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Michael Schumacher - 7
Juan Manuel Fangio - 5
Alain Prost - 4
Lewis Hamilton - 4
Sebastian Vettel - 4
Jack Brabham - 3
Jackie Stewart - 3
Niki Lauda - 3
Nelson Piquet - 3
Aryton Senna - 3
Alberto Ascari - 2
Graham Hill - 2
Jim Clark - 2
Emerson Fittipaldi - 2
Mika Häkkinen - 2
Fernando Alonso - 2

How might you fully or partially order this list of champions thus far?

The top level (in alphabetical order)
Alonso, Clark, Fangio, Hamilton, Prost, Schumacher, Senna

The medium level (in alphabetical order)
Ascari, Brabham, Fittipaldi, Häkkinen, Lauda, Stewart, Vettel

The low level (well, "low"in this context)
Hill, Piquet

Does Schumacher have his own category?

Schumacher
Fangio
Senna
Prost
Clark
Stewart
Alonso
Ascari
Hamilton
Vettel
Lauda
Brabham
Piquet
Hakkinen
Hill
Fittipaldi

No - he belongs to the top level category, of course.
I edited the original post, so that he is there now.

Michael Schumacher
Jim Clark
Fernando Alonso
Juan Manuel Fangio
Ayrton Senna
Lewis Hamilton
Alain Prost
Jackie Stewart
Niki Lauda
Alberto Ascari
Sebastian Vettel
Nelson Piquet
Emerson Fittipaldi
Jack Brabham
Graham Hill
Mika Häkkinen

Placing the current generation is usually difficult, and potentially controversial for those who seem to believe that the heroes of yesteryear can never be surpassed. I'm sure there'll be some disagreement that I've put Alonso above Fangio and Senna, and put Hamilton above Prost, but I genuinely think that those two belong in that bracket. And both have started more races and competed in more years than almost all of the rest of the list so it's certainly not premature to compare them.

Schumacher is number one for me. No one else has stood so far ahead of the rest of their generation.

It kind of depends on what exactly we're rating doesn't it? If we're going by who would win if they all raced in the same car that's a very different question from who best distinguished themselves during their own time. Not sure you can make a meaningful order to be honest unless you just go by how many titles they've won. Comparing drivers to their contemporaries is one thing but comparing drivers across several decades and totally different cars/rules is basically meaningless.

You can try to judge according to performance achieved against peers (across teams and intrateam) in combination with their circumstances (supposed quality of machinery and opportunity).

Taking your instruction and attempting to be neither a prisoner of the moment nor a rose-tinted glasses wearer; here is my list:

Tier 1: Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton
Tier 2: Clark, Fangio, Alonso, Vettel, Prost
Tier 3: Lauda, Piquet, Hakkinen, Stewart, Fittipaldi

For Tier 1: I include the three who I think had the most raw talent. Senna and Hamilton gain a lot of points for me due to the strength of their competitors. Schumacher gains points for the sheer dominance of his peek period.

For Tier 2: I chose guys who really distinguished themselves but fell short of the top tier. Alonso probably has Tier 1 talent but lacks the achievements or period of domination of the top guys. Fangio, Vettel and Prost have the achievements but lack the talent of the top guys. Clark was like Senna before Senna but, for me, the competitive landscape was not in the same league back then. Same can be said for Fangio; who looked more like your pot-bellied neighbor than a sportsman. Certainly they distinguished themselves from their peers though.

For Tier 3: These guys are all great champions but are all drivers who I feel do not quite match up to the guys in the higher tiers. I left out drivers that I simply don't know enough about to actually give an honest assessment.

Tier 1:
Fangio, Clark, Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton

Tier 2:
Ascari, Stewart, Prost, Alonso, Vettel

Tier 3:
Hill, Brabham, Fittipaldi, Lauda, Piquet, Hakkinen

Using the Tier method i will go as follows:
TIER 1,
Clark, Schumacher, Prost, Fangio, Senna

TIER 2
Ascari, Piquet, Alonso, Lauda, Stewart

TIER 3
Hakkinen, Hill, Fittipaldi, Hamilton, Vettel

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

So we're basically rating who we think is the greatest drivers in order.

