Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

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portchesterblue
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by portchesterblue »

For me no.
There is no doubt he is a very very good driver, but of his 7 titles how many has he had to actually work for? He has been in the dominant team and has only had to beat his team mate, and in one season failed to do that.
As a person he comes across as a complete **** IMHO, he and his dad were always bleating about the huge sacrifices they had to make, despite mclaren signing him at the age of 8 and paying for everything since.
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by Mickemo »

LH is a great driver for sure ...GOAT not so sure.

Ayton Senna is the GOAT for me, he was in a different league....his drive at Monaco in VERY VERY wet conditions was sheer brilliance (or madness) and showed the jumped up Prost who the best driver was.

As has been said LH is very good in the wet, Senna was a master !

Unquestionably MS would have won less Titles had Senna not lost his life that very sad day at San Marino - one of the few days i've cried watching a sporting event (you can guess the others).
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by Mr Dee »

portchesterblue wrote: Mon Nov 16, 2020 10:11 pm For me no.
There is no doubt he is a very very good driver, but of his 7 titles how many has he had to actually work for? He has been in the dominant team and has only had to beat his team mate, and in one season failed to do that.
As a person he comes across as a complete **** IMHO, he and his dad were always bleating about the huge sacrifices they had to make, despite mclaren signing him at the age of 8 and paying for everything since.
He used to get dropped off at his private school in a Mercedes with his name sign written on it. Got expelled from the same school for bullying.

He's constantly preaching about the environment on twitter while making his living off a sport that probably affects the environment more than any other.

He dresses like a toddler. My girlfriend calls him the "man toddler".
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by pompeygunner »

Mr Dee wrote:
portchesterblue wrote: Mon Nov 16, 2020 10:11 pm For me no.
There is no doubt he is a very very good driver, but of his 7 titles how many has he had to actually work for? He has been in the dominant team and has only had to beat his team mate, and in one season failed to do that.
As a person he comes across as a complete **** IMHO, he and his dad were always bleating about the huge sacrifices they had to make, despite mclaren signing him at the age of 8 and paying for everything since.
He used to get dropped off at his private school in a Mercedes with his name sign written on it. Got expelled from the same school for bullying.

He's constantly preaching about the environment on twitter while making his living off a sport that probably affects the environment more than any other.

He dresses like a toddler. My girlfriend calls him the "man toddler".
Lol do you honestly think he'd be worried what you or your wife refer to him as?
I'm sure Lewis is very happy with where he's @. :rofl :thumb
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by Mr Dee »

Yes, I thought he'd be sat there trawling PFC message boards in the hope he'd see it and it would upset him 🤦
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by Jack_Tinn »

I think Hamilton is the greatest British F1 driver. He is in the conversation with Schumacher and Senna for greatest driver ever.

Hamilton is clearly the most successful F1 driver ever.

I think Hamilton recognises that Senna was the greatest driver ever and he knows a lot more about the sport than I do so I will concur/defer to his opinion.

Imho only Max Verstappen gets close to Hamilton in terms of sheer driving ability on the F1 grid right now. I actually think LH is getting better in terms of tyre management, race strategy and overall consistency. Over the last two seasons the odd moment of recklessness from LH has disappeared - and Vettel has become infected with it - and where once he was hard on his tyres he now seems to be able to skate around without disturbing them too much whilst Bottas in his Merc is eating into them. Add in his natural quickness, race craft, competitiveness and ability to regularly pull out incredible qualifying laps and we are witnessing a truly great driver. If other drivers and cars close up the gap to him and Mercedes in F1 and make the whole thing more competitive then I actually think that will fire him up even more and prolong his career. The biggest threat at the moment is that he could just get bored. Alonso returning next year therefore is excellent news and I hope Perez gets the second seat at Red Bull.

Lewis Hamilton: Greatest driver ever, close but probably no, but an all time F1 Great: most definitely.
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by pompeygunner »

Whilst we're on the subject of F1 I once saw a GP on the box late 60's early 70's. Jackie Stewart had had a major problem in qualifying & was right @ the back of the grid. He only bl**dy won. It was a quite incredible drive & one I'll always remember. The TV crew @ 1st were concentrating mainly on the leaders but as he made his way through the field started concentrating more & more on Jackie. Probably the most amazing F1 drive I've ever seen.
portchesterblue
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by portchesterblue »

