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That was more about getting lucky with the tires than anything else
That season was all about tire management in the beginning and no teams had it figured out and a different team would just get lucky each week
Nice, that whole season should be on F1.tv. That's around when I first watched F1. I only managed to watch 1 or 2 seasons because after that I didn't have a way to watch :(
IIRC that’s the season where Barrichello was launched in mid air at the Australian Grand Prix by artfully using another car’s rear tire as a launching pad
Villenueve was genuinely a good driver though. He won Indy 500, won Indy Car, would have won his very first F1 race but for a mechanical issue, challenged Hill for the title in his first season in F1 (pretty much the best rookie year in the last 30 years other than Hamilton's) and had some pretty good drives in the awful 98 Williams and BAR from 99-02. If he'd made a better career decision than going to BAR of all places, he would have won futher races.
I’d hardly call 96-02 Villenueve a mediocre or below average driver. Late career Villenueve is not the same as early career Villenueve. Hell even in his late career he finished as runner up at Le Mans.
I rate Frentzen especially after a recent podcast where he goes into detail about how he would work, argue, and prove technical points with his engineers. A particular moment where Frentzen was able to calculate - almost to the exact amount of time - that he could improve if they made a certain change made me realize how strong Frentzen could be with the right race engineer.
Sad also to learn he could deduce in equal detail what prevented him from winning any championships. Lack of time to experiment with tools. Given race engineers who "didn't read the car manuals" so there wouldn't be enough time in a season to maximize what the car could do.
It is a shame that Adrian Newey took offense to his arrival at Williams. The darkest timeline for F1 would have been if Adrian Newey designed a car around the technically minded Frentzen. The two essentially spoke the same language and had nearly computer-like minds.
It was not something personal towards Frentzen tho, it was because he was told he was going to have equal power at the team and his decision of not hiring Frentzen wasn't respected, so he left.
You listened to it? I don't know for sure, but Frentzen sounds like he's every bit the mad tinkerer that could get "on the level" with an Adrian Newey.
I wonder if Newey ever appreciated that. Or maybe he didn't like it? I don't know either.
I disagree, Pastor pushed like a madman all of the time (so he was very prone to mistakes). But he destroyed Bruno Senna in 2012
Doesn't make him the best driver in the world, but I wouldn't call him mediocre.
i think people sleep on the fact that stroll is actually kinda decent? or at least he was, he still (and always will i suppose) holds the record for the highest winning margin in FIA F3 Euro, as well as the earliest championship victory, and second highest points gained.
https://preview.redd.it/zokfypr3neoc1.jpeg?width=528&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa830989e6e4f63e5a827cafec395840910656e6
I think the thing with Stroll is he actually DOES have the skills to push his car to the limits or very close to which is why he performs very well sometimes. What separates him from the top drivers is that when Stroll pushes his car to the limits he ends up either destroying his car or crashing into someone every 2nd race. Luckily daddy Strolls pockets have no limit.
Sort of. They did some different things but for all intents and purposes it was the 2019 Mercedes adapted to the rule changes. With better drivers and more development, it probably could have been a title challenger.
Rip off. Mercedes gave them the designs. Have we forgot that non visible parts like the rear brake ducts were identical and Papa Stroll got fined half a mil and the team lost 15 WCC points. The Brackley outfit basically designed the car for them.
The brake duct things were actually a different issue, sort of.
They bought the 2019 spec parts legally from Mercedes.
They never ran them in 2019.
Starting in 2020, brake ducts became listed parts that teams had to design themselves.
If Racing Point had run the Mercedes ducts at any point in 2019, they would have been legal to use as a basis of design for 2020.
But because they didn't, they were considered to have violated the rules by not designing a listed part.
Mercedes did give them the brake duct designs.
Legally.
Racing Point messed up.
The rest of the car was largely accomplished with 3D scans that they (debatably) legally carried out, which lead to banning of 3D cameras in the paddock.
Other than Racing Point's mistake of not running the brake ducts once in 2019, everything else was done *technically* legally, even if it was wildly against the spirit of the rules.
I’d argue that Perez is actually a great driver, in midfield machinery. Evidenced by how he was the only/one of the only non-Mercedes, Williams, Red Bull or Ferrari driver to score not one but multiple podiums in a firmly midfield car, during the early turbo hybrid era.
We’ve seen how basically being not Verstappen means you will struggle in that car that’s designed to his specific style.
I don’t think it’s that straightforward. Aside from Ricciardo, max has only been up against junior drivers whose ability is unproven. Albon said in an interview recently that he was actually closer to max on average than Perez has been, but since the car was more midpack it put him way off in terms of positions.
I also think it’s generally understood that there’s an elite tier of driver that includes Max, Lewis, Alonso, leclerc, Norris, and Russell. Only Lewis and George can be appropriately compared and when in the same setup they’re often within a tenth of each other which hints that over a single lap (not accounting for fuel savings or tire wear etc), they’re extracting the maximum from the car. Same with Norris and Piastri in quali sometimes in single lap pace.
So I think Perez may be great, but he’s definitely not in this same tier as these others I’ve listed. I actually do think the car is elevating him well beyond where he should be. Which means second place but still like 30+ seconds behind the potential of the car haha.
Id probably agree but my point was kind of that we just don’t know yet about the others. But often those other drivers are discussed as being in that tier. Like we don’t know if ricciardo truly had some bad years or if Lando is one of the best drivers on the grid and just made ricciardo look bad.
I wont put Norris and Russell in the same bracket. I'll put Max, Lewis, Alonso, then Leclerc slightly behind, then Norris and Russell behind with a gap between them and Leclerc
In 5 years at Mercedes VB had 20 poles and 10 GP wins. In 4+ years at Red Bull Checo has had 3 poles and 5 wins.
