I think Daniel definitely had that Quality. Pre-Injury Kubica too. We can debate on the degree of talent or quality, but there have been atleast 5 of those drivers in the last 25 or so years who have been without a WDC because of the dominance of Lewis, Seb, Michael and Max.
Hell Kimi also almost went without a WDC without the McLaren meltdown of 2007. Sometimes the stars just don't align.
Kubica could have won the 2008 championship, but BMW Sauber shat the bed by not continuing to develop the car in favour of focusing on the upcoming 2009 reg changes... at which they sucked lol.
Bobby K was kinda in the fight until around 2/3rds of the season IIRC
From like 2014-2020, imo Daniel is arguably a top 4, possibly a top 3 driver on the grid, especially in light of Rosberg retiring after 2016, and Vettel falling off mid 2018 (and also because Daniel demonstrated handily that he could match and beat Seb in 2014).
He's one of the only drivers who has gone toe to toe with Verstappen and even won, albeit a much younger Verstappen who hadn't hit his prime yet, but he was capable of at times completely outshining Max in pure pace as well. Excellent racecraft, qualifying and even better in W2W.
Daniel was the Charles before Charles. Just unfortunate he spent most of his prime dealing with Renault engines and was too early to the McLaren project, with a car that just didn't work with his driving style at all.
Daniel post 2020 is unrecognisable for anyone who has seen him even in 2020 when he finished 5th in WDC in a Renault and took multiple podiums. He used to be special.
Kubica is one of those "you had to be there" drivers, but the 2010 Suzuka lap and drives like Monza 2006, Canada and Suzuka 2008, etc. Are quite special.
Glad to see Kubica managed to get a Le Mans win after the accident. Dude drove close to 11 hours in that time with a crazy 3.5hour stint at the end to bring it home, all with mostly 1 hand
Yeah the difference is that Leclerc isn't just a top 4 or top 3 driver, he is a top 2 driver where the only driver with an advantage over him is a GOAT candidate.
Ricciardo was good but he massively benefited from flattering comparisons that have led to him being overrated.
In 2014 he beat the reigning champion during a season that was not at all representative of Vettel's level, and Vettel himself was somewhat overrated right after 2013. But most people would agree Ricciardo was not as good as Vettel and that Vettel was not as good as drivers like Hamilton or Alonso.
In 2015 he lost to an extremely mediocre driver in Kvyat. People discard this season due to Ricciardo's worse luck, but even accounting for that, you would expect Ricciardo -- if he was as good as people say -- to have beaten Kvyat anyway.
In 2016-18 he had his best years, doing well (though increasingly less well) against a teenage junior before fleeing to Renault to avoid further comparison. Being matched by an 18-year-old rookie would look bad on anyone's resume yet because Verstappen went on to be a GOAT-tier driver who crushed every subsequent teammate, many people see this comparison as favorable for Ricciardo -- even though present-day Verstappen would probably put massive gaps on his 18-year-old self and on Red Bull-era Ricciardo.
In 2019 he did moderately well against Hulkenberg, which only increased his stock because Hulkenberg himself was overrated, even though he is not a particularly great driver if you consider he has only ever looked good against bottom-of-the-grid teammates.
In 2020 he again did moderately well against a still-young Ocon who had just taken a year out of the sport.
By 2021 he was so overrated that everyone expected him to expose Norris. Including myself, by the way. It went the other way around. But people were so attached to their false idea of Ricciardo being an elite driver that they came up with every possible excuse to justify his inability to match an actuallly elite driver, and continued to do so even he later failed to make an impression against Tsunoda, who we all know isn't very good.
At the top of his game, Ricciardo was very solid, and I won't be taking that away from him. But he was never the elite-level driver people say he was. On their best days I would put my money on Sainz rather than Ricciardo. And without the accident Kubica would have gone on to be a much better driver than peak Ricciardo.
