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cavallino

Still The Bestest Strongest Grid Of All Time

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I like your point of view that he learned by crashing. I can't remember a particularly stupid crash of his either, although there must be at least one. For myself I can only say that he looked the part next to Kubica, and that was enough, quite a few others wouldn't have done it.

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I think that since the Ferrari era, we've had a lot of rule changes and format changes also. It happens to work better for some more than others the current qualifying format, the whole tyre/refuelling changes, the rule changes etc.

The majority of races these days are won/lost by penalties. Its true. That's 50% of the factor why we're hearing so much more of the new guys. They see a chance for points, they take it. Tough luck on the dude with the stop/go. The rest of it is maybe these guys are actually good enough to be there.

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I think that since the Ferrari era, we've had a lot of rule changes and format changes also. It happens to work better for some more than others the current qualifying format, the whole tyre/refuelling changes, the rule changes etc.

The majority of races these days are won/lost by penalties. Its true. That's 50% of the factor why we're hearing so much more of the new guys. They see a chance for points, they take it. Tough luck on the dude with the stop/go. The rest of it is maybe these guys are actually good enough to be there.

Thats a sexy little pic you got goin there in that avatar of yours...manhandling that montrous beast....looking good looking good..

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The majority of races these days are won/lost by penalties. Its true. That's 50% of the factor why we're hearing so much more of the new guys. They see a chance for points, they take it. Tough luck on the dude with the stop/go. The rest of it is maybe these guys are actually good enough to be there.

You have a point (well, two actually :) ) but seriously hadn't thought of the penalty thang.

Going back some years unreliability and the ability for a team to bring out a new innovation were probably the main factors in triggering unexpected race wins/placements.

Think I preferred that but then I am an old fart...

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I've been standing on that limb for 10 years now. It hasn't broken yet. In fact, you should feel pretty damn safe with your conjecture that Heidfeld's crap...

He is.

He should never have been in F1 and how he keeps sneaking back in escapes me.

He at least brings experience, especially in an emergency situation like Kubica. But no, he is not upper echelon, and never was.

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Since the end of Michael Schumacher's reign there have been more opportunities for a greater number of drivers to become world champion. This has been accentuated by the differing levels of team domination through this time period. As a consequence, it's no surprise to find such a high number of champions on the grid, thus creating the perception that we are in some sort of super era.

Whilst the quality is no doubt high, I don't see it being any better than any other time period. It's a subjective measurement anyway.

I have to agree. We've always had half a dozen really talented individuals, a bunch of journeymen and a pair of crazies. I don't see that the situation has changed much at all.

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Well Cav, for me it's horses for courses. Prost, Mansell, Senna, Arnoux, Lauda all had to drive 190 mph+ cars with clutches and gearshifts - a highly skilful job. Now, a different skill set is required, punching buttons and clicking levers. The risk of death has almost vanished from the sport now too. Back in the day, it was a very real threat. I think it's it's a lot easier to get a car round quickly now than it was then and their are few drivers who could have competed on level terms with the men of yore. My picks would be Schumi, Rubens, Jenson, Kubica, Hamilton and Nando. Webber just might make but the current WDC is not up to scratch when it comes to bare bollock racing.

Yep, basically comes down to the difference a driver makes and also the learning curve of F1. In the era you talk about, however good a rookie was it was impossible to make the kind of impression that Hamilton did in his first season. The learning curve, the big step up isn't there any more. People like Schumacher and Senna made an impression when they entered the sport, but even for them it took at least a couple of years to learn the ropes so to speak.

What that does is it lets a talented driver show how good he is earlier in his F1 career. But also it makes things look artificially close, you have to look a lot more closely to see the difference in skill between drivers. We're a lot better off today than at the height of the technology era in the mid 2000s, I was always a big proponent of the standard ECU, banning traction control etc. It's harder but we're not there yet, I would honestly love a return to manual clutches even if that seems retrograde and hard to enforce. I think the time to position F1 as the pinnacle of technology is gone, it is time to make F1 about pure driving skill. Sure, the technology will remain, but I don't see the present degree of standardization as a bad thing.

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On Nick: he has the record of most starts without a win. Definitely not a guy you would WANT to bring back to F1.

That's a pretty meaningless statistic, it was thrown at Button for a while before he got a win and then a championship. It tells you absolutely nothing about how he has done relative to what the cars he drove were capable of.

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I'd put Heidfeld as being in the same league as Massa and Webber. Capable of turning good performances on his day, and a pretty intelligent driver, but I don't really see him as having the consistent speed to be a champion.

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That was more in reference to Nick himself, I just used Massa and Webber as examples of drivers I consider to be of similar ability

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That's a pretty meaningless statistic, it was thrown at Button for a while before he got a win and then a championship. It tells you absolutely nothing about how he has done relative to what the cars he drove were capable of.

All statistics mentioned on these forums are meaningless, mostly because of lack of context...like being the guy that won most WDCs for a certain driver...wait, was he German? :P

That said, you glaringly avoided my (many) other posts on NH thus turning an opinion, which you will find reasonably favorable towards Heidfeld's return, although without expeting him to deliver to the level expected from Kubica.

And actually, I find NH and Button to be pretty much on the same level.

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Heidfeld is a safe pair of hands but never really shone and is not likely to start now. As regards the best grid, I think generally you get the same proportion of outstanding talents and also rans in most eras. Having a greater number of competitive teams and cars the past few years has helped gives this era a better image, with more chances for a variety of winners.

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