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Schumacher 66 poles.
Senna 65.
Unfair.
Comments
Fangio - 28 Pole Positions
I dare to say that Schumacher is at least as good if not better.
From what racing against each other they did 92, 93 and 94 i believe. 92 senna was better, 93 schumi was better and Schumi started 94 better, if senna hadn't died maybe he would have beaten schumi.
I bet all those who criticise schumi would have criticised senna if he had lived.
People said schumi winning was boring, that was a hell of a lot more entertaining than renault winning all the time.
If Schuey hadn't won, then his Pole wouldn't have meant too much, since that depends on fuel load and tyres under the current circus rules.
Apparently team rules still apply at TOIT, and TOIT rules override all other rules.
Records broken in those conditions may make record holders, but not heroes.
Spin
ALl of them, from Schumi to Senna to Prost to Mansell to CLark to Fangio, belong to an elite where (also considering the different times) they are basicly all superchampions at the same level.
Numbers are just a matter of chance: Schumi won almost as many GPs as Senna and Prost together, but how many GPs would Prost have won had Senna and Mansell not been there, and viceversa?
And remember, Schumi in at least 4 seasons (1995, 2001, 2002 and 2004) could race with no competition.
Clark and Fangio obtained those numbers in seasons when there were 7/10 GPs, how many wins and poles would they have got if they raced 16/18 races per year? And remember Clark died young, and got 25 wins and 33 poles out of 72 GPs (!), Senna got 65 poles out of 161 GPs, Schumi made 66 poles out of 235 GPs.
If Clark and Senna could race 235 GPs, they would have made over 100 poles.
Don't get me wrong, Schumacher will go down as one of the greats, BUT, there will always be a but with him. People will bring up Jerez, and Adelaide with Hill. That controversy will dog him past his use by date I'm afraid (and I'm not talking about his driver use by date).
a) he is one of the greatest drivers ever. The reductiveness of TV was brought home to me as I sat feet from turn one at the Austrian GP (uphill 90 degree right) - Schumi was phenomenal and much quicker every lap. Absolutely on the edge of adhesion. Poetry.
b) he is not the greatest (impossible to compare eras, far more races now, far safer, no equal teammates).
c) he does stupid things under pressure and FUNDAMENTALLY is not a clean racer. He never has been and I refer all the way back to F3.
d) it really has nothing to do with his nationality - that is just a bit of fun. (eg I think Becker, Lehmann, Beckenbauer are legends)
e) did I mention the war?
There's a big difference in involving yourself in a 200kmh+ crash in a steel tube car and giving someone a tap in a bullet-proof carbon fibre tub.
Senna had a knife fight.
Schui was flying the Enola Gay.
[Edited on 27-4-0606 by Clown]
Senna inspired those emotions in the fans in regard to his driving in the first, and F1 in the second.
The Swervemaker is a cold, calculating machine to most, and will never have their love because of it.
That's about as far as you can go in comparing them, I reckon.
Should we regard the drivers of the sixties and early seventies as the greats, I wonder? Unlike the great names of the previous era, they had vehicles capable of real speed under them, and often as not, were at the mercy of rule of thumb aerodynamics on the part of their intuitive designers. Wings that acted directly upon the suspension would enable a car to corner at grossly high lateral force until the adhesion simply let go and they were passengers until the final thud. Worse, were the incidents when these wings - suspended as they were high above the roadway and the car - let go on high speed corners. There were two incidents in one race at the same corner (was it Holland?) when the second victim ploughed into the first.
Before either Senna, or the Swervemaker applied their undoubted talents to their ultra-reliable machines, these guys were racing, and winning in cars that they simply couldn't trust to hold together. What was Colin Chapman's creed? "The perfect car is one that falls to pieces after it crosses the finish line"; something like that. Would Senna or the Swervemaker get into a car that was designed by someone with that attitude?
I think the view to take is to regard the driver of the day as a great amongst his contemporaries, and to remember their achievements in light of the quality of the racing in which they triumphed.
BTW - Don't crap on about Senna's crash and risk-taking. The mechanical failure that took him out was not caused by the same things that were going on in the period mentioned. Not by half.
Rindt was very worried by Lotus and (I believe) had already decided to leave the team.
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns16729.html
I don't think that drivers consider the relative danger of the cars they are in when they are dicing on the track. So the extent to which a drivers makes a reckless move comes determination to win rather to murder, or be murdered. Schumi has been utterly ruthless, but he has also been consistently triumphant in the era of the most evenly matched cars, and best trained and highly motivated drivers in largest numbers. Probably, for reasons that include his performance on the track but also his management of his teams. In that sense he is a more modern and more complete driver than Senna was.