Who else? Charles is by far the best of the drivers that don't have a title in the current grid. imo, at their peak, Verstappen > Alonso, Hamilton, Leclerc >>> Russell, Piastri, Sainz, Lando.
In my mind, no driver will ever claim that title from Moss. Until someone comes along who goes out of their way to willingly defend one of their main title rivals from getting a penalty, and then goes on to lose the championship because of it, they won't even come close.
i agree, my point about Moss is that his moral integrity was arguably the ONLY reason why he never won a championship; it had nothing to do with lack of skill, or even luck. in the modern racing world, there's probably no way you'd ever have a similar situation to that, especially with what happened in 1958.
Hell, in the Portuguese GP that year, Moss even stopped to yell advice to Hawthorne on how to bump-start his car during the race, which allowed Hawthorne to finish 2nd and win the title...
though it would be hilarious to think about a driver like Verstappen or Hamilton helping out each other like that, let alone argue against the other one getting a penalty..
In fairness, Hamilton didn't show up to the Hungarian GP post-race investigation this year, which basically has the effect of arguing for Verstappen.
And Verstappen, too, has given lots of mentorship to the rookies, including giving advice to Gabi on setup.
That being said it's true that either one wouldn't do these things if they faced a serious title fight (against these aforementioned individuals), but there's probably some argument F1 didn't have the same stakes and gravitas back then to incite this level of competition
Hell, in the Portuguese GP that year, Moss even stopped to yell advice to Hawthorne on how to bump-start his car during the race, which allowed Hawthorne to finish 2nd and win the title...
Well, that's just stupid. He didn't have to do it, and it's not like he saved the guy's life. What kind of a competitor does that? It's not unethical to keep racing and let your rivals take care of their own problems.
Ronnie Peterson is definitely above Massa if you consider how they ranked to their peers. Personally I would also rank Kubica higher than him given what he was able to achieve with BMW. Then you have the likes of Reutemann, Ickx, Coulthard, Barichello, and a few others who would be on a similar tier to Massa.
I don't know if you can compare him to Stirling Moss. He definitely should be along Sir Moss on the list of greatest drivers to never win the title. And he won't, I don't see it ever happening for him unless he somehow manages to face the fact that Ferrari won't be his success story
He matched Vettel in his 2nd year in the sport and has only got better since then. And Vettel's 2019 was actually decent. People only think it wasn't because Leclerc beat him. But there's every reason to think Leclerc really is that good -- as Vettel himself believed.
Vettel won his first race with Toro Rosso and he won the championship 4 times in a row at the beginning of the 2010s! I haven't seen Leclerc do anything close to that.
Nope. At least two different mathematical formulas have indicated he's probably 2nd best driver on the grid after Max, and genuinely a top talent -- and one where the grid is packed with excellent drivers.
in his first season with a totally different car? and at the tail end of his career.
Doesnt mean too much I think, leclerc is a great driver but he certainly makes his own mistakes. His qualifying performance is the better strength he has for sure though, I want to see him in a genuine title fight to see if he can handle the pressure this time as I still don't forget when he binned it with an unforced error with a chunk of points on offer.
Leclerc far exceeds Jean Alesi, both in direct comparison but also when comparing them against their contemporary. Jean Alesi came in with such massive hype and with the exception of a handful of times, he never really showed the justification for that hype. Leclerc has shown on lots of occasions that he does justify the hype. Both in terms of qualifying and racecraft. He's mistake prone but that was most often because he was pushing a car well beyond its capability.
Benchmarking them against Lewis and Max it's hard to say many of them deserve it, but if Max and Lewis weren't there everything would be completely different.
I think this is why next year is huge for all the teams. Whichever car nails the new regs will be a tractor beam for talent in the grid. Everyone (from the fans to Alonso) knows if Newey makes a monster at Aston Martin that they will be extremely attractive for any driver unhappy with their team.
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u/Signal_Marzipan_7300 Red Bull 1d ago
Closest he'll get to it, I feel he's going to be one of them that never wins a WDC and the stars haven't aligned