Driver rankings from the pre 1980's era are based simply on what i've read or heard so there may be so anomalies there.

1. Senna
2. Prost
3. Fangio
4. Clark
5. Alonso
6. Schumacher
7. Brabham
8. Hill
9. Hamilton
10. Ascari
11. Lauda
12. Stewart
13. Vettel
14. Piquet
15. Hakkinen
16. Fittipaldi

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Races since last non RB, Merc, Ferrari winner (After Brazil- 19) - 138 & counting.( Last win, Lotus, 17/3/13)

Non RB, Merc, Ferrari podiums won in Hybrid era - 360 trophies available, 26 won

2017 WCC CPTTC - Jalopy Racing (Herb & Me)

I find it really hard to evaluate any pre-Lauda drivers as I'd basically be going off 3rd party articles and I don't think that's fair to the rest. But my best attempts as follows, with no ranking within the tiers themselves:

Tier 1 - the standout driver of their eras

Senna
Schumacher
Clark
Alonso

Tier 2 - the best of the rest. Top drivers but not quite on the level of those above:

Prost
Piquet
Hamilton
Vettel
Lauda
Stewart

Tier 3 - drivers who were very good on their day but not quite up there with the best

Hakkinen
Hill
Brabham
Fittipaldi

Edit: re-assigned Stewart due to my error being pointed out to me!

Chronological orders based on what drivers could achieve in the time they had to do it in. The names in bold are active and their ranking is subject to change, higher or lower, depending on the future. Well they are all subject to change but I've done my fair bit of reading on what these guys achieved against their contemporaries, and the level of their contemporaries.

Fangio, Clark, Senna, Schumacher

Prost, Alonso, Hamilton

Stewart, Piquet, Vettel

Ascari, Brabham, Lauda, Hakkinen

Hill, Fittipaldi

Limited to seasons I saw live (so mid 90s onwards):

Schumacher > Alonso > Hamilton > Vettel > Hakkinen.

Alonso is set to retire but Hamilton and Vettel are still in the midst of an epic rivalry together. Hamilton could stay ahead of Vettel in my estimation, or Vettel could turn the tide. There is still time for either to surpass Alonso in my estimation... meaning that they aren't capped at some imaginary ceiling and can still "prove" themselves over the next several seasons. Good to be open about these trivial things.

Oh, and there's even time for them to be an equal of Schumacher or to surpass him, but I'd say that's rather unlikely. I doubt either will fall below Hakkinen unless some bad seasons and shocking revelations are in store for Hamilton and Vettel.

Hamilton will pass Alonso for me if he continues to strongly secure a 5th crown. If Vettel won on merit this season and made the comeback with no bad luck to Hamilton then I'd have them pretty much tied again.

It’s only my opinion, but I am very confident that if you put a peak Prost and a peak Hamilton in the same car Hamilton would beat Prost by a wide margin. I see a few people rank Prost ahead of Hamilton which is completely justified but besides consistency, big picture mentality and politicking Prost didn’t have much else. I have watched almost every single one of his races (granted many years after he retired which guarantees I’m not privy to all those other nuances we F1 fans love) and I have to say I am underwhelmed especially looking at his stats and listening to the hype. He didn’t have blistering pace, was so so in wet conditions and his ‘cruise and collect’ attitude which left a lot to be desired against the backdrop of the quintessential romanticised F1 driver.
To be clear I am not saying he was a bad driver. In fact I rank him very highly indeed. It’s just that I put Senna, Hamilton, Fangio, Clark and Schumacher, in that order, in front of him. He is 6th in my GOAT list. What impresses me about Prost is that he achieved all his successes against drivers like Lauda, Rosberg, Senna and Mansell as teammates.

Started watching in 1984 so i'll start there.

