Mark Webber: 'F1 driver pool has never been weaker'

Chris · Sep 9, 2015

Bram said:
Imo Maldonado, Grosjean, Ericsson, Kvyat, Mehri and Stevens aren't F1 material.

What?! Grosjean and Kvyat are more than deserving of an F1 seat. They're two of the better drivers on the grid. Grosjean has proven his pace many many times, he out-drove Kimi in the second half of 2013 by taking multiple podiums, might as well have taken a gap year in 2014 because of how horrible the car was, and he's just taken a podium in Spa this year in a car that is probably not podium material.

Kvyat is still very very young and needs time. He's been a match for Ricciardo since Monaco.

Maldonado has pace, but his inability to think undoes him, and Ericsson and Mehri are just there for cash (despite Ericsson having a strong drive in Italy).

Trimaz · Sep 9, 2015

Bram said:
Already answered above in post #24

I didn't see that one. Fair enough.

Ho3n3r · Sep 9, 2015

Chris Stacey said:
What?! Grosjean and Kvyat are more than deserving of an F1 seat. They're two of the better drivers on the grid. Grosjean has proven his pace many many times, he out-drove Kimi in the second half of 2013, might as well have taken a gap year in 2014 because of how horrible the car was, and he's just taken a podium in Spa this year in a car that is probably not podium material.

Kvyat is still very very young and needs time. He's been a match for Ricciardo since Monaco.

Maldonado has pace, but his inability to think undoes him, and Ericsson and Mehri are just there for cash (despite Ericsson having a strong drive in Italy).

Yeah I agree. Dunno if @Bram totally missed the 2013 season, but the way he gave the Red Bulls a go with an inferior car was magical.

2014 was a dud, because of Renault and that dog of a car, nobody would have done better with it. This year he's been consistently in the top 10, and even has a podium to his name. No idea what he was supposed to do differently.

And Kvyat - he started out slowly, but you can't fault him for anything he's done recently. He's matching his teammate, who is probably one of the top drivers on the grid, pretty well.

Glaurung · Sep 9, 2015

I agree with Webber: the average level of current F1 pilots is low. The reason of this is simple: since about late 90s the electronical aids have progressively made the pilots driving a lot easier. In the early 90s we'd never see a teenager driving an F1 car.
It's pure speculation, but I'm sure that the current "best" F1 drivers inside B194 or B195 would perform not much better than what have done Letho, Verstappen or Herbert.

Nick Milton · Sep 9, 2015

Shame webber shows some arrogance here, it's strong in my opinion, lots of gp2 floating arround as well,.
Have to say not a fan of webber, never have been, don't think he had what it takes, hence, he never won a championship. Ricardo a different story.

antirussia81 · Sep 9, 2015

Bram said:
Imo Maldonado, Grosjean, Ericsson, Kvyat, Mehri and Stevens aren't F1 material.

I agree with one exception: Grosjean. I really think he has much more skills and potential than, for expample, Perez. And

Patrick Wuyts · Sep 9, 2015

the current drivers are more and more like jet pilots, highly competent in the operation of the buttons.
As for drivers skills I cast my vote if they all drive the cars off the 1970 ore 1980, no gadgets Manuel shift and a terrifying engine that divides the boys from men. lets see who got the b.lls to dive in the hole and get out in one peace, one gets melancholic just thinking about it.

Nick Milton · Sep 9, 2015

Patrick Wuyts said:
the current drivers are more and more like jet pilots, highly competent in the operation of the buttons.
As for drivers skills I cast my vote if they all drive the cars off the 1970 ore 1980, no gadgets Manuel shift and a terrifying engine that divides the boys from men. lets see who got the b.lls to dive in the hole and get out in one peace, one gets melancholic just thinking about it.

100% agree , no doubt in my mind, today's drivers are more worried about there hairstyles than racing, wonder who would cut it against the 1976 drivers and cars? Men were men then , not men are Jen.

fortyfivekev · Sep 9, 2015

Nick10 said:
100% agree , no doubt in my mind, today's drivers are more worried about there hairstyles than racing, wonder who would cut it against the 1976 drivers and cars? Men were men then , not men are Jen.

Yeah, lets go back to the days when all drivers had really bad haircuts and they all chain-smoked and drank like real men

Seriously though, made me angry at the weekend that Monza, a temple of motorsport if ever there was one, could be on the way out and all they can talk about is Lewis' stupid haircut.

kedy89 · Sep 9, 2015

He's got a point. I think the way the tracks are nowadays, with miles of tarmac runoff, you just no longer notice many of the small mistakes some drivers make. It may not be the weakest ever, but in my opinion it isn't any better than previous seasons either.