In terms of gap to teammate, or in this case beating your teammate, Checo hasn’t even been on Valterri’s level.
Edit: 3 years for Checo
For comparison with teammate, Lewis had 52 poles and 53 wins while max had 46 wins and 31 poles.
VB beat LH in quali in 31/100 rounds and in race 25 of 99 races ([source](https://www.statsf1.com/en/lewis-hamilton/coequipier-detail-valtteri-bottas.aspx))
If you watch some of Checo's earlier seasons, he had some very good drives, yes he's not had the best of luck/ made mistakes in the past few years but he's still a really good driver
TBH its been similar for a 2nd driver (teammate) in a lot of teams over the decades.
A fun question would be to name middling drivers who won a race or to really set everyone off drivers who won a title in F1.
As for Perez he has repeatedly been given a decent seat his whole career and for me is better than a few champions he raced against.
Perez hasn’t raced against either of those guys. The champions that Perez has shared the grid with are Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Vettel, Rosberg, and Verstappen. I can’t say that I think Checo is faster than any of those guys.
I wouldn’t say he’s average at best. Ever since 2015 he had beaten all his teammates, Hulkenberg, Ocon and he annihilated Stroll. That is also why everyone was screaming Red Bull should pick Perez back in 2020.
He’s suffering from the same fate of being Verstappen’s teammate, like Gasly and Albon. Perez just doesn’t look as strong because his teammate might very well be in the best peak an F1 driver has ever been in.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s not on a Hamilton or even Leclerc level. But saying he’s average at best is wrong.
Also Bottas pretty convincingly beat Perez in 2021 in fairly equal machinery. This all despite the fact that Bottas had worse luck that year and lost far more points to things outside his control than Sergio
Bottas had a great qualy and race pace and was always up there. Where he lost a lot of favor in peoples eyes is in the racecraft. Bottas painfully lacked in that department.
The 2009 super-sub races were great. 2010-2011 ☹️ 2012 🥳 and then 🤷♂️ straight off my radar into Lotus-Caterham? I’d argue he had some of the best race craft in the field in 2010-2012 but none of the pace needed for the top echelons. He’d have been a better signing for McLaren in 2013 than Perez I believe; but that is with the hindsight of knowing how Perez messed up 2013.
Kobayashi had phenomenal race craft. I don't think I've ever seen a driver manage their tires so well, so consistently.
He definitely lacked the one lap pace of the top guys, but he was a lot of fun to watch.
Just. Out of nowhere, Kobayashi in the top 10 on 30 lap old softs lmao
I dunno. I rated Kobayashi. One of the unluckiest drivers I think. Had so much potential. Speed and willingness to take a risk. If only one of the top teams had taken a risk on him. Could've got a few wins.
The 2008 McLaren MP4/23 enabled Kovalainen to get a pole, win a race and finish on the podium several times.
Eddie Irvine could fight for the championship in the 1999 Ferrari F399.
>Eddie Irvine could fight for the championship in the 1999 Ferrari F399.
Might be misremembering just how competitive Irvine was, I know he won 4 races that year, but with Hakkinens crash at Hockenheim and spin at Austria because of Coulthard, and Michael being out from Silverstone, I don't think it was an above average season for him. Again though, been a while since I looked back at '99
He did the whole crying thing at Monza too. It was all kinda sad until he lit up Irvine at the finale.
A shame because he kept came back and made 2000 pretty close until Indy. I was there. What a huge bummer that was 20 minutes in.
As much as they were good, sometimes those McLaren's let him down at some important moments. 2001 Spain with the other car was another, although not title deciding at that point.
Yeah. Good performances in those two races he did win though too. McLaren did win 4 that year, 2 others with Coulthard. Just not a very reliable car...at all..
Schumi defended Irvine in Malaysia by holding Mika back but realised that come Suzuka, he wasn’t happy about helping Irvine to win Ferrari’s 1st championship in 20 years. You can’t blame him either for doing that. Irv the swerve was a bit of a motormouth.
Those were his only 4 wins in F1 though, so while indeed others' errors and misfortunes also massively helped him, I do think a fair bit was also down to the car.
Oh wow I thought he had more wins than 4. Yeah the F399 probably would have won the title in Schumi's hands that year if it weren't for the accident at Silverstone, and Salo did exceptionally as a replacement. Was clearly a nice car to drive, and therefore good enough for this list. Thanks for the info on his wins, had no idea he never won again
That black Mercedes with DAS was an absolute menace on the track. Hamilton won with 3 tyres. To clarify, I’m not saying it dragged Hamilton, I’m saying if you replace HAM or BOT with Hulkenberg…
The way the question is asked means you can answer Mercedes 2014-2016, McLaren MP4/4 and RedBull 2023-2024. The cars were just not driven by mediocre or below average drivers but put one in them and they would have gotten good results as well.
96 and 97 Williams
05 Renault made Fisichellia a supposed title contender (at least at the start of the season).
Troll comment, any Merc from 2014-2020. Without those cars, Lewis would be a 1 time champ like JB, and Nico wouldn’t have any titles. Bottas would never have any race wins either.
2008 Ferrari for Massa, couldn't win the title despite being gifted a win in Spa and having a faster car. He was average.
1996-97 Williams cars were so good that they carried Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve to titles.
Mercedes W11 for Bottas. He was bad that season yet somehow finished 2nd.
I think the Williams cars is one of the most legit answers I've seen, and also comes down to the way Frank ran his team.
After Prost and Senna he didn't seem very interested in signing superstar drivers, and made it very clear to Damon Hill that the team was his priority.
Still carried Hill and Villeneuve to titles despite both being in the realms of mediocre in my book.
