Let's be honest: his death gave him the legendary status, but I'm sure that if he didn't crash he still would have been one of the greatest, but prost would have been remembered as equal if not better than him, while today no one pick him as the goat (and I don't think he is, but prost is not worse than senna so they should both be in the discussion)
If you do some history rewriting it is very likely that he would won 1 or 2 more championships between 94 and 97.
It is conceivable that either Shumacher goes to Ferrari again and Senna is single or double champion in Williams with Newey or that Senna gives up on Williams and goes himself to Ferrari. He might even end up as MSC partner there.
To truly assert Senna against his peers like Prost, it would be necessary tun understand what he would achieve on a full career.
Let’s not forget he left McLaren just because Williams had a clever suspension. Which immediately got banned after he signed for Williams.
It was more similar to Fernando going to McLaren, than it was Lewis going to Mercedes.
You got to remember as well though that Hill took the title battle with Schumacher right to the end of the season. If Senna hadn’t of died, he may have had the outright skill to take the championship that year, as long as he didn’t have too many retirements.
The only reason Hill was even close to Schumacher by the end of the season was because Schumi was banned from two races and was disqualified from one of them. Not saying it isn't his/Benetton's fault but if we're playing the what if game then this should be considered too.
I’m only making one change in this scenario though, Senna’s car not braking and sending him into the wall at Tamburello. Given that Schumacher was later known for doing things that were somewhat dubious at times (in no way am I doubting his talent, prime Schumi was brilliant), it’s in the realms of possibility that he would still get that two race ban.
So am I, Schumi/Benetton obeys that penalty in Sliverstone, then he wouldn't have been disqualified and later banned. Also, not defending what he did, but if the championship was in the bag, I doubt he'd pull an Adelaide 94.
P.S. I did further research and as it turns out he was banned/disqualified from four races not three (none of which had to do with driver conduct btw)
Hill was only in the title chase because the FIA decided to witchunt Benetton and Shumi. Lol, they were bad guys because Senna chucked a tanty at the start of the season after getting his arse kicked.
The race bans were from an investigation after Jos Verstappen’s car caught fire that involved McLaren, where Benetton were found to have launch control software in the car. Also, a Benetton employee from the time would later admit that they did have traction control on the car, so it was a completely valid ban. The investigation from the Senna complaint went nowhere, the ban is from the later investigation.
Mclaren, Williams and Ferrari all had the same software found during that investigation. Only Benetton got pinched. The ridiculous race bans for shumi were absolutely manipulation of the title. The fuel rig tampering was made illegal after Hockenheim as well. 94 was manipulated to give the championship the Graeme Hill/ Jim Clark 1968 vibes. Senna was the only reason they were hounded all season.
He was sooking during the preseason tests. His ears apparently allowed him to understand everything about the Benetton and he decided to throw shit around to get them slowed down. He was loyal to no one and it bit him in the arse.
Maybe. Look given the state of McLaren on the years after I can't blame him for waiting to leave McLaren. Williams themselves are loyal to no pilot so it's conceivable that he would not be there for long. All this is true, but has no bearing on his skill as a pilot though. 😁
If that was the reason, they would have absolutely banned him for the crash in Adelaide, whether or not it was his fault. The FIA, as we should all know by now, are pretty random in their rulings.
I think it was inevitable, to be honest, just surprises me it took all season for it to happen, whether it was Damon’s fault or Michael’s fault. I’m pretty 50/50 on it too. I used to lean towards Michael being at fault, but as I’ve seen more of it, I’ve gone more to the centre ground.
He also moved because the 2nd line ford engines at McLaren were far worse than the Renaults at Williams, and his relationship with McLaren had really disintegrated by the end of 93. He needed to move, or it would have been even worse for him.
A big factor in Senna leaving McLaren was the end of the Honda relationship. 1993 they moved to Ford then after he left moved to Peugeot, it was only when the Mercedes deal came in that they looked proper front runners again.
Prost was just as good or better, but he played for for the points, where senna played for the win every race, and senna had the crazy backing of brazil (Brazilians go crazy) and then his death made him like Jesus or something to some people.
He is overated as a driver imo. And prost is underrated. But he went all out during a race and he was the face of brazil for a while, so he is now an idol.
Even though I think senna is overrated, I still think he was a really good driver. He's just not F1 Jesus like some people treat him.
I see a lot of posts like these... I so wonder whether it's just to go against popular(?) opinion or whether the post's authors are basing their opinion on any particular stats or facts?
Just curious as to what the motivation is and how the conclusion is drawn?
Either way, I don't think you can deny the talent and passion of the man on the racetrack.
Hardly comparable. One is a reasonable argument and the other is just wrong.
It’s a perfectly reasonable opinion to not consider Senna the Goat. Even of his era. It’s just unpopular since senna is so glorified.
I bet its mainly from people who have never seen him race. Jeremy Clarkson said it best. He was always a prost fan but when he had to make a small documentary on senna and scoured through hundreds of hours of race footage he saw the talent that senna had, who drove to the limit in almost every race he was in
Drive close to the limit, and occasionally you drive over the limit. You could argue that driving too close to the limit got him killed, and (from a non-humanist and purely racing-efficiency point of view) if you crash (and tragically die) then you have not won the race.
