Every era has its own set of drivers.
In the 1950s, it was Fangio, Moss, Ascari, and Hawthorn. Fangio took the majority of titles, but Moss was always up there winning races. Ascari interrupted Fangio's streak of titles, and Hawthorn became the first British Formula One World Champion in 1958.
During the 1960s, it was to be Clark, Hill, Brabham and McLaren who would stand out as the top drivers of the decade. Clark took the driver's title two times, and some consider him the greatest driver ever. Before his fatal accident at the Hockenheimring, he had won more races than any driver (25) and had qualified on pole position 33 times.
Taking the torch into the next decade of F1 Racing, Stewart, Fittipaldi, Hunt, Peterson, and Lauda would shine in the 1970s. Niki Lauda: one of the greatest. The Austrian world champion almost left us at the German Grand Prix in 1976 when his car burst into flames. Lauda was trapped inside and suffered severe burns.
In the 1980's (and early 1990's), it was Piquet, Prost, Senna, and Mansell. We were blessed to see two of the greatest battle it out throughout the decade. The 1988 season was dominated by the 'Dream Team' of McLaren. Senna took the title, ahead of teammate Prost, yet the team won 15 of a possible 16 races, an incredible feat.
Going into the 1990's. I believe this was meant to be the era Schumacher belonged to, along with Hill and Hakkinen. Hill and Schumacher had many notable battles, one of them being at Monza in 1995. Both retired but neither took any blame for the accident that caused it.
A new millennium. Many rising stars for the future. Montoya, Raikkonen, Ralf Schumacher, Button, Trulli, the list goes on and on. All these drivers should have been competing for World Championships.
Raikkonen tried and failed. Montoya just couldn't keep up with the Ferrari's. Button was the right man in the right place at the wrong time along with Trulli. R. Schumacher had the car. All should have won more Grand Prix's than they actually did. Why didn't they?
Michael Schumacher. The domination or whitewash of the first half of the decade meant that no other drivers could really have a decent shot at the championship. Of his 91 wins in Formula One, 48 of them came during his world championship years at Ferrari (2000-2004). Compare this to the six of Montoya and R.Schumacher, the two scored by Kimi and Trulli’s single victory.
I’m not saying that Michael won unfairly, and I’m not saying that what he did wasn’t remarkable and outstanding. I’m saying that he almost destroyed the sport.
It was boring; races became predictable. Television ratings went down, and the later rounds of the championship weren’t worth watching.
2005: A glimmer of hope. Fernando Alonso and Renault finally put a halt to the Ferrari train. Raikkonen and Alonso battled it out for the World Championship and Schumacher had only one victory...and that was in a race with only six cars competing.
Schumacher stepped down in 2006 when Alonso took the title again. Raikkonen succeeded in 2007. So you may think I’m wrong about this ‘Lost Generation.’
Hamilton, Kubica, Kovalainen, Rosberg and Vettel. The drivers of the new generation, with Hamilton at its head will win championships over the course of the next 10 years and hopefully the title will swap hands many a time.
Fernando, Kimi, Jenson and Jarno. Sorry, but your short time at the top of this sport is almost up. You didn’t have proper chance to shine; Michael ruined it for you. You were children of the Lost Generation.
8 comments Last one added about 1 month ago — Leave a Comment
Ben Auty 12 months ago
Interesting views and I think I agree with you, I can certainly see your point of view ... Because of his sheer brilliance and domination it was difficult for anyone to really get in because he was so damn good ... Not to make a slur on his achievments of course, I wouldnt do that, afterall he was immense ... But it must have been so frustrating for the drivers at the time.
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mark andrew 12 months ago
Wow that was quite emotional at the end .
" Fernando , Kimi , Jenson and Jarno , sorry , but your short time at the top is almost up " and so on ......... That somehow felt like they were being read their last rights .
I agree with this article tho , they have been in a way " robbed " of a proper chance to shine by In my view The joint best driver in the world But for records sake its Schumi . Nothing taken away from Schumacher as Ben said he was immensley good at his job and if we look and think He could of ended up doing a different job so in this respect im grateful he chose f1 , So thank you at the same time michael for teaching us how a race car should be driven .
But on we Move with these exciting youngsters in the sport , we are in for some Quality times and i wouldnt mind seeing sebastian vettel upon the podium either, he deserves it right now .
