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If these guys were racing around in cars from the 80s the gaps between them would be much larger. The cars are much more precise now so of course the field has closed.

Possibly, but the top drivers in the 80s never really had off days. There was never a race were Senna was nowhere against Prost for example.

It is complete nonsense. Yes, the sport is far more professional now and there is a far more structured path to F1 than ever before, but there is far more to being a WDC than the ability to drive fast. You can only be measured against the talent of your generation and how you measure up against them. There is nothing - and I mean nothing - that Perez has done to demonstrate that he would drive a car faster than Piquet, or Prost etc. nothing whatsoever. Blanket statements like yours are simply ridiculous

You can only measure each driver by how they stack up against others of their generation - this is true, but not every generation is equally good.

It's common sense that a generation where the entire grid begins driving at the age of 4-9 is stronger than one where one driver began driving at the age of 4 and everyone else began in their mid-teens to early-twenties.

Today you would never see an elite driver who began karting at the age of 15 like Prost, because by today's standards you won't be good enough if you begin so late.

People who can't accept that the drivers of today are just better than those of yesteryear are blinded by nostalgia.

When you say "better" what exactly do you mean? Better at what?

Faster

I agree. I think the main reason why the gaps are so much smaller now is because of all the telemetry data that the drivers have access to. They have an engineer to tell them if they are leaving time on the table; if a driver can brake 10 metres later here or take that corner in 4th gear rather than third then they're informed straight away. Drivers back in the day largely had to work it out on their own.

It is notable that the gaps between drivers today get so much bigger when it rains; this is the one time that today's drivers are put in that same situation of not being told where the limits are and having to work it out for themselves, because the engineers don't know.

I think some might be sure. I think others would be all at see if you put them in a mid 80s turbo with manual transmission and no power steering. I really slim guy like Ocon may not even have the muscle to keep the car on the track.

You are confusing mediocrity with actual performance in an era where cars breakdown and all, in this era I don't see a Redbull winning a race without a Mercedes and Ferrari falling off let alone a Renault then talk about a Williams.
If you watched the era you are talking about you'll actually understand why it was possible then and it's not possible now.

The part about Prost being a 4 time champion can't be used simple it's not semantics.

Senna qualified 3rd and finished 3rd in the Toleman.

How do you even speak to someone like this? Alain Prost is a 4-time WDC (fact). Ayrton Senna faced him as a teammate (fact). The fact that he had yet to win all 4 titles at that time is not what I'm talking about. I was talking about the level of performer that Senna faced as a teammate with equal status. Do you really not understand? Your post lacks any sense of attachment to reality.

Over this really, Prost finished as a 4X WDC, when Senna joined him at Mclaren he was a 2X WDC, he won one against Senna and left to Williams and then won his 4th.

Your claim was Senna faced a 4X WDC which he did not. You accused me of not watching the era and invoked the Senna took Toleman to the podium without realising where Senna actually qualified the car.

Whose post is actually devoid of reality?

He maybe should have worded it that Prost went onto become a 4x champion, however arguing this does not change the face Senna faced Prost in his prime and that Prosts skill was such he's now a 4x champion.
I'm not really sure why you've been arguing over this over so many posts, the fact he was a 2x champion when he and Senna first partnered and ended up as a 4x champion reinforces the argument that Senna beat him at the hight of his skills....

Is Alain Prost a 4-time WDC? The answer is "yes" isn't it? You're making an argument based PURELY in semantics. We have the benefit of knowing exactly what Prost achieved in his career. It would be foolish to refer to Prost as a 2-time WDC in the year 2018. It's a ridiculous thing to even argue about really.

I know exactly where Senna qualified the car but you don't seem to. He qualified 13th at Monaco in 84'. Maybe you thought Johnson's comment about qualifying third was a reference to that race? The fact is that Senna put on a master class in the wet that day in a car that was a true backmarker. That same car qualified 4 seconds off the pace at Spa, 5 seconds off the pace in Brazil and 3.5 seconds off the pace in France.

Those are facts by the way...

Again, utter nonsense. The BIB just shows a rigid bias and a complete inability to understand opposing points of view, not to mention arrogance that your way is the only way. The irony is that the accusation you throw out may just as easily be levelled at you in reverse.

You cannot make a blanket statement like that. There is zero evidence to suggest that drivers such as Stroll, or Perez, or Ocon, to name but a few, would have qualified higher than Piquet, or Lauda, or Prost. Zero. You are entitled to your opinion on it but to call out dissenters as blinkered nostalgics just shows you up as inflexible and unable to comprehend what it takes to make a Formula One champion. Hakkinnen started karting at 4, while DC left it util 11, but DC beat him more than once and few would have DC as one of the fastest ever. To suggest that none of greats of the past would stand a chance against today's drivers just doesn't stand up.

That's not to say that starting earlier doesn't give you an advantage: I think it would be silly to assume that it doesn't. But it doesn't automatically make every driver of today faster than every driver of the past. Some people's talent is just greater than others and you have to factor that in, too.

I agree. By that standard, Damon Hill and Jaques Villeneuve should give their WDC's back...

And on tracks they don't know very well that can kill them at every corner. It's not nostalgia, it's actually thinking the question through.

Picking up a modern driver and dumping him in that situation changes absolutely everything about how he can approach the race weekend, and not for the better. The car isn't set up for him in a simulator and full chassis dyno before he gets to the track. He can't do thousands of laps preparation on the sim or at home on his Xbox. He can't just go all out attack and extract every bit of pace from the car safe in the knowledge if it goes badly he'll be fine. He can't get on the radio and ask for some help.

It's a totally different sport and the idea a driver from the 80's picked up and put in a modern car with masses of d/f,power steering, seemless shift gearbox. fully set up properly and on tracks you can attack every corner with zero fear and that he has done thousands of laps in preparation on would somehow struggle to extract pace from it is weird.

The fundamentals of driving don't change, the obstacles put in front of you when trying to extract that pace from the car do. And in the modern era they are all but completely removed, both physically from the gearbox,extra d/f and power steering, to mentally with the safety measures and better preparation in the sim.

That's why the pace between drivers is closer nowadays, just as much as the earlier start on karts or advances in physical benefits.

_________________
"Clark came through at the end of the first lap so far ahead that we in the pits were convinced that the rest of the field must have been wiped out in an accident."
-Eddie Dennis, describing the dominance of Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 at Spa 1967

That is all true. People often underestimate the effects of the modern level of safety. Guys can go absolutely flat-out without fear of lethal crashes. For an accident to be lethal in modern F1 would require series of flukish and unfortunate circumstances. No ordinary impact would kill a modern F1 driver in these cars. The technology also does help as well with the use of simulators and just the general heightened access to meaningful data.

The one thing I would mention that makes things substantially harder for today's drivers is the heightened competitive landscape. There are more kids getting into karting from a younger and younger age nowadays compared to 40 years ago. The talent pool is deeper and the level of ability and talent you need to make it is significantly higher. The type of obsessive focus that used to make Senna stand out from the pack is now arguably par for the course. Year-round training and top physical fitness are the norm now and the G-forces that these cars put the drivers through are on a totally different level than anything you saw 30-40 years ago. Not all of the physical demands have been reduced, in fact the physical strain on the body is much greater in some ways (though it manifests itself differently). Additionally, the current drivers have a much larger mental exercise to do while driving the car. They have to monitor so many different systems and gauges, keep track of engine modes, battery charge and discharge, KERS, ERS, DRS, managing deltas, etc. It's not a walk in the park.

The main thing is to understand that there is no meaningful comparison to be made between drivers of different eras because the sport itself changes so much and the requirements to be great change too.