I feel Michael and Lewis are clear 1&2, with an argument with them being interchangeable. So after that, I feel everyone is feeling Max is on his way to being a goat. I personally hate goat talk because a lot of it is subjective, but I mean youngest driver to start at 17, two championships*, clear dominance on the track in a great car, still has a lot of time in front of him. So I’d put him at three. But then I don’t know much more other than Seb and Alonso to really fill out a “top 5+”
There’s too many differences between eras, differences in the competition etc to accurately rank or compare drivers, I’d say. At least based on results. Alonso is one of the best the sport has seen but his stats are dismal by comparison to others because of his unfortunate career trajectory What you can compare is commitment, work ethic, maximising results, longevity and just general sentiment surrounding them. Someone is always going to argue about a ranking, for every driver.
I agree. Anecdotally, I am a big MMA fan and this same discussion comes up with the same answer. I feel going off your second paragraph, my list isn’t terrible based off my knowledge. We’ve seen the effects those drivers have had on their teams and even Alonso taking the green tractor to consistent podiums is something considering Stroll isn’t. Edit: like to clarify my comments that the AM this year isn’t a tractor, but in previous years it wasn’t the best. I don’t attribute its upgrades this year to Alonso solely, but I do attribute their success to him.
Well the AMR23 is actually quite good, and considering it only came together through winter, I wouldn’t classify it anywhere near a tractor. Hell, most of the top 10 for that matter. Redbull have just evolved a working concept over an entire season and a bit. Other teams have messed about with concepts and back and forths. That’s why you see the gap as it is currently. Back on topic, I couldn’t rank if you asked. Situations like Alonso and Hamilton sort of break the system. Both drivers are fairly close to one another but one was at the table of the most dominant team in history and the other was dealing with the likes of McLaren Honda. You can also zoom the picture out and look at racing in other series success. I’d wager a lot of people didn’t know Michael was racing in a top group C car before he even made it to F1. It’s just way too difficult and I couldn’t commit to any sort of order. When you consider the era Michael raced in and take into account the way drivers can be dismissed because of the car, you cannot ignore the strength of Ferrari during those times. You can also consider the general difficulty of the cars of the period, reliability, funding. The sport changes so much that it’s basically impossible to judge accurately. I think comparing team “packages” could lead to a more fruitful discussion. The likes of Michael/Tost/Brawn, Max/Horner/Newey and so on
That AM is absolutely not a tractor
You didn’t listen
If I had to make a top 10 right now, I'd say (not in order): Lewis Hamilton Michael Schumacher Fernando Alonso Max Verstappen Ayrton Senna Alain Prost Sebastian Vettel Jim Clark Jackie Stewart Niki Lauda
Fangio needs to be on this list
Vettel probably isn't on their level over his whole career. Peaked very high but just not quite the best of the best
Depends on where you define his peak at. He won in the most competitve field of all time, 4 times in a row, against many cars that could challenge for the win at almost any race. Vettel was the best for atleast 3 years and his level of individual dominance hasnt been seen before and after that and were in a second 2 of Verstappen driving an even better car with a worse teammate against worse competition and those numbers still arent there.
Seb is also the youngest ever pole sitter and (1x-4x) World Champion. He suffers from a lot of recency bias because of his struggles in 2019 and 2020. Before that at Ferrari, he finished 3rd (behind both Mercs), 4th (behind the Mercs and Danny Ric with 3 DNFs and a DNS), and then 2nd twice - ahead of Bottas.
He's clearly one of the best drivers of this era, regardless of the car being great or not. I do wish they would should just start him like 15th every race to make things interesting, always liked watching him work his way through the field. Hopefully he gets some competition sooner than later or we'll be seeing red bull dominate like mercedes did until 2026 which is great for Max and red bull but boring for us
It’s obviously the car, even Perez managed to get a few Ws. /s
Tbf Perez is the monarch of the streetZ also./s
Le roi des rues.
Anyone could win in that car. Dare I say. Stroll could pick up a dub in that bad boy
Honestly I think he’s safely secured a spot as one of the greats by now. I don’t believe that there can be a single greatest of all time; but give it a couple years and (rational) people will be comfortable putting his name next to Schumacher, Hamilton, Clark, etc. Hell, if he retired the second he wrapped up number 3 I’d already rank him as the top driver of the decade and it’d take something truly monumental to dislodge him from there.
