Fastest F1 driver of all time?

[Nando]

by fastest i mean over one single lap, everyone running equal cars, perfect setup for each and everyone, same temps, same day etc etc.

Who do you think would come out on top, and by how much?
For me i´m leaning towards Senna, Clark and Hamilton. I think these three are/were unreal when it comes to one lap pace.

Try and keep it in a positive sense and non-bashing and the thread might stay alive.

As a more modern F1 enthusiast i guess i´ll have to go with a toss-up with Senna and Hamilton.
Senna for me was unreal, like he was playing in a different dimension relatively speaking.
Dancing that 98T around Adelaide was mind boggling.

I get the same feeling from Hamilton, he also shares the same "no fear" type of mentality which i personally enjoys watching very much.
Korea 2011 and Singapore 2012 are great examples. Even Hungary despite some mistakes.

Basically. Over one lap, who would come out on top? Assuming we run modern cars and everyone was born at the same time.

[Raptor22]

Pretty subjective.
Senna pulled out the lap of a lifetime at Monaco qualifying in 1988.

Hakkinen pulled out one his best ever laps in quali Barcelona 1993.

Schumacher pulled out 20 quali laps at Hungary in 1998.

Different era's different cars

I'm going to lean toward the stats and say Schumacher cos he holds the qualifying record for most pole positions.

This may offend some but I don't have any memory of Hamilton pulling out a special lap that stood out as way above what his peers were achieving.

[timbo]

This may offend some but I don't have any memory of Hamilton pulling out a special lap that stood out as way above what his peers were achieving.

Well. Australia and Barcelone this year were actually great.

As for OPs question, I believe there would be very close times and no clear cut advantage for anyone. I don't personally believe you can get 110% out of the car, and all the drivers mentioned here could get it right at 100%.

[FoxHound]

Looking at statistics will never give you the full picture of what skills a driver possessed.

Schumacher has the record for poles. Great achievement I'm sure we all agree.

But looking at his Ferrari days, they are skewed somewhat. Starting from his first championship winning car.
Ferrari F2000
It has 20 podiums to it's name. 10 victories, 1 for Rubens 9 for Micheal, and 10 poles. Interesting also that in the hands of Barrichello, it never finished lower than 4th in a completed race distance.
It was voted Race car of the Year 2000 by Autosport magazine.

Ferrari F2001
This car achieved 26 podiums. Interesting is that Barrichello finished outside the top 5 once in completed race distance.
And of those he achieved 10 podiums, however he did retire 6 times to Michaels 2.
It was voted Race car of the Year 2001 by Autosport magazine.

Ferrari F2002
This car achieved 27 podiums, it is renowned as one of the great F1 machines due to it's clear superiority.
It was voted race car of the year 2002 by Autosport magazine.

Ferrari F2003GA
This car achieved 17 podiums in 12 races. It struggled at certain tracks due to the Tyre war waged between Michelin and Bridgestone. However it was also dominant when the tracks suited, and of course when the rules where changed to ban the Michelin tyre, which changed it's construction during a race.
This car was beaten to Race car of the year by the Bentley Speed 8.

Ferrari F2004
This car had 29 podiums in 2004. Again this car was well regarded as one of the great F1 machines due to it's dominance.
It was voted as Race car of the year 2004.


Now I'm no alien, but if an Alien where to land and read these stats, he could realistically surmise that Schumacher, and Barrichello had some very exquisite machinery at their disposal.
Allied to this, they only really had a challenge in the shape of McLaren. Whereas now, there is a third entity in Red Bull that can realistically have a chance of beating Ferrari.
Some call it the Ferrari golden age. Some people enjoyed it and called it racing. But with this sort of built in advantage(technical veto), and the like of Byrne and Bridgestone providing you with the best of the best, I think it plausible that Raikkonen, Hakkinen, Alonso and possibly even Montoya(Schumacher rivals), could achieve near as dammit the same statistics at Ferrari had they been in the seat rather than Micheal.

