I really appreciate him finally getting some long overdue credit and respect throughout this entire season and recent happenings to him. It’s good to see

Good point. I still was somehow enthralled by the last half, wondering if there would have to be some late pit stops from the front runners, and then with the threat of rain I was thinking something could happen. But you’re right, it wasn’t as exciting as the first half

I’ve actually been a Stroll fan far before I ever moved here funnily enough. He gets barely any attention here. A headline here on a major sports website after his poll said “Canadian F1 driver Lance Stroll secures maiden Pole Position”. Could you imagine a headline referring to Daniel Ricciardo as “Australian Dan Ricciardo” in Australia?

I’m never going to claim the guy is the best in the field. Far from it. And I doubt he will ever come close to even challenging for a championship. He is a driver that has a couple of wins in him at best and could have a fairly long mid-tier career. I just feel he needs more credit than he gets and is far more than simply that rich kid who had his dad buy a team. The guy scored a podium and a front row in a Williams when they were on the way down. There is talent there, he just needs to mature to have it be more consistent.

My main point with Lewis is that he has always had a top 2 car. Always. Your points with Senna and Schumacher are spot on. I’m no Alonso fan in the slightest, but even he had to work through the rigors of Minardi, a mid-tier Renault in 2003 & 2004 and 2008 & 2009 and somehow get the worst Ferrari in decades to win races and very nearly the championship in 2012. All the true greats have that to carry with them. Until Lewis can show that he is capable of doing exactly that in a car that isn’t fighting for wins, then perhaps I’ll jump more on the GOAT train.

A large portion of the Twitter conversation I was involved in was centred around people seemingly believing Senna and Schumacher never had bad cars. I’ve been trying to get my head around their thought process since.

And I don’t agree that Stroll has been outdriven that comprehensively. The first half of the season he had the measure of Perez a large portion of the time and it’s also been proven that he had an issue with the car which caused his tyre problems in the race. For sure I agree Perez is the far better driver, I just feel he is closer than people say.

I think I’m the only one who doesn’t have a problem with more races. Personally, I love it. Not only does that mean we get more racing, it means the year goes by pretty quickly too!

Hey Josh, let me pose something to you champ:

Your article denouncing Lance Stroll, that’s your opinion yes? And you believe in every word you said yes?

I of course do not believe in anything you said in that. Same with the comments posted to this article about him. Yet I don’t feel the need to go on a rant and be extremely childish and take a condescending tone whenever somebody disagrees with me. We all have opinions. Some we feel more strongly than others about. But just because someone doesn’t agree with you, doesn’t mean you need to stand on a shoutbox and talk down to them because of that.

That’s the beauty of age and wisdom. You reach a certain point and know how to handle situations like this that don’t lead you to constantly feeling like the world is against you and tweeting rants about how you have been wronged because someone said something slightly against your opinion. There is a reason why people keep pointing out your age: we have all been your age and all know why you’re acting how you’re acting because we have all been there. It’s exactly the same reason why we can sit here in our old person clothes and comment on the way the sport used to be and realise where we are now as we have been there in the past and have seen more than you have. A point you’d be doing if somebody born in 2012 came in today and started going on about things that didn’t show any respect to how you feel or your opinions.

Nobody is against your opinions. We all respect each other’s opinions on this site. We just don’t appreciate the manner in which some people (not only you, others do it as well) express themselves like it’s their way or the highway. And the more you continue to rant and rave about how it’s all against you, that’s all we’re going to see.

Also, you referred to yourself 14 times in that last reply champ. That probably sums up where a lot of us a feeling when it comes to the way you point out your comments and stories. It shouldn’t be about you, it should be about the sport we all love.

Take a chill pill and let’s all get back to some civil discourse and talk about the sport we love in an adult way.

I wanted to mention it but had talked up George earlier this year and wasn’t a whole lot to add on it. It’s unfortunate, but he’s turning into a bit of Hulkenberg. As in whenever he gets himself in a position he looks like he’s about to break his drought, he somehow finds a way to bin it. Similar to how Hulkenberg always found himself in a podium place and then somehow binned it.

Dan is on fire this year. Agree. Not only has shown how great he is as a driver, but he has also showed Ocon how average and overrated of a driver he is.

I would also side on Hulkenberg in that debate. He is a guy who deserves his seat in the sport more than a handful of other drivers on the grid, and hopefully will get that opportunity next year again

I feel I need to do an article defending the merits of Stroll, because while I am a big fan of the Canadian angle, Stroll is so unfairly diminished as simply a driver who only has a seat because of his father having money. He has proven stats and junior formula pedigree to back up his ability, and this year has been one of the shining drivers of the year who is sadly overlooked.

Also, Dexter, I’m actually a Flames & Ducks fan…

Looks likely if it happens he’d be out of the job. I could imagine maybe a year on the sidelines as Mercedes backup and potentially groomed as a replacement for Bottas, or Hamilton if her perhaps makes a switch ahead of 2022

Well a big whisper is Perez might end up at Williams, replacing Russell, due to his money to help the new owners there. Which would be a massive shame to see Russell lose a seat. But money talks a lot in F1 as we all know

Agree. That’s why I wanted to use the Mount Rushmore analogy. That way it’s more of a homage to some true legends and icons of the sport, and perhaps you can lump in four drivers deemed ‘the GOAT’ together. Personally, I don’t consider Lewis to be the GOAT, but he’s at least in the conversation and will always remain so.