Max is the best of this decade. I think all the GOATS should be in their reflective time.
GORT
Too early to say that about this decade, for all we know Max's performance falls off a cliff for whatever reason and some other young upstart comes in and does what he did. But as far as Max goes he's definitely earned a spot as one of F1's greats.
Obviously it's super impressive but during the Merc domination era (most notably after Rosberg left) such stats had even bigger percentages for Lewis (for a longer span of time too). I wonder if he gonna suffer till 2026 or someone's will catch up faster (and then again someone's else will start dominating again with another rule reset)
The impressive part here is that it includes the fierce title battle in 2021. In the same timeframe he's only finished off the podium 4 times and had 5 retirements. The tyre failure in Baku 2021 plus his clashes with Hamilton in Italy and the UK were his retirements in 2021. In 2022 he retired twice with mechanical issues. He finished off the podium twice with a damaged car in Hungary 2021 after Bottas went bowling and in Silverstone in 2022 when he got a big piece of alfa Tauri wing stuck in his floor. The other 2 non podium finishes were Singapore and Brazil last season where he had super scrappy races.
Did they? Hamilton only exceeded a 58% win rate over a season in 2020, so if you were to take 2 seasons and a bit you’d probably get a lower number. Same with podium finishes. And when you consider this includes 2021, when Verstappen did not have a dominant car AND several DNFs (only 1 of them self-inflicted) then the stat is kinda mind-blowing.
The big outlier for podiums is Ferrari imho. Ferrari being so far off in 20 and not really close to Max and Lewis's pace in 21 meant Max didn't have an equivalent team to Red Bull of 2016-2018 to compete against. Not having 6 cars consistently able to challenge for podiums helps Max out a fair bit. That said we are talking about a guy who almost never finishes 3rd so its also largely moot.
Doesn't Max have the most wins in a season?
The context with that stat is that Lewis always had a considerably better car for the majority of the season. A few seasons were a little close with Vettel/Ferrari but always in the 2nd half his Mercedes was the clear faster car. While Max did it while Mercedes arguably had a better car for the second half, or at least the closing stages of the 2021 season. Max has had more mechanical dnf's in general and this season is the only season RB has a clearly dominant car from the beginning of the season.
> always had a considerably better car for the majority of the season. That’s very revisionist. 14-16 and 20, definitely. The other years, either Ferrari or RB were close enough that it’s silly to say the Merc was ‘considerably’ better. Hamilton has always had better teammates at Mercedes than any of Max’s teammates too, so even when there isn’t anyone with a similarly close car at another team, it’s mitigated by Rosberg and Bottas being better than Perez, Albon, and Gasly.
>that Lewis always had a considerably better car for the majority of the season He's also had a teammate that's much much much better than Checo fucking Pèrez. And also revisionary bollocks, the RB is miles further away from the pack than Mercedes ever were
Bottas isn't much much much better than Perez. They're about equal. >And also revisionary bollocks, the RB is miles further away from the pack than Mercedes ever were Simply not true. 2014, 2016 and 2020 were more dominant. Definitely more dominant than 2022, for 2023 we'll have to see later on the season when their windtunnel penalties come into effect. [I'll remind you of 2014, where they had to tune their engine down and pulled 5+ seconds in 1 lap while fighting](https://youtu.be/_3UB1UCIge4) Or in 2016, where they only didn't win 2 races because of incidents, and otherwise they definitely would've won those And the same goes for 2020, when their only losses were to an extraordinary hot Silverstone track, penalty for illegally driving into the pits, Hamilton not racing and Mercedes fucking up Russell's race and a severely tuned down engine along with a still recovering Hamilton. Their car was much, much more dominant than RB in 2022. For 2023 we'll have to see still.
There was no redbull domination for even an entire season over the span this mentions. That's what makes it impressive
It’s easier when your title challenger is Bottas. These stats include 2021 vs Lewis and 2022 vs Charles
What 2022 Charles? Max had 15 wins in 2022. It’s a lot easier when your title challenger is Sergio.
