Worse than Johnny Dumfries? Worse than Satoru Nakajima, who had 5 years in F1, and never even got a sniff of a podium? Andretti was a far more accomplished driver than either of these Senna teammates, but don't let facts get in the way of your hatred for him.
Andretti: I Was as Quick as Senna
- Thread starter Paul Jeffrey
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Worse than Johnny Dumfries? Worse than Satoru Nakajima, who had 5 years in F1, and never even got a sniff of a podium? Andretti was a far more accomplished driver than either of these Senna teammates, but don't let facts get in the way of your hatred for him.
I wonder how many times Andretti and Senna even tested opposed to each other on the same day...
Since Senna spent that whole off season pissed off and pouting about having the Williams door closed on him, and refused to sign outright with Mclaren saying he would rather take a sabatical, his presence on South Africa was confirmed just before the GP, and that was a 1 race deal (other 1 race deals followed until Senna decided to stop being a baby).
Andretti was undoubtedly not on par with Senna, but to assume he was a bad driver would be wrong either I suppose. America nor elsewhere you don't build a reputation for yourself let allone win a championship, without being a capable driver. It was often suggested, that two main factors were responsible for Andrettis mediocre performance:
1.) He did not know most, if not all, of the tracks on the 1993 calendar.
2.) At 30 years of age at the time, and only having driven steel brake rotor equipped cars during his decade long career, he could not adapt to the insanly short braking distances of the lighter F1 car with its carbon brake discs. At least not in the time Ron Dennis granted him.
1.) He did not know most, if not all, of the tracks on the 1993 calendar.
2.) At 30 years of age at the time, and only having driven steel brake rotor equipped cars during his decade long career, he could not adapt to the insanly short braking distances of the lighter F1 car with its carbon brake discs. At least not in the time Ron Dennis granted him.
I saw all races from 93 season from youtube.
When Schumacher made his first F1 weekend, he made a superb lap on qualify.
When Senna sit in a F1 car first time, he made Frank Williams impressed.
That was the problem with Michael Andretti. I think, if he had one or two entires season, he could improved, like Damon Hill did.
But on F1 you need to be better than this.
And Hakkinen was a very good pilot, same league on Michael Schumacher. He proved this on Portuguese GP, he proved when he won two champioships. Hakkinen was very good on qualifys, on this aspect I can say, he was better than Schumacher.
When Schumacher made his first F1 weekend, he made a superb lap on qualify.
When Senna sit in a F1 car first time, he made Frank Williams impressed.
That was the problem with Michael Andretti. I think, if he had one or two entires season, he could improved, like Damon Hill did.
But on F1 you need to be better than this.
And Hakkinen was a very good pilot, same league on Michael Schumacher. He proved this on Portuguese GP, he proved when he won two champioships. Hakkinen was very good on qualifys, on this aspect I can say, he was better than Schumacher.
Maybe not worst in absolute terms, but I'm not sure if there were a lot of expectations for Dumfries, or for Nakajima that was a Honda driver. But when the '91 IndyCar champion shows up, you expect a little more than being an embarrassment aka 4 accidents in the first 4 races.
In that sense, he probably was the worst in terms of expectations you can have from such driver.
The 7th Marquess of Bute came of a very disappointing year in the completely new F3000 series in 1985. However, he won about as many races in British F3 in 1984 as Senna had done in 1983 (percentage-wise), and absolutely dominated that year. The same year he was 2nd in European F3, beating e.g Gerhard Berger.
If his F1 shot came a year "too late" and his momentum was broken, if he wasn't that good of a driver after all, I have no idea. He surely wasn't seen as the next great big driver, but he was chosen as Senna didn't want Warwick in the team, and wanted the resources focused on him as he felt Lotus didn't have enough resources to field two top cars. That certainly had an impact for Dumfries.
He did get to win Le Mans overall in 1988 though. So completely hopeless he was not.
Yea as in free-fall from a high building.
He just had troubles mastering those pesky right-hand corners.
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A bit of a sidebar, but just want to make sure you know not all Americans like NASCAR and we do actually have some lovely road circuits over here as well...and drivers who can handle them...
Having said that, and recently been given the opportunity to do a fair number of laps at speed at Talladega Superspeedway, driving really fast on banked ovals/tri-ovals is a hoot! I enjoyed it more than I thought I would and I can see why those good ole boys like it, it's a rush.
Now, back to your scheduled online debate...
Would love to experience this kind of jaw-dropping speeds on a banked corner. Andretti is still one of the great icons of motorsports.
Yes. Prost and Schumacher both COULD have. They had the potential. The difference is that Senna achieved that potential more often than the other two did. But either of them had the talent to pull a miracle like that off (Schumacher was always great in the wet; I think, in Senna's position at Donington, he probably would've done pretty well too).
Just to get things in perspective.
Senna was no superhuman, he had his fair share of mistakes.
Wow, April came around again quickly!
It's sad to know these things just pass by without notice. I'm sure these kind of stories will always pop up given the amount of drivers that drove in F1 never producing a win let alone a championship. F1 is a car thing nowadays. Gone are the days when a mediocre team or car can win races because of a great driver.
He was more accomplished no doubt. But that doesn't change the fact that his F1 stint at McLaren very much reminds me of Alex Zanardi's second stint at Williams. Both were at similar age, supposedly the best drivers in USA, but it took Zanardi over 10 races to even get one decent quali performance in. So maybe there is the adaptation factor, but then again Villeneuve adapted almost instantly, so who knows.
Every driver has his fair share of mistakes. No one said anything about a driver not making errors.
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