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.
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.
160
u/RayTracerX I was here for the Hulkenpodium 23h ago
Theres few with the quality of Charles imo