Greatest WDC Campaigns: Round of 16 - Duel 4

[hasty star]

ahhh i'm tired of this senna bias

[young hollow]

none of the above

[fast lotus]

its not senna bias, that verstappen season just wasn’t very good

senna had a similar advantage over prost pace wise as verstappen did over perez

pretty easy decision

[viscid wraith]

He won 15/22 races that season though, that was the most he could've done considering the amount of mishaps he faced

Turned around a 46 point deficit

[fast lotus]

in a car half a second faster than the rest of the field

the fact he was able to win races like spain and hungary despite making big mistakes is ridiculous

compare that to senna walking into prosts back garden and beating him fair and square

[viscid wraith]

In Spain he did get a bit lucky with Ferrari breaking down, but Hungary was a deserved win

Until Hungary or something, that Ferrari was slightly faster, or very much up there at least

[fast lotus]

the ferrari was not slightly faster lmao

[viscid wraith]

They won in Austria, had the pace in France, had the pace in Hungary

Don't get fooled by the strategy errors

There's a reason they qualified 2-3 and looked on to win

[royal valve]

didnt prost literally outscore senna but lose the title due to dropped scores

lmao

[fast lotus]

the ferrari was better in qualifying than in the races and pretty crucially leclerc and sainz were much better than verstappen and perez in qualifying

[fast lotus]

senna outscored prost according to the points system in place

im sure prost also beat him according to the mario kart points system but neither matter at all

[royal valve]

what do you mean by that

prost scored more points than senna in 1988 but f1's bullshit dropped scores rule caused him to lose enough points so that senna became world champion instead

i hardly even understand what the point of keeping that rule around was for

eh at least it's gone

[fast lotus]

because the cars were ridiculously unreliable?

[royal valve]

unlike nascar playoffs

[viscid wraith]

Not gonna lie, seeing how Senna 1988 is passing, it might to go to the final

Even though it'd be undeserved

[fast lotus]

people act like in 1988 they brought in that new points system randomly just so senna could win

[royal valve]

so you're saying drivers shouldn't have cared about lasting a race distance

[royal valve]

it was around prior to 1988 so don't put words in my mouth

[fast lotus]

they should’ve, but it was also a complete lottery

[royal valve]

granted

[fast lotus]

if that was the case then f1 would’ve been about who can preserve their car the best and not whos the fastest driver

[royal valve]

both qualities matter

you can be fast all you want but if you're too pushy you fuck the tires and the engine which is meant to last at least a few races

learning how to remain fast whilst preserving the machinery you have is the most important balance a driver can have

and whilst it was indeed a reliability lottery there were definitely drivers that made the difference, that includes prost

[fast lotus]

most of the grid had 7 or more mechanical issues that season

that might’ve been the year where de cesaris had an entire year of retirements

[royal valve]

yeah

[fast lotus]

plus the mechanical issues senna faced were not all engine related

in his 2 dropped classified finishes they were related to a fuel gauge error which to my knowledge cannot be caused by the driver

[royal valve]

i see

[hasty star]

but prost got more points than senna

so not really

[fast lotus]

Doesn’t matter because they weren’t driving to that points system

[hasty star]

so we reward a hit-and-miss season?

[hasty star]

the year before, 1987

prost got more than 100 points than senna

maybe yes, this points system favoured a hit and miss season

but also, senna and prost were evenly matched

and senna did a few mistakes

two come to mind

[fast lotus]

No? We reward a season where Senna was better but had worse reliability?

[royal valve]

here's your reminder that this points system often failed to pay its dues in equalizing reliability, several other championships were determined by dropped scores and sometimes the best driver of the season had such horrendous reliability that it didn't even make a difference (prost 1983, clark 1967 and mansell 1987 particularly come to mind)

for example in 1967 clark won 4 grands prix, the most of anyone, but the type 49 was so dogshit at holding itself together that even he was unable to finish much of the races due to mechanical reliability which still cost him the title even despite this point system theoretically being like bernie's medal idea where the most wins = wdc (im gonna ignore that the 49 was introduced at the dutch gp a couple races in)

[fast lotus]

but in this particular scenario the points system equalised reliability

[royal valve]

one occasion in a sample size is not justified

[fast lotus]

well yeah im not arguing overall that the points system was the best but in this scenario it was

[hasty star]

senna had three dnfs, two of them were crashing out, prodt had two, both were reliability

[royal valve]

I believe daftarcher did also mention senna had reliability issues in the two races that he dropped points