I missed these RaceDepartment debates. I've been for far too long outside of it
The car plays too big a part, as does who has which team mate, and who has a sister team trying to influence the championship.
Yes the car does play a part but Formula 1 doesn't necessarily needs Formula M or whatever championship were all cars needs to be equal so we can decide who is the best, we can do that even today.
Bottas has been finishing on P3 or P2 in the Championship.
Does anyone believes he is really second best?
Answer to that in any given year will give you answer to the question as how much the car has been the factor in that year, or how good Hamilton is, considering also how many 1-2 lockdowns Mercedes has had in the past 8 years compared to the total number of any given team since 1950
For example, many people are quick to throw Vettel under the bus for having dominant car in each of his winning years, but where was Webber in the identical car? However Webber was no slouch dragging that Minardi to P6 in his debut race.
No champion ever won with a bad car, there is no such thing. But there are seasons when the driver made the difference, based on setup work or racecraft. Its no secret i dont like Hamilton but pressing the throttle with that engine at the back developed by engineers, even though fought hard 2018 battle, it was really never doubt who will emerge victorious. So yes, you can tell even with different cars, if you look for right things.
F1 to be as relative as it is today needs and must always have that factor of development and ongoing technology where there will be much as drivers battles also constructors.
The problem is , in my modest opinion, and it doesnt need to mean anything, but since 2014 we have seen cars with highly complex hybrid engines where only one team succeed in delivering great results or if you wish others were fighting with one hand tied back. Mercedes is still very day still dragging that GAP since 2014 in engine power. No team has reached them, and whenever that happened and happened once with Ferrari , Ferrari were investigated.
Why they dont investigate Mercedes where suddenly they have found half a second in the TurkishGP while on every before then was very close fight? Why the change of the rear outside rings of the Pirelli at Mercedes protest? What happened with the Pit Stop protest they did?
You see, F1 needs less politics and cars which cannot me manipulated during a race, so we can once more have championships like we had prior 2014.
This topic is who is best in 2021, well definitely Max, for he is fighting the most dominant team in the history of the sport by great margin that even the era of Ferrari doesnt come near, and not because Hamilton is that good, but because Mercedes is that strong i.e. Verstappen is fighting something for which his driving alone wont be enough. He needs whole team to step up the game big time to beat the political, ever pushing on all cylinders on all fronts Mercedes.