I'm sorry that you didn't get the response you wanted RI, but this being an internet forum will produce a varied mix of responses, therefore by the law of averages your bound to dislike or disagree with some Such is life.
I find it peculiar that someone who seems so disinterested in F1 as well as those discussing it, should want to contribute to a forum about F1; where strangely enough, people discuss F1… Odd. Nonetheless, I find it amusing - in a bizarre sort of way…
Anyway to try and take this back on topic i dont think its fair to say so and so would have won the WDC under this points system because it could effect how they drove, when they be conservative and when they be agressive and so on. So you can only really judge them on what was in place at the time.
I completely agree with Julius here. It should be obvious that all competitors compete in accordance with the rules in place at the time they compete. Retrospective adjustments of points tallies are utterly meaningless, other than for those who study statistics without a certain degree of understanding - about what creates statistics!
It's a bit like the career points totals that people add together and say isn't so and so better than so and so because he's got more career points. In the 80's there was a max of only 6 points per race now there is 25 on offer making a mockery of the stats. Irrelevant I know but I've said it anyway.
Also you have to remember that there were only 11 races back then and a driver had to drop his 2 worst points scoring results, One from the first six races and one from the second five. Sounds crazy doesn't it, and you never really knew for sure who was leading the championship.
Just to illustrate quite how useless career points are here is the top 10 drivers of all time you can clearly see the current system taking effect 1. M.Schumacher 1473 2. F.Alonso 974 3. A.Prost 768.5 (798.5) 4. J.Button 675 5. R.Barrichello 658 6. L.Hamilton 642 7. S.Vettel 615 8. A.Senna 610 9. K.Raikkonen 579 10. M.Webber 560.5 That might be one use for what RI was doing to see what this list would really look like if it was equal.
The trouble with statistics is that unless the context is fully understood and appreciated, they are virtually meaningless. On top of that, even if the context is fully considered and appreciated, statistics are wholly concerned with quantities and can say nothing whatsoever about 'Quality'! And it is 'Quality' that resonates with human beings. It is Quality which helps define such concepts as 'good'; 'bad'; 'strong'; 'weak'; 'indifferent'; 'integrity'; 'courage'; 'valour'; and the true meaning of 'greatness' (i.e. when it is not restricted to pure number such as 126 is greater than 11, etc.). Statistics are tools of dogma. They are used and manipulated (conveniently chosen) by the weak-minded who seek to justify their point of view without the capacity to capture the essence of Quality, safe in the knowledge that their chosen statistics cannot be argued with. That's why they're so frequently used by politicians…
Statistically 80% of the public place no relevence in stats making them statistically unreliable. However as they are unreliable the evidence suggesting statistics are unreliable should be ignored thus making them reliable. As such Michael Schumacher can be reliably named as the greatest of all time.
Actually, your logic is flawed Sea-Man, since if statistics are ignored, they are removed from the logic and therefore can form no part of any conclusion! Thus one cannot logically conclude "…as they [statistics] are unreliable the evidence suggesting statistics are unreliable should be ignored thus making them reliable" because making such a statement does not ignore them! It stands to reason therefore, that we should ignore Michael Schumacher, thereby counting him out of any such equation.
