re: 2022 Formula 1 Season Thread

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I'd bet he's perfectly ok with that.

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Absolutely, he knows his role and executes it admirably.

He better be because that is exactly what will happen in the rare instance he finds him self in front of Max. He knew going in he was #2 on that team.

Perez is not fast. Has never been fast. Knows he isn't fast.

The comparison I would like to see is Ham or Max in an exact reproduction of one of Fangio's cars, or Jim Clark's, and see if they could match his time.


Of course that could never happen for a variety of reasons. The main one being neither would go balls out in a car like that as it would be too dangerous for them.

Other than Bianchi's death, which was a freak accident and totally avoidable, their hasn't been a death in F1 since 1994 and they still scream about safety and changing layouts to make them safer. Today's drivers are far too soft and coddled to drive an old school car at the limit.

eta- Dude having a bad day in a historic Ferrari

That vid is mistitled. It's not David Ferrar and the guy, while surely having some injuries, amazingly did not die in this Goodwood crash. Watch the entire vid and you'll see he was 100% legitimate. No seatbelt in the 50's front engine F1 machine.

That's kind of the point. However I'd guess neither Fangio nor Clark would have a lot of trouble with punching some buttons. On the flip side would Ham or Max be as fast if they actually had to shift the trans? (Old school in car cams are cool in that they are driving with one hand so much due to banging gears)

But saying that, I find the old school drivers much more impressive than anyone from the past 30 years simply due to the risks they took every time they strapped in.

There is very little risk today.

Ride along with Fango testing a 57 Maser F1 car

Check out the curbs. Where's the paved runoff? lolzzz

eta-Excellence in a variety of cars is a good indicator to me of a truly spectacular driver. Mario and Foyt are a couple examples as they excelled in anything with 4 wheels. They would be impressive in Fangio's car to today's F1 cars.

I recall reading an account of Foyt jumping in a Porsche prototype, that he had never driven before, in the rain, at the Daytona 24 and just powering through the field. That's impressive.

Perez said himself he couldn't do that lap again in 1000 tries.

He knows.

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Just for giggles - since the names of these drivers have come up recently in this thread

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Interesting hypothetical that I will actually give a shot at some point before this weekend. I mean it is impossible and has to be done for giggles but I might see if I can make a simple case for each driver on the list to beat him instead of just picking winners. This isn't to take anything away from Max, he is an exceptional talent and maybe has the best racing genetics of any F1 driver ever, despite a handful of drivers having more accomplished fathers offhand I don't think any of them had a mother that actually was a significant talent also.

James Hunt's first race car was a Mini with a milk crate for a seat.

He got thrown out of that race, but since he had experience racing Mini's I'd go with Hunt the Shunt.

Unfair advantage? Probably.

Donohue had lots of experience in bigger sedans so he might be a good choice as well.

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Any pevious F1 driver vs current F1 driver

Track: Brands Hatch
Car: 1967 Austin Mini Cooper S

Who ya got??

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I will dark horse that one. I'll take Jacky Ickx against the entire current grid. Hell, I'll take three more "Js" as well, Jimmy (Clark), Jackie (Stewart), and John (Surtees).

I think the older generations would have an easier time with low power to weight cars with fenders.... and a manual gearbox. We are probably at the point where a significant portion of the grid would have issues with heel and toe downshifts into a corner.

One note two of my picks have curves at Brands Hatch named after them (Clark and Surtees). Outside of John Cooper (oddly enough given the choice of car) any of the other drivers with a Brands Hatch curve namesake would do well against the current crop in this hypo. Stirling Moss, Graham Hill, Mike Hailwood, and Mike Hawthorn, I think that is the rest of them.

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neither Fangio nor Clark would have a lot of trouble with punching some buttons

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They could have trouble being inside such a tight cockpit with a halo.

Fair enough. You actually reminded me of one of Schumacher's greatest drives, 1994 Barcelona when he got stuck in 5th gear early in the race, and I think he even did two pit stops in 5th gear, and he still finished P2. He had to change his driving style to get through the race. He said he remembered his karting days and tried to maximize momentum through each corner since he had no power.

youtube.com/watch?v=KKIBvNrfxlQ

You can see from the video that his situation was made worse because this was the year that Senna and Ratzenberger died, and Karl Wendlinger had a devastating crash at Monaco, so F1 was super paranoid and altered dangerous sections of tracks the rest of the year. At Barcelona, they put a very slow chicane at the fast Nissan chicane, so Schumacher had an extra slow corner to deal with. After that year the GP layout bypassed the Nissan chicane, making the track a little less cool.