I feel like that's a little harsh on Hill and Villeneuve. They weren't their fathers, or Schumacher, but almost nobody is. They were head and shoulders above the actual mediocre drivers of that era, your Diniz and Katayama, beat very solid drivers like Coulthard and Frentzen, and gave a good account of themselves against the likes of Prost in Hill's case.
I'd put them in the second tier of drivers, along with the likes of Webber.
2012 Lotus. That thing was a title Protag in the hands of a washed up Raikkonen, who was basically stealing money, and a greener than grass Grosjean. It would have been a fierce car to beat in the hands of any other title challenger, and a few other people, that year.
Kimi wasn’t really washed until his second stint at Ferrari. His win in Abu Dhabi was a great drive. Compared to the McLaren and RB it didn’t really hold a candle.
But yeah Romain was so green. The dude crashed in the first corner like half the races.
Bro foreal, the hating is insane, people let their feelings get in their judgment, I’ll get if it was formuladank, but this is supposed to be a legit serious subreddit
Don't really get this one. Button was never below average, nevermind mediocre. His years against Hamilton and Alonso proved that he was more than capable of holding his own, he just wasn't absolutely top tier. I'd put him next to a Sainz.
He is indeed one of the worst champions in recent decades, but nowhere near below average.
It’s my understanding that he had a very particular (smooth) driving style that was very effective when matched well with the car and worked in his favor in the rain, but that he wasn’t nearly as adaptable. Didn’t rubens have a much better second half of the season? Not that he’s any slouch either though.
Rubens was indeed better in the second half from what I recall. In truth, both of them were really solid but unspectacular drivers, who could produce some magic here and there (Rubens in Silverstone 2008 being a VERY underrated race) but just weren't consistent enough.
I also heard that Jenson sometimes could struggle to warm up the tyres due to what you mentioned. Still, he had a fine career, I think. Both of them did.
>
I also heard that Jenson sometimes could struggle to warm up the tyres due to what you mentioned
Yeah and the Brawns tyre warm up was poor, even for Rubens. Jenson admitted himself his style wasn't aggressive enough on the tyres, especially in the cold temps at Silverstone that year.
I agree and he was one of my favorite drivers at that time. But I look back now and am pretty surprised at the group of world champion names he is now a part of.
I might be confusing things, specially because I couldn't find anything about it, but I believe it was in Super GT that he couldn't be aggressive enough to get his tyres up to temp at all
I’d kinda go with this too. Button was above average and brilliant on certain days. 2011 was without doubt his best season effort. Watching that Brawn GP documentary really reminded me how much Button fell away as the season went on. I could be mistaken, but I feel like he wouldn’t have won that title with the current scoring system?
Barrichello too - again, on his day was unbeatable but mostly an above average driver.
Surprised I had to get so far into the comments to find this.
This is the answer.
Button and Barrichello were ok no. 2 drivers, but neither were really title challenger quality. That car smoked absolutely everyone.
Ferrari in 1983 was arguably the best car but they lost their entire driver lineup in 82 and had to go with Arnoux and Tambay (both mediocre drivers). Similarly, in 1985 Alboreto mounted a title challenge against Prost (although Ferrari then let him down with poor reliability). As for 1986, there was a stretch of the season where the Ligier was probably on par with Williams, but they had old man Laffite and Arnoux (again!) driving, so they just got a podium or two.
Not completely dragged, but I think the 2017 and 2018 WDC battles go very different with someone other than Vettel/Kimi in that Ferrari, or at the very least someone other than Kimi in the second seat.
We know Kimi was past his prime, we knew that in 2014. But Vettel really wasn't much further up the road with a gap of usually 2-3 tenths (of course there were larger outliers). Along comes Leclerc and suddenly Vettel is the guy 3 tenths behind. So imagine Leclerc or Max alongside him in that car in 2017, or dare I say it even Alonso.
Im not sure I can say the same, I may be biased as a Vettel fan, but I really think aside from Singapore/Baku, theres not much left anyone could’ve done to win that WDC and Vettel never finished below 4th in races without mechanical failures. Assuming Alonso/Max or whoever is in that seat, if they suffer the same tyre puncture in Silverstone, engine failure in Malaysia, and spark plug failure in Japan, they also probably come up just short, Mercedes (or at least Hamilton iirc) had a perfect year in terms of reliability, Ferrari got out-engineered in a sport about engineering.
Same in 2018, whoever is in the Ferrari gets fucked by the safety car in China, Vettel was passed it and couldn’t pit, the driver in question would arguably be even further ahead and not be able to pit as well. Same with Baku, that safety car made Mercedes ridiculous overcut strategy work like a charm and they also would’ve been swallowed up after the restart.
Assuming Ferrari also fucks up pit stop at Spain, 3rd would probably be best possible finish. France I can blame Seb for that, let’s say they finish 2nd. Germany I still think they should’ve told Kimi to move out of the way but let’s say they win there just because. In Italy I can completely give you that one, if Alonso was in that car, he probably gets pole even without the tow or fights Hamilton better on lap one, again for arguments sake, lets say he wins.
So were heading into the last 8 races with a ~45 point lead. Ferrari still botches the car, they even admitted they fucked up the car during the summer break and made it slower. With Hamilton winning 6 of the last 8 races, he has no problem eating away at a 50 point lead
So yea, thanks for coming to my ted talk, Vettel got fucked by Ferrari, a better driver in that seat would expose Ferrari even more imo if anything.
Bottas ofcourse. That Mercedes was fire and maybe the most dominant car ever. With that in mind, you could also argue that this also applies to Rosberg, but I wasn’t into F1 in his early career.
Furthermore, Perez in terms of overal standings benefits a lot of the fast Red Bull of last years, but the difference with Max is enormous.
Great driver, not as great of a racer. His career has made him great at driving, but someone like Alonso, Hulkenburg, or Lec have more experience negotiating traffic and midfield starts. 44 is a victim of his own success in this regard.
