Is F1 letting down its best drivers?


Who is the best driver in Formula 1? Lewis Hamilton? Sebastian Vettel? Valtteri Bottas? Kimi Raikkonen? Jenson Button? Daniel Ricciardo? Daniil Kvyat? Max Verstappen? Romain Grosjean? Nico Hulkenberg? Fernando Alonso?

It's impossible to know for sure, because of the technical discrepancies between the different constructors in F1. It is possible to extrapolate through various comparisons over time, to get a rough idea, but a true comparison is fraught with caveats.

It's fun to analyse, debate and guess, but certainty is always evasive. Take Alonso, for example. He is a double world champion who has toiled in uncompetitive cars for the past two seasons. Last year (with Ferrari) he reckoned to be his best in F1 in terms of his own performance - crushing world champion team-mate Raikkonen.

This year's McLaren has been even worse. Alonso is the same driver, but he admitted ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix that he hasn't driven well this year, describing himself as "in economy mode" until he rediscovers the extra motivation that comes from being able to fight at the front once again.

But the truth is he could have been utterly awesome this season and it would make little difference to his predicament, such are the significant shortcomings of the technical package McLaren-Honda has placed at his disposal.

This raises the question of whether fundamental reform is needed in F1 to place more emphasis on the human element of the equation - the loosest nut on the car, if you will.

Alonso rates his 2014 performances, but has not impressed himself this year © LAT

Amid ongoing debate about how F1 should change for the better in 2017, much of the focus is on how to make the cars more spectacular, but perhaps it is more pertinent to ask how it may be possible to make the drivers stand out more.

"That's the biggest single problem we have as a sport," argues Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery, who is keenly interested in making F1 more alluring to the public, given the money Pirelli pumps into the category as a commercial and technical partner.

"We have star drivers, of course, but the most common question you get asked is 'who's the best driver?' because they [the public] can't work it out.

"It's very hard for the public to perceive individual brilliance here. If you get into a debate about who the best driver is, all you can do at the moment is compare team-mates. That's a little bit of a shame."

The suggestion is that F1 should standardise more technology, in order to become better focused on the drivers, and the quality of the racing.

"With respect to McLaren, the public struggles to understand Fernando and Jenson - two champions - so far off the pace," adds Hembery. "Is it the car, is it the driver, should they both retire, are they too old?

"It's a nonsense, obviously, but if you're watching in a bar on the big screen all you're seeing is two of your great idols nowhere near - that's hard to understand for people."

Four Cosworth-powered teams won races in the year of Stewart's first title © LAT

It's the current lack of technical equality up and down the grid that makes triple champion Jackie Stewart hark back to his glory days when discussing the achievements of Britain's latest three-time world champ, Lewis Hamilton.

"My first world championship [in 1969] was a good one, because the Matra was a good car, although using the Ford engine. But everybody was, and it was all very much more level then," argues Stewart.

"And keep in mind that in those days, at that time, we had Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jack Brabham, Mario Andretti, Jochen Rindt, Denny Hulme. We had a huge number of absolutely top, top racing drivers who all won the world championship.

"There have been times when there have been a larger number of the topline drivers all shooting for the world championship, but that's not happening at the moment.

"But it didn't happen for Schumacher either, and it didn't happen for Vettel, so we're going through a time which is not ideal - to have Red Bull constantly winning everything, and now Mercedes winning everything, and before Red Bull the Ferrari dominance."

In this context, could the FIA's new 'budget' F1 engine (proposed for the 2017-19 seasons) help provide the answer to Hembery's question and Stewart's malaise?

Imagine, for a moment, a 'perfect' world, where an independent manufacturer is found, the FIA engine is introduced and is better than anything else currently out there, and every team on the grid adopts it.

All of a sudden you would create Bernie Ecclestone's ideal scenario - a modern way of returning to Stewart's rose-tinted past, where everyone (apart from Ferrari) used a Cosworth DFV engine and the championship was supposedly mega every season.

The V6 hybrid regulations helped entice Honda back into Formula 1 © LAT

You would also dramatically reduce a big technical discrepancy between the various cars, which would then allow the better drivers on the grid to shine more brightly, and more often.

Except I can't see this 'ideal scenario' happening, because F1's governance structure will struggle to allow it. And even if the FIA and Ecclestone force it through, the current engine manufacturers (which have spent millions to be part of F1's current V6 hybrid formula) would suddenly find their investments wasted.

You can't reasonably create a set of rules to encourage manufacturers to remain in (Renault) and join (Honda) F1, then turn around after two years and effectively force them out by creating a faster and cheaper alternative through regulations.

They won't stand for that. All hell will break loose. They will quit, teams will have to downsize dramatically to continue, and many, many jobs will be lost. F1 as we know it would be utterly transformed.

Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's the only way to create the sort of F1 some people would like to see. Perhaps the pain would simply be too great to bear.

More likely the current manufacturers will eventually agree to lower the price of customer engines to ease the financial burden on the smaller teams - which is what the FIA wanted them to do in the first place- and the 'budget' engine will go away.

And our debates about who the best driver in Formula 1 is will have to rage on regardless of technical parity, or rather a lack thereof...