Schumacher
Hamilton
Senna
Prost
Alonso
Hakkinen
Vettel
Piquet

I'd have Hakkinen a bit higher, Alonso and Hamilton a bit closer and Stewart definitely lower than these two and Lauda.

This is so easy...

Tier 1 (Inter-Gallactic)
Michael Schumacher - 7
Juan Manuel Fangio - 5
Alain Prost - 4
Lewis Hamilton - 4 (soon to be 5)
Sebastian Vettel - 4

Tier 2 (Just Gallactic)
Jack Brabham - 3
Jackie Stewart - 3
Niki Lauda - 3
Nelson Piquet - 3
Aryton Senna - 3

Tier 3 (Stellar)
Alberto Ascari - 2
Graham Hill - 2
Jim Clark - 2
Emerson Fittipaldi - 2
Mika Häkkinen - 2
Fernando Alonso - 2

See how easy that is. Just by the numbers. No one here is old enough to remember Juan Manuel Fangio's or Alberto Ascari's trials and tribulations, achievements and disappointments, wouldas and couldas and iff-onlys... breathing exhaust fumes of a front engined car on skinny tires with drum brakes, doing it all without a seatbelt. No one remembers, and no one cares.

You can wax poetically about your favorite driver based on your individual perspective as a personal witness... Such as what could have been had Ayrton Senna or Jimmy Clark not died so prematurely, etc. I watched both in real time. But it doesn't really matter.

Fifty years from now, absolutely no one will remember Stirling Moss (possibly the best driver -- ever -- to never win a single championship). Or Jochen Rindt -- killed during practice for the Italian Grand Prix -- to become the only driver to be posthumously awarded the Formula One World Drivers' Championship.

Likewise, no one will remember or care about Alonso's bad cars, bad choices, bad attitude. It's just about the numbers.

Got it now?

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Life-Long F1 Fan from 1965 -- More than 575 Grand Prix recorded since 1982 (all but 3), and counting...

I think Prost was faster than people think. Do not mistake his calm and calculating style for lack of speed, he was plenty fast when needed.

Has any teammate ever had 28 - 4 qualifying record and been considered an all time great?

Sorry Laz, can you elaborate?

He's referring to Prost being out qualified by Senna 28-4.

_________________
PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)

Yeah It's all quite ridiculous, how do you rate drivers who competed before you was even born?

However it's quite amusing to read.

_________________
PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)

Not sure why people feel a need to post this in every thread like this.

We all know it's subjective and opinion based, some based on seeing the drivers in real life some based on reading about drivers before we were born.

Posting all the drivers in stat order and saying that anything else is pointless isn't clever and at this point it's not even original.

Not intended to be clever...
Not intended to be original...
(I guess no credit offered for Inter-Galactic, Merely Galactic, and Stellar)

Ask any driver from the 50's what he thinks about all these "clever" and "original" OPINIONS from "armchair commentators," and most will simply laugh and walk away. Stats mean something, because stats are immutable and permanent. Fleeting opinions are not, no matter how clever or original.

Then again, 99.9999999% of all the bandwidth wasted here is about opinions, mine included. And we all know what they say about people with opinions. So we're all in good company.

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Life-Long F1 Fan from 1965 -- More than 575 Grand Prix recorded since 1982 (all but 3), and counting...

Ah, thank you

I think Prost is one of the 4-5 all time best. Yes, he was out qualified by Senna 28-4, but I think Prost was smart. He knew if he put all his eggs in the qualifying basket he would be beaten by Senna (not 28-4 but something along the lines of 20-12 or thereabouts). He knew his best chance was to focus on race setup to optimise that rather than optimising a single lap set up. If he optomised his single lap setup and lost pole to Senna he would have vitually no chance to win if Senna beat him off the line or if Prost won pole and Senna beat him off the line there too.

That's my opinion and you can see from my name who my favorite driver was.

At that time you could set the car up differently for qualifying and the race so I have to strongly disagree there. Reliability made things seem closer than they were between the two. Senna was almost always faster in qualifying and usually faster in the races too. His car just died a lot.