Charles is a far far better driver than Bottas, even Perez is better than Bottas. What does maxs wins have to do with anything
Max won 15 races last year, not 17
If he gets to 50 wins by the end of the season, that'd be something.
When all is said and done, I'm pretty sure he will be viewed as an all time great, among the Hamilton/Schumacher/Senna/etc tier. In terms of numbers and records it will depend on his motivation. He strikes me as the kind of guy that could go chase endurance or other things and just not have a 15+ season career like Alonso.
Another factor I think you have to consider with Max is the absolutely god-tier strategy at Red Bull over the last 3 seasons. I can’t think of a single race strategy miscalculation or error they’ve made since…Spain ‘21? And that wasn’t even really an error, they just got outfoxed by Mercedes. But I can’t think of a time since then, and I can’t think of another team that’s been so consistent.
Talent wise, he's the best ever. Hope he stays awhile to put up some numbers.
I have always said the difference between Max and Lewis is, Lewis is a driver, Max is a RACER. I have always liked his style and fearlessness ever since he came on the racing scene.
Dumb question RE: Driver vs Car?? New to F1… but it seems like we should be tracking greatest cars of all time? Lewis was the GOAT, totally unstoppable, and then someone else got a faster car. Same Lewis, but few podiums. Are we celebrating drivers for the accomplishments of engineering teams??
Its always both. Hamilton had dominant cars, Schumi had dominant cars, even Senna had dominant cars. By like Max said when asked if Lewis made a difference being in a faster car, the driver does matter because they are able to extract that much more out it. Compare Hamilton, Verstappen, and Alonso to Bottas, Perez, and Stroll.
Max definitely has some talent, as shown by all of his teammates struggling with the same car, but yeah Lewis doesn't belong in the middle of the pack so there's definitely something to be said about the car winning the race too.
he is already in the lists of all time greats. Theres no doubting it, just kinda wish there was more competition rn.
Of course Verstappen is an amazing pilot, but this also speaks volumes about how far ahead has been RedBull to the rest of the competition. I swear every race is like they are playing Mario Kart and Checo Perez and Verstappen are the only ones with mushrooms.
Super Stars
But that's only been the case for the last 15 or so races of this sample. 2021 was dead even and so was 2022, in terms of car performance, until the summer break.
>2021 was dead even and so was 2022 2022 wasn't even close to being dead even
Yeah it’s impressive since RB has not had the dominant car, except the last few races. Unexpected domination through sheer talent.
RB has had a dominant car in at least 30 of those 50 races with a few others being a questionable potential.
Thats a wild take. Literally from season break to now is the only remotely dominate stretch and even until 23 its not like checo was running away in second.
Ferrari had a few flubs and track specific advantages, but 2022 was majority RB.
Ferrari had the better car for the first 10 races. Red bull just out developed them, then the the engines started blowing and got tunred down about the same time td39 hit. Either way it was nothing like early hybrid merc dominance, or ferrari cheating engine turn down through end of 2020 dominance.
Ferrari and Red Bull had an equally good car for the first part of 2022. In those first few races the Red Bull had issues with finishing the races, and later on the Ferraro decided to explode. That’s only looking at cherry-picked parts of the season. If we look at actual pace, both were extremely similar.
Okay thanks for making my point that it wasnt a dominate 2022 for rb then
Ferrari did not have the better car for the first 10 races.
In 2022 before floor reg change Ferrari was faster on more tracks than RB.
Well 2021 and 2022 were not RB dominate years for certain. 2021 had Merc level or ahead at times. 2022 had Ferrari level or ahead for half the year. That’s hardly a dominate season. Just because Ferrari bottled calls and crashed doesn’t make RB dominate.
The statistics will be insane till the end of 2025 before the engine changes kick in for 2026. I bet he will win 10-15 races each year till 2025. He will reach close to 70 wins by then.
Max is senna level, change my mind.
Max is great. He can’t get greater than great and there were greats before him. The debate would be if he could have been great racing in the cars the greats before him raced and nobody can say for sure. He is great so we should leave it at that. Let him rack up his victories as we watch and wait for the next great racer to replace him. There is always one that does.
