A random thread for things too unimportant for their own thread...
- Thread starter Warwick
- Start date
Painful passing a Rees Mogg.
Wow, new rhyming slang; I'm of to the Rees Mogg (bog) for a Jacob.
Isn't is strange how British treat their sport stars really good at stuff and the things we do well. Look how we treated Bobby Moore, Paul Gascoine, George Best and now Lewis,Hamilton, who had he been born Italian would now be hailed as greatest driver in all history. ( which BTW he is). Had ge been driving Ferrari this year he,d still be champion and Ferrari would probably have won constructors. In 2008 he won championship in 2nd fastest car. ( Ferrari won constructors )
I,m not suggesting he should be sports personality of year and I see his faults. ( Tax etc)...But we should see him for the great driver he is. He could without doubt hold his own in any company and probably beat the greatest.
Can you imagine the following he,d get uf ge was German...afterall the cheating Vettel is hailed as the second greatest behind Schumacher ( by Germans) who never campaigned anything but fastest car on grid.
We do same with all our products..Some foreign company only has to produce something 90% as good as ours and we view it as twice as good...look how Jaguar XF is compared to Audi A6 by us Brits. Germans would bot dream of doing same. ( BTW XF is twice car A6 could ever be)
I,m not suggesting he should be sports personality of year and I see his faults. ( Tax etc)...But we should see him for the great driver he is. He could without doubt hold his own in any company and probably beat the greatest.
Can you imagine the following he,d get uf ge was German...afterall the cheating Vettel is hailed as the second greatest behind Schumacher ( by Germans) who never campaigned anything but fastest car on grid.
We do same with all our products..Some foreign company only has to produce something 90% as good as ours and we view it as twice as good...look how Jaguar XF is compared to Audi A6 by us Brits. Germans would bot dream of doing same. ( BTW XF is twice car A6 could ever be)
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That is untrue. Two of Michael Schumacher's championships and 19 of his race wins were when driving for Beneton and that car rated third (Ford engined) and second (Renault engined) best on the grid at the time of the two championships.
And in his ten years with Ferrari when he won his remaining five championships it was often far from being the best on the grid. His Ferrari teammate Eddie Irvine once said this:
"The '96 [Ferrari] car was a disaster and was nearly undriveable. Only someone of Michael Schumacher's ability - and maybe Senna - could have driven it."
But he won the Spanish Grand Prix in that car, his first Ferrari race.
I'm not claiming any best best driver, just setting the record straight.
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Not quite true Flecc. Only year Schumaker won championship in a none championship winning car was 94...and by end of season the Benetton was fastest on grid anyway and became winning car following season.
Eddie Irvine's comments are completely subjective and are an excuse for his own disastrous campaign that year.Damon Hill won Championship in 96 so Schumaker could not have won it in a slower car. He got the slower car nowhere in 96.Quoting individual races is irrelevant, could be all sorts of reasons why a GP or two was won or lost. Schumaker was a fantastic driver, no doubt. His record speaks for itself but having watched both, and seen what LH can achieve in a definitely slower car ( as I said for 08, which it was, the Benetton in 94 was at least equal and won championship 95 with little change ( apart from.power ???) ,LH is greatest racer ever. ( IMHO)
He is not regarded as such by UK, he,s hardly looked on as best ever UK driver , which he is by a country mile....which is point I was making.
Like I said if he were Italian or German we,d be hearing that all the time. We prefer to put our top people and products down.
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Although there can be truth in that in some spheres, in F1 thats a big exaggeration.
You know as well as I do how Damon Hill, Nigel Mansell, Jim Clark, Stirling Moss, John Surtees, Roy Salvadori et al have been hyped in Britain over various years. And Lewis Hamilton has hardly lacked publicity in the UK's media, sometimes it's been excessive.
And even when the British express admiration for foreign drivers it's certainly not only or even mainly for German and Italian drivers. The following drivers and more who were not German or Italian made it into a voted list of the greatest F1 drivers, many in the highest numbers too:
Fangio, Senna, Lauda, Fittipaldi, Piquet, Prost, Alonso, Hakkinen, Rindt, Brabham, Andretti, Raikkonen, Rosberg, Gonsalez, Jones, Reggazoni, Bergher, Ickx et al.
Since the same list contained all the UK's own greats I see no bias.
Certainly Hamilton is our British greatest now and I think he has a very good chance of matching or exceeding Schumacher's seven championships and for most putting the best ever question beyond dispute.
I say "for most" since it's an impossible question anyway. The cars, tracks, race conditions and rules have changed so enormously over the last 60+ years that any comparison is spurious.
Fangio would be lost in todays electronic cockpits and Hamilton would find Fangio's Maserati's handling terrifying. We can have no idea how either would perform under such radically different circumstances
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It's like comparing footballers from now with those from the 60s, how would Messi and Ronaldo have coped with the muddy ploughed fields that the grounds became after a long hard winter ~ so unlike the billiard flat surfaces of today.
They would have coped....as would Hamilton...in any car..its not the electronics or power or anything...its the desire to win and ability to achieve it.
