Also it is quite ridiculous that three time world champion Nelson Piquet is below both Hamilton and Mansell, talk about British bias!
I cannot believe you left Jim Clark out of your "dead certs" list, Bando! He will almost certainly be in the top three. Personally, I rate him right up there with Fangio. Of course it is impossible to be objective when comparing different eras, but Nuvolari should be right up at the top too. My top three, in alphabetical order: Clark Fangio Nuvolari I've not been keeping track of who's so far appeared, but Stirling Moss is also top eight material. Schumacher will scrape in by default but will almost certainly be more highly rated (over-rated) than he ought… (I rate him somewhere in the top 20 but not top 10).
He lucked his way to almost all 3 WDC's, winning more a a result of others bad luck than his good driving. A despicable person to boot. If the list were purely on success alone then he would be higher up, fortunately it isn't. Jack Brabahm, another 3x WDC is also a long way down teh list, which I consider very unfair as he won a WDC in his own car.
Westy's Law. I cannot see why Hamilton is on this list at all, let alone 15th. A lt of people try to big him up by saying he should have won more championships but lacked the car. I've always found it to be the other way around and that he's is astronomically lucky to have won one championship. Let's face it, he was in arguably the best car in 08, had an obvious number two teammate to help him out, up against Felipe Massa who was fighting his own teammate for the majority of the season for team supremacy, and won by one point due to a Toyota slowing down on the last lap. I can name about half this year's grid who could have done exactly the same. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Hamilton, but I've always felt his talents to be vastly overrated and struggle to see him doing anything of note to get onto this list.
I think Lewis, Alonso and Seb all deserve to be in the top 20, they have done more than enough to be in with this lot. This selection isn't meant to be a reference on which driver is better, it just says "20 greatest drivers of all time". Alain Prost, Alonso or Seb could be the last one to be mentioned but it wont suggest he is "1st", just the last selection of the "20 greatest drivers of all time" hench all 20 are equal in quality in this selection, they're not suggesting Lewis is better than Brabham or Piquet but of the same quality. That's why they got Number (...) on the subject matter rather than your typical F1 places 1st, 2nd, 3rd 4th, 5th etc...
That's a very good point Silver. I've not read any of the articles but if, as you say, there is no attempt to 'place' them meritoriously, you have highlighted a vitally important point which should eliminate much of the argument. Good one!
Why do they count down then Silver? If they weren't in any particular order they'd surely refer to the first driver they profiled as number 1, or not assign a number to them at all.
The exact wording from the first one could be interperated in both ways. I see it as 20-1 with 1 being the best in their opinion tbh
I must admit, this crossed my mind too. But since I've not read any of it, I assumed Silver knew better. [Edit: that includes the opening statement which I've just read, courtesy of BLS' post which coincided with this: my own.]
Well if Senna is 1st and Schumacher is 2nd, it is a rank system. If it is otherwise, then it's just random I reckon.
I know what you're getting at EMSC; and I agree with your underlying principle. But I have to have a laugh here. If Senna is fiwst or Schumachew 2nd (ow any combination of the two), I rould suggest "rank system" needs substitution of a letter…
Maybe to cause more conversations or "arguments" like what's going on here. Since we are talking about this selection the BBC are doing their job correctly. Let the little people make up their own mind on what this selection means and chuck around a few wothless numbers by having Lewis a lower number than Piquet and Brabham etc... that will get us some more retweets on twitter and facebook.