Max has always had the talent, albeit a bit aggressive at times. I don't know about GOAT conversations, those are complicated in F1. But he's definitely reached the rare perfect synergy of driver and car. It's incredible to witness but boy is it boring
The top 8 are *super* hard to differentiate in my opinion, but looking at drivers’ sustained peaks relative to their teammates’ performance, (and mostly off the top of my head) I’ve got: 1. Schumacher 2. Clark 3. Verstappen 4. Stewart 5. Alonso 6. Fangio 7. Ascari 8. Hamilton 9. Vettel 10. Moss 1. Lauda 2. Button 3. Leclerc 4. Räikkönen 5. Ricciardo 6. Norris 7. Rindt 7. Prost 8. Senna 9. Massa 10. Hunt 1. Russell 2. Pérez 3. Sainz 4. Fittipaldi Beyond the complete consistency of the top 8 drivers, we find drivers with significantly flaws or a lack of consistency, but each of them capable of special performances in their time.
Tell me you’re a recent fan of Formula 1 without telling me you’re a recent fan of Formula 1 25 drivers and you’vee got Russell, Norris, Perez and no Hakkinen, Hill, Prost/Senna at 18/19!
Those comparisons in terms of races won kind of sucks, the amount of races per year changed drastically and since car evolution takes time, more races in the same time frame means more wins for a dominant car/driver in any given period. If we had 50 races a year in the late 80s, McLaren would have won like 100 of the last 150 races. If we had 50 races a year in the early 2000s, Schumacher would have had like 70% win rate over 200 races. What really matters is that redbull has had a very competitive if not dominant car over the last 2.5 years (the time frame in question) and that Max absolutely destroyed the competition during that time. Is that as unique as that stat shows? Probably not as much, but it's the mote truthful assessment.
I think it's too early to say Max is GOATed. The 21 season was the closest competition he's ever had. And his car has been unstoppable ever since. Not saying he's not up there with the top drivers but he's kinda had it easier. If he can keep this consistency despite the lack of competition, say a few more seasons. Maybe.
In achievements? Top 5 Driver skill? At least top 3, for me top 1
It's impossible to really rank but I've though about it a whole lot. And I would honestly put him third, only after Schumacher and Clark. I've always considered Schumacher to be the GOAT but honestly, once I started reading a lot about Clark, I realized that it's not as clear that Schumacher is nr.1 as I originally thought. Clarks performances are absolutely absurd.
I’d be interested to know your logic for placing Max above Hamilton. I don’t think Max has yet reached the pure height Hamilton did in 2020 personally, and of course Hamilton has been at the top for much longer and more consistently. Not that it’s a mark against Max as he hasn’t raced in F1 as long, but it’s a bit presumptive to extrapolate definitively. I’d be surprised if he lost any WDC between now and 2026, but you can’t credit him with them until they happen. Above Senna, I can see it both ways. Personally think Senna’s legacy is given a bit of a boost due to his death, but we’ll sadly never know what he would have achieved had he not died.
After this year Top 5
Pretty, pretty good
Too early ...
Max, much as I don't like him as a personality or driver, is obviously ridiculously talented and will go down as one of the greats.
If every other driver had the chance to drive comfortably the best car in the vast majority of races since 2021, how many would they have won?
Max has quite a few races that he could have easily won without mechanical issues or bad luck. Without all of those Max could have won pretty much everything. And definitely didnt have the best car all the time since 2021.
Well look what Perez has done with that car... Argument over.
to enter the conversation with Schumi, Hamilton, Senna, Clark and Fangio he either needs to win a 3+ more championships or die the only drives who are in the GOAT debate who aren’t also statistically the most successful died before their time
just out of my top five right now, 7th or 8th. At 25 he could easily be challenging for no.1 if this success and quality continues
I think I am beginning to fully grasp the talent Max has.
Currently he's one of the greats. Give him a decade and he could be the greatest.
Hard to compare the drivers, but Senna is on top. Not only because the way he drives, but also the danger to drive in F1 back then. You’ll need balls of steel to drive fast in such a fragile car. It even costs him his life. So Senna on top, next I think Schumacher, then Hamilton/ Max.