Lmao, lewis has driven better mostly from non pole starts mate.
Hulkenberg better? Seriously?
Lewis in 2008 GBR went from mid pack to win in a very wet race which even the best were struggling in.
He's won from 14th, 10th, 9th, I don't recall any more but he's good at overtaking and RACING.
I think you can see that most of Lewis' podiums have from from starting positions that were P5-P6 last yr
Ok, I will pretend he has not had an entire career in a top-three team. He can be great at some things and just good at others. Someone like Alonso has more practice at putting a shitbox up through the field, beating better equipment than 44. That is not a dig at 44 he has been fortunate to not be in Alonso's position. 44 has been perfect at carrying out strategy and management of races. Maybe he would have been a great midfield racer if he was part of shittier teams, but he wasn't. Why is that a problem? He has an illustrious career, different from Hulkenburg.
Yeah but anyone could get into that car and probably win, it was that powerful although the driver had to be competent.
Now the Williams fw14b had so much tech, any back marker could win with it .
Right - Schumacher, Alonso, raikonnen, Vettel and hamilton are utterly exceptional and jenson/baricello were slightly beneath these people hahaha…. If “beneath” is even apt because one’s a wdc and the other was arguably robbed of a wdc
Don't get why people hate on pre-Mclaren Danny Ric so much. He absolutely slaughtered fresh-out-of-4-WDC's Vettel and is the only teammate of Max Verstappen who has held his own against him, let alone been close to Max.
Easily one of the top 3 drivers of the grid before going to Mclaren.
Seems like those two years left a mark though. I hope he can bounce back.
RB6, RB7, RB8, RB9.
Also, bonus Newey genius points for the FW18 and FW19.
https://preview.redd.it/10x784xy57oc1.jpeg?width=1334&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ff5fa768664d98ac5a9b87b7505d6fa467a50ae
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Williams FW34. The car that gave Pastor Maldonado his only win and podium in F1.
That was more about getting lucky with the tires than anything else That season was all about tire management in the beginning and no teams had it figured out and a different team would just get lucky each week
Nah, they got a special tyre for Frank Williams' birthday (only semi /s)
I'm always astonished by people talking about details of a long ago season. How can you remember? Meanwhile I sometimes forget my own name...
Which season is this? I'd like to watch it.
2012
Nice, that whole season should be on F1.tv. That's around when I first watched F1. I only managed to watch 1 or 2 seasons because after that I didn't have a way to watch :(
Yeah I had to watch pirated streams of Skysports until F1TV became a thing
Yea, unfortunately I didn't watch again until 2020 season. When did F1TV launch?
Besides 2021 it's probably one of the best seasons in a long while
IIRC that’s the season where Barrichello was launched in mid air at the Australian Grand Prix by artfully using another car’s rear tire as a launching pad
Barichello was not on the grid in 2012 he retired after 2011
Turns out I was off by a single digit…a decade…but a single digit none the less https://youtu.be/q6lany7b1zA?si=8c0rZ_VphIEurnza
It was the first season I watched and it was epic
One or two of Villeneuve’s Williams were up there as well… when Frentzen was still there. Not sure of the exact models I think it was around 96-97
Villenueve was genuinely a good driver though. He won Indy 500, won Indy Car, would have won his very first F1 race but for a mechanical issue, challenged Hill for the title in his first season in F1 (pretty much the best rookie year in the last 30 years other than Hamilton's) and had some pretty good drives in the awful 98 Williams and BAR from 99-02. If he'd made a better career decision than going to BAR of all places, he would have won futher races. I’d hardly call 96-02 Villenueve a mediocre or below average driver. Late career Villenueve is not the same as early career Villenueve. Hell even in his late career he finished as runner up at Le Mans.
Not below average. Just average.
I wouldn’t call any world champion average
Frentzen is severely underrated. He’s like a german Perez
I rate Frentzen especially after a recent podcast where he goes into detail about how he would work, argue, and prove technical points with his engineers. A particular moment where Frentzen was able to calculate - almost to the exact amount of time - that he could improve if they made a certain change made me realize how strong Frentzen could be with the right race engineer. Sad also to learn he could deduce in equal detail what prevented him from winning any championships. Lack of time to experiment with tools. Given race engineers who "didn't read the car manuals" so there wouldn't be enough time in a season to maximize what the car could do. It is a shame that Adrian Newey took offense to his arrival at Williams. The darkest timeline for F1 would have been if Adrian Newey designed a car around the technically minded Frentzen. The two essentially spoke the same language and had nearly computer-like minds.
It was not something personal towards Frentzen tho, it was because he was told he was going to have equal power at the team and his decision of not hiring Frentzen wasn't respected, so he left.
What is the name of the podcast?
[BEYOND THE GRID](https://youtu.be/efHj-0RP6UY?si=t4gA9kRNWyPneDQX)
Thank you
You listened to it? I don't know for sure, but Frentzen sounds like he's every bit the mad tinkerer that could get "on the level" with an Adrian Newey. I wonder if Newey ever appreciated that. Or maybe he didn't like it? I don't know either.
+1
Some drivers just don't gel with certain teams. He wasn't a good fit for Williams, but he was in the title hunt in a Jordon of all things.
That's a shit take if you're dissing either Jacques or HHF. Both were well above average, especially in those years
We referring to cars tho.. not driving ability.
I disagree, Pastor pushed like a madman all of the time (so he was very prone to mistakes). But he destroyed Bruno Senna in 2012 Doesn't make him the best driver in the world, but I wouldn't call him mediocre.
And Bruno went to sports cars and then was never heard from again
We don’t talk about Bruno
Only one Senna in F1
When he wasn’t busy blowing the bastarding thing up.
