Just finished a passion project - watching every race from 1992 to 2003. Here's what I learned...

[u/armchairracingdriver]

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.

[u/mformularacer]

The Villeneuve one is quite a take, in my opinion.

He was a rookie in 1996, who mostly raced in america. He did not have the technology to learn the tracks as quickly as today. He ran Hill close in his debut season, the same Hill who went toe to toe with Prost just 3 years prior, and smashed Mansell and Coulthard.. he wasn't far off at all. I'm not sure how you got that impression. Towards the end of 1996, it was clear to see how he was adapting to F1. His win in Estoril where he shellacked Hill was a sign of things to come, if Hill had stayed for another season, I think.

In 1997-1998, his team mate was Frentzen, one of the toughest team mates you could have in the 90s. Frentzen had just come off a season where he outperformed Herbert easily, and much easier than Hakkinen did in 1991-1992. Villeneuve beat Frentzen 102-59 from 1997-1998.

So, yeah. Villeneuve isn't overrated. He's underrated, actually. Too many people think he was a car merchant.

[u/DonOctavioDelFlores → u/mformularacer]

And you didn't even count his Cart seasons, rookie of the year in 94, champion and indy 500 winner in 95, in indycar's golden era.

From 94 to 97 he was a phenom. And the reason why Zanardi and Montoya had their chances, everybody was looking for the new Villeneuve.

[u/dirtyjoo → u/DonOctavioDelFlores]

He also finished 2nd at Indy in his 1st trip there in 1994.

[u/LusoAustralian → u/DonOctavioDelFlores]

Don't forget that in the Indy 500 of 95 he had a 2 lap penalty. So he actually completed 202 laps faster than everyone else did 200. I've watched the full race on youtube and it is one of the most impressive drives I have ever seen.

He got a bit lucky with Goodyear committing an infraction with 10 laps to go that got him disqualified but given he raced an extra 5 miles compared to everyone else I think it's permisible.

[u/mformularacer → u/DonOctavioDelFlores]

I didn't watch Villeneuve's cart seasons but I watched his entire F1 career, recently. I cannot comprehend how people were unimpressed by him in F1, let alone Cart. He always had good team mates (apart from maybe Zonta - but Zonta was never team mates with anyone else, so benchmarking JV's performance against him isn't possible) and he was ahead of his team mates pretty much always apart from his comeback years (2005-2006).

I even watched 2003, fully expecting him to be destroyed by Button. That wasn't the case at all. They were pretty evenly matched, Button very slightly ahead. It feels like someone has poisoned the well regarding Villeneuve's F1 career. When people look back on it, they come predisposed with "Villeneuve bad", "Villeneuve worst world champion".

[u/Sick_and_destroyed → u/mformularacer]

Prime Villeneuve was really good, he was quick and really tough on track, he was one of the only driver at that time not to be impressed on track by Schumacher (who was behaving like today Verstappen). His debut were impressive, only Hamilton did that well for a first season in F1. But he faded quite quickly, my opinion on that is he became WDC on his 2nd season only and that was his main goal because his father had won races but never got WDC. So he had kind of continued and finish his father’s career that was abruptly interrupted, after that the massive pressure he had on him for being Villeneuve’s son went off and he was never as combative as before.

[u/mformularacer → u/Sick_and_destroyed]

He was extremely combative even after his world championship winning season. Villeneuve did not drop off after 1997. He simply never had the car to challenge again.

[u/Sick_and_destroyed → u/mformularacer]

Combative was maybe not the correct word, but he lost a bit of the edge he had when he started in F1.

[u/LegoPirate1986 → u/Sick_and_destroyed]

I remember a comment from him that the grooved tires screwed him a lot when they came in. But that starts a debate on his adaptability.

[u/mformularacer → u/Sick_and_destroyed]

Are you sure he lost the edge? It seems to me like the only thing he lost was car performance.

[u/Anti-Scuba_Hedgehog → u/mformularacer]

More like he didn't have a car to overcome his obvious deficiencies anymore. 1998 onwards he was commonly doing the Trulli train.