Lol

Oh I haven’t heard of it! Will definitely look it up!

I think based on pace they do. Ocon has closed the gap and has had some bad luck, and Danny is driving out of his skin. But judging on the last three or so races, they seemingly have been. But having said that, it is ridiculously close between them, Racing Point and McLaren. You’d argue McLaren have the most complete drive line up so therefore are always up there, followed closely by RP and Renault in third. Ocon really hasn’t lived up to this hype that has surrounded him, so that causes them to languish a bit, even though as I just said he has closed the gap slightly.

It’s insane what he achieved looking back on it. He is a driver I wish they’d focus on more somehow, be it through a documentary series or a movie or something. Especially when there are amazing stories to tell like him getting kidnapped and held for ransom, and the fact that Ayrton Senna looked up to him like people like up to Senna now. Fangio was an enigma. And I feel this gets forgotten about nowadays

It’s all well and good to criticize us ‘oldies’ who sit in front of a TV longing for ‘the good old days’, but I think you’re missing the key thing when it comes to those who do that: context.

During every single era of F1, people long for the ‘old days’. When I started watching in the mid-90s, everyone bemoaned it as boring and that it wasn’t as good as it used to be. I vividly remember after the 1999 Spanish Grand Prix the absolute backlash that came with Michael Schumacher unable to pass the BAR of Jacques Villeneuve for the first half of the race, and how so many overhauls needed to be done in order to make it exciting. After the first two races of the 1998 season, when the McLarens had basically lapped everyone 100 times in the first two races, of how the new regulations had ruined the sport and it would never recover. And yet here we are, 20 years later, sitting in our zimmer frames longing for those days.

It’s all well and good to say “I went back and watched these races and they were boring because the coverage wasn’t good” and I get that. That was always something that was talked about 20 years ago about how F1 coverage was lacking, especially compared to say Indy Cars in the States. But the difference is, for the most part, we didn’t know any better. That is what we got, and we were happy about it. In 10, 20, 30 years time when we are probably witness to virtual reality racing with personally introduced overtakes by each driver as they do it, we will look back at today and go “well didn’t F1 coverage suck in 2020”. Of course by modern standards, coverage isn’t what it was back then. But I know for one when I was able to watch a live race in 1999 on a small TV in my bedroom in Tasmania, I wasn’t complaining as I would’ve been if I was growing up in the 1970s when I would’ve been barely lucky to catch a highlights package on the weekend news.

As has been reiterated in every comment above, this is the single most dominant stretch in the sports history by one team and in particular one driver. The statistics don’t lie, and while I admire your passion and love of the sport, it hasn’t been a golden period for the neutrals out there who want to see more competitive racing. Look at any period of dominance in sport by any team or athlete. If you support that athlete or team, it’s great. As a Ferrari fan, of course I look back at the early 2000s fondly. But I know a lot of people who don’t. It’s logical. People are allowed to be upset with the state of a sport. They are allowed to be negative against it if it’s not what they have experienced before or what they expect. It’s a natural reaction. Stating “if you don’t like it don’t watch” is a tad too much, especially when you live off the notion of ‘respecting other peoples opinions”. People being disconnected with a sport they love and have held a passion for most of their life is an opinion they are entitled to have, as much as your entitled to yours.

Please keep enjoying the sport the way you are. Nobody is trying to take that away from you Josh. Your passion and love for it is great and great that people can find passion in this period of the sport. But I think, as many people have said, it might take a little context and visual guidance in the way you phrase and word things to fully understand the “digging deeper” picture you claim to be doing in this article.

Which is a shame, as it’s a great circuit

Which will make it interesting if this weekend has anything to by. A fair bit of unreliability could be attributed to the lack of running on Friday. So Imola could follow suit.

Also a brief correction, the next race is in Portugal, not Imola. I got slightly ahead of myself!

Agreed. I did an article last year saying that it wasn’t right he wasn’t on the grid. Could easily list maybe nearly half the grid I would rate Hulkenberg a better driver than who would bring in more to a team than they would

Gotta say placing faith in Binotto is a tough pill to swallow. Arrivabene getting dumped hurt the team more than they ever knew, especially around his working relationship with Seb, who really has struggled the most since that change happened. I agree some stability is needed to try and keep their feet on the ground, something they haven’t really done since Todt came in to the team in 93. Think about what has happened since Schumacher left in 06? The changes that have occured every few years have just been a vicious cycle, and that’s why they’re stuck in this weird phase and no titles since 2008. It’s bloody painful I tell you as a Ferrari fan, and one hopefully they kick soon. But great article all the same!

Ah, yes. You’re correct. My bad!

Great article. It’s such a confusing situation, but one that you can’t help feel sympathy for RP given they technically haven’t done anything wrong

Albon isn’t new to F1 either. He has had the same amount of time behind him as Gasly had a year ago, and is consistently off the pace of Max. Exactly the same situation