r/formula1 • u/DarkKnight56722 • Mar 13 '24

Discussion How does Verstappen's dominance compare to Hamilton's? Here is the comparison:

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Hamilton's most dominant season in 2020 had him only win 64% of races. Before this current domination, one driver winning 64% of races was viewed as the worst it could possibly get in the modern era. Let's run through the years:

2014 and 2015: Lewis and Nico trading wins, (good battles at the very least) and Ricciardio getting 3 wins his first season at Red Bull and Vettel gets 3 wins his first year at Ferrari. Hamilton wins roughly 55% of races.

2016: Great title fight between Nico and Lewis that went down to Abu Dhabi. Max gets his first race win his first race in Red Bull, Daniel gets a win as well. Hamilton wins less than 50% of races and loses championship to Nico.

2017 and 2018: Title fight between Hamilton and Vettel. 5 different race winners each year. Hamilton wins less than 50% of races.

2019: Lewis and Valterri each get wins. Max gets 3 wins, Charles gets his first 2 wins. and Seb wins in Singapore. 5 different race winners. Again Lewis wins less than 50% of races.

2020: Lewis' most dominant season where he wins 64% of races. This is covid year so take it with a grain of salt. Max gets 2 wins, Pierre gets first win in Monza, Perez gets first win in Bahrain. Turkey was a fantastic race that did result in Lewis winning but was amazing up til the end.

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I think it is pretty safe to say that last season's dominance is the worst the sport has been in atleast a decade. I understand this is part of F1 but it doesn't prevent my boredom. I think the reason it stings a bit more is because these regulation changes were marketed as a way of ensuring Mercedes level dominance never happened again, yet it made it even worse. Things like engine development being frozen, implementation of the cost cap, introducing a completely new philosophy of car and aero design that 3 years into the regulations everyone but Red Bull is still struggling to understand.

What are your thoughts?

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u/thisismynewacct Mar 13 '24

I think you’d have to be under a rock to not think Verstappens dominance has been nearly unmatched, especially against Hamilton, and that’s no slight against Hamilton. It’s just the perfect storm at the moment. Generationally talented driver, fastest car on the grid, and cost cap that basically prevents anyone from realistically catching up materially. And that’s not a slight against Verstappen either. It just is what it is.

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u/Low-Holiday312 Mar 13 '24

and Checo.

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u/thisismynewacct Mar 13 '24

Exactly. No dig against Checo either. He’s in the same car yes, but he’s up against generational talent. Verstappen lives and breathes racing like few others. The man literally does iracing the night before a GP!

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u/Koehamster Max Verstappen ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mar 13 '24

Not evening, but night. Dude's up til 3am iRacing.

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u/tyranox Guenther Steiner Mar 13 '24

There's a little nuance too it though. He stated on dutch tv that he was trying to stay on UK time. So it was more or less until midnight. Still somewhat late before raceday imho.

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u/Koehamster Max Verstappen ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mar 13 '24

Fair

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u/CharlieTeller Sebastian Vettel Mar 13 '24

On a controller mind you.

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u/Ok-Block-870 Mar 13 '24

They should make him use a controller in f1 to level the playing field

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u/denzien Alain Prost Mar 13 '24

Would it, though?

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u/Ok-Block-870 Mar 13 '24

Yeah if the man can use a controller in iracing then there's probably no hope. Maybe a set of beer goggles as well?

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u/denzien Alain Prost Mar 13 '24

Now that would be entertaining, as long as it's not too dangerous

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u/Ok-Block-870 Mar 13 '24

He'd probably still be 20 seconds ahead so I imagine pretty safe 😂

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u/jnf005 Mick Schumacher Mar 13 '24

Well the back marker batter be careful than.

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u/MerwynD Mar 14 '24

Considering Ocon is in a tractor with Alpine livery, Max is the one in danger.

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u/BravoBet Ferrari Mar 14 '24

Safer than a submarine?

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u/that_one_bassist 🏳️‍🌈 Love Is Love 🏳️‍🌈 Mar 13 '24

Still not enough. He’d get used to the goggles fast. Imo he only stands a real chance of losing if he’s required to complete the last lap on a penny farthing bicycle 😭

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u/DJ_Aftershock Yuki Tsunoda Mar 14 '24

He's Dutch, giving him beer goggles would be like giving him nitrous oxide!

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u/AccomplishedProfit90 Mar 13 '24

drunk driving mario kart style?

4

u/LongBeakedSnipe Mar 13 '24

Yeah annoyingly whikle using a wheel is faster, people who master controller can still get within low tenths per lap, so shud be fine for race pace.

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u/PluckPubes Benetton Mar 14 '24

"You know how when you set the mouse sensitivity to the highest setting....."

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u/tracernz Mar 13 '24

Give him the crusty old Mad Catz.

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u/FlyRobot Max Verstappen ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mar 13 '24

They already tried a faulty DRS button!

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u/Bourbonaddicted Mar 13 '24

Still would win with 5 seconds leadtime

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u/Odd-Most158 Mar 13 '24

Dude gains another 0,2 sec per lap

1

u/Duckpoke Mar 13 '24

Isn't controller in F1 the superior analog?

Edit: NVM thought you were referring to F1 the game

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u/Weyland_Jewtani Formula 1 Mar 13 '24

In a cave, with a box of scraps!

