2005 is a great example, had mclaren been more reliable they would of easily wrapped both titles, where as now all the cars are reliable if a car shows pace like mclaren in 05 they will destroy the championship with ease.
Alonso was consistent in 05 but he's car lacked the speed but in knowing that Alonso knew he could trust he's car, kimi didn't have that luxury, and was always on the back foot trying to make up the gap due to the cars poor reliability, Hamilton is in a similar position albeit the problem is raw pace and not reliabilty, for him to have a chance he needs not only to go for the win but a car that can pull away from the others.
Think of redbull being mclaren in 05 but with equal reliabilty As Renault and you can paint the picture of this season.
I'm not sure I understand your point. If everyone retires about the same amount the standings are not altered greatly. Rosberg finished high every but one time he finished so how would it be possible for all his finishes to be related to other retirements every single time?
Reliability only matters if someone has an advantage with it. If all retire as much they all lose equal amount of points due retiring and gain as much due to retiring in a long term (which season I believe, is).
I've seen the results of each race of the top drivers. So what? Where other's had both good and bad days Rosberg seemed to have had only one bad day in the entire season. That consistency he showed throughout the season is what gave him the champion title.
Final statistics are the only thing that determine your standings so rather than driving each race like it was your last one should drive each race so that they would get as much points as possible. Driving on the edge is great as long as you stay on track. If you don't or crash it means you just lost points. Driving with too much aggression only makes you lose points in a long run. What you gain in few races you succeed is not enough to cover for what you lose in other races. I'm not saying that you should drive as carefully as you can. I'm just saying that aggression is good until you overdo it and start making many mistakes. (which Hamilton has done this season)
See your forgetting the fact back then they knew finishing the race with a competitive car ment loads of points regards of where you are because reliabilty was a key part of the championship, today reliability isn't and if you want to win titles you need to win races.
I'm not sure how many times I will have to say this.
Race wins are important, but when the driver of the fastest car will finish every race he does finish in the top 5, a dnf is even more of a setback than it was when the fastest car would breakdown to even the score, in the old days.
So on the one hand, gambling to win might be more necessary than it once was, on the other hand a dnf as a result of a crash is far more likely to set back your title challenge than it once was, so gambling to win is a worse idea than it was when opponent cars might break down in the next 2 races.
I think the key is knowing which battles to fight and when to accept that it's not your day and a solid points finish is all you're going to get. Hamilton is questionable in that regard.
Tell me how the reliability affected on anything if no one had an advantage in that. Let's assume we have 15 races and every driver retires 5 of the races. Everyone can achieve as much points as the others can so there's no advantage in that. If you're lucky you might have races where you are the only top driver remaining but that would be quite rare assuming we have 3-5 top drivers. (which in -82 they had) Wouldn't that actually make winning easier and give it more importance than today since there is a clear point advantage with being first than being second and with every top driver retiring 1/3 of the races you don't have to race against all them in every race?
I'm not sure how to get you understand that reliability is only a factor between drivers if one driver has a clear advantage in it. If all have about the same amount of reliability problems you can't say reliability has any major role with the final results.
And if finishing the race with competitive car at that time meant good points how is it possible the other 2 top drivers than Rosberg had more races where they finished but didn't get any points than Rosberg? Shouldn't they have gotten points every time they finished?
The thing you don't seem to understand is that when other drivers retire a race you might gain more points but when you retire the same opponents that ''gave'' you points might gain more points. In a long term the +/- for top drivers is 0 if they are evenly matched.
Alot of unforunite events happened that season that allowed rosberg to win the title, the most important was the crash pirioni had which effectively stopped hes career, he was leading the championship comfortably at the time too.
Rosberg had retired 3 times which was less then hes rivals, also if you look at the race results the grid was hardly competitive i mean on average you would have like 4 cars be on the lead lap by the end.
If you look at the results of hes only win that season, you will see what i mean by this is just not compareable.
Having a field that spread out is completely unheard of. in fact i don't even understand how i have to explain this to you as its common sence that f1 was a completely different scene in the 80s compared to now.
So you're saying the results of one race show everything about a season rather than looking statistics? Look at this race;http://www.formula1.com/results/season/1982/345/ Pironi was the only top driver to enter. You took the only race where neither Pironi or Watson made it to finish and didn't think others would have same circumstances at some point of the season? Well done. Pironi's win in San Marino was no doubt easier than Rosberg's win in Switzerland since Villneuve was the only driver who was fast and he hadn't performed well at all in the season so far. In other races at least one of them made it to the finish. Also one race hardly shows anything. What if Rosberg and Prost just happened to be so great drivers in that track. Or maybe some other top drivers made mistakes? (like Watson for example) Do you remember this year's race in Spain? http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2011/853/ Pretty much like the same to me. Only that we had 4 cars in the same lap this year. I suggest you see the results of every race per top three drivers;
Rosberg; http://www.formula1.com/results/driver/1982/204.html
Pironi; http://www.formula1.com/results/driver/1982/238.html
Watson; http://www.formula1.com/results/driver/1982/226.html
You'll see that even though Rosberg doesn't have more podiums than other drivers he has many fourth and fifth places his opponents don't have.