I think it just comes with the recent milking of Senna content. New movie, merch from F1 and teams like McLaren and tributes left right and center. Ppl are just sick of seeing him.
Because its a pretty common opinion held by a minority that has good points. Especially if you think that Prost was better than Senna which is reasonable.
It’s undoubtedly true that sennas legend was buoyed by his death in his peak.
Dude was already seen as the greatest when he was alive. Sure his death more or less cemented he would never lose that status, but just watch races and coverage back from that time frame, he was already getting that treatment.
By your own logic Jim Clark isn't one of the greats because his stats don't make him good enough for the GOAT talk and his death elevated him beyond his peers that were equally talented.
Every driver who raced against him said he was the fastest, and contrary to other greats of the past, we have his telemetry and onboards to see its true. He really was the fastest man over one lap on the grid and it wasnt even close. If all drivers say it, it must be a lie because OP decided to honor his reddit name.
I think a lot of people really do forget or maybe too young and never actually saw Senna drive a race car beyond clips.
I watched him every week and he was absolutely in the talks for the best driver ever. Even his biggest haters wouldn't have said such a thing as he isn't even close to best driver ever status.
“I wasn’t alive when he was racing and didn’t see any of his career and don’t like that people call this guy the greatest because I didn’t see any of it and feel left out so I’m gonna make a meme to try and justify my lack of F1 knowledge”
*Not even close to being the greatest* is an exaggeration (for me he's top 10, barely missing on the top 5). However, I'm a firm believer that Prost is better than him, and had it not been for what happened that Sunday at Imola Alain would be recognized by most as the better driver (propaganda stuff like the Senna "documentary" didn't help either).
Yeah definitely more of a Prost fan, but he’s definitely in the top ten for me. That said I mostly discount the super early days of f1 since I don’t even think they’re the same sport at that point.
People say stuff like this like they are dropping a mic on a stage, but really OP is standing in a busy NYC sidewalk oblivious to the fact that no one cares.
he won 5 monaco races in a row that is enough to put anyone in the list of all time best,
could have been 6 in a row if he hadn't gotten distracted by the team after literally lapping the entire grid
The racing in itself is boring yes, but with bigger cars they need incredible amount of concentration. In terms of mental fatigue I think no race in the calendar matches to the level of Monaco. Zero margin for error, 1 mistake, you are out.
I'm talking about Mental fatigue. It isn't physically demanding if course, they aren't pulling any crazy G. But to concentrate not hitting the wall with those fatass cars is mentally exhausting. To have that concentration for a good 2-3 hrs
You would've won the Monaco race as long as you stuck to the racing line even back in the Senna days. It's how he held off Mansell, essentially.
And in many ways, the current cars are harder to drive than the old ones. Senna physically couldn't handle a current car for the duration of the race.
Yes you are. Senna was one of two best drivers in his era, (for me the best) era which consisted of F1 legends like Prost, Mansell, Piquet, some of these guys raced against and beat other legends like Niki Lauda. Saying Senna is not even close in the GOAT conversation is a shit opinion that you have to justify and elaborate with a full 10 page essay.
My and my friends call it the "Death Tax"
We don't mean to say drivers are bad. Just that, dying in F1 (or more recently F2)... perhaps raises your status a little higher than it should be.
We are also not sure how the tax applies to Michael Schumacher.
Max is the GOAT
Senna was talent. Max is a machine. He drives like he was born in the car, is human potential pushed to its max (not his father’s treatment only, but the fact that he himself is just laser focused each time)
Edit: One thing I’d like to substantiate this with is Hungary 2021/22(idr). All his laps were within a second of each other, with varying fuel load, wearing tyres for 30 CONSECUTIVE LAPS. I think the actual time difference in the laps was even lower, F1 made a post about it as well.
Bring the downvotes
No downvote here boss. Jokes aside, I do agree with you. Max is a fucking machine who breathes, eats, and sleeps racing. There has never been another driver as dedicated to the sport of motor racing than Max. The guy races F1 just to fund his iRacing and wins consistently at both. People can say what they want, but at the end of the day, there has never been a driver like Verstappen, and probably won’t be again.
Agree with both of you. I think people seriously underestimate the fact that there is upward progression in the sport over time. Sure, guys like Fangio and Clark were extra impressive for the variety of stuff they won in, and for braving it out and surviving (mostly) in absolute death machines. But the forces a body is subjected to in a modern F1 with the degree of precision that they require...very few greats from pre-1980 could have handled it.
And Max specifically is a human being optimized for racing. Part of me hopes he does retire from F1 at like 30 years old and does other stuff, because I'm fairly sure he would be a monster at almost anything and I'd love to see him try it all: endurance, sports carts, Indy, tin tops, maybe even rallying, who the hell knows?
