Would you say Michael Schumacher is the best pilot F1 has seen?

Question

Senna was great yes. Although when he was alive, he was arrogant. People mostly didn't like him in F1. He was feisty and problematic. Mike is a dirty player but with a smile to kill you nicely. Shumacher smiles a bit more. He also was able to retire alive. I think if Senna had not died Shumacher would have still beaten him all his champion years. He really brought back Ferrari.

Answer 1

NO DOUBT... NO ONE THAT ENJOYS EVEN A LITTLE MENTAL ABILITIES WOULD SAY THAT HE IS NOT.

Answer 2

no.  i can think of at least two who could challenge him for that title - jimmy stewart and juan manuel fangio

Answer 3

Schumacher was a person born to drive. Schumacher never thought of racing in F1 until he was 21, until he visited a F1 race (unlike many drivers today, who dreams of it at a very early age). It was his driving prowess that helped him scale the impossible height of F1 in a short time.

Schumacher could easily been driven for Mclaren, If Ron Dennis had the insight to see Schumi's talent. He turned down thinking Schumacher did not have the skills to drive in F1. Schumahcer easily adapted to F1. His debut in F1 (1991 Belgian Grand Prix) was the result of Jordon's driver Bertrand Gachot being arrested for spraying CS gas on the  face of taxicab driver. (Willi Weber, Schumi's  mentor contacted Eddie Jordan, the team boss, and offered a substantial amount, when he heard of the arrest, and he told Eddie Jordan that Michael had already raced in spa circuit, which was untrue) Michael qualified for the race at 7th (considering the lead driver of Jordon qualified at 14th, it was a tremendous achievement) but his car broke down in early stages (Provided the fact the other Jordan driver was in with a chance of winning the race- whose car eventually broke down - Michael could have won his first ever race if his car had lasted)

Michael Schumacher, with all the controversy, is still the best ever driver. Anyone arguing Senna is best, I'll oppose. Michael is a raw talent. He didn't bother what the car set up was (It is said that Senna would not race in a car, if it was not up to his standards).

During his early days at Ferrari, racing alongside Eddie Irvine, Irvine was the yardstick how the car was performing. If the car's set up / performance was good the difference between Eddie & Michael was minimal. If the car was not up to the mark, then the time gap between the two was astronomical. Michael would be too far ahead, he simply didn't know the difference between a good car and a not so good car.

He brought Ferrari back to winning ways, not only with his driving skill, but with his smile to kill (I'm quoting you, it sounds nice). Whatever Schumacher was outside, he instilled a Feel Good factor inside the Ferrari camp. Everyone inside the camp liked him. Schumacher had an eye for every pedantic details of his machinery.

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Senna's winning percentage is 25% (41 wins from 162 races)

Schumacher's is 36% (91 from 250 races)

And 'if Senna lived' is highly hypothetical. Senna died at the age of 34 , he was in F1 for 10 years to Schumacher's 15. For how many more years he would have raced,  3 or 4? (Schumacher retired at  the age of 37). Agree that F1 nowadays involves more technology.

And in 1994, the year in which Senna died, the difference in points between Schumacher & Senna was twenty points with Schumi leading. Would Senna been champion that year? maybe, but not a surety.

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Senna was good at Qualifiers while Schumacher will better him at overtaking (often reckless, but when he felt like, he went for it). Pole positions & race victories will show that:

Senna

162 races - 65 poles - 41 wins - 19 fastest laps

Schumacher

250 races - 68 poles - 91 wins - 76 fastest laps.

pole - win ratio (approximately)

Senna: won 5 races every 8 poles while Schumacher won 11 races every 8 poles. That says it all. Schumacher was good on the track while racing with everyone. After all both were good at racing in wet conditions.

There were only 2 full seasons where Schumacher & Senna raced. (Schumacher took four years to win his first championship is a wrong notion, he won in his third year, in 1991 he raced only in 6 races out of 16), In 1992, Schumacher finished 3rd & Senna 4th & in 1993, Senna 2nd & Schumacher 4th. And in 1994, Schumacher won both races before the San Marino & Senna had to retire (1 spin-off & 1 accident).

Let me imagine in a preposterous way, if what happened to Senna happened to Schumacher (while he was racing), what would you be saying about Schumacher? Just to make you realise that the emphatic histrionics will leave you blind.