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Paul 12 months ago
Sorry but this is utter rubbish, lost generation, not sure what you were watching but it was not the same F1 that I was. The racing during Michaels career was not boring, in fact it was some of the best ever. Because he was so great, he made fights against superior cars and he did it often. For a great many of his races, he was in the inferior car, that is a part of his greatness. During his time in F1 there were many other driver who took the title and would have taken more. If not for Michaels brilliance, Mika, Mansell, Prost, Alonso, Hill, JV would have won more, it is also a safe bet that Kimi would have won the title. Remember, Michael was in F1 for 15 years, he only won 7 titles, who was winning the rest?
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Thabani Fingi 12 months ago
Heikki and Alonso are the same age you fool, so how can Fernando's time to shine be over and done - we keep forgetting that Alonso is only 26 and Kubica as well as Hamilton are 23. Actually Alonso is pretty lucky he entered formula 1 at a very young age that's way you think his older than he is, in many respects Alonso is still young and capable to be challenging for the drivers championship and still has a good 10 or 11 years to go until when we can say, "you know what Fernando it's time to find a place to put that helmet away"
At the end Montoya and Ralf both had an 87% chance of winning both the 2003 constructors' and drivers' championship, the only thing Michael and Ferrari did was to only prove how useless and inconsistant both William drivers were. Kimi should have one it but circumstances were not on side, only 1 accident cost him.
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Billy Sexton 12 months ago
you have a point about the same ages, but i see it as alonso has won his two titles and has been racing since 2001, had his time at the top teams (renault, mclaren) and is now has taken a step down this season... but you do have a point, he could do another michael, join ferrari and win loads more a lot can happen in 10 years.
i see heikki as the same generation as hamilton, kubica etc. because he seems to be climbing the ladder to better teams and has only just begun the racing part of his f1 career.
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Billy Amann 12 months ago
I cant help but feel this is not true, because alot of it was down to Schumacher building the best team around him. he put the right people in the right place. even if it meant that his team mate could never challenge him for a title. Selfish? yes. Clever? yes. the right thing to do? in my view yes. when your competitive and the only thing you think about is winning then that is absolutely the thing to do. Which is why he was the best of that generation. He made sure he gave himself the best possible chance of winning. shouldnt that be the very thing everyone else should do? I think to win you need to be the best at everything, on and off the track. To win the way Schumacher did you need more than just speed, which is why i dont think Kimi can win any more than 2 championships at the most.
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David Goure' 11 months ago
Hmm...a good bit of me disagrees honestly. Montoya had a good car in 2005, but honestly he generally wasn't anywhere near Raikkonen when Kimi was on fire...both metaphorically (in terms of pace) and literally (because, after all, Raikkonen's car was on fire quite often that year...). Trulli isn't a bad driver either, but throw him in with drivers like Coulthard and Button...let's be honest, they just aren't terribly good drivers. If they were, Ron Dennis would have been signing checks left and right to get Jarno or Jenson over to McLaren. If you are saying they WERE great drivers and now are not...well you can't counterfactually prove it, and one win at Monaco for Trulli or third place in 2004 for Jenson (which simply made him first-placed-loser) doesn't mean great driver. Coulthard had plenty of wins when he was at McLaren, but to paraphrase Jeremy Clarkson, when he was asked when he was going to step up his game and start seriously contending for the Driver's Championship he would respond, "oh, well I'll win it next year."
The point of someone like Hamilton or Raikkonen is that generally they have been able to show consistently blazing pace, no matter what the conditions. I am sad that Raikkonen is racing for Ferrari honestly, because I remember being on the edge of my seat for virtually all of 2005 because of how brilliant Raikkonen could drive...Suzuka that year was just incredible...he could make that McLaren absolutely fly...compare that with, for instance, Fisichella, who won races essentially by virtue of the car. If that wasn't true, he wouldn't be racing for Force India, I'll bet.
I honestly feel that if you are going to try to single out Schumacher, you should also mention in more detail the people that were overshadowed in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. For instance, Patrese, Alboreto, Peterson, Regazzoni, even Gilles Villeneuve. There were plenty of drivers who would have won championships...had there not been better drivers and/or better cars that they were up against. That's racing.
Sor
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Pradyumna Kejriwal about 1 month ago
It's always interesting to go back to an article like this and test the views of the author after time has passed.
I did, and still do agree, that Michael's dominance prevented a mini-generation of drivers from earning glory they otherwise would have, But Jenson and Trulli are back this year!
Button's never been in the right at the right time (except possibly honda in 2006), and now, by the strangest luck possible, he's got a strong chance at redemption.
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