BBC: F1's Greatest Driver

[FoxHound]

The facts are that Senna was World Champion in 1988 because of the best of 11 scoring system.

Both knew the way the championship was going to be a best of 11 championship, it was not retrospectively applied to make Senna Champion.

Taking into account all the results in the season it was Prost who was champion

Er no, the fact is it was drivers racing to a rule set.

In 1989 Prost was champion with a healthy points lead built through cleverness (you don't have that number of mechanical failures through careful driving), regardless of whatever else happened

So ignore the fact that Senna had 5 mechanical failures to Prosts 1? Then chuck an idea out that it was Senna responsible for his Honda engine going wrong?
These aren't facts. This is biased over reaction from a Prost fan, brutal, but there it is.

In 1994 Prost would have picked up as many safe second places as possible until the inevitable happened and the Williams chassis improved with a far superior V10 engine, would have probably been champion and lived. Brutal, but there it is.

Again, your opinion and not a fact.

Senna's attitude would have got him killed long before he ever got near Formula 1 in Clark or Fangio's era.

Apart from you calling this fact, when it is clearly your opinion, I have to say that Regardless of whether Senna lived or died 60 years ago(I mean why bother comparisons when it will always boil down to personal feelings), F1 is richer for having had someone like Senna in F1.

Senna's supposed superiority over Prost and supposed 'destruction' is just a myth built up out of hype, legend status attached to death and an emotional mysticism attached to fast lap times at the expense of results. I expected no less though.

No, please can you refer to my statistics. Prost is a great, Senna made Prost look ordinary many times. 28 times out of 30 in qualifying, and 75% of the time when they both finished races.
These facts go some way to dispel your assertion that Senna was built of myth and hype.

[blrdy]

i love the post about senna being dead before he got to f1 in the early era,thats is just so spot on,and apleys to a few other drivers too.

[mbvinnie]

No, please can you refer to my statistics. Prost is a great, Senna made Prost look ordinary many times. 28 times out of 30 in qualifying, and 75% of the time when they both finished races.
These facts go some way to dispel your assertion that Senna was built of myth and hype.

You are just cherry picking the statistics that suit your argument. There are other statistics that point to other conclusions.
You have to weigh up both sides to be a impartial judge, otherwise you are just an advocate.

i.e. You say that Senna beat Prost in all but 2 qualifying sessions, but Prost beat Senna in 6 out of 14 races that they both finished. Surely this implies Senna is the quicker qualifier, but Prost is often the quicker race driver (he finished ahead while starting after).
And 14/20 is not 'near 75%', it is exactly 70%. Why round an already round number upwards?

And discounting non-finishes is pretty weird given how important they were. Your point is that the championship was 'best 11 races' and those were 'the rules of the championship' at the time, yet when talking about getting to the finish you discount that and imply that it is better to be all or nothing and that retirements don't count when they clearly do.

Disclaimer:
These are just examples. I am not advocating my statistics are 'proof' that Prost was better, just that there are very few 'facts' that you can use to say definitely one way or the other. And you clearly have an emotional belief that one is better which is unlikely to improve your analytical skills.

Incidentally, I don't think one was 'better' than the other - they were both incredibly good at what they did (Senna in pure speed and in difficult conditions, Prost in getting to end of race quickly and successfully and with minimal fuss). They had pretty similar records when in the same cars and were very closely matched. I am not sure what else you really need to add to that to make it any more significant.

And were they 'better' than Schumi/Fangio?
Nobody knows. Literally nobody knows. It is all just opinion. And while fun to speculate and discuss, it is also quite meaningless.

[Stradivarius]

I don't see any reason to consider anything else than the results. Neither qualifying or fastest laps gives a meaningful measure of a driver's performance level. The end result, however, does. The goal of any competition is to finish the race in the best position possible, regardless of where you start it from. Ask Alonso and Vettel about this if you need confirmation. As team mates, Senna and Prost took one title each. Senna won more races (14 to 10), but Prost scored more points (163 to 150) (if we include all races it was 186 to 154). So all in all I don't see any facts pointing to one of the drivers being better than the other. They had different qualities, but in total they performed on the same level.