This is not sour grapes, it's just my deduction and I appreciate some will disagree with this. Pure speed you cannot verify from looking at a spreadsheet. Pure speed is something you see and feel rather than calculate.
Of the last Generation I would reckon Hakkinen was the balls to the wall fastest, I cannot prove that. He just seemed to have a knack of keeping it on the black stuff for 1min 30 odd seconds while all hell was let loose.

[Nando]

Pretty subjective.

Daaamn right on that one
Nothing scientific in this thread

[marcush.]

TBH ...Schumacher had a few big names to his side during his time in -formula 1 ,don´t you thinks so? And the single guy who could hold a candle agaainst him was Rosberg in year one and two in Schuamchers comeback years.
It was NOT like schumacher ever jumped into a machine ready to bag the titles.So it´s fairly academic what someone else could have achieved given the same machinery.
But one HAS the chance as Schumacher changed rides with Berger and Alesi after 1995 ...So you tell me who impressed more alesi and Berger coming to the championship winning team or Schumacher joining the Ferrai squad?

But then the fastest of all died early unfortunatelly.

[strad]

Ronnie ...Gilles ..... Ayrton...Jim Clark...in that order.

[beelsebob]

For me... Vettel... This is his biggest strength.

[Raptor22]

Looking at statistics will never give you the full picture of what skills a driver possessed.

Schumacher has the record for poles. Great achievement I'm sure we all agree.

But looking at his Ferrari days, they are skewed somewhat. Starting from his first championship winning car.
Ferrari F2000
It has 20 podiums to it's name. 10 victories, 1 for Rubens 9 for Micheal, and 10 poles. Interesting also that in the hands of Barrichello, it never finished lower than 4th in a completed race distance.
It was voted Race car of the Year 2000 by Autosport magazine.

Ferrari F2001
This car achieved 26 podiums. Interesting is that Barrichello finished outside the top 5 once in completed race distance.
And of those he achieved 10 podiums, however he did retire 6 times to Michaels 2.
It was voted Race car of the Year 2001 by Autosport magazine.

Ferrari F2002
This car achieved 27 podiums, it is renowned as one of the great F1 machines due to it's clear superiority.
It was voted race car of the year 2002 by Autosport magazine.

Ferrari F2003GA
This car achieved 17 podiums in 12 races. It struggled at certain tracks due to the Tyre war waged between Michelin and Bridgestone. However it was also dominant when the tracks suited, and of course when the rules where changed to ban the Michelin tyre, which changed it's construction during a race.
This car was beaten to Race car of the year by the Bentley Speed 8.

Ferrari F2004
This car had 29 podiums in 2004. Again this car was well regarded as one of the great F1 machines due to it's dominance.
It was voted as Race car of the year 2004.


Now I'm no alien, but if an Alien where to land and read these stats, he could realistically surmise that Schumacher, and Barrichello had some very exquisite machinery at their disposal.
Allied to this, they only really had a challenge in the shape of McLaren. Whereas now, there is a third entity in Red Bull that can realistically have a chance of beating Ferrari.
Some call it the Ferrari golden age. Some people enjoyed it and called it racing. But with this sort of built in advantage(technical veto), and the like of Byrne and Bridgestone providing you with the best of the best, I think it plausible that Raikkonen, Hakkinen, Alonso and possibly even Montoya(Schumacher rivals), could achieve near as dammit the same statistics at Ferrari had they been in the seat rather than Micheal.

This is not sour grapes, it's just my deduction and I appreciate some will disagree with this. Pure speed you cannot verify from looking at a spreadsheet. Pure speed is something you see and feel rather than calculate.
Of the last Generation I would reckon Hakkinen was the balls to the wall fastest, I cannot prove that. He just seemed to have a knack of keeping it on the black stuff for 1min 30 odd seconds while all hell was let loose.

What other drivers could have achieved is irrelevant because they didn't. Not in a Ferrari, not in a McLaren, not in a Williams

The is part is once again contrary to science:"Pure speed you cannot verify from looking at a spreadsheet. Pure speed is something you see and feel rather than calculate."

errrr pure speed is the fastest lap time. Its specific. measurable, attainable, resource dependant and time limited. Speed is speed, and its measured against your peers and your teammate.

