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I don't think it's at all ridiculous. Just like I grew up in Harlem New York and lived the evolution of Hip-Hop, and while great in his own regard, there is no way in hell Biggie Smalls was the greatest rapper of all time, and even less, his once good friend turned enemy 2Pac. Biggie was considerably better in all but one facet and that was running his mouth rather ignorantly because no one did that better than 2Pac.

However, millions of people bought into the hype their personal battle created which was all-out war that ended in the murder of one of them and the other met his demise because he couldn't bring himself to stop acting like an ignorant "Thug" he was aspiring to be. From a ballet aficionado to a comedic rap group's puppy dog groupie, to hawrdcwore Nigga! after a role he landed without intending to which IS what he molded his persona after. And to be be clear, there isn't a single greatest rapper of all time, but there is a handfull of guys who are that almost equally, with the pendulum leaning towards 2 more than any others. Eminem and Busta. However, saying that around a group of people who bought into the hype of the media, spawned by their premature deaths, and you might as well be speaking politics because in their minds what they've been conditioned to believe just is and to entertain anything different is lunacy, even though the material is there to be gone over.

The same is true of Senna and when it comes to Jochen Rindt, even more so. I'll say he's absolutely most overrated championship winning driver of all time and only because he was crowned WDC posthumously. THAT is sadly his real claim to fame. He was at best decent in decent cars and he died 4 with 4 races to go driving a Dominant Lotus-Ford that made him look better than he was, but the 1970 season was so erratic in terms of drivers actually finishing races that any driver who made it to the finish line towards the front consistently had a shot of winning. luckily for Rindt his Lotus proved more reliable than most other front runners.

Now Jim Clark is completely different animal. And by animal I do mean ANIMAL. So good was he that drivers would be perplexed at how he took corners so fast that he'd literally explain to them exactly how he was able to do so and would then jump in his car and have them follow him around the track at moderate speeds so they could see and learn his line before going all out for blistering laps and they STILL couldn't match his time.

The only other sports figure I know to have done this was Dion Sanders. As a cornerback (his first position - the greatest ever there) he'd tell wide receivers how to beat him and when they'd finally get tired of him destroying them and would finally listen, they'd burn him, thinking they had him beat, only to have him make the adjustment and run around them to either break the play up or make an interception. When converted to a wide receiver He'd tell cornerbacks how they should cover him and would then tell them the route he was running and STILL there was nothing they could do to stop him.

In F1 the only other driver that was that much better than his contemporaries was Michael. Heck, they even had complete telemetry and still couldn't match him. Senna was close to this but a good deal of his amazing laps where he passed several people were only possible because drivers didn't want to end their races prematurely. Excluding wet races of course because Senna was almost always untouchable in wet conditions.

Upon his death, Senna was elevated to legendary status effective immediately, and anyone who disagreed with that either hated the guy or was talking nonsense.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

Joachin Rindt was way before my time and I appreciate that you know far more about him, however he is only remembered as being the posthumous champion, I never see him being labelled as one of the greats, his reputation being exaggerated by his death.

Schumacher was the best for a decade, but this was seen as a weakened F1 with the retirement of Prost and the death of Senna, Schumacher was not seen as being better than Senna at the time they raced together, but now for some seemingly Schumacher is an all time great and Senna is a great exaggerated by his death?

This is a period of F1 that I lived through and I think these views are basically by people who didn't rate Senna that highly in the first place and now in a kind of reverse psychology use his death as an exaggeration of his ability of a driver like I say that they neither liked or rated that highly in the first place.

I lived through it and like Jim Clark before him this was seen as a death of a great, the death of a F1 flag bearer, a death which brought Murray Walker to tears and he couldn't talk and James Hunt basically had to take the microphone off him. Now we are told that his death and a film have over time just exaggerated his standing in the sport, this like I say by people who never rated him in the first place or simply didn't like him.

Senna was already seen as the best in the sport before he died. I don't think his reputation suddenly grew afterwards

He was seen as the best in the sport by some, others (myself included) felt Prost was the better of the two and in his final year of F1 Prost once again beat a solid field of drivers that included Senna, and all after sitting out a full year.

What was said is that Senna was the best of his generation and that's what I disagree with. He certainly had the pure talent to be just that but since he resorted to things other than driving frequently, and was as arrogant as he was, he took away from his place on the list of greats for me personally.

At the time of his death the NKOTB was Schumacher and while perhaps not as good as Senna at that point, he was just about there and had he not died, Schumacher would have have beaten him just like everyone else. The one thing about Senna is that while he was quicker than everyone else, he was only just so. Schumacher on the other hand was initially just faster than everyone but once he got a couple years of experience under his belt, he was considerably faster than everyone including his teammates and none of them came close consistently until Rubens in a couple of seasons.