Typical merrits that are listed about drivers are number of races, number of victories, number of titles, number of pole positions and number of fastest laps. Prost has 51 victories in 199 race starts, while Senna has 41 victories in 161 race starts. So both of them won just over 25% of the races they started. Prost has 4 titles in 13 seasons, while Senna has 3 titles in 10 season. So both of them won 30% of the championships in which they participated. In qualifying Senna was superior as he has 65 pole positions to Prosts 33. On the other hand, Prost has 41 fastest laps to Sennas 19. This suggests that Prost was relatively stronger in the race, while Senna was relatively stronger in qualifying. But the end result is pretty much the same.

So I don't see how anyone can claim that one driver was better than the other, while refering to facts and statistics. All the statistics tell us is that they were evenly matched.

[Joie de vivre]

It makes me laugh seeing Vettel infront of Alonso and Hamilton,

Schumi #4?

[beelsebob]

It makes me laugh seeing Vettel infront of Alonso and Hamilton,

Schumi #4?

Yeh, I honestly have no idea how anyone could justify Vettel being higher on the list than either of those two. To be honest, I would struggle to justify Vettel or Mansel being in the list at all. Both of them are really stand ins for Newey.

[mbvinnie]

I don't see any reason to consider anything else than the results. Neither qualifying or fastest laps gives a meaningful measure of a driver's performance level. The end result, however, does. The goal of any competition is to finish the race in the best position possible, regardless of where you start it from. Ask Alonso and Vettel about this if you need confirmation. As team mates, Senna and Prost took one title each. Senna won more races (14 to 10), but Prost scored more points (163 to 150) (if we include all races it was 186 to 154). So all in all I don't see any facts pointing to one of the drivers being better than the other. They had different qualities, but in total they performed on the same level.

Typical merrits that are listed about drivers are number of races, number of victories, number of titles, number of pole positions and number of fastest laps. Prost has 51 victories in 199 race starts, while Senna has 41 victories in 161 race starts. So both of them won just over 25% of the races they started. Prost has 4 titles in 13 seasons, while Senna has 3 titles in 10 season. So both of them won 30% of the championships in which they participated. In qualifying Senna was superior as he has 65 pole positions to Prosts 33. On the other hand, Prost has 41 fastest laps to Sennas 19. This suggests that Prost was relatively stronger in the race, while Senna was relatively stronger in qualifying. But the end result is pretty much the same.

So I don't see how anyone can claim that one driver was better than the other, while refering to facts and statistics. All the statistics tell us is that they were evenly matched.

Ah, a judge and not an advocate. Looking at both sides of the argument.
Great post!

[FoxHound]

But this still does not make up for Senna's greater car failure rate to Prost's.

The 5 he did suffer, he was leading Prost. If you want a balanced view, you have to be privy to all the information.
Senna lost nearly 45 points to Prost due to these circumstances, and Prost gained some too.

Note: I didn't include driver related off's, Senna suffered more of these too, for measure of balanced argument.

End of the day, people want to see drivers go 110%. Every time Senna climbed into a car, he would have given you everything and whether that is prudent or not in terms of a championship at least when he died, he died a racer.
Prost on the other hand was not called the professor for nothing. A better view of the long game he was, in relation to Senna.

But, and this is a question I ask honestly....who would you pay to watch race? Senna or Prost?
You would need to watch an entire season to get an excellent Prost performance. Senna would do it every other race.
The other way I could liken it is that Prost would be 8/10 for an entire season, with Senna giving you 10s and 9s mixed in with a couple of 6s.

I don't have issue with people praising Prost, or saying that he was better than Senna. I have my views because of the reasons I have given.

[gold333]

When talking about the 1990 Senna crash and the 1997 Schumacher crash It strikes me that people don't take into account what the -default- mindset of a driver is.

Schumachers default mindset, 1994 adelaide, 1997 Jerez, the time in Monaco qualy where he just blocked the road, is to just be nasty period.

Senna crashed into Prost in 1990 because he was so blatantly, blatantly robbed of the title by the FIA in 89.

One is revenge the other is the norm, there is a difference.

Ps: To all other Senna fans, please remember that, had he lived, being 52 years old in the current day he wouldn't have tolerated a single criticism levied to Prost I am sure.

Prost was an absolute titan of motorsports.

[SchumiSutil]

Senna crashed into Prost in 1990 because he was so blatantly, blatantly robbed of the title by the FIA in 89.

Sorry, I can't be agree with that. Blatantly robbed in 1989 ? Sorry, but there was still a race to do in Australia, the Japanese victory was not the guarantee for the title.

One is revenge the other is the norm, there is a difference.