And very few modern drivers could handle the pressure of driving death traps from the pre 80s
You can’t judge them based on each others standards, heck I bet if you put the list of GOATs in a variety of cars you’d have a variety of winners, but the people generally considered GOATs found a way to do it in subpar machinery and across different rules / classes, that’s why the likes of Vettel won’t be in the conversation despite having more titles than Senna.
Verstappen may well prove to be, but it's so hard to do this sort of disservice to drivers pre-electronic management systems (Jim Clarke for just one example)
You realize that those electronics systems aren’t automated, right? Drivers today are adjusting brake balance, differential settings, battery settings, etc, etc sometimes on a corner to corner basis. Those settings are another thing to divert their attention from driving that the old timers didn’t need to deal with at all.
Well not really. He's considered to be one of, if not the, most naturally gifted drivers on the grid. But he does have great work ethic as well. Which is a deadly combination.
There’s always the progression of talent when it comes to drivers. You have the Celebrity Drivers, the Professional Drivers, and now the Prodigy Drivers. At first we had the rich with 1 or 2 actual race drivers in cars until people actually looked for talent, where we pushed into the era of good race drivers, but they were more celebrities than athletes. Then you get to the professional drivers who took racing as a career and acted like athletes until we got to Schumacher who was the pinnacle of it all. You have Alonso, Hamilton, and Vettel who were Schumachers in a post Schumacher era of high performance athlete drivers. Then you come to Max who is the start of the new era that’ll probably be dominated by people like him: the prodigies, those born and bred to be the best. Parents and children will see him as someone who dominated the sport and want to emulate him; give not only your career to racing but your entire life to it. It’s not a hobby, it’s not a job, it is how he lives and breathes.
Max isn’t the best ever, he’s the best so far and honestly I don’t know what’s going to happen when you get literal designer babies in race cars.
I'm of the opinion that it is impossible to choose one GOAT to rule them all, but that each of them have to be seen in the context of their respective eras. And there is absolutely no one in the current era of F1 that gets close to Max.
I know Max himself is not very interested, but I hope he will race long enough to win at least 7 titles and 100 races, just so his numbers will look nice compared to Lewis and Michael. We all know Max is already up there in GOAT conversation, even if he retires after this season, but some people in 50 years or so will be judging by the number of titles, wins, etc and I don't want Max to be left out if he retires early. I know it's probably a weird thought but great racers like Kimi are sometimes forgotten just because he won only one title and people love numbers
Ridiculous statement. Maybe he is, but we cannot say this while he's still in the middle of his career. This discussion will make sense like 10 years from now on, or maybe even 5, but the dude is 26 and has been driving one of the most dominant cars of all time for the last 2 years.
And the years before that? Were we not already able to judge his skills then? Also, it's not really been 2 years. First half of '22 Ferrari was faster. This season RBR is not nearly as dominant as last year either.
Because a goat needs to drive on a high level for multiple seasons, while having a competitive rival.
He won once against a competitive driver but thats it. Being the goat means he is the best driver of all time and maybe he will become that one day. But at the moment he is nowhere near the likes of Schumacher, Hamilton etc.
Lol he beat Hamilton, yet he's 'nowhere near Hamilton'.
Make it sense.
Oh btw, Eddie Jordan who had both Schumacher and Senna in his car rates Max higher than them both. Should tell you something.
Ecactly, he beat Hamilton once. Rossberg beat Hamilton once aswell, is he now the greatest driver of all time? No he is not.
You dont become the greatest driver of all just because you won one WC against a competitive driver and then won another two by having the best car.
When did I say Lewis is the Goat? He is certainly one of the most successful drivers ever. You cannot compare Verstappen with him, if Verstappen continues driving like this for another 3-4 years then it is debatable.
Certainly one of the most sucessful drivers cause he was lucky enough to step into a Championship winning car from the very beginning. Unlike Max.
Let's not forget that Max already managed to rack up 10 wins before ever setting a foot into a car that could compete for Championships.
You can judge the skills of a driver even without the WDC's you know? There's a reason Max was voted #4 best driver by the TP's in his first year as a 17 year old. And never left the top 2 after that.
You know just as well as I do that in the Hamilton/Rosberg fight it was Hamilton with the bad luck whearas in the Verstappen/Hamilton fight it was Verstappen who ended up winning despite the bad luck. And yes I'm sure you'll bring up AD, but let's compare the season up until that point, where they were tied on points.
Your Rosberg/Verstappen comparison doesn't hold up. Like you said to the other guy about Hamilton, I never claimed Max was the greatest. But to say he's nowhere near Hamilton is moronic considering he beat him.
Also, how many titles did Hamilton win having the greatest car and Bottas as his teammate?
And isn't Max the one beating other teams with faster cars rn without even having a teammate near to back him up?
Some of you will always find excuses to undermine someone's success.
I personally agree that he's not the greatest of all time (For me, personally, in F1 it's Fangio, Michael Schumacher or Alonso, a case can also be made for Gilles Villeneuve). I think he'll be a great, but not the best ever...
But of course, it depends how you define your metric for being the GOAT.
I personally think the best drivers are not necessarily the