Lewis Hamilton - One of the Greats?

[Fil140]

People that say, "hes only the best cos he's in the best car", are clearly as stupid, as they are misinformed. The guys making the driver line up decisions are the smartest and most professional minds in Motorsport. Lewis is offered the best seat because THEY consider him to be the best. It's simply not the case that Lewis chose to take the seat!
Please think, why do the top teams win, because they have all of the best staff, not by accident, but by design, from the strategists through the engineers, to the the drivers.
So are we saying that Toto, Nicky and James know less than the people on this forum?

 

[Fil140]

Oh and for the record, No, I think he's rubbish cos I beat him on codemasters F1 2012.

 

[howitzer155mm]

New F1 fans?You must be new to F1 or have never looked at the history of the sport if you think that it is all Mercedes & Hamilton just happens to be the driver.Every Great from Nuvolari,Ascari,Fangio,Clark,Stewart,Prost,Senna,Schumacher had great cars to dominate,win races & championships.

I would agree if not for Rosberg's 2016 title and Bottas obvious improved performance which wasn't seen until he joined Mercedes.

One thing to note is that nearly every driver you listed won championships in cars that weren't the best, or never had so many seasons under consistent regs when their cars were the best. Hamilton is an absolutely excellent driver, but his success is magnified by Mercedes' tech. He has always had the luxury of being in a top performing car. Schumacher, for example won his first WDC in a Benetton! Their only constructors championship ever!

 

[apex11]

People that say, "hes only the best cos he's in the best car", are clearly as stupid, as they are misinformed. The guys making the driver line up decisions are the smartest and most professional minds in Motorsport. Lewis is offered the best seat because THEY consider him to be the best. It's simply not the case that Lewis chose to take the seat!
Please think, why do the top teams win, because they have all of the best staff, not by accident, but by design, from the strategists through the engineers, to the the drivers.
So are we saying that Toto, Nicky and James know less than the people on this forum?

Well with sport image plays a huge part and in F1 a driver can be racing simply due to funding like Stroll, so it is a bit more complex...

Also Nico and Bottas, very average drivers who became top tier drivers due to the Merc.

Lewis is one of the best F1 drivers currently, if not THE best.... But stick him in the McLaren and he would not even get a podium.....thats F1 folks...

Sticking the best driver in the best car and only give him an average team mate and 2 Ferrari's to play with seems a bit silly....

Few few seasons it was simply Lewis v's Nico...
I still follow it but the last few seasons of Merc dominance has turned a good few away.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Yes, Benetton won the championship... with illegal launch control and a cheat for a driver. What a way to win

 

[keto95]

Winning 5 WDCs is not a coincidence. Although all of the greatests were the best in their own era's, it's still not an easy task to become the best; especially 5x.
He's well balanced, calculated, aggressive when needs be and also a good performer in the wet. Not to forget the most important thing: he's a clean driver. At least his titles aren't surrounded by controversy. So it's fair to say that he's one of the greatests. I also hope he breaks Schumacher's records, he deserves it.

 

[apex11]

Yes, Benetton won the championship... with illegal launch control and a cheat for a driver. What a way to win

My family has been in UK racing scene for few decades now, right back to when my Dad raced in uk historic touring car series.
I can tell you this, the amount of times a car becomes a wining car due to a little fiddling with the rules is insane..
Worst i ever came across this was in Karting...

People will always bend the rules..
What Merc did was more clear....they simply had more power...

Look at the Red Bull in Mexico, if every track was like Mexico with the altitude affecting the power of the Ferrari and Merc Red Bull would be WCC and Max could of been Champion!!

 

[apex11]

Yes, Benetton won the championship... with illegal launch control and a cheat for a driver. What a way to win

My family has been in UK racing scene for few decades now, right back to when my Dad raced in uk historic touring car series.
I can tell you this, the amount of times a car becomes a wining car due to a little fiddling with the rules is insane..
Worst i ever came across this was in Karting...

People will always bend the rules..
What Merc did was more clear....they simply had more power...