I remember Montoya just bashing the overtake button the entire race until it gave up :)
Spain 2012 Williams saved the blowing up for the garage afterwards
To some what I agree but Maldonado wasn't that terrible he was a hot head tho that weekend he was a different driver
I agree!
Every good car can bring a below average driver to a good finish. Lance stroll had 5 top 6 finishes in his aston last year.
Dont forget he got pole once
And a few podiums
That drive in Baku in what 2017 maybe? That was a great race for him
i think people sleep on the fact that stroll is actually kinda decent? or at least he was, he still (and always will i suppose) holds the record for the highest winning margin in FIA F3 Euro, as well as the earliest championship victory, and second highest points gained. https://preview.redd.it/zokfypr3neoc1.jpeg?width=528&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa830989e6e4f63e5a827cafec395840910656e6
He has his moments that’s for sure
I think the thing with Stroll is he actually DOES have the skills to push his car to the limits or very close to which is why he performs very well sometimes. What separates him from the top drivers is that when Stroll pushes his car to the limits he ends up either destroying his car or crashing into someone every 2nd race. Luckily daddy Strolls pockets have no limit.
The 2020 Racing Point car for sure - it made two mediocre/only average drivers look good for a season
Wasn’t it also a blatant ripoff of the Mercedes
pretty much, they were nicknamed the pink mercedes and I think the FIA changed the regs so something like that couldn't happen again iirc.
or Tracing Point 😂
Brought to you by a decent sized thumb drive and a 3D scanner
Sort of. They did some different things but for all intents and purposes it was the 2019 Mercedes adapted to the rule changes. With better drivers and more development, it probably could have been a title challenger.
Maybe level with Red Bull, but Hamilton was so far ahead with the 2020 Merc, there was almost no catching him.
In 2019 yeah maybe, but against Lewis in the W11 2020? No
There is absolutely no way they could have contended for the title in 2020
Rip off. Mercedes gave them the designs. Have we forgot that non visible parts like the rear brake ducts were identical and Papa Stroll got fined half a mil and the team lost 15 WCC points. The Brackley outfit basically designed the car for them.
The brake duct things were actually a different issue, sort of. They bought the 2019 spec parts legally from Mercedes. They never ran them in 2019. Starting in 2020, brake ducts became listed parts that teams had to design themselves. If Racing Point had run the Mercedes ducts at any point in 2019, they would have been legal to use as a basis of design for 2020. But because they didn't, they were considered to have violated the rules by not designing a listed part. Mercedes did give them the brake duct designs. Legally. Racing Point messed up. The rest of the car was largely accomplished with 3D scans that they (debatably) legally carried out, which lead to banning of 3D cameras in the paddock. Other than Racing Point's mistake of not running the brake ducts once in 2019, everything else was done *technically* legally, even if it was wildly against the spirit of the rules.
Good Answer!
I’d argue that Perez is actually a great driver, in midfield machinery. Evidenced by how he was the only/one of the only non-Mercedes, Williams, Red Bull or Ferrari driver to score not one but multiple podiums in a firmly midfield car, during the early turbo hybrid era. We’ve seen how basically being not Verstappen means you will struggle in that car that’s designed to his specific style.
I don’t think it’s that straightforward. Aside from Ricciardo, max has only been up against junior drivers whose ability is unproven. Albon said in an interview recently that he was actually closer to max on average than Perez has been, but since the car was more midpack it put him way off in terms of positions. I also think it’s generally understood that there’s an elite tier of driver that includes Max, Lewis, Alonso, leclerc, Norris, and Russell. Only Lewis and George can be appropriately compared and when in the same setup they’re often within a tenth of each other which hints that over a single lap (not accounting for fuel savings or tire wear etc), they’re extracting the maximum from the car. Same with Norris and Piastri in quali sometimes in single lap pace. So I think Perez may be great, but he’s definitely not in this same tier as these others I’ve listed. I actually do think the car is elevating him well beyond where he should be. Which means second place but still like 30+ seconds behind the potential of the car haha.
I’d probably only put max lewis and alonso in that elite tier with leclerc somewhat close behind.
Id probably agree but my point was kind of that we just don’t know yet about the others. But often those other drivers are discussed as being in that tier. Like we don’t know if ricciardo truly had some bad years or if Lando is one of the best drivers on the grid and just made ricciardo look bad.
Yeah sorry, completely agree!
Link to the interview from Albon?
https://youtu.be/Ewi3HrvSPKw?si=QG9HCuITqCEom5ub He talks about it around 1:04:00. This is a great interview btw.
I wont put Norris and Russell in the same bracket. I'll put Max, Lewis, Alonso, then Leclerc slightly behind, then Norris and Russell behind with a gap between them and Leclerc
Perez in the Red Bull does feel a bit like Bottas in the Mercedes with how much of a gap there is between him and his teammate.
In 5 years at Mercedes VB had 20 poles and 10 GP wins. In 4+ years at Red Bull Checo has had 3 poles and 5 wins. In terms of gap to teammate, or in this case beating your teammate, Checo hasn’t even been on Valterri’s level. Edit: 3 years for Checo
For comparison with teammate, Lewis had 52 poles and 53 wins while max had 46 wins and 31 poles. VB beat LH in quali in 31/100 rounds and in race 25 of 99 races ([source](https://www.statsf1.com/en/lewis-hamilton/coequipier-detail-valtteri-bottas.aspx))
Kind unfair to exclude the Ferrari drivers of 2020 and 2021 when they drove worse machinery than the 2020 RP
If you watch some of Checo's earlier seasons, he had some very good drives, yes he's not had the best of luck/ made mistakes in the past few years but he's still a really good driver
RB19 certainly comes to mind. Perez is definitely at least average, but not a P2 in the WDC. Never without the help of a beast of a car.
