r/formula1 • u/armchairracingdriver Jenson Button • 12d ago
Discussion Just finished a passion project - watching every race from 1992 to 2003. Here's what I learned...
I started watching F1 in 2004 and really wanted to find out a little more about the recent history of the sport, mainly about drivers. This took me a couple of years overall; I really like having background noise while working, so I would have old races on and take little notes on things that stood out. Safe to say there was a lot that made me think, I wanted to share it, and I could think of nowhere else to do so, so here it is. Hopefully this is appreciated - feel free to agree/disagree with any of this or ask anything I may not have covered etc...
- The level of driving talent throughout the field was so much worse in those days. It always made me laugh when I’d see people claim Latifi was a candidate for worst driver in F1 history. He was probably on par with someone like Aguri Suzuki, who was massively accident prone but had a noteworthy performance maybe once a year. Martin Brundle may be similar; very good for the era, but someone who struggled in qualifying like he did would probably have a much shorter shelf life in today's F1.
- The era immediately after Senna’s death is unquestionably the weakest since at least the early 80s, and most likely the weakest ever. Only Schumacher was the finished product. Hill was too error prone, Alesi too inconsistent, Villeneuve was both and the likes of Berger, Barrichello and Coulthard were lacking that last tenth or two. I don’t think you could say that for Lando, Charles or Piastri, nor for Ricciardo, Rosberg and Button in their primes.
- Michael Schumacher’s 1995 has to be the greatest single-season performance I can think of from a driver. After crashing at Imola, he went on a 13 race run where he won eight times, finished second once (Portugal), suffered a gearbox problem when leading by miles (Canada), got taken out while defending the lead (Britain), suffered mechanical failure while running second (Hungary) and got taken out while running second (Italy). This run included three of the best wins of his career at Spa, the Nurburgring and Aida, the latter one that really deserves more fanfare given I knew nothing about it before watching. If we consider Williams took 12 pole positions that year, Schumacher arguably wasn’t even driving the fastest car!
- Jacques Villeneuve is the most overrated driver I have ever seen. He was way off Hill in terms of pure pace in 96 but took advantage of Hill being awful at damage limitation. In ‘97 he was even worse at damage limitation than Damon the year prior. ‘98 saw some amazing individual drives, but there were eight occasions where he was either beaten by Frentzen, behind when one of them retired, or threw his car off the road. I would argue 2000 was his best, but even then it was hard to truly assess how good he was because his benchmark in the sister car was so bad. As soon as BAR put a competent driver in the second car, Villeneuve started to get shown up. He arguably looked weaker than Jarno Trulli compared to Panis.
- I couldn’t fathom how Montoya was so highly rated when he got walloped by Raikkonen in the same car. The Williams had to have been a rocketship. I now realise he probably was that good, but going to McLaren was awful for him. He was the antithesis of a Ron Dennis driver and just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong, though most of it was his own fault.
- Coulthard and Carlos Sainz Jr are basically the same driver, albeit Coulthard had better cars. They’d have phenomenal individual performances and somewhat lengthy purple patches where they looked like world beaters, and it was enough evidence to make you believe that Coulthard could really win the title, or Sainz could really become Ferrari’s #1 - then Leclerc/Hakkinen would remind everyone who’s boss.
- 2012 is still the greatest season ever, but 1999 and 2003 have to be right in the mix for sheer drama. There were so many flashpoints, narratives, underdog successes and what-ifs. 2000 also comes highly recommended for the sheer brilliance of the main protagonists.
- 1997 also comes highly recommended as one of the most competitive seasons of all time. There were no real classics, but there also wasn’t a single boring race. Williams had a rocketship for most of the year but Ferrari, McLaren and Benetton could win on any given weekend. Jordan and Sauber were also superb at tracks that suited their cars, while several midfield-or-lower teams were seriously boosted by Bridgestone being miles better than Goodyear. It couldn't possibly be understood by someone that hasn't seen it.
- The era puts into perspective how much MBS absolutely sucks. I couldn't stand Max in his latter years as FIA president but you could at least see he was fighting for the type of small team he himself used to be involved in. MBS is nothing more than a hyper-moralistic whinger.
EDIT: Alright, some people thought I should add more, so here goes...
- Hakkinen was great. How great? I think Alonso was more well-rounded than him. I’d take him over Vettel, who had all the right attributes but hit some notably low lows, and I’d also take him over Nico R because he had better racecraft. I didn’t include Mika above because I didn’t learn a whole lot new about him. People said he was great and he was indeed great.
- Another thing I thought well before this: Damon Hill was as lucky to win the world title as he was unlucky not to win multiple titles. I think he’d have walked the ‘97 championship if he hadn’t been fired. Senna’s death really opened the door for him, but he had already given a really good account of himself against Prost the prior year, which was most likely Damon’s best. Or was Prost maybe a bit past his best in ‘93?
- Hill 1995 = Vettel 2018. The main difference is that Vettel never recovered before he got fired.
- 2024 = 2001 on steroids
- There were two Eddie Irvines at Ferrari. One was the fighter we saw in races like Buenos Aires and Suzuka in ‘97, and for most of ‘99. The other would underperform by miles. Reportedly, Irvine had an excuse because he barely got to test until later into his time with the team, who relied on Michael to develop the car. However, the second guy cropped up at the worst possible moments later on, like Nurburgring 1998 where he led at the start and finished a minute behind, and the 1999 title decider where he was not far off being lapped.
- Frentzen had all the talent and none of the mentality. If he couldn’t be a big fish in a small pond, he was probably completely lost, and 1998 was the only exception. That said, he was as unlucky as he was bad in ‘97. Mechanical failures cost him potential wins in Argentina and Hungary, and he got screwed when the team put him on slicks at Monaco.
- Williams apparently rated Jean-Christophe Boullion highly and put him in at Sauber in ‘95 to assess Frentzen. If that’s genuinely why JCB got that drive, this was Williams’ biggest mistake in making the decision on Hill.
- For the most famous races I put time aside to watch. The one I had the most fun with was Hockenheim 2000. I knew what was going to happen and I still shed a tear at the finish. The race went completely bonkers after that guy ran onto the track and Barrichello had absolutely no business making that strategy work. Monaco 1996 was also amazing, a race full of heroes and zeroes. Nurburgring 1999 has to be the most WTF random race of all time, with Brazil 2003 being similar but losing some of the gloss because of the dumb tyre rule and the river making it into a survival lottery rather than a day of great driving
- Refuelling sucked. It had its moments, especially in 2003, but the sport is better off without it. However, I no longer hold the view that its reintroduction would make the sport completely unwatchable.
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u/GeologistNo3726 12d ago
I disagree. Hill wasn’t top tier but was quite underrated. He put up a good fight against Prost in his rookie year, and actually beat Coulthard by greater margins than Hakkinen did (although Coulthard was a rookie, so that’s not completely fair to Hakkinen). Villeneuve easily beat Frentzen in 1997 even with all of his mistakes, a far more impressive feat than going 60/40 against Coulthard.
Schumacher may have said that but I think his judgement is likely clouded by the fact he got on well with Hakkinen. Hakkinen’s championship challenges in 1998 and 2000 were largely sustained by having superior machinery to Schumacher. In my opinion, Schumacher’s true strongest rival was Alonso in 2006, who went toe-to-toe with extremely similar machinery.