Is Hamilton desperate or what?

[lebesset]

saw andrew's comment comparing schu to jim clark
choked

[autogyro]

Jim Clark? No chance.
When Jim was racing the moves made by Hamilton would probably have killed someone.
In those days you drove with skill and sportsmanship or died simple.

That is not to say I that I disagree with Hamiltons driving ability and style, he is a racer, it is just that there can be no comparison.

[vall]

For the record, Schumacher turned into JV, and was stripped of all his points for the year for doing so.

You should go watch the video on youtube Andrew, just for kicks. No wheels of JV's car left the track.

MS defined the word desperate more than any dictionary could on more than one occasion.

totally agree. MS palin turned into VJ. And Hill for what matters.

[ISLAMATRON]

Jim Clark? No chance.
When Jim was racing the moves made by Hamilton would probably have killed someone.
In those days you drove with skill and sportsmanship or died simple.

That is not to say I that I disagree with Hamiltons driving ability and style, he is a racer, it is just that there can be no comparison.

For all his aggressive moves, Hamilton has not really hit anyone in one of his overtaking attempts, sure he run up the back of Alonso in Bahrain(that was really strange incident that I never understood the cause of), and hit Kimi in the Canada pitlane, but he has not really hit anyone... but he sure has been hit from behind several times, mostly by Webbo and Kimi too.

Hamilton's moves, while aggresive, are still safe, and nothing unsporting about them.

I agree that there can be no comparison because the nature of the tracks today allow for alot more aggressiveness. I've not seen much Clark footage, but watching from the mid 80's on I know those drivers were as aggresive as Hamilton and track safety was not nearly up to today's standards.

[rifrafs2kees]

Jim Clark was a one off...I would compare him more to Schumacher - both similar characters with immense natural talent, both keep their life outside the sport very private and are both quite humble and quick to recognise the help they have had.

Don't remember Jim Clark driving in to others to try to knock them out of races. Don't remember him parking his car during qualifying to prevent others getting a quick time. Don't remember Clark needing team orders to win races.

Don't see how Schumacher can be mentioned in the same breath as Clark without just a bit of a choke. Really...

Don't remember Schumacher driving into anyone. I remember him being t-boned by Damon Hill and Jaques Villineuve having 2 wheels off the track trying to pass on a gap that wasn't there. You say park, I say stall. It depends on which side of the fence you're on. All teams have team orders, right from the start of F1 so why single out Schumacher?

I can mention Schumacher and Clark in the same breath quite easily. No choking or anything.

Now I know whose posts to skip. U have a right to an opinion, however ludicrous it is. But are u really serious?

[rifrafs2kees]

Jim Clark? No chance.
When Jim was racing the moves made by Hamilton would probably have killed someone.
In those days you drove with skill and sportsmanship or died simple.

That is not to say I that I disagree with Hamiltons driving ability and style, he is a racer, it is just that there can be no comparison.

It is common for the living to mostly see the abilities of the dead and past in an over generous light vis a vis today's talent. Yet history shows that our present and future greats are and will be better than those past. That is why records are broken. Drivers today, have many things to help them get better...computers, earlier introduction to the sport...on and on and on...That is not to say Jim Clark isn't one of the best but saying there is NO COMPARISON is mere exageration. And I am not accusing u of anything unusual

Decades from now, there'll be some people saying, "Hamilton was the best", "No one can compare". You know what? Someone will surpase him if he proves to be the best. Schumachers record might stand for long, not because he's the best ever. It may last long because there's and might be better competition. But skillwise, humans improve on what the past generation did.

[lebesset]

you can only be the best of your time
but every so often [ frank williams seems to think maybe 20 years ] someone comes along and is head and shoulders above his contemporaries , and is acknowledged by them as such

such was jimmy clark ...when he was killed one of his contemporaries said ...if it can happen to jimmy , what hope is there for any of us ?

personally I struggle to remember anyone who has been regarded in quite that light since

[autogyro]

Skillwise every generation is better than the last.
I do not think so.
That statement is not even slightly close.
How many skilled people out there today could build and sail a man of war warship?
How many wonder kind engineers could scrape in a white metal bearing?
How many could cast a bell like big ben or a 32 pound cannon?
How many farmers could plow with plow horses or cut corn with a sickle?
Modern people are the most vulnerable people in human history and the weakest.
The sad thing is they do not even know it.
Life is so comfortable and easy, they have forgotten that deadly survival is but a second away if things change.
F1 drivers face very little dangers today, this has destroyed sportsmanship and made the sport bland.
Hamilton and Schumaker will never be looked back on in the same way as drivers like Fangio, Moss, Clark and others of earlier eras, they were heros risking their lives, not primadonas with some skill and attitude.

