The topic of great drivers and “who is the greatest” driver is always an interesting one and, of course, a difficult one, because it is not easy to compare drivers from very different periods of racing history. I have always considered Fangio the “greatest,” but there are certainly many others worthy of consideration. In recent years, a number of people have asked me what I think of Schumacher, or “was Senna as great as Fangio?” These are easier questions to talk about than actually give a clear answer to.
As Michael Schumacher has just won his sixth consecutive Grand Prix at Malaysia, and all six have been from pole position, this might be a good time to consider some of these “modern” drivers.
The reason I admire Schumacher so much is that he obviously knows his own strengths and he knows the weaknesses of other drivers. You have to know the other drivers and what they are like, and what their style is – their strengths and weaknesses – and you must use that knowledge to your advantage. Schumacher seems to be better at this than the other drivers, at least at the moment. Of course, times change, style changes and so do ethics. Some of the things Schumacher does now and what Senna did would have been completely unacceptable in my era, partly because of the danger, but also because of the ethics. I personally believe that if Schumacher and Senna had been racing when we were racing, they would have been just as ethical as we were. Whether we would be as unethical now as they are I can’t really say.
Senna and Schumacher could both be very intimidating, but the way that happens now is very different. In an earlier period, it was more subtle. You had to have the respect of the other driver. Respect means that if you and another driver were going into a corner neck and neck and he saw you coming, he would just know it was your corner. I would find a way of out-psyching the other driver, maybe waving him on and taking him in too deep, so he would have to use the escape road. But it still depended on respect.
Times have changed, and this has been brought about by the concern for safety, and increased safety tends to bring contempt of danger. I think this has been to the detriment of the sport. I think what we considered sportsmanship is now quite different. Senna and Prost, two of the best drivers in the world, just pushed each other off at 170 mph, and that couldn’t happen in the earlier days because of the danger involved. It just wouldn’t have happened.
I think in the past, respect came from a person’s ability and the way they were as a person. I respected Fangio immensely because of two things: his enormous driving skill and the way that he would handle himself. Nowadays, respect seems to come from money, and one driver respects another because he’s making X million dollars, which I think is a shame.
Ayrton Senna was probably the only person who had similar skills to Fangio. I think there was an enormous talent there. He had such confidence in himself, which one needs. I think perhaps he had just a fraction more confidence in his ability than he should have had, although he was so good that he should have had the most confidence. Senna was inclined to feel that he was not as fallible as any other driver, and he would push as hard as he could. I don’t think his fatal accident was his fault at all. The tragedy of his accident was that he died because of this modern business of trying to make the sport too safe. If the wall he hit hadn’t been pushed back for safety purposes – and had been closer to the track, like at Indianapolis – he could have “skirted” it and gotten away with it. But unfortunately, he went in head first. I do believe he rightly had enormous confidence because he had this great car control and ability, but it was just “one time too many.”
Senna seemed to believe he could do almost anything, that a gap would always open up for him. And while I believe you may be lucky 99% of the time, you always have to keep something in reserve. Yet Senna always seemed to push the envelope just that bit further. I think I know what he might have been thinking, but I don’t think I would have taken the chance. I always kept a safety buffer. I would be willing to reduce that on slow corners where I wasn’t likely to be hurt. Ayrton didn’t seem to keep that reserve and he believed other drivers would always move over for him. He had a great talent and he is the only one I would put that close to Fangio purely on skill. I think Jimmy Clark was up pretty close as well, but I would put Ayrton and Fangio at the top.
I also think Schumacher has an enormous talent. He is at the Fangio-Senna skill level at times, but he makes too many mistakes. He makes mistakes that we see and he probably makes ones that we don’t see. There is no doubt that when the weather is bad, when these cars become a bit more equal, he shines more than other people. I think this is because he has a greater appreciation and a greater facility to balance a car. When a racecar is going along in a straight line, there’s not much difference in drivers. But when you go into a corner and start asking more of the tires and the suspension and the brakes, that’s when it gets more difficult. When you have a person who can take hold of all that and feel and sense the limit and get close to it and hold it at the edge, that’s what makes one driver faster than another. The driver input magnifies as the lateral-g decreases, and that’s where Schumacher seems so dominant. To me, Schumacher is in a class of his own. Once you get past Schumacher, there’s Villeneuve and Hakkinen, and then you go down one more level to the Coulthards and the rest of them, but it’s Schumacher who has the race craft.
The reason he’s so good in my mind is that he has great talent, great concentration, great confidence, and one other important ingredient. That ingredient is that he can make people around him join him on his side. He can draw a team together, and you could see that at Benetton. This then gives him more confidence, which helps him drive better. You can see at Ferrari how Schumacher and Ross Brawn are positive for each other. With another driver, Brawn wouldn’t accomplish so much, but with Schumacher there, they drive each other on and Ferrari does so well as a result. The difference in sheer speed between one driver and another isn’t that great, but the ability Schumacher has to apply his skill in such a concentrated way is what I think sets him apart.
Photo: Peter Collins