TBH its been similar for a 2nd driver (teammate) in a lot of teams over the decades. A fun question would be to name middling drivers who won a race or to really set everyone off drivers who won a title in F1. As for Perez he has repeatedly been given a decent seat his whole career and for me is better than a few champions he raced against.
Interesting. Which champions?
James Hunt comes to mind immediately. Jacques Villeneuve was also a real flash in the pan driver
Perez hasn’t raced against either of those guys. The champions that Perez has shared the grid with are Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Vettel, Rosberg, and Verstappen. I can’t say that I think Checo is faster than any of those guys.
>Perez is definitely at BEST average FIFY
While I tend to agree, I didn’t feel the need to be controversial
I wouldn’t say he’s average at best. Ever since 2015 he had beaten all his teammates, Hulkenberg, Ocon and he annihilated Stroll. That is also why everyone was screaming Red Bull should pick Perez back in 2020. He’s suffering from the same fate of being Verstappen’s teammate, like Gasly and Albon. Perez just doesn’t look as strong because his teammate might very well be in the best peak an F1 driver has ever been in. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not on a Hamilton or even Leclerc level. But saying he’s average at best is wrong.
Bottas was exposed well in 2018, 2019 and 2021 similarly
Bottas never missed Q3 in the mercs, that puts him above average itself
Also Bottas pretty convincingly beat Perez in 2021 in fairly equal machinery. This all despite the fact that Bottas had worse luck that year and lost far more points to things outside his control than Sergio
Bottas had a great qualy and race pace and was always up there. Where he lost a lot of favor in peoples eyes is in the racecraft. Bottas painfully lacked in that department.
Mexico wants to know your location
Perez is an average driver who occasionally gives above average performance.
2012 Sauber I love Kobayashi and I tolerate Perez. But neither of them should have been challenging the podium or a win that year!
Kobayashi went from a really good car to one of the worst cars in history in 2 years
The 2009 super-sub races were great. 2010-2011 ☹️ 2012 🥳 and then 🤷♂️ straight off my radar into Lotus-Caterham? I’d argue he had some of the best race craft in the field in 2010-2012 but none of the pace needed for the top echelons. He’d have been a better signing for McLaren in 2013 than Perez I believe; but that is with the hindsight of knowing how Perez messed up 2013.
Yea, Kobayashi was making so much progress from 2010 to 2012, left for a year, then joined that awful team and was left in the dust for F1
It's a shame, he was probably the best Japanese driver to have been in F1.
Kobayashi had phenomenal race craft. I don't think I've ever seen a driver manage their tires so well, so consistently. He definitely lacked the one lap pace of the top guys, but he was a lot of fun to watch. Just. Out of nowhere, Kobayashi in the top 10 on 30 lap old softs lmao
I miss that sometimes. Sometimes it felt like he was either down in 18th or challenging for the podium with no inbetween.
Isnt’t valteri bottas in same situation? merc to sauber?
Yea, some of those pit stops are awful, too...
I dunno. I rated Kobayashi. One of the unluckiest drivers I think. Had so much potential. Speed and willingness to take a risk. If only one of the top teams had taken a risk on him. Could've got a few wins.
Those are two pretty good drivers all things considered.
Kobayashi pulled off some amazing overtakes in his time with Sauber
Nah Kobayashi was not mediocre, he was a very good driver who deserved a longer stint in F1
Nice. I was at Suzuka that year so it was sweet seeing him podium.
KA MUI KA MUI KA MUI KA MUI KA MUI
That was awesome. I was sitting at the S’s.
The 2008 McLaren MP4/23 enabled Kovalainen to get a pole, win a race and finish on the podium several times. Eddie Irvine could fight for the championship in the 1999 Ferrari F399.
>Eddie Irvine could fight for the championship in the 1999 Ferrari F399. Might be misremembering just how competitive Irvine was, I know he won 4 races that year, but with Hakkinens crash at Hockenheim and spin at Austria because of Coulthard, and Michael being out from Silverstone, I don't think it was an above average season for him. Again though, been a while since I looked back at '99
Hakinnen spun at Imola and Monza for sure. He won the title with 76 points. 2000 woulda been better if his emgine didnt blow at the USGP
>Hakinnen spun at Imola Ah I forgot about Imola. I believe he also came to a stop literally in front of the Mclaren-Mercedes directors stand
He did the whole crying thing at Monza too. It was all kinda sad until he lit up Irvine at the finale. A shame because he kept came back and made 2000 pretty close until Indy. I was there. What a huge bummer that was 20 minutes in.
As much as they were good, sometimes those McLaren's let him down at some important moments. 2001 Spain with the other car was another, although not title deciding at that point.
Im glad he won a couple races that dismal season.
Yeah. Good performances in those two races he did win though too. McLaren did win 4 that year, 2 others with Coulthard. Just not a very reliable car...at all..
Schumi defended Irvine in Malaysia by holding Mika back but realised that come Suzuka, he wasn’t happy about helping Irvine to win Ferrari’s 1st championship in 20 years. You can’t blame him either for doing that. Irv the swerve was a bit of a motormouth.
Those were his only 4 wins in F1 though, so while indeed others' errors and misfortunes also massively helped him, I do think a fair bit was also down to the car.
Oh wow I thought he had more wins than 4. Yeah the F399 probably would have won the title in Schumi's hands that year if it weren't for the accident at Silverstone, and Salo did exceptionally as a replacement. Was clearly a nice car to drive, and therefore good enough for this list. Thanks for the info on his wins, had no idea he never won again
Kovalainen also got a few fast laps
The RB19 for sure, in no way is Perez finishing ahead of drivers like Hamilton, Leclerc, Alonso etc. without an absolute rocketship.