Maldonado certainly has a good speed, but also a complete lack of race intelligence. I think his crashes cost the teams he's driven for more (prize money and material) than they gained through the PDVSA sponsorship.
Stevens neither impressed in the junior series nor with Manor.
Nasr only started to win in GP2 once the guys who had previously beaten him were gone (in his 3rd season btw). Even then 3 of 4 were with reversed grid. In F1 thanks to Banco do Brasil.
Ericsson and Merhi as well, don't think their results justify their seats. Not sure what to think about Pérez, Kvyat and Sainz jr.

Grosjean matured a lot since his race ban for the start crash at Spa '12.

Don't think the situation will ever change though unless they limit the budgets and prize money is being shared in a fair way.

Nasos Charalampou · Sep 9, 2015

Also we have to keep in mind that there are far too many drivers for too little seats.

So a radical-purist idea would be to create a F1/2 champ with bias plys tyres (well maybe not but you get the idea) manual transmission and full open rules without the strangling regulations they have now.No artificial passing and such.

Instead of running the amazing machinery of the past in historical events,just create something similar to those cars with the benefit of todays advancements in technology.Then put all this young talents to fight in the arena.

One can dream....

Martin Maaskant · Sep 9, 2015

F1 gets what it deserves. If you make it almost impossible to enter as a team due to the high costs then teams are looking for all sorts of income and that includes a paying driver. The problem is not the lack of talent it is a lack of fair distribution of money. If you make it less costly to enter F1 then teams are easily going for the biggest talent rather then the biggest sponsor deal. The teams all want to win races and everyone can understand that you can't win a race with the likes of Stevens (I'm not trying to step on someones toes) In short the problem is with the FOM (read Eccelstone) and not the teams who contract paying drivers. Oh and I must disagree with @Thomas Alderton I think Verstappen is the best of the rookies, but then again I'm a bit biased

with my opinion

Dan Allen · Sep 10, 2015

Michael Watts said:
Well if you look at some of the other top racing series, you have guys that supposedly couldn't cut the mustard in F1 backmarkers winning races.. championships. Guys that never got a chance to run in good equipment. Hamilton and Rosberg would be scrubs if they had to run Manor equipment.

Which is EXACTLY why I'm not a Hamilton fan. Senna could finish 2nd from the back in a Toleman at a very wet Monaco, but Hamilton definitely could not do the modern equivalent i.e Manor. The only reason Hamilton did the same was because of his superior car.

the_sigman · Sep 10, 2015

Dan Allen said:
Which is EXACTLY why I'm not a Hamilton fan. Senna could win from the back in a Toleman, but Hamilton definitely could not do the modern equivalent i.e Manor

A Toleman was not that bad. A big part of the bad performance was about the older-spec tyres they got compared to the big teams. But in the wet they all had same tyres, and that played into the hands of Toleman. Now, I am not saying that with the same tyres the Toleman was like the McLaren in 1984, but it certainly it was not like Manor today. And I don't think Senna could win in the Toleman.

Dan Allen · Sep 10, 2015

Manolis Sigoulakis said:
A Toleman was not that bad. A big part of the bad performance was about the older-spec tyres they got compared to the big teams. But in the wet they all had same tyres, and that played into the hands of Toleman. Now, I am not saying that with the same tyres the Toleman was like the McLaren in 1984, but it certainly it was not like Manor today. And I don't think Senna could win in the Toleman.

I'm interested to find out a bit more about the Toleman. According to the Senna movie, they never had much luck. But to be fair, the only reason he never got closer to the win was because of the red flags...

the_sigman · Sep 10, 2015

Dan Allen said:
I'm interested to find out a bit more about the Toleman. According to the Senna movie, they never had much luck. But to be fair, the only reason he never got closer to the win was because of the red flags...

Toleman were taking older dry tyres, according to contract. I don't know if you can translate this: http://www.pitlane.gr/index.php/do-you-remember/item/163-toleman-searching-for-tyres

About Monaco 1984, we don't know if Senna would pass Prost. And also, there was another man behind (Stefan Bellof) who was faster than both Prost and Senna.

Benutzername · Sep 10, 2015

Manolis Sigoulakis said:
About Monaco 1984, we don't know if Senna would pass Prost. And also, there was another man behind (Stefan Bellof) who was faster than both Prost and Senna.

Yep, everyone is talking about senna when referring to that day, but Stefan Bellof was catching up - He would have become a champion for sure.... Would have been interesting to see how the driver line-ups would have been with Bellof included.

kedy89 · Sep 10, 2015

Benutzername said:
Yep, everyone is talking about senna when referring to that day, but Stefan Bellof was catching up - He would have become a champion for sure.... Would have been interesting to see how the driver line-ups would have been with Bellof included.

Think I've read somewhere that he had a Ferrari offer for '86