People make same argument re boxers...Ali would have been greatest...in any generation..with gloves..without gloves...any number of rounds..
Best would have excelled in todays game and Ronaldo same in any generation. Infact given time, training and dedication modern footballers show they would wipe floor with past generations. Its not that long since half time was a fag break..
Hamilton was driving Karts at 10...Fangio didn't start driving til his 40's...Would be no contest. Hamilton would be way better in any car..
But all this is going away from point I was making, which is..Hamilton is easily best driver UK has ever produced and by some margin ; he is probably best driver ever and certainly of his generation and he is much under appreciated by Uk public. His car control and ability to extract over what a car should be capable of is second to none, in any generation.
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I whole heartedly agree!
The cornering, acceleration and braking forces experienced in an F1 car today were simply impossible in Fangio's day.
The same cornering forces acting on the centre of gravity of his car's would have had him barrel rolling off at the slightest hint of a corner.
The size, skinnyness and compounds of the tyres could not have withstood the 1G accelerations, let alone the 5G braking and cornering.
And it is seriously doubtful if, starting at age 40+, he could have reacted quickly enough to handle the turn-in, or caught the almost instantaneous transition to torque-induced over-steer that the 2017 cars have.
f1 is like watching paint dry they need some cork screws and loop the loops and no speed limits and ramming cars of the road allowed.
yep and the cars are to slow should be going at least mac 1 down the straights 
Which is one of the things you said that I've been disagreeing with..
Hamilton is obviously greatly appreciated by the fans, those in the UK who still follow F1, but that's now a much smaller proportion of the UK public than it once was. Soundwave made the point, many now find it a big turnoff for various reasons, and that includes me since I stopped watching a while ago.
When F1 had a greater following these British drivers won Sports Personality of the Year:
1961. Stirling Moss
1973. Jackie Stewart
1986. Nigel Mansell
1992. Nigel Mansell
1994. Damon Hill
and Lewis Hamilton did win it once as shown below. He might have won it more, but many of the public had turned off F1 and followed cycling and tennis more, electing those stars instead:
2008 Chris Hoy
2011 Mark Cavendish
2012 Bradley Wiggins
2013 Andy Murray
2014 Lewis Hamilton
2015 Andy Murray
2016 Andy Murray
Anthony Joshua is reckoned the strongest contender for the 2017 title, but his closest runners up are thought to be Chris Froome, Lewis Hamilton and Mo Farah in that order.
So I see no current bias, and with the latest trouble over Froome's medication and failed drug test, Lewis is likely to move up to lead contender.
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I,m not expressing point very well...yes he has won sports personality ,doubt he,ll win it again with his tax situation and massive earnings.. By appreciation I mean folk recognising his standing as quite possibly greatest driver ever...you,ve argued against that yourself...and like I,ve said before had he been born German , Argentinian or Italian his home fans would be screaming best there has ever been...which only a select few actually believe....
Ask an Italian who greatest bike rider there has ever been and nearly all would say Valentino Rossi...yet there are numerous reasons saying not..As a nation we don't do that...we put our best well down list...as we do our products.
Enzo Ferrari was once asked what he thought best ever sports car ? His answer ..E type jag..We wouldn't say that ourselves..Brits would say a Ferrari or Lambo buy never a Jag or Aston...
You cant simply look at championships or world titles. That's a lot to do with lots of other factors. I,m talking about actually assessing who would get best out of any car he was given. IMHO that is Hamilton...over anyone. I was saying same years before he won a title. I,ve never witnessed anyone with his car control. ( Ron Dennis thought same BTW)
Ask an Italian who greatest bike rider there has ever been and nearly all would say Valentino Rossi...yet there are numerous reasons saying not..As a nation we don't do that...we put our best well down list...as we do our products.
Enzo Ferrari was once asked what he thought best ever sports car ? His answer ..E type jag..We wouldn't say that ourselves..Brits would say a Ferrari or Lambo buy never a Jag or Aston...
You cant simply look at championships or world titles. That's a lot to do with lots of other factors. I,m talking about actually assessing who would get best out of any car he was given. IMHO that is Hamilton...over anyone. I was saying same years before he won a title. I,ve never witnessed anyone with his car control. ( Ron Dennis thought same BTW)
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That's changing what you said before, you said the British were doing that and as I've said that wasn't true. I agree home fans support their own as being the best and the British also do that, when there's been enough fans as I've shown in those earlier years.
I disagree that Hamilton is the best ever, I think he falls well short of that, his numerous silly mistakes and failures to finish in his earlier F1 years rule him out for me. In recent years he's had it very easy, being in the best car by far and with lesser co-drivers in the team.
Now you are arguing against yourself! As you say, an Italian being fair and choosing a British car, just as we might be fair and choose an Italian or other nation's car.
Why do you think the latter wrong but the former right?
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And Ferrari's technical director said the same, but Amon was dogged by bad luck.Enzo Ferrari also chose Chris Amon as best driver of his generation...
Mario Andretti once joked that "if Amon became an undertaker, people would stop dying".
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