F1 Formula One Record Hardest to Break

[W204C]

You forgot schumi's 5 in a row championships!

That will not be easily beaten!

In fact most of schumi records will probably be never beaten!

 

[NarutoRamen]

Skills are always required, just that today's challenges are others.

Well yeah, I know skills are always required. What seems to happen now is that electronics are involved with most of what the drivers do. So while driving the car the driver now has to make sure not to end up in the wall.

Back then there were no electronics. So it was pure driver skill with his car.

 

[450SEL6.9]

Thanks for the clarification.
May I humbly suggest that you add a caveat to the % race win option, perhaps adding a minimum number of formula 1 races as well (50,100, 200 etc)

Unfortunately, I cannot edit my first post and add a caveat. The edit button does not appear beside that post. However, you are definitely correct that the winning % should be asterisked if a driver only wins a handful of races and then retires, is fired or has his career ended in a shunt.

Actually, non-F1 driver Lee Wallard is credited with a 50% career win percentage, though he did not actually ever drive in F1. He started two Indy 500s, which counted as F1 race, and won once. In terms of actual F1 drivers, no one is close to Fangio's winning rate. Most serious F1 fans and statistics aficionados give Fangio the highest winning percentage, despite Lee's 50%.

Back then there were no electronics. So it was pure driver skill with his car.

Yeah, no silly gadgets and teams were also organized different. Today, F1 is surrounded by an army of engineers, tire company reps, marketing men, publicists, solicitors, agents, etc . . . They all help the drivers in their own way. In Fangio's era, drivers and teams also didn't own private aircraft. After a long, grueling race, he often had to get into a Mercedes-Benz company car and take marathon drives to the next race.

 

[Imhotep Evil]

Well yeah, I know skills are always required. What seems to happen now is that electronics are involved with most of what the drivers do. So while driving the car the driver now has to make sure not to end up in the wall.

Back then there were no electronics. So it was pure driver skill with his car.

Please explain how electronics are involved in most what drivers do ?!


And ofcourse you are aware that drivers before reaching F1, have raced for 15-20 years in inferior championships/formulas/series that lack these electronics.
And that those inferior cars mimic F1 car of the 50s, 60s and 70s
in several ways.


The cars the most electronics ever were the:
- 1992 Williams Renault FW14b Mansell and Patresse
- 1993 Williams Renault FW15c Prost and Hill
- 1993 McLaren Ford MP2/8 Senna and Hakkinen/Andretti


Today's cars, are in several areas primitive compared to them.

 

[Imhotep Evil]

Yeah, no silly gadgets and teams were also organized different. Today, F1 is surrounded by an army of engineers, tire company reps, marketing men, publicists, solicitors, agents, etc . . . They all help the drivers in their own way. In Fangio's era, drivers and teams also didn't own private aircraft. After a long, grueling race, he often had to get into a Mercedes-Benz company car and take marathon drives to the next race.

Actually MB were very professional as opposed to the rest.

They did have armies of engineers/mecanics/designers/aerodynamicists.

And they used wind tunnels and had R&D laboratories (thanks to witch they had direct injection and desdemonic valves, and streamlined bodies).

MB even had a type of anti brake-lock system, consisting of a sprinkler/seringe to oil the brakes.

And some of their cars had automatic/semi-automatic transmissions.
And MB cars were also supposed to incorporate AWD.


And this was just a continuation of the 1930s.
The profesionalism, army type organisation, comitment of Auto Union and MB in the 1930s (and 1950s MB) was un-matched until the 1980s/1990s by the F1 gargistes.

Alfred Neubauer of MB was the best team boss in the world, and until Jean Todt, there was probably no-one like him.

 

[ateekt]

"47% Career Winning % - J.M. Fangio"

You have to be something more than a race-car driver, even more than M.Schumacher to get these figures ...!

 

[rev]

I believe that the hardest record to break, is that of 47% career winning by J.M. Fangio.

 

[450SEL6.9]

I didn't know most of that info about MB in the 1950s.

As far as the most advanced car in recent memory, I think it has to be the WDC winning Williams in '92. I reckon it was advanced enough to prevent the car from dying just in case a certain moustachioed driver could not resist the urge to wave to fans before he took the chequered flag.

Who gave Ricardo Patrese a mercy vote?

 

[Imhotep Evil]

Underneath the electronics of the FW14b you could still see Mansell in 1992, but Prost in 1993 in the even more advanced FW15c looked for most part like he was asleep, IMO. He called it the little Airbus.

Senna's 1993 MP2/8 was only second to these cars.

Senna downplayed Donington 1993 later, because he had Traction Control with Launch Start, semi automatic paddle transmission, active suspension and all sorts of other electronics from TAG.
Prost, Mansell, Hill also had ABS.
These cars had computers witch detected if the drivers missed the shift and in that moment took control of the semi-automatic and shifted it.


People today say the cars have electronics, but ironically those considered the last "real" drivers Senna/Prost/Mansell benefited from these electronics the most, in the 92 and 93 seasons.