Please understand that I know full well the capabilities of Senna in a race car, but being the best entails more than just that. Knowing that Senna was faster than Prost on pure pace, it speaks to Prost's completeness because although Senna was generally a touch quicker he was NEVER outclassed and held his own extremely well. That's why I rate Prost the best driver of that generation.

Wow, you really wrote a lot of carp in this post Poker, not your usual style.

Schumacher is seemingly an all time great? The weakened F1 is always an argument, for a different discussion maybe. But he "seemingly" is an all time great?

And maybe, just maybe, you are still missing the whole point. No one said that his status elevated BECAUSE of Senna's death. Just that his already high status got to silly levels after his death. And this is exactly what has happened. Senna was amazeballs when he was racing, that's not debated. But years after the Senna craze has calmed down, some people can remember that he also had a dark side, with regards to racing of course. Hell, that interview with Steward is actually there to show you that not everyone thought that what Senna touched was gold, even back then. You somehow twisted this that these claims are from people not liking Senna in the first place... And of course there may be people who never bought into the Senna craze, but you'd have to be blind not to see that the guy was the real deal.

Dying young always added some romanticism. And as bad as it sounds, I don't think some people, especially the younger generations, would know the names of Winkelhock, Pryce or Ratzenberger if it wasn't for their deaths. Of course, arguably some of them never got their chance to shine.

The seemingly was the comparison with Senna were Schumacher didn't need to be killed in order to gain a higher level of respect that Senna.

Senna was viewed as the man up to his death, even over Schumacher, if anything his death elevated Schumacher's position in F1 as he just had tier 2 drivers to contend with for a good while after that, but apparently Senna's death just exaggerated his career, he never was the man in the first place, he never was viewed as the best at that time.

There's been loads of drivers killed in F1 were is all the romanticism about these drivers, I don't see it.

I think almost all you write in this post is reasonable except for the BIB. On pure speed Senna was a lot faster than his opposition by F1 standards. He ha a bigger advantage over most of his team mates than Schumacher had over his. Just look at his record against Prost who was also incredibly quick. Senna came up against stronger opposition than Schumacher and for pure speed was further ahead of them.

I rate Schumacher as the greatest of all time but Senna did have a bigger pace advantage over his peers.

The seemingly was the comparison with Senna were Schumacher didn't need to be killed in order to gain a higher level of respect that Senna.

Senna was viewed as the man up to his death, even over Schumacher, if anything his death elevated Schumacher's position in F1 as he just had tier 2 drivers to contend with for a good while after that, but apparently Senna's death just exaggerated his career, he never was the man in the first place, he never was viewed as the best at that time.

There's been loads of drivers killed in F1 were is all the romanticism about these drivers, I don't see it.

Where are you getting these from? That's a borderline delusional opinion. Who in his right mind would say that Senna wasn't the man in the first place?

This all stems from Blake's post, which if you read properly you'll see that he says that a death tends to elevate someone's ALREADY great status.

I hope you understand how and why. No one saw him old and fat like Mansell for example not being able to fit in the car. Or past it like Jacques where his own BAR crew was laughing at him spinning around the track.

First of all, he was considerably faster that all his teammates with the exception of Prost outside a few races where he was "inexplicably" faster when Prost knew he got every last bit of performance his car had to offer. The worst kept secret in McLaren history was the fact that Senna was Honda's golden boy and they made sure his equipment received that little bit more attention. That's not a level playing field.

Schumacher on the other hand whooped up on his teammates so easily that Brawn and company can't explain it. So good was Schumacher that his teammates would provide feedback as to what the cars were doing and they'd make changes to address the issues for his teammates but Schumacher hit the track and there was no difference in timing. As far as I know that was NEVER the case with Senna and setup changes affected him to some degree.

Where are you getting these from? That's a borderline delusional opinion. Who in his right mind would say that Senna wasn't the man in the first place?

This all stems from Blake's post, which if you read properly you'll see that he says that a death tends to elevate someone's ALREADY great status.

I hope you understand how and why. No one saw him old and fat like Mansell for example not being able to fit in the car. Or past it like Jacques where his own BAR crew was laughing at him spinning around the track.

You're talking about level playing fields when it comes to Schumacher?

What happened to Schumacher in 2010 when Bridgestone were no longer making bespoke tyres for him?

I read it for what he said, that Senna's career has been exaggerated because of his death which always tends to happen, however he wouldn't be saying this about someone like Jim Clark for instance.

He did beat him in 1992, didn't he? Macca was arguably the better of the two cars.