Oh. yeah I forgot about the deaths in F1. there are lot more who died in F1 (I'm talking about drivers while they were racing in F1)

Onofre Marimon (1954 German, qualifying session)

Luigi Musso (1958 French Grand Prix)

Peters Collins(1958 German Grand Prix)

Stuart Lewis-Evans (1958 Morocco Grand Prix)

Chris Bristow(1960 Belgian)

Alan Stacey (1960 Belgian)

Wolfgang Berghe von Trips (1961 Italian Grand Prix)

Carel Godin de Beaufort, (1964 German Grand Prix, qualifying)

John Taylor (1966 German Grand Prix)

Lorenzo Bandini (1967 Monaco Grand Prix)

Jo Schlesser (1968 French Grand Prix)

Gerhard Mitter (1969 German Grand Prix qualifying)

Piers Courage (1970 Dutch Grand Prix)

Jochen Rindt (1970 Italian Grand Prix qualifying)

Roger Williamson (1973 Dutch Grand Prix)

François Cevert,  (1973 US Grand Prix, qualifying)

Peter Revson (1974 South African Grand Prix (free practice))

Helmuth Koinigg(1974 US Grand Prix)

Mark Donohue (1975 Austrian Grand Prix)

Tom Pryce (1977 South African Grand Prix)

Ronnie Peterson (1978 Italian Grand Prix)

Patrick Depailler (1980 German Grand Prix, during Alfa Romeo free practice)

Gilles Villeneuve (1982 Belgian Grand Prix qualifying)

Riccardo Paletti (1982 Canadian Grand Prix)

Elio de Angelis  (during Brabham testing in France, The Paul Ricard Circuit)

Roland Ratzenberger (1994 San Marino Grand Prix qualifying)

Ayrton Senna (1994 San Marino Grand Prix)

While Ascari senior (Antonio Ascari) died (in 1925) before F1's inception & Ascari Jr (Alberto) died (in 1955) when he went to Monza to watch his friend Eugenio Castellotti test a Ferrari 750 Monza sports car. Just before going home he decided to try a few laps with the Ferrari. (In shirt sleeves, ordinary trousers and Castellotti’s helmet) As he emerged from a fast curve on the third lap the car unaccountably skidded, turned on its nose and somersaulted twice. Thrown out on the track, Ascari suffered multiple injuries and died a few minutes later. (source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Asc... the glaring similarity of death of the father-son duo is that they both died at the age of 36, Antonio on 26 of July & Alberto on 26 of May. & Jim Clark died during racing in Formula 2.

(t/d - 6 & counting.. great, I don't mind a thousand when I do what I feel is right, truth is, as always, hard to gulp; right, guys?)

Answer 4

I agree with you Henry and I was a huge Senna fan.

Answer 5

Well, this is a very thought-provoking question. I think Schuey is of course, one of the best drivers F1 has ever had. As for being the best though, I have some doubts. I think there are other drivers before him who were really impressive and far more of the 'best F1 pilot'.

Answer 6

If Mark webber gets a car that works he will be up there with the best go aussi but i would have to agree  that he would be one of the best even though i hate Ferrari

Answer 7

Not even close to be as good as Senna!

Answer 8

All I have to say is that I don't think there will be any driver that'll be able to achieve what he did!

Answer 9

Giovanna Lavaggi would thrash him!

Answer 10

Michael Shumacher was a liar, deciteful and a cheat! He was a disgrace to the sport! Ayrton Senna da Silva was the best formula one driver to ever walk this planet. If he had lived to see out the remainder of his racing years he would have been the most sucessful too.

It took 10 years for Ayrton to acheive the record for Pole positions, only after 15 years and 88 more races did Michael beat it! That is 27.2% of poles for Michael and 40.1% Poles for Ayrton....Just a little fact for you.

Answer 11

Here we go again...he's the best that 95% of people who do Y!A have ever seen, but that still leaves him well short of the top. I'd put him about 6th on the all-time list. He never had enough consistent competition from other drivers to merit being placed any higher, and he generally had the best car too - certainly for all his title seasons, at least. I'd put Fangio, Clark, Stewart, Prost and Senna above him, he's just ahead of Lauda and Piquet.

If Schumacher had been around in the 80s he wouldn't have been as successful: between them Prost, Piquet and Senna won nine titles in eleven seasons from 1981-1991, only another all-time great (Lauda 1984) and the person who benefitted most from the strangest season in history (Rosberg 1982) got a look-in during those years...that's competition: 4 of the all-time greats sharing the same era (and that's before we chuck in very good drivers such as Mansell, Berger, Arnoux, Alboreto, Rosberg), that's a long LONG way from what Schumacher had to "deal" with during his career.

As to what you write:

1. Most F1 drivers are arrogant in some measure...all of the successful ones are in some way or other, at least. Schumi makes it into my top five on THAT list.

