How is your statement above any different when applied to Hamilton? Schumacher joined Benetton and brought them 2 championships, Hamilton joined McLaren and brought them 1 championship in his 2nd year. You speak of Schumacher being far and away clear of his teammate, Hamilton’s teammate at McLaren in rookie year was Alonso, a 2x world champion and arguably one of F1 greatest drivers...Hamilton outdrove Alonso as a rookie, in the same car, on the same team! Schumacher went to Ferrari who hadn’t won anything in 2 decades but is a perennial F1 juggernaut and dominant team and won 5 titles, Hamilton went to Mercedes who hadn’t won a title since FANGIO drove for them and hadn’t had an F1 team since the 1950’s and he has also won 5 titles. Hamilton’s move to Mercedes was a much bigger risk for Hamilton than Schumacher’s move to a Ferrari. Mercedes is just as open about Hamilton’s contribution to car setup in their success as you say Schumacher was to Ferrari...

Then you have the objective data that shows Hamilton has the better win % (33.6% to 29.6%), has the better pole position (88 to 68), has the better pole position % (35.2% to 22.5%), and the better podium % (60.4% to 50.5%) than Schumacher, showing that Hamilton is a much more efficient and consistent driver than Schumacher. Schumacher has more total WDC (7 vs 6), more outright victories (91 to 84) and more podiums (155 to 151), so I still give Schumacher the well deserved edge over Hamilton although Lewis has accomplished his feats in only 13 seasons while it took Schumacher 19 seasons...

There is no defensible measure where Schumacher and Hamilton aren’t at best, staked right next to each other. There is no denying no diminishing Hamilton’s greatness in F1, even across eras. If Andrew Bell ran his model today, I maintain again that Hamilton would be top 5 all time.

 

Couldn’t agree more that it’s hard, and getting harder, to compare drivers from different eras but as fans we will always try, Wilt vs Jordan vs Kobe...Unitas vs Montana vs Brady...Ali vs Tyson...Nicklaus vs Tiger etc part of the beauty of competitive sports and why we love it is comparing across eras. That’s why we hate cheating in sports (e.g., steroid era in baseball) as it tarnishes accomplishments and entire eras and takes away from the glory/purity of a sport (and the ability to compare across different eras). For some of us, we’ll keep having fun trying...lol

 

We agree that Hamilton will be top 5. Disagree that the circumstances were the same however. MS went to Benetton and Ferrari when they were not top teams. Hamilton went to McLaren and Mercedes when they were top teams. Hamilton did match Alonso as a rookie, but benefitted as he was using Alonso's car set up until Alonso's brain freeze in Hungary when he pulled the pit stop maneuver (Alonso's has always been his own worst enemy despite the fact he's a fantastic driver) and from Hungary on, Ron Dennis and McLaren gave preferential treatment to Hamilton for the rest of the season - and rightfully so as Alonso was basically going to leave the team.

This graph is from Oct. 2018 so it's a couple years old and doesn't even include the balance of the 2018 season and of course 2019. It shows that this Mercedes is the most dominant team in F1 history - not just the car, but the team they have assembled in Toto Wolfe, Niki Laura and the entire 1600 member team and funding. Naturally, Hamilton has done his job and brought the car to the front, but removing Hamilton from the team still brings MB championships in Rosberg, Bottas etc. If you remove Vettel from Red Bull, Mark Webber was only a 9 race winner during his entire career.

 

Glad we agree on things...lol. There is no denying MB’s dominance in the hybrid era however for the record, Hamilton joined MB after the 2012 season. MB was not dominant in 2013, it was their re-entry into F1 and MB had a lot of growing pains which Hamilton as a former WDC helped them address. Going into 2014 the hybrid era, was when MB began its dominance with HAM at the wheel. So Lewis didn’t join a dominant team. Just because MB was involved in F1 doesn’t mean they were a dominant team, they weren’t a constructor. It’s like saying Honda is a dominant team if they form a manufacturer constructors team in 2021 because they supplied engines to Red Bull for two seasons. Anyway, I think we’re sorta saying the same thing...Hamilton is top 5 all time F1 drivers.

 

I think what he was trying to say is that Hamilton did in fact join a dominant team even though he didn't know it would be when he made the decision. That is all that matters for the statistics.

Hamilton also won the DC with two constructors: McLaren and MB. That should count for something.

I think the point of the study is if you put Fangio in almost anything in his era and he might be able to win. If you put Hamilton in a Williams he could not do better than mid-pack. Drivers made more of a difference back in Fangio's day.

 

Fair point about running mid pack in a Williams. How true is the saying that goes...the best drivers gravitate to the best teams! It’s kinda unfair but in F1 this seems to be the case.