[PlatinumZealot]

I don't think any of the past drivers were as good as the ones today. I have only watched F1 from around 2002(?) but usually in sports the athletes get better and better as time goes on. These new guys start at an earlier age and they have better mental and physical training, better diets etc. Imagine a Fat man like Fangio racing in F1 today: however talented he was, he would be at the back of the pack in almost all the races. Just imagine that fat man sweating away in the Bahrain GP.



I know old timer's like to defend their own, but you have to keep realistic. Fangio and Clark belong in the past machinery, they would not be as good as these guys are in the current machinery, and maybe the present guys won't be as good as the past driver's in their machinery but there is a good chance they would though maybe even better. That's just sports, It's not only about talent anymore.

[autogyro]

Its not about talent anymore?
I cannot understand that, I think you have been watching to many American pretend reality movies. Star Trek is not real you know.
Could you tell me the difference today between an F1 car and an F1 car simulator apart from the G forces?
Do the same skills apply? It seems the teams think so, because they use them to train their drivers.
So why bother putting the drivers in real cars if it is no longer about talent.
It wont prove a thing.

[autogyro]

Sorry n-smikle I was only winding you up.
This is a strange thread 'Is Hamilton desperate or what?'

Why on earth would Hamilton be desperate?

[marcush.]

theres a lot of truth in saying the best of their time..

What a outright festival for bernie it would have been to see gilles villeneuve in these days in a F1 car...
He was exactly what Hamilton ,Webber or sutil were not .He was really a master of car control AND absolutely fair and sportsman (just think about the imola incident with pironi).
Unfortunatelly he lived in a time when this sport was very likely to kill you if
you were driving beyound certain limits or when you just had an unlucky day...

[oj1983]

With all due respect n smikle, if you've been watching since ~2002 then I doubt you are really in a position to comment on relative drivers abilities etc. Any sportsman can only be compared to others in his time period, especially so in F1 with technology changing so fast. I've been watching since the early 90's and very much consider myself naive to a lot of the history of the sport despite a good deal of interest in the earlier years.

While I consider the likes of Button, Alonso, Hamilton, Vettel to be at the peak of the current crop it would be immensely difficult to compare them to Ascari, Fangio, Hawthorn & Moss for example. Perhaps the skill in that era was to risk your life, whereas today it is to risk a crash and the rath of the sponsors. Does that make either era better or worse? Does that affect the driver 'skill' level? Maybe the skills required to win races were different than today.

Just my tuppence. OT I know,sorry mods!!

[PlatinumZealot]

That's the thing. The modern drivers are better from a physical ability basis. But from the talent basis, it's hard to compare. But Interestingly, Schumacher is showing us that Talent alone can only take you so far. hehe.

I agree that he major thing the old guys had was bravery though. Driving at high speeds on some tree lined country road sure takes big balls. I guess this is where Hamilton shines over the other drivers, He's just crazy on the attack. I even hear Jackie Stewart saying he has some similarities to Fangio.

[ringo]

Athletes of the past will always seem braver becuase of how underdeveloped sports were back then. Look on boxing for instance, i remember there was no limit to the number of rounds correct? Then there are other sports involving leather helmets and useless equipment. It seems braver but it was pretty normal to them back then.
In 15 years time, we might have remote controlled F1 races, and fans looking back to today and saying how brave shumacher was or hakinen was to actually sit in the car.
What i think is a fact, is that nowadays, athletes are far superior physical to any of the past. Quicker reflexes, fitter, more endurance etc.
They can't be directly compared in terms of the machinery they operate and the environment, but i wouldn't say it's impossible for a new driver to be better than any of the old time greats.
The same mentality exists in boxing, sugar ray Robinson (not ali) is seen as the greatest of all time, despite other boxers showing similar abilities and achievements later down. The greatest of all time always falls in the time when a sport is relatively new and in it's golden era. And people always deify those athletes, preserving a sacred spot where no other mortal can fill.