Clearly having a car capable of delivering the time is a prerequisite and common to all the drivers under consideration. The only fact that matters is their achievement with what they had.

[Raptor22]

For me... Vettel... This is his biggest strength.

I'd tend to agree and add him to the list. The RedBull doesn't have the most powerful engine on the grid so he is regularly punching above his weight

[timbo]

I'd tend to agree and add him to the list. The RedBull doesn't have the most powerful engine on the grid so he is regularly punching above his weight

Engine power is not a performance differentiator for at least 5 years I simply can't understand why are you mentioning it. Driveability, mapping, fuel use -- maybe, just not outright power. And Renault is not in any disadvantage.

[LionKing]

Some call it the Ferrari golden age. Some people enjoyed it and called it racing. But with this sort of built in advantage(technical veto), and the like of Byrne and Bridgestone providing you with the best of the best, I think it plausible that Raikkonen, Hakkinen, Alonso and possibly even Montoya(Schumacher rivals), could achieve near as dammit the same statistics at Ferrari had they been in the seat rather than Micheal.

This is not sour grapes, it's just my deduction and I appreciate some will disagree with this. Pure speed you cannot verify from looking at a spreadsheet. Pure speed is something you see and feel rather than calculate.
Of the last Generation I would reckon Hakkinen was the balls to the wall fastest, I cannot prove that. He just seemed to have a knack of keeping it on the black stuff for 1min 30 odd seconds while all hell was let loose.

I don't think the aforementioned drivers apart form Alonso are good candidates at all:
Raikkonen was outqualified by Massa more often and had quite a bit less poles than Massa in his Ferrari stint. He is also regularly being outqualified by Grosjean this year. Raikkonen is a good, clean racer but one of his weaknesses is one lap speed.

Everybody gives Newey as the number one reason for RBR success but a combination like Newey, McLaren and the Mercedes engine did not produce any WDC or WCC during Raikkonen time.

Montoya was teammates with Ralf for four years. It was close but even Ralf Schumacher just edged him in qualifying teammate battle

As for Hakkinen, when Hakkinen had superior car the championships went down to the wire. When Schumacher had better car it was all over long before the season end...

The only candidate left is Alonso. If I am not mistaken Alonso is 15-16 against Truli and 8-9 against Hamilton and those two guys are really really good qualifiers. But my belief is Alonso is a better racer than a qualifying specialist.

You have also listed the achievements of Ferrari's of Micheal and Rubens. Those statistics are also lopsidedly due to Micheal. In those 6 years as teammates: 41 poles for Micheal, 11 for Rubens. 49 wins for Micheal and 9 for Rubens. To put things in perspective: Rubens only managed to be the runner up twice in those six years with those Ferraris! The older version of Rubens managed to win the qualifying battle vs Button when they were teammates for 4 years.

So I never buy this naive view that a bunch of guys would do it given the same circumstances argument....Vettel gets 15 poles in 2011, Webber would never be able to do that with the same equipment....

Vettel and Hamilton are good candidates though. I think Vettel is as good as it gets during qualifying...

[FoxHound]

@ LionKing

So Barrichello was allowed to race?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlPrj9a88ME[/youtube]

[LionKing]

@ LionKing

So Barrichello was allowed to race?

You can give example for Hakkinen, Alonso, etc as well:
Was Coulthard allowed to race Hakkinen? Australia 97
Was Massa allowed to race? Germany 2010
Was Massa allowed to race? Brasil 2007

One,two odd races does not change anything. Rubens got a victory from Schumacher at Indy too. Schumacher helped Irvine in last races in 99 against Hakkinen as well for the interest of the team.

The above examples of team orders has happened very seldomly. It is not the reason why the faster driver has dominated the other. This is just a lame excuse...

Finally that is all you can write about the points I have written???

[FoxHound]

I will get to those points in good time. I apologies, I'm short of time this evening and need coursework sorted as priority.
Needless to say, Montoya was the weakest driver on the list I agree.
But the bottom line here, is Hakkinen and co never had as good machinery for as long as Mr Schumacher. Hence why we have this statistical anomaly/record holder.
And Ferrari was there for MS first, number 2 2nd. Nobody can really dispute that.