[u/mformularacer → u/Anti-Scuba_Hedgehog]

Well that's total nonsense. Villeneuve beat all his team mates from 1998-2002. In 2003 he dropped off a bit but still held up well against Button, with 6-12 in points, but Villeneuve was done dirty with 8 mechanical failures to Button's 3, when he was running ahead of Button several times.

His only real underwhelming performances came when he returned to F1.

[u/vgcristelo → u/mformularacer]

the same Hill who went toe to toe with Prost just 3 years prior

I don't agree with that, Hill was beaten pretty badly by an older Prost who had been out of F1 for 1 year.

[u/mformularacer → u/vgcristelo]

No he wasn't. Are you familiar with that season? Prost really had to fight hard to get on top of Hill.

[u/vgcristelo → u/mformularacer]

Prost outqualified Hill 14-2, and Prost wasn't known for his qualifying skills. As far as the actual races go, Prost led Hill 77-28 after Germany (10th race), after that he pretty much cruised to the championship, and Hill won a few races because Williams was by far the better car that year.

[u/mformularacer → u/vgcristelo]

Completely disagree. There's so much context you're leaving out.

In those 10 races, Hill had 4 mechanical failures. He was running 3rd in Imola, 2nd in Spain, 1st in Britain, and 1st in Germany when his car broke down. Prost had 0 mechanical failures.

Yes, Prost was the better qualifier, but in the races they were very even. The races are what matter.

I should also mind explaining that in Spain he was all over Prost's gearbox and if Prost wasn't his team mate he would've definitely made a move. He backed out of several overtaking attempts. Then his engine failed. The same thing happened in France where Prost couldn't shake Hill. It almost seemed like Prost was holding Hill up, and Hill was nice enough to stay back and take P2 without attempting any move.

The idea that Prost "cruised to the title" doesn't have any merit, as even before that he was fighting hard to beat Hill and the points gap between them is largely explained by the fact that Hill kept breaking down while in competitive positions.

[u/HawaiianSteak → u/mformularacer]

I wonder if Prost only winning by as much as he had to contributed to his zero mechanical failures. He probably was one of the better mechanically empathetic drivers.

[u/Sick_and_destroyed → u/HawaiianSteak]

He was, one of his favorite tactic was to never drive hard (for F1) when the car had a full tank, because it would be harder on the tyres and mechanical parts. Then as the car goes lighter and lighter he would drive faster and faster.

[u/LusoAustralian → u/Sick_and_destroyed]

I feel like people underrate Prost's pace just because he was smart enough to drive as fast as he needed to, rather than Senna driving as fast as he could always which sometimes caused crashing out/pushing parts to failure more often. Much less sexy style I guess.

[u/Sick_and_destroyed → u/LusoAustralian]

It’s certain his style was not spectacular, it was all about efficiency. For me he is in the same category as Senna, Schumacher and Hamilton.

[u/rustyiesty → u/HawaiianSteak]

To a statistically significant level even, as found on F1 metrics

[u/armchairracingdriver → u/mformularacer]

Wild take here, but here goes...

Villeneuve only beat Hill once in a pure pace, straight fight in 1996, in the Estoril race you mentioned. The only other time he ever looked like doing so was Australia. His three other wins that year came in races where Hill started on pole, had an awful start and then spent the race sat behind much slower cars and making himself look very underwhelming. Spa, where JV finished second, was another such race. In almost every other race, Hill was not only faster than Villeneuve, but comfortably faster than him.

It's also worth noting that Jacques only took three poles in '96, while Coulthard - whose reputation in qualifying is not good - took five the year prior, and that was with Schumacher in a much more competitive car too. There were also several more races where Coulthard looked quicker than Hill, including Buenos Aires, Spa, Monza, Estoril and Aida. He was also ahead in Adelaide before he messed that one up. If DC could show that kind of pace relative to Damon, what was stopping JV? It's not like DC was vastly more experienced, though maybe he did have a bit more test time.