Look at the Red Bull in Mexico, if every track was like Mexico with the altitude affecting the power of the Ferrari and Merc Red Bull would be WCC and Max could of been Champion!!

 

[Glaurung]

It's hard to compare this F1 even to the F1 of15 years ago because of the radical changes that occurred in the last 5 years, definitely impossible to older F1 eras, another world, another kind Motorsport.
Number of WDCs as all the stats are food given to incompetents to give a sort of heritage of this F1, because there's nothing to compare of Fangio's F1 with modern F1.
This said, Hamilton has proven this year to be the more complete driver of this modern F1.

 

[Glaurung]

Yes, Benetton won the championship... with illegal launch control and a cheat for a driver. What a way to win

A way to win with an underpowered Ford V8 engine against a Williams powered by a Renault V10, technically strongest on all fronts.

People will always bend the rules..
What Merc did was more clear....they simply had more power...

They bent the rules in some way, starting to develop the turbo-hybrid technology years before the others, and forcing FIA to change rules in that direction abandoning NA engines.

 

[Tim Meuris]

Yes, Benetton won the championship... with illegal launch control and a cheat for a driver. What a way to win

Yes idd. A lot of people don't take into account all the dirty things schumacher did when obtaining his illustrous records. I was a big fan of him up to when he crashed deliberately into villeneuve. Should have known he did the same with hill a few years earlier. He should have had 6 titles for that and hill an extra one. Oh yeah, and he always made sure he had a weak driver next to him. Was he good? Hell yeah! But for those reasons mentioned above he will never be the greatest imo.

 

[Mark Ratzenbacher]

When reading the headline i thought to myself, what is it that seperates a legend from the rest ?

-Braveness in the eye of possible death/risking your life to achieve your goal (modern F1 is to safe to have this checked)
-supernatural skill to ride on the edge of grip
-winning the most races (F1 has shifted towards cars winning championships)
-winning against all odds (thats a rare one, but then legends are rare)
-down to earth character (not necessary in modern times, but an important character trait to me)

Lewis Hamilton is great for sure, but one of the legendary greats ? He´s getting 1.5 of 5 from my surely not complete list with some points unscoreable for a modern F1 driver.

There is room for him to improve and i´d like to follow that.

 

[Appie Kuipers]

Yes, Benetton won the championship... with illegal launch control and a cheat for a driver. What a way to win

Can you only be negative? I can't appriciate this atall, the man is fighting for his live, for ones THINK!

 

[Sky]

its pretty rare for someone to win the championship with a rubbish car.

 

[Andy_J]

There are some stupid people on here. Especially the ones that disagree but don't give a reason.
It's obvious that Schumacher is the greatest F1 driver of all time, with Lewis and Fangio coming next. These are the facts. To win a world F1 championship is not an easy task, whichever period you talk about.
Facts people.

 

[gamer19]

Love him or not but yes... I'm afraid he is.

 

[Tim Meuris]

There are some stupid people on here. Especially the ones that disagree but don't give a reason.
It's obvious that Schumacher is the greatest F1 driver of all time, with Lewis and Fangio coming next. These are the facts. To win a world F1 championship is not an easy task, whichever period you talk about.
Facts people.

 

[John Addison]

The only driver that I can even think to place next to or above him is Senna, and that's because Senna is the driver that he patterns himself after. They both have that killer instinct and intense level of focus in both the dry and in the wet that I haven't seen before.

Nothing wrong with being a Hammy fan and the guy is a good driver. But please stop the Senna comparison because its dreadful. You could go on forever about the differences in era's of cars. Senna could drive Hamilton well ...oh ya is the luckiest driver in F1.

 

[Tim Meuris]

Ah yes, then there are the ones that can't look any further than the numbers. Very limiting view imo, very limiting. Anyone remember Gilles Villeneuve for example? Not scoring high in the stats but everyone still speaks very highly about him...

 

[RobertGracie]

I would have to say he is one of the great drivers of our time so far