Prost was blindingly fast against anyone but Senna. Certainly in his earlier career. Based on your position on a seperate topic you surely can't argue with his success? Most wins ever at the time.

I didn't say that Prost wasn't great. I just said he wasn't as close to Senna as people like to pretend.

This is pretty much how I grouped them as well. Comparing drivers across generations is impossible, we can only judge how good they were in the context of their time relative to the drivers they raced against. By that measure, I believe those top 4 (plus Fangio who you seem to have omitted) stand out from the rest. Within those three distinct tiers though, we could argue fruitlessly all day about which order they should be in.

I'm surprised with your rating of Stewart. He was definitely the best of his day.

Any rating that downgrades a champion of F1, compared to someone of a different or even his own era, is not fair. Just IMHO.

They are all fabulous stars.

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The end is near

That seems to go along the lines of Prost was slower than Senna in the wet because he had seen other drivers seriously hurt and that made him more cautious.

Anyway this theory of having a better car for the race doesn't wash because 80% of the time Senna had the beating of Prost in the races, what he didn't have though was better mechanical reliability, the theoretical 20-12 is a bit of a nonsense really.

_________________
PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)

I'm not sure anyone is arguing against that?

_________________
PF1 Pick 10 Competition

2013: 5th Place
2014: Champion
2015: 3rd Place
2016: 4th Place
2017: 9th Place
2018: 7th place

Wins: Canada 2018, Abu Dhabi 2017
Podiums: (8)

In reality, luck is an important factor of success. People often underestimate how little differences in luck can create huge differences in success over careers, in particular in a sport that depends so heavily on technical equipment like F1. Statistics are the most superficial thing; the real stories lie underneath. However, I do agree with you that many are too superficial or too ignorant to look beyond the simplest sucess statistics (or it suits their agenda). Still, why should that stop us from having a closer look?

Two of the best ever F1 drivers are not even in this list - Ronnie Peterson and Gilles Villeneuve!

I typed up a detailed, three paragraph response to this - but the forum glitched and erased it.

Bottom line, you're completely wrong. Nobody has forgotten the drivers from before they were alive, and no one is going to.

The original version was better.

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PICK 10 COMPETITION (4 wins, 15 podiums): 3rd in 2016
TOP THREE CHAMPIONSHIP (No Limit Excedrin Racing): Champions in 2015 & 2018 | 2nd in 2017 & 2019
[b]AUTOSPORT GP PREDICTOR: 2017 USA & P-F1 Champion

Yeah, I got it... I hope time shows that you don't have a clue what you are talking about here. Stirling Moss has been remembered for fifty years already and will be fifty years from now as well. BET on it. Rindt has been tragic story and will continue to be so for long after you and I have left this world. It would be a shame if the only thing a driver is remembered for is the numbers he put up as opposed to his talent. If you are right, how is it that we still remember Gilles and Ronnie, after all it has been many decades for them as well.

I have no doubt that there will be those fans who are to lazy to do any research the history of the sport, drivers included, but those who are really fans will know if past greats. Let us hope that future fans are about more than "the numbers" or this sport is history too.

_________________
Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

Well, the mere fact that I offered Moss and Rindt as examples worth remembering proves that my opinions are not strictly about the numbers.

My point is that Moss and Rindt (G.Villeneuve and R.Peterson, and others, too) will be fondly remembered for their overall contributions to the sport beyond what the numbers note. Further, these are positive memories on balance. They left the sport on a high note...

...unlike some current drivers who choose to disparage the sport (their cars, engines, team, the "show" in general) as they leave. Such drivers run the risk of being remembered more for their pompous attitudes than for what records they accumulate, at best leaving behind the grudging recognition of a WDC number, and little else.

In short, people naturally want to remember humble heros, not arrogant whiners.

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Life-Long F1 Fan from 1965 -- More than 575 Grand Prix recorded since 1982 (all but 3), and counting...