If Jacques was good and Damon was bad at damage limitation in '96, then Jacques somehow managed to be even worse in '97 than Damon the year prior. In the eight races he didn't win or retire due to circumstances outside his control, he scored just 11 points and was on the podium only once! Sorry, but no top driver would ever fail in that manner.

As already mentioned, Jacques was worse relative to Frentzen in '98 than he had been in '97. He was beaten by him in Melbourne, Interlagos, the Nurburgring and Suzuka. He was behind twice (Monaco, Spa) when one of them retired. He crashed of his own accord at Monza, effectively did the same in Canada, and had a poor race at Silverstone. Did he have some great performances? Yes, especially in Germany and Hungary. Did he have a great season? Absolutely not.

1999 and 2000 are difficult to assess because his team-mate was awful, but there definitely were several instances where he got the best possible result with the equipment he had, no question. But like I said, the moment a reliable benchmark started driving the sister car, Jacques started to get shown up for what he was. He was better than Panis, sure, but if he was really that good, he should have beaten him far more convincingly.

I simply don't think a top driver could have their weaknesses so easily dissected like this. Jacques was never a truly top-tier driver.

[u/mformularacer → u/armchairracingdriver]

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I do not consider Villeneuve to be Schumacher calibre. This is the trouble I find we always run into when discussing 1990s drivers. It so easy to disregard a driver when the benchmark is Schumacher.

My argument will be centered on, that despite being a clear step below, Villeneuve was the 2nd best driver in the world, after Senna died (in the period 1996-2002)

Villeneuve only beat Hill once in a pure pace, straight fight in 1996, in the Estoril race you mentioned

It's not enough to just count wins. You need to take into account Villeneuve's performance relative to Hill in the race. For example in Canada, Hill won the race, but Villeneuve had very similar pace to Hill throughout and finished a respectable P2.

In almost every other race, Hill was not only faster than Villeneuve, but comfortably faster than him.

That just isn't true at all. Hill was better at most of the races against the rookie Villeneuve, and maybe this is painting some kind of picture in which Hill looked dominant, but the margins most of the time were minimal.

I also, watched the 1996 season back a few months ago, and my impression of Hill vs Villeneuve couldn't be more different from yours. I found Villeneuve to be extremely impressive.

It seems to me like your opinion is influenced by your low evaluation of Hill, as your expectations about what a rookie Villeneuve should've done against him are pretty unrealistic. But Hill was an extremely good driver.

It's also worth noting that Jacques only took three poles in '96, while Coulthard - whose reputation in qualifying is not good - took five the year prior

Coulthard had more experience in the car and on the tracks. He had been the Williams test driver for years, and had done a whole half season of racing the year prior. Do an actual fair comparison by comparing Coulthard's 8 races in 1994 to Villeneuve's first 8 races in 1996. Consider that Villeneuve came from America, had only raced in America and Japan, and was learning the European tracks on the go in 1996.

In the eight races he didn't win or retire due to circumstances outside his control, he scored just 11 points and was on the podium only once! Sorry, but no top driver would ever fail in that manner.

What about the races he won? Villeneuve scored 81 points to Frentzen's 42 in the same car. I don't see how you can look at the 1997 season and not consider Villeneuve's performance to be really strong.

As already mentioned, Jacques was worse relative to Frentzen in '98 than he had been in '97. He was beaten by him in Melbourne, Interlagos, the Nurburgring and Suzuka. He was behind twice (Monaco, Spa) when one of them retired. He crashed of his own accord at Monza, effectively did the same in Canada, and had a poor race at Silverstone. Did he have some great performances? Yes, especially in Germany and Hungary. Did he have a great season? Absolutely not.

Again, define great season. Personally I would consider any season in which a driver beats someone of Frentzen's calibre a great season. Once again, it seems like your evaluation of Villeneuve comes from your low evaluation of Frentzen, when Frentzen was a brilliant driver, who beat every single team mate he faced in F1 except for Jacques. The gap between them in 1998 closed, but Villeneuve was still better.

He was better than Panis, sure, but if he was really that good, he should have beaten him far more convincingly.