2. A lot of people in F1 didn't KNOW Senna enough to like or dislike him.

3. Schumacher was involved in more controversial incidents than Senna during his career, and was rightly banned and disqualified far more often.

4. Retiring alive is not an issue: the only F1 champions to die before their retirement thus far were: Ascari, Clark, Rindt and Senna, so getting out alive isn't exactly unique.

5. If smiling ability and jokiness count towards greatness, then Elio de Angelis, Rubens Barrichello and Clay Regazzoni will all be queueing up to join the top 10.....

6. Senna would have been champion in 1994, and either retired then or after adding another title in 1995. That would have drastically altered the course of Schumi's career.

7. Yes, he was part of the team that brought back Ferrari, but Todt and Brawn played large roles in their dominance too. Also, it took him 4 seasons to win the title with them, so it wasn't a magical overnight effect. He's not the first driver to rejuvenate a team and he won't be the last: Lauda/Ferrari, Piquet/Brabham, Lauda/McLaren & Senna/Lotus all got there before him...he may have had longer-term success at it (the longevity being due mainly to the genius of Todt), but the above named didn't take so long to see an effect.

8. Post some extra details if you want more info.

Answer 12

No, and I am a huge, huge fan of the man.

Schumacher was lucky to drive in an era in which he had precious little competition. The only drivers who seriously troubled him were Jacques Villeneuve and Mika Hakkinen who on winning their titles pushed themselves, and Michael, to the limit of frustration.

In the 1980's for example, there was Lauda, Senna, Prost, Piquet, Mansell,  14 titles between them, Can you imagine trying to win a title with THAT lot behind you on the grid? Not easy!!

He resurrected Ferrari but by god he did it by recognising he needed Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Jean Todt to make a good team into a team that would be unstoppable.  

Credit where its due, Schumacher is a wonderful, talented driver and has given me some of my favourite F1 memories (overtaking Hill on the top corner at Estoril in '95 when he was at his most audacious being my fave!) but we must remember the era of drivers who had a lot more to lose than titles at a seasons end, the respect Jim Clark and Juan Manuel Fangio had amongst their fellow  world champions speaks volumes.

And please remember, Schumacher was in complete awe of Senna since he saw him in a kart race in Germany when he was 11 years old right  up until the moment he saw his hero crash and perish infront of him.

Answer 13

you cannot compare Senna and  michael..nor you can compare michael and haikkenen nor raikkonen and michael...you cannot compare any one cause the circumstances under which they achived greatness are diffrent...luck always played a big role in MSC's f-1 career and when it wasn't there for him he would start spoiling others luck too...considering recent incidence then try remembering 2006 monaco monte-carlo gp qualifying session...and there were many from the past too...but still u cannot say he is or was less than some thing great as its not that easy winning '7'!!!! world titles...people in todays f-1 grid and many others(coulthard,R.Schumacher,Jarno Trulli,J.button,JPMontoya,Rubens Barichello...)couldn't even win 1 world titile even though they tried quiet hard and they were quiet good....and MSC won those 7 titles in the presence of some of the finest drivers in the grid....,!!

Answer 14

I love Schumacher... and I do think he was the best driver Formula 1 has seen. He's not arrogant... he's open to the media... i dunno... and he holds most of the F1 records. Go Ferrari!!!

Answer 15

I think the greatness of some of the drivers of the past has been understandably blown out of proportion.

There's a much bigger pool of talent to choose from nowadays although one can argue that motor sport is out of reach for most due to high cost.

Schumacher was the most complete driver on and off the track, and he wasn't lacking speed compared to no one.

Not nearly the most exciting which makes people very reluctant to hail his greatness but in my book the best.

I can't prove any of it nor anyone else can prove otherwise, that's actually a good thing.

Answer 16

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Before I answer this question, I'd just like to ask you where your sources are from regarding Senna (RIP) especially when you state "people mostly didn't like him in F1..."

Also, what has a "smile" got to do with race craft???

"He was able to retire alive"....what do you mean by that???

To answer your question - after addressing the innane rubbish that accompanied it - I believe MS was a huge, huge talent, but in my opinion not the best ever, as our resident Gurus will explain...step forward Rosbif et al please...

.

Answer 17

Schumacher is the best we've seen recently but my understanding is that Jimmy Clark is the best of all time.  It's been said that while most drivers need the car to be set up specifically to their tastes, Clark was fast in any car with any set-up.

Juan Manuel Fangio is another who may be greater the Shumi.  Racing was different in the old days... I have much more respect for the guys who raced when death was frequent.