On 7/10/2020 10:12 am, geoff wrote:
On 7/10/2020 5:03 am, Alan Baker wrote:
On 2020-10-06 8:50 a.m., Heron wrote:
Hamilton not on F1's best-ever list - Stewart
https://racer.com/2020/10/06/hamilton-not-on-f1s-best-ever-list-stewart/
He leaves Schumacher of his list, fangurl...
...and Stewart has forgotten more about F1 racing that you'll ever know.
His view being valid or not, I think Jackie's main issue is that he is not proposed as being 'up
there' often enough.
OK a lot of us already know this, consciously or otherwise but I'll write it out for people like
Jackie Stewart (not that he'll get to read it or even care - he's above what common people think).
Let's leave aside the evolution of the machinery for now, it's not what Stewart is making headline
with.
The thing that Stewart (and many others) fail to take into account is that during Fangio's* era the
whole 'motor sport' thing was fairly new and largely the preserve of 'gentlemen'. Not only were the
machines themselves primitive but also competitive driving itself was a new discipline that drew
from tiny pool of potential racers.
[* and also to a lesser extent right through to the latter part of the 20th century.]
Yes Fangio stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries, of that there is no doubt. However
that was the dawn of the sport and relative skill levels were much lower down the ladder of what
was potentially possible. It was a new thing and they were pioneers. This was at a time when most
of the population didn't even know how to drive a car, even that required you to be above a certain
financial threshold and so limited the potential pool of competitors.
Fangio raced against guys with time on their hands who decided, usually in their 20s or later, that
motor sport would either be a jolly jape or a way to take risks without going to Everest or
similar. They could be seen to defy death at a local track with crowds of people watching! It
attracted a few certain types of people (with exceptions, as with all things). They were largely
either bored and well-to-do, men with big egos craving attention or sometimes even the
psychologically unstable.
During the latter part of the last century things gradually* changed to where a new group of
potential drivers started to come through (which didn't completely exclude the previous
categories). These were, for want of a better word, 'kids' for whom motor racing was not a new
thing. It was part of their normal lives and could be seen on TV. They were often kids who had
spent their toddler years with their fathers on a Sunday watching the pioneers or the sport.
[* As I said it was a gradual transition...]
Some of them decided to get into the 'feeder series' (including karts) as a way of getting daddy's
interest or even making Daddy proud - and Daddy was often interested / proud enough to put up the
funds to allow their boy to continue. Some were 'pushed into it' by fathers wanting to live
vicariously through their sons. Also if you were successful it was even a way to make lots of money
now instead of losing it!
A lot fell by the wayside, ambition exceeding accomplishment. Others progressed through the
winnowing process that was the local kart track and raced competitively. Some went on to race in
regional competition and an even smaller number went on to national championships. Even fewer made
it all the way to international championships.
This is all happening in karts, long before they get a chance to make the leap (including financial
leap) to open wheeler cars proper. You see where I'm going with this?
The same winnowing process outlined above for karts then happened with cars. Maybe one in a hundred
was competitive with the others dropping by the wayside. (Others, like Alan Baker were never going
to make the grade so stayed in the sport on a club level.)
The point of all these words that I've written so far was that Fangio was the best of a few hundred
men who tried their skill at racing. Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna were the best of a few thousand
competitors who had the wherewithal to try their hands...
Lewis Hamilton is the best of a million, boys and men globally, who've tried to reach the top of
the sport. I said I'd leave the evolution of the machinery aside for a while so let's re-introduce
it now. Yes he's in the best car on the grid. Nobody doubts that. But he got into that position
because of his skill and work ethic.
Also the cars as well as the drivers skills are much more evenly-matched. That there is a distinct
order on the grid is testament to the evolution of both the technology and the 'apprenticeship'
that the drivers undergo these days. The sport is mature so of course grids are more predictable
than they were when it was in it's infancy.
I said earlier that this evolution of motor sport was a gradual process. You can draw a line on a
graph from Fangio to Hamilton showing the number of drivers that they had to beat to get to the
top. This is something that Jackie Stewart doesn't get. Fangio was a very big fish in a very small
pond. Jim Clark was the biggest fish in the Thames. Senna was the biggest fish in the Amazon.
Schumacher was the biggest fish in the Mediterranean. Hamilton is the biggest fish in all of the
oceans.
In the linked article Stewart says rCLThere was a level playing field that simply doesnrCOt exist
today" and he couldn't be more wrong. Back then racing was even moreso the preserve of the few
privileged white men who had the time on their hands. I get that at that point he's largely talking
about the machinery but it just shows that he's out of touch with reality these days. 'Back then'
the difference between the first and last cars was huge (remember the 107% rule years later?). It's
sad it see him still desperately trying to cling to the limelight - and actually proves my point
about the personalities of the drivers in the early days.
--
Shaun.
"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville
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