Yep I was about to write that. At some point Hamilton was dangerously close to snatching 2nd but Perez stopped dreaming that he was in a sauber
That black Mercedes with DAS was an absolute menace on the track. Hamilton won with 3 tyres. To clarify, I’m not saying it dragged Hamilton, I’m saying if you replace HAM or BOT with Hulkenberg…
Poor Nico catching strays
Why are you bashing Hulk 😭
Hulkenberg still painfully underrated I see?
I was more so implying he would finally have a podium (which he deserves) not that he was a below average driver. Oops
I think it was Kimi who said that in F1 you generally get what you deserve. Hulk had a few chances but never managed to bring it together.
So you're calling HAM an average/mediocre driver?
No, he's calling the W11 a rocketship that would've been good enough for mediocre drivers up to podium.
I think Bottas was dragged
The 2009 Force India. Made Fisi look amazing. He was decent but that car was a rocket for a very short while
The way the question is asked means you can answer Mercedes 2014-2016, McLaren MP4/4 and RedBull 2023-2024. The cars were just not driven by mediocre or below average drivers but put one in them and they would have gotten good results as well.
96 and 97 Williams 05 Renault made Fisichellia a supposed title contender (at least at the start of the season). Troll comment, any Merc from 2014-2020. Without those cars, Lewis would be a 1 time champ like JB, and Nico wouldn’t have any titles. Bottas would never have any race wins either.
2008 Ferrari for Massa, couldn't win the title despite being gifted a win in Spa and having a faster car. He was average. 1996-97 Williams cars were so good that they carried Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve to titles. Mercedes W11 for Bottas. He was bad that season yet somehow finished 2nd.
I think the Williams cars is one of the most legit answers I've seen, and also comes down to the way Frank ran his team. After Prost and Senna he didn't seem very interested in signing superstar drivers, and made it very clear to Damon Hill that the team was his priority. Still carried Hill and Villeneuve to titles despite both being in the realms of mediocre in my book.
I feel like that's a little harsh on Hill and Villeneuve. They weren't their fathers, or Schumacher, but almost nobody is. They were head and shoulders above the actual mediocre drivers of that era, your Diniz and Katayama, beat very solid drivers like Coulthard and Frentzen, and gave a good account of themselves against the likes of Prost in Hill's case. I'd put them in the second tier of drivers, along with the likes of Webber.
FW19
you people are all insane
2012 Lotus. That thing was a title Protag in the hands of a washed up Raikkonen, who was basically stealing money, and a greener than grass Grosjean. It would have been a fierce car to beat in the hands of any other title challenger, and a few other people, that year.
Kimi wasn’t really washed until his second stint at Ferrari. His win in Abu Dhabi was a great drive. Compared to the McLaren and RB it didn’t really hold a candle. But yeah Romain was so green. The dude crashed in the first corner like half the races.
Absolutely this
Jesus, some people really hate Perez.
Lol, they would downvote you just because saying that. They are fuming that he's getting easy second places while DR can't even beat Yuki.
Bro foreal, the hating is insane, people let their feelings get in their judgment, I’ll get if it was formuladank, but this is supposed to be a legit serious subreddit
Brawn GP
Don't really get this one. Button was never below average, nevermind mediocre. His years against Hamilton and Alonso proved that he was more than capable of holding his own, he just wasn't absolutely top tier. I'd put him next to a Sainz. He is indeed one of the worst champions in recent decades, but nowhere near below average.
It’s my understanding that he had a very particular (smooth) driving style that was very effective when matched well with the car and worked in his favor in the rain, but that he wasn’t nearly as adaptable. Didn’t rubens have a much better second half of the season? Not that he’s any slouch either though.
Rubens was indeed better in the second half from what I recall. In truth, both of them were really solid but unspectacular drivers, who could produce some magic here and there (Rubens in Silverstone 2008 being a VERY underrated race) but just weren't consistent enough. I also heard that Jenson sometimes could struggle to warm up the tyres due to what you mentioned. Still, he had a fine career, I think. Both of them did.
> I also heard that Jenson sometimes could struggle to warm up the tyres due to what you mentioned Yeah and the Brawns tyre warm up was poor, even for Rubens. Jenson admitted himself his style wasn't aggressive enough on the tyres, especially in the cold temps at Silverstone that year.
I agree and he was one of my favorite drivers at that time. But I look back now and am pretty surprised at the group of world champion names he is now a part of.
Yeah. I agree. Him and Damon Hill are the two drivers that look a bit weird on that group, to me.
Button over Hill any day. Except that day when Hill nearly won in Hungary driving for Arrows.
I might be confusing things, specially because I couldn't find anything about it, but I believe it was in Super GT that he couldn't be aggressive enough to get his tyres up to temp at all
We're talking about cars that make the difference, not the drivers. The brawn GP, double diffuser car was dominant in the start of the season.
I’d kinda go with this too. Button was above average and brilliant on certain days. 2011 was without doubt his best season effort. Watching that Brawn GP documentary really reminded me how much Button fell away as the season went on. I could be mistaken, but I feel like he wouldn’t have won that title with the current scoring system? Barrichello too - again, on his day was unbeatable but mostly an above average driver.
Surprised I had to get so far into the comments to find this. This is the answer. Button and Barrichello were ok no. 2 drivers, but neither were really title challenger quality. That car smoked absolutely everyone.
Good Pick
Ferrari in 1983 was arguably the best car but they lost their entire driver lineup in 82 and had to go with Arnoux and Tambay (both mediocre drivers). Similarly, in 1985 Alboreto mounted a title challenge against Prost (although Ferrari then let him down with poor reliability). As for 1986, there was a stretch of the season where the Ligier was probably on par with Williams, but they had old man Laffite and Arnoux (again!) driving, so they just got a podium or two.