Jenson button in Canada a few years back, wet race, he got hit on first lap and damaged wing, pitted, changed wing and rejoined in last place
Went on to win the race, fantastic drive by a fantastic driver
Comparing him to Hamilton, he doesn't have Hamiltons ability, but as a person he is chalk and cheese, down to earth and thankful for his life. Gives huge amounts to charity, both on terms of money and time. Top bloke
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by Mickemo »

portchesterblue wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:30 pm Jenson button in Canada a few years back, wet race, he got hit on first lap and damaged wing, pitted, changed wing and rejoined in last place
Went on to win the race, fantastic drive by a fantastic driver
Comparing him to Hamilton, he doesn't have Hamiltons ability, but as a person he is chalk and cheese, down to earth and thankful for his life. Gives huge amounts to charity, both on terms of money and time. Top bloke
Yes I've got a lot of time for Jenson Button too, on the surface he appears to be (cue Harry Enfield Tory Boy impression) 'a bl**dy nice chap'
Apparently he was one of the smoothest efficient drivers on the grid, less ruthless than the likes of LH, MS & Senna though.
pompeygunner
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by pompeygunner »

portchesterblue wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:30 pm Jenson button in Canada a few years back, wet race, he got hit on first lap and damaged wing, pitted, changed wing and rejoined in last place
Went on to win the race, fantastic drive by a fantastic driver
Comparing him to Hamilton, he doesn't have Hamiltons ability, but as a person he is chalk and cheese, down to earth and thankful for his life. Gives huge amounts to charity, both on terms of money and time. Top bloke
I think Button was quite brilliant @ times. 2009 with Brawn. Won the title. Yeah nice guy, grounded & likeable.
Another one who comes too mind is Damon Hill. Should've won 2 titles if SChumacher hadn't shunted him off deliberately. The only thing I never understood with Damon is why he chose to go to Arrows was it? After winning the title. Absolute no hopers. Surely he would've had offers from other top teams. Why Damon why!!
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by RubiconCSL »

I just want to throw Jim Clark into the mix. A truly amazing driver and not just in one format of motor racing. Also lost his life in a crash, at the young age of 32.

He even managed to become the F1 World Champion AND Indianapolis 500 winner in the same year: 1965.

From Wikipedia:
At the time of his death, aged 32, he had won more Grand Prix races (25) and achieved more Grand Prix pole positions (33) than any other driver.
Not a bad list of awards for the limited time he was around.
F1 World Champion, 1963 and 1965; runner-up, 1962
Indianapolis 500 winner, 1965; runner-up, 1963 and 1966
ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of The Year, 1965
British Touring Car Championship Champion, 1964
Tasman Series Cup winner, 1965, 1967 and 1968
Trophées de France Formula Two Champion, 1965
Third place overall, 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans
And look at these figures


Record Achieved
Most races with pole, win, fastest lap, and leading every lap 8
Highest percentage of possible championship points in a season 100% in 1963 and 1965[N 1]
Highest percentage of laps in the lead in a season 71.47% in 1963
Like many, trust few and always paddle you own canoe.
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pompeygunner
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by pompeygunner »

RubiconCSL wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 7:29 pm I just want to throw Jim Clark into the mix. A truly amazing driver and not just in one format of motor racing. Also lost his life in a crash, at the young age of 32.

He even managed to become the F1 World Champion AND Indianapolis 500 winner in the same year: 1965.

From Wikipedia:
At the time of his death, aged 32, he had won more Grand Prix races (25) and achieved more Grand Prix pole positions (33) than any other driver.
Not a bad list of awards for the limited time he was around.
F1 World Champion, 1963 and 1965; runner-up, 1962
Indianapolis 500 winner, 1965; runner-up, 1963 and 1966
ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of The Year, 1965
British Touring Car Championship Champion, 1964
Tasman Series Cup winner, 1965, 1967 and 1968
Trophées de France Formula Two Champion, 1965
Third place overall, 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans
And look at these figures


Record Achieved
Most races with pole, win, fastest lap, and leading every lap 8
Highest percentage of possible championship points in a season 100% in 1963 and 1965[N 1]
Highest percentage of laps in the lead in a season 71.47% in 1963
Incredible!!

I know rallying doesn't get the exposure of F1 but I recall watching Derek Warwick doing rallying. He found it very difficult. So many disciplines in driving so for Jim Clark to master so many-fantastic driver.
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by Locky_McLockface »

pompeygunner wrote: Tue Nov 17, 2020 1:22 pm Whilst we're on the subject of F1 I once saw a GP on the box late 60's early 70's. Jackie Stewart had had a major problem in qualifying & was right @ the back of the grid. He only bl**dy won. It was a quite incredible drive & one I'll always remember. The TV crew @ 1st were concentrating mainly on the leaders but as he made his way through the field started concentrating more & more on Jackie. Probably the most amazing F1 drive I've ever seen.
The greatest drive I ever saw was Mansell at the Hungaroring in 89. He'd qualified something like 12th, and worked his way through the field at the hardest track of the time to overtake on. He got past Senna (the erstwhile leader), who had managed to block himself behind Stefan Johansson whilst they were both trying to lap him.
I before E except when you run a feisty heist on a weird beige foreign neighbour
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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by Mr Dee »

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Re: Hamilton the greatest driver ever?

Post by Weybridge »

Well I guess that's his shot at a West End/Broadway musical ruined too.
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