Those fourth and fifth places are the important ones since Rosberg is behind the others if you only look points gained by podium finishes.
Rosberg had 3 retires and a one disqualification (due to illegal water tank, not his fault he was second in the race). Since car breaking and own mistakes are all counted as retire disqualification by a team error seems to be in the same category. That would mean Rosberg and Watson had 4 retires and Pironi had a total of one retire plus he missed 4 races due to his crash. That's 5 races total. Missing a few races because of a big crash is something that could happen it modern F1 so I don't see you point in that. If you make a major mistake you have to pay for it.
Actually the reason Pironi was ahead so much when he crashed was because he had a more reliable car than any other top driver.(only one retire in 11 races where Rosberg and Pironi had already those 3 and 4) Rosberg and Watson lost 4 races due to their teams and even if Pironi or Watson would've had one retire less they had a point average of 3 per race so they would've still been behind Rosberg if we assume they gained as much points in that ''extra race'' by the statistics on how they scored points per race.
The scene was of course different in the 80's but racing and the importance of driving smart has never changed. As no driver entered all the races winning and finishing high was no doubt easier but it has no effect on standings since it's as easy to every one. With same conditions for everyone the conditions aren't relevant. Best driver wins. Luck has always something to do with the results but it would be quite foolish to claim luck alone has given one a championship victory.
How is the win different, the swiss GP had the same amount of people on the lead lap(3) and villenueve was actually closer to pirioni, then Prost was to Rosberg
The fact is your trying to compare a season where only 3 people where on the lead lap and half the feild would retire to mechanical problems to today where half the feild can stay on the lead lap in most cases and only a handful of cars would retire due to reliabilty problems(mosty consisting of the bottom 3 teams).
Either way see how much prioni was advantaged by having a halfwhat reliable car, gilles on the other hand had the bad luck of 1982 and the ultimate bad lack at belgium with death.
The point i have been trying to say for god knows how long now is that reliabilty was soo important back then it was crucial to win a championship where as today its a non issue, in fact im starting to get fustrated we are even talking about this, because this is common sence.
The win was different because Villneuve was not as good as the ''top drivers''. His last season wasn't great and his season hadn't started well at all. That second place was his only points that season (probably due to his death later, but you get the point) In that particular race there were not many top drivers. Rosberg, Watson and Lauda didn't participate.
You've clearly forgotten what we were talking about. I'm not arguing about how reliability wasn't a big issue back then. I'm saying that it didn't have a major effect on the championship winner in -82. Rosberg had no major advantage in reliability and he won because of ''smart driving'', which you seem to have trouble admitting, was important back then and is currently. You don't win by making mistakes in many races is all I've been trying to tell you. To win championship driver needs to finish every race possible with steady good points if he doesn't have the best car. Hamilton has won the championship only once because he has made many mistakes and he almost lost the championship he won in 2008 because of his mistakes that season. He could be much closer to Vettel right now and maybe even having a real shot at fighting for the championship if he hadn't made so many mistakes.
Thats aload of crap, Gilles was faster then Pirioni(outqualified him every race he did in '82 and held a 14 -5 qualifying advantage over the 19 races the where team mates) but had mechanical failures basically every race, and would of won the San marino GP had he not been told to slow down).
Reliabilty had everything to do with the season(just remember some reliabilty problems still allowed them to finish but maybe a lap behind) and it was a crucial part of the championship, hence any comparison is useless when comparing it to today because its a non issue now, i can say this 50 times or more but whether you will finally understand it is another question.
Let me get this straight. You are saying Pironi had a hard time winning San Marino GP since his gap to Villneuve was so small and you are also saying Villneuve got a team order to stand down. (which would mean he barely needed to race at all in the race) Which one was true?
You're also saying that even though the top drivers have about as much retires their driving skill didn't matter since they'd finish high nevertheless what they did if they finished. What you are saying means that any driver could've won the championship if they had a good car thus making driver skill useless because it was the car that finishes the race. So actually Piquet, Prost, Lauda and Senna were all just crappy drivers who had the most reliable and fastest car since their driving didn't count for shit...Man you are high.
In San marino pironi and Gilles where battling it out then at the end he was told to slow down and he thought it was a team order for both drivers so he slowed down and Pirioni overtook and then he tried to get the positon back but couldn't.
and about reliabilty meaning the most important factor in delivering a title yeah its what im saying, did i say any of those drivers where bad though, no.
Im just saying these days the competetion is more closer and reliable, hence more battles.
At least we can all agree now that Hamilton is an idiot who needs to think more when he's driving. Otherwise he'll never break into the top 5 drivers currently in F1.
ok Mr i drive in a championship with a car atleast 5 seconds a lap faster then anyone else because i ignore gentlemens agreements, so i can look leet. Yes i know all about your little trickery.
Obviously you don't know, otherwise you wouldn't post that.
The "Gentlemen's Agreement" was adhered to, and our car is certainly not 5 seconds faster than anyone elses - in fact, there are other cars with more power, more downforce, less drag and less weight than our car. If you looked purely at car specs, we should be third or fourth in the championship.