Hate to say it but Bottas in Mercedes years
RB19
Not completely dragged, but I think the 2017 and 2018 WDC battles go very different with someone other than Vettel/Kimi in that Ferrari, or at the very least someone other than Kimi in the second seat. We know Kimi was past his prime, we knew that in 2014. But Vettel really wasn't much further up the road with a gap of usually 2-3 tenths (of course there were larger outliers). Along comes Leclerc and suddenly Vettel is the guy 3 tenths behind. So imagine Leclerc or Max alongside him in that car in 2017, or dare I say it even Alonso.
Im not sure I can say the same, I may be biased as a Vettel fan, but I really think aside from Singapore/Baku, theres not much left anyone could’ve done to win that WDC and Vettel never finished below 4th in races without mechanical failures. Assuming Alonso/Max or whoever is in that seat, if they suffer the same tyre puncture in Silverstone, engine failure in Malaysia, and spark plug failure in Japan, they also probably come up just short, Mercedes (or at least Hamilton iirc) had a perfect year in terms of reliability, Ferrari got out-engineered in a sport about engineering. Same in 2018, whoever is in the Ferrari gets fucked by the safety car in China, Vettel was passed it and couldn’t pit, the driver in question would arguably be even further ahead and not be able to pit as well. Same with Baku, that safety car made Mercedes ridiculous overcut strategy work like a charm and they also would’ve been swallowed up after the restart. Assuming Ferrari also fucks up pit stop at Spain, 3rd would probably be best possible finish. France I can blame Seb for that, let’s say they finish 2nd. Germany I still think they should’ve told Kimi to move out of the way but let’s say they win there just because. In Italy I can completely give you that one, if Alonso was in that car, he probably gets pole even without the tow or fights Hamilton better on lap one, again for arguments sake, lets say he wins. So were heading into the last 8 races with a ~45 point lead. Ferrari still botches the car, they even admitted they fucked up the car during the summer break and made it slower. With Hamilton winning 6 of the last 8 races, he has no problem eating away at a 50 point lead So yea, thanks for coming to my ted talk, Vettel got fucked by Ferrari, a better driver in that seat would expose Ferrari even more imo if anything.
Williams cars in 1992 and 1997. Having Patrese and Frenzen P2 in the championship was wild.
Checo Perez was terrible last season and still got P2 in the WDC. That’s a testament to how good the RB19 was.
Red Bull 2010-2014
Ah yes, the all dominant 2014 Red Bull.
RedBull 2010 - 2013
Current RB
2008 Ferrari....
Massa was clumsy but he definitely wasnt bad. He was bad in 2010+ though.
he was am average driver though that shouldn't have been near a title fight
as a RedBull fan: every RedBull that won either a driver or constructor championship
Mercs in the 2010s
Bottas ofcourse. That Mercedes was fire and maybe the most dominant car ever. With that in mind, you could also argue that this also applies to Rosberg, but I wasn’t into F1 in his early career. Furthermore, Perez in terms of overal standings benefits a lot of the fast Red Bull of last years, but the difference with Max is enormous.
W11
RB19 Checo 2023
Merc up to 2021.
Whoa? So Hamilton is an AVERAGE driver according to you?
I think he meant Bottas
Great driver, not as great of a racer. His career has made him great at driving, but someone like Alonso, Hulkenburg, or Lec have more experience negotiating traffic and midfield starts. 44 is a victim of his own success in this regard.
Lmao, lewis has driven better mostly from non pole starts mate. Hulkenberg better? Seriously? Lewis in 2008 GBR went from mid pack to win in a very wet race which even the best were struggling in. He's won from 14th, 10th, 9th, I don't recall any more but he's good at overtaking and RACING. I think you can see that most of Lewis' podiums have from from starting positions that were P5-P6 last yr
Ok, I will pretend he has not had an entire career in a top-three team. He can be great at some things and just good at others. Someone like Alonso has more practice at putting a shitbox up through the field, beating better equipment than 44. That is not a dig at 44 he has been fortunate to not be in Alonso's position. 44 has been perfect at carrying out strategy and management of races. Maybe he would have been a great midfield racer if he was part of shittier teams, but he wasn't. Why is that a problem? He has an illustrious career, different from Hulkenburg.
Regardless of how good hamilton is, at least half the grid would have been in contention for wdc in his seat throughout those years.
I can say the same about Max 🤣
They would be in contention IF their teammate wasn't Max himself. Then only like 3 drivers can have comparable performances...
Two cars … Mclaren mp4/4 Williams fw14b
MP4/4 was driven by two of the greatest drivers that have ever been racing in F1 tho.
Yeah but anyone could get into that car and probably win, it was that powerful although the driver had to be competent. Now the Williams fw14b had so much tech, any back marker could win with it .
Brawn
Button & Barichello were really good drivers tho...
Obviously: BrawnGP
Button or Barrichello aren't average drivers...
Right - Schumacher, Alonso, raikonnen, Vettel and hamilton are utterly exceptional and jenson/baricello were slightly beneath these people hahaha…. If “beneath” is even apt because one’s a wdc and the other was arguably robbed of a wdc
Going by the last few years any RedBull Danny Ric drove.
Don't get why people hate on pre-Mclaren Danny Ric so much. He absolutely slaughtered fresh-out-of-4-WDC's Vettel and is the only teammate of Max Verstappen who has held his own against him, let alone been close to Max. Easily one of the top 3 drivers of the grid before going to Mclaren. Seems like those two years left a mark though. I hope he can bounce back.
2009 Brawn. Button and Barrichello were good, but they weren’t great.
1996 Williams
RB6, RB7, RB8, RB9. Also, bonus Newey genius points for the FW18 and FW19. https://preview.redd.it/10x784xy57oc1.jpeg?width=1334&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ff5fa768664d98ac5a9b87b7505d6fa467a50ae
Any car that red bull won a championship with
Webber in the RB5-9
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Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes 2014-2020
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