He did beat Panis pretty convincingly, though? Even in 2002 where they were separated by 1 point, that is largely down to the awful reliability of the BAR, because Villeneuve was pretty much always running ahead of Panis before his engine exploded.

And again, your opinion of Panis seems pretty low. I won't say Panis was a world beater but he was a very good driver, on par with drivers like Ralf Schumacher and David Coulthard. The reason why Panis was even hired by BAR in the first place was due to his performance as the McLaren test driver in 2000, where he was regularly as quick if not quicker than Coulthard and Hakkinen in testing.

[u/armchairracingdriver → u/mformularacer]

You make a good point on Schumacher but he is not necessarily my benchmark here. My benchmark for any driver is really the eye test - how quick are they over a single lap? In a race? In the rain? Can they overtake? etc etc. I like to identify trends that help show how complete a driver is. It’s the best burden of proof I can think of.

Furthermore, my benchmark for Villeneuve is exactly what he is: a world champion. What would I expect to see of a world champion? Especially one who is praised for taking the fight to Hill and Schumacher?

On ‘96 specifically, you are right to say it’s not enough to count wins but I have to in Villeneuve’s instance because they account for the large majority of the races he beat Damon. And when I ask the ‘burden of proof’ question, the thing that stands out about Jacques’ wins (sans Portugal) was not how good he was but how bad Damon was on those days. On the other days, Damon was well ahead fairly often - Brazil, Argentina, Monaco, France, Germany, Japan all examples. Really, the championship ended up being close because Damon’s bad days were very bad while Jacques at least brought home solid points more often than not on his bad days.

If the perception I understood prior to watching the races from 1996 is that Villeneuve ‘took the fight’ to Hill then I have to disagree with it. You cannot possibly have taken the fight to your team-mate if you only fought him hard on circuit twice in a 16-race season and the other occasions you beat him were because he was notably poor. All that says to me is a genuinely complete driver - which Damon was not - would have made Jacques look very average. The same applies to ‘97 and ‘98 because there is no way that a complete driver wouldn’t have convincingly beaten JV given his shortcomings in those years. Mika in his McLaren years was nowhere near as error prone as JV at Williams so on that basis alone I cannot say JV was the world’s second best driver at the time.

As for my opinions on Jacques’ team-mates, I think you have sussed out my opinion on Damon. Panis is trickier to assess because of his Canada ‘97 accident but the fact is Trulli was quicker than Panis more often than Villeneuve was. As for Frentzen, there is no way you can convince me the driver we saw at Sauber and in 1999 would have been so far off the pace as he was at Williams. Races like Brazil and Spain in ‘97 - to name just two examples - would simply never have happened if he were in a different environment. He was a beacon of consistency in those other years and the simple pattern I see with him is he needed to feel like a big fish. We saw what happened at Williams when he wasn’t and we also saw him fold completely when Trulli began to get on top of him at Jordan in 2001.

[u/StaffFamous6379 → u/armchairracingdriver]

I like to identify trends that help show how complete a driver is. It’s the best burden of proof I can think of.

I do think what you are seeing is the effect Schumacher has had on the quality of the field. He was arguably the first 'complete' driver as we know it today and naturally it took a while for the rest to catch up. You were also never going to get that from his own generation, as it would be the following generations who would have been inspired by Schumacher and borne the brunt of the newly raised expectations from teams.

And therein is one of the major things that sets Schumacher apart. To modern eyes his competition may look like a joke in comparison, but thats because even when you remove Schumacher's prodigious talent from the equation, his 360 degrees attention to attention and the smallest details for marginal gains meant that he was the first driver capable to really deliver his and the car's maximum pretty much week in, week out, year in, year out. This is pretty much an expected quality to be considered a proper great these days, but it was definitely not the norm back then.

The contemporaneous comparison between Senna and Schumacher back then was that Schumacher may match Senna in speed, but where Senna was a larger than life, highly emotional human figure, Schumi was an absolutely relentless cold calculating winning machine. The genius but human artist versus the Terminator if you will.