Revenge ? Sorry, it's remain the most dirty action I ever saw. Deliberately drove into your opponent at high speed after saying you will do that... In lay premeditation is the worth case, you know.
If Schumacher has been banned for 1997 Championship, it should have been the same for Senna, but authorities did not have the balls to ban Senna after what happened in 1989, they couldn't took the risk of Senna leaving the sport, because he was such an ambassador for Formula 1.

And for Schumacher it's the norm, not for Senna ? You should joke. Senna history is full of what Schumacher did in Australia 1994. He was still in front of Hill, he closed the door. And he was "blatantly robbed" this year, a black flag and 2 races ban for... an overtaking move on the formation lap.
I'm absolute sure Senna would have done the same. And everybody would have accept that.

[beelsebob]

One is revenge the other is the norm, there is a difference.

Revenge ? Sorry, it's remain the most dirty action I ever saw. Deliberately drove into your opponent at high speed after saying you will do that... In lay premeditation is the worth case, you know.

The most dirty action I ever saw was someone getting their FIA-head friend to disqualify another driver so that they could be champion.

[Stradivarius]

But this still does not make up for Senna's greater car failure rate to Prost's.

The 5 he did suffer, he was leading Prost. If you want a balanced view, you have to be privy to all the information.
Senna lost nearly 45 points to Prost due to these circumstances, and Prost gained some too.

Note: I didn't include driver related off's, Senna suffered more of these too, for measure of balanced argument.

End of the day, people want to see drivers go 110%. Every time Senna climbed into a car, he would have given you everything and whether that is prudent or not in terms of a championship at least when he died, he died a racer.
Prost on the other hand was not called the professor for nothing. A better view of the long game he was, in relation to Senna.

But, and this is a question I ask honestly....who would you pay to watch race? Senna or Prost?
You would need to watch an entire season to get an excellent Prost performance. Senna would do it every other race.
The other way I could liken it is that Prost would be 8/10 for an entire season, with Senna giving you 10s and 9s mixed in with a couple of 6s.

I don't have issue with people praising Prost, or saying that he was better than Senna. I have my views because of the reasons I have given.

I agree that watching Senna was more spectacular than watching Prost. But in my opinion that doesn't make him greater.

One thing I don't quite understand when you speak of this balanced view, is that you consider Senna to have lost 45 points to Prost due to car failures. How do you account for this?

I am actually tempted to say that Prost's car failure at Monza in 1988 cost him the title. Had his car not broken down, he would probably have inherited the lead when Senna crashed into a backmarker later. This would have made Prost the champion in 1988 as well. In 1989 Senna had more car failures than Prost, but I don't see how you can claim that he lost 45 points because of car failures. We all know that Senna performed better in qualifying than in the races and he usually started on pole or at least on the front row. But he "only" won 25% of the races he started and he made it to the podium in half of the races he started. So even if he was leading early in the race, it was far from certain that he would win. There are even a few examples of Senna leading late in the race, and he still threw it all away.

[JimClarkFan]

I don't see any reason to consider anything else than the results. Neither qualifying or fastest laps gives a meaningful measure of a driver's performance level. The end result, however, does. The goal of any competition is to finish the race in the best position possible, regardless of where you start it from. Ask Alonso and Vettel about this if you need confirmation. As team mates, Senna and Prost took one title each. Senna won more races (14 to 10), but Prost scored more points (163 to 150) (if we include all races it was 186 to 154). So all in all I don't see any facts pointing to one of the drivers being better than the other. They had different qualities, but in total they performed on the same level.

Typical merrits that are listed about drivers are number of races, number of victories, number of titles, number of pole positions and number of fastest laps. Prost has 51 victories in 199 race starts, while Senna has 41 victories in 161 race starts. So both of them won just over 25% of the races they started. Prost has 4 titles in 13 seasons, while Senna has 3 titles in 10 season. So both of them won 30% of the championships in which they participated. In qualifying Senna was superior as he has 65 pole positions to Prosts 33. On the other hand, Prost has 41 fastest laps to Sennas 19. This suggests that Prost was relatively stronger in the race, while Senna was relatively stronger in qualifying. But the end result is pretty much the same.

So I don't see how anyone can claim that one driver was better than the other, while refering to facts and statistics. All the statistics tell us is that they were evenly matched.

+1 very good post.

Both drivers took completely different approaches to the weekend.

Prost setup for the race, Senna set up for pole, thus the results that on the face of it look very different but are in fact very similar.