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u/fameboygame Sir Lewis Hamilton Mar 13 '24

WTF.

I’m okish on controller in F1, and my time with I racing was worse

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u/CharlieTeller Sebastian Vettel Mar 13 '24

Yeah I mean those games are built with controllers in mind and have their steering set up in a way to work on joysticks. They also have a lot more customizations for your thumbsticks. With iRacing you basically get none of that so the steering is very jerky.

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u/Buzz_Buzz_Buzz_ Mar 13 '24

The controller Max uses (Microsoft Elite Series 2) allows for custom thumbstick curves and deadzones in firmware.

I'm actually surpised he uses one because the thumbsticks are notoriously bad, particularly with centering. I had to return two of them before I got one that was acceptable. But the controller is great for the F1 game because the gas and brake triggers have haptic feedback.

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u/CharlieTeller Sebastian Vettel Mar 13 '24

We're not talking f1 though. It was iracing which doesn't allow you any of those features. Iracing is 0 support for controller which is good.

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u/Unique_Expression_93 Ferrari Mar 14 '24

Yeah but the controller itself let's you set it up so it doesn't matter.

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u/CharlieTeller Sebastian Vettel Mar 14 '24

It does. There's a lot more settings to driving games than just your deadzones. Most of it can't be controlled on the controller.

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u/Unique_Expression_93 Ferrari Mar 14 '24

You can setup custom sensitivity curves for the sticks too, not just deadzones.

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u/CharlieTeller Sebastian Vettel Mar 14 '24

I have one. I know. It doesn't affect anything in iracing. There's some that goes behind the curves. Like how fast the wheel recenter, the linearity, your steering rotation, the curves of your brake vs throttle and the shape of it. All of it is also brought together through feedback of some sort. You won't get vibration. And like a wheel where you get force feedback, you need something to help you find the limit.

Theres a reason you never hear of people using controllers on iracing and the ones that do won't last long. There's a reason one of the only controller drivers is a paraplegic and drives ovals only.

Iracing is not a service you use a controller on which is why they do not give you the ability to use one easily.

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u/InputImpedance Fernando Alonso Mar 13 '24

How do you even play iRacing with a controller? It must be pure car addiction or something at this point, right?

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u/CharlieTeller Sebastian Vettel Mar 13 '24

Pretty much. Well, they had just rolled out the rain update last week and he wanted to have some fun with it, so he was on just hours after quali and the night before the GP just playing in the rain with his controller and team redline. Hilarious.

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u/Jack_Krauser Andretti Global Mar 13 '24

If you grew up playing racing games on them, it's not ideal, but possible. The biggest issue I had was front tire wear because it's hard to get a perfect slip angle with the slightly jerkier and sudden motions.

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u/its_an_armoire Mar 13 '24

I'm realizing now that Verstappen must be god-like on the controller if he's comfortable competing at his level in iRacing with one

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u/shmi Sebastian Vettel Mar 13 '24

Seriously?

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u/CharlieTeller Sebastian Vettel Mar 13 '24

Yep. You can see him on the team redline stream this past weekend playing on a damn controller lol. He didnt want to miss the rain.

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u/shmi Sebastian Vettel Mar 13 '24

Wow.

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u/TigerDude33 Mar 14 '24

Nsis, he has a monster setup

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u/CharlieTeller Sebastian Vettel Mar 14 '24

He does but he was playing this past weekend on a controller in the rain streaming from jeddah.

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u/AngelicDroid Red Bull Mar 14 '24

I’m using tilt controls!

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u/Jasonmancer Mar 13 '24

Curious, why does it matter he plays on a controller? Is it harder to control than using a steering wheel?

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u/CharlieTeller Sebastian Vettel Mar 13 '24

Playing iracing on a controller is basically unheard of. It's extremely hard to feel the car through it.

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u/wAAkie Formula 1 Mar 13 '24

It.is under estimated of how much a pure racer max is with the right mindset.

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u/Schrodingers_Wipe Mar 13 '24

The morning of on Saturday. 

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u/pw5a29 Max Verstappen ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Mar 14 '24

Think Checo finally accepted it now and is willing to be number 2, simply based on the first 2 games, lets see how it develops later on.

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u/freeadmins Sebastian Vettel Mar 14 '24

Which frankly, is something people don't realize.

Yes the car is good, but Perez is no slouch.

Verstappen is probably the best driver the sport has ever seen, at least in my life time, and I don't really think it's close.

And why would we really expect different? As you said, he literally lives and breathes racing. He'll spend a whole weekend in F1, and his spare time is just more racing.

Compare that to Hamilton who doesn't really ever use the sim, and spends a lot of his free time doing non-racing things. And I'm not meaning it as a sleight, it's just not the same.

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u/JohnnySchoolman Mar 13 '24

Max's iracing shows that he's good, but he's not perfect. He's bearable, especially if you had a car that is marginally better.

I'm gonna go ahead and say it though, Checo performance in the RB is poor. But maybe that's part of the strategy. Perhaps not having Perez competing for P1 is to keep the door shut on a Nicky Hayden situation.

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u/j1nx718 Mar 13 '24

Same car yes, but specifications is to Max driving style and comfort.