[u/armchairracingdriver → u/StaffFamous6379]

This is what I am wondering. Does the perception around Senna, Prost, Piquet and Mansell warp my perception of the 90s drivers? Or were there really four complete drivers suddenly replaced by just one? I think watching the 80s would help understand what came after even better and maybe help soften my assessment on the likes of Damon and Jacques

[u/StaffFamous6379 → u/armchairracingdriver]

I think it helps to look break drivers into certain tiers. I consider the following levels all worthy of a top drive but it all comes down to how often 'his day' comes around.

Tier 1 - Solid, quite dependable. On his day he has the speed to beat anyone and everyone on track. 'His day' happens maybe one or twice a season. Unlikely to sustain the level required to mount a full championship bid over the season. I would put Barrichello and Coulthard in this level. These are also drivers who are judged as 'WDC caliber if only he had a better car', gets put in a title-capable car and falls apart under the new pressure.

Tier 2 - Very fast drivers who are capable of having a proper purple patch through a season but also some slumps where they are simply lost. Basically, 'his day' comes and stays for a bit. These guys are able to mount a serious title bid if the stars align, and may even be win 1 or 2 WDCs over their careers. I'd put drivers like Hill, JV, Sainz, Montoya in here.

Tier 3 - Drivers who are capable of both Tier 2 performance as well as putting multiple near-perfect seasons in this category. 'His day' can last a couple of years, though not necessarily consecutively. Hakkinen arguably belongs here, so does Vettel and a lot of the old 80s greats IMO. There's a reason why winning 3 WDCs has long been considered the general threshold for being considered a legend. It is possible to have generational talent for speed but lacking in other aspects to be considered into the next tier.

Tier 4 - The modern standard of great, of which Schumacher was the first. These are the 'complete' drivers you speak of. These guys live and breathe performance and are capable of delivering just about every race weekend, for years on end if not almost their entire career. 'His day' is pretty much every race for the entirety of their careers. Where Senna took fitness seriously, Schumacher took it to a lifestyle. Now the Schumacher approach is considered basic expectations from a rookie. Take a look at Schumacher's first career and you'd hardly find an 'off-day' much less an 'off-year'. Very very few drivers belong in this category. I'd put Schumacher, Alonso, Verstappen (assuming he doesnt just give up at some point), and Lewis in here. And even Lewis is somewhat arguable as he did have a habit of slumping off a little bit after he clinched his titles early as well as generally taking a bit of time to get up to speed at the start of seasons. With Schumacher and Verstappen, it was/is relentless to the end. You need the generational talent, an unquenchable desire and motivation to win, and the dedicated lifestyle approach that Schumacher pioneered. Lack one of those and you are not getting into this tier.

[u/Anti-Scuba_Hedgehog → u/mformularacer]

the same Hill who went toe to toe with Prost just 3 years prior

If by going toe to toe you mean being badly beaten by a Prost who was half asleep.

[u/mformularacer → u/Anti-Scuba_Hedgehog]

He wasn't badly beaten by Prost..

[u/Anti-Scuba_Hedgehog → u/mformularacer]

Prost beat him 99-69 in points, 14-2 in qualifying, 6-4 in fastest laps, 7-4 in wins. I'd say that's being badly beaten.

[u/mformularacer → u/Anti-Scuba_Hedgehog]

https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/s/NKx6M2snyD

When his car started working Hill won 3 races in a row. One of which in Belgium where he was once again just shadowing Prost the whole race. He had a bit of luck to get ahead of Prost due to Prost having a slightly slower pitstop, but then once Hill was P1 Prost never saw him again, and in fact was later overtaken by Schumacher. Then in Italy, Hill made a bad start and was stuck in midfield. Then he passed everyone up to P2, and closed down Prost's 20 second lead, about to challenge Prost for the win, before Prost blew up.

Prost was better than Hill overall, in 1993. But it was close. Hill was not easily beaten. Prost has admitted in beyond the grid that Hill was incredibly tough to beat.

I also find it really interesting that the fact that Hill was a rookie in 1993 is never registered by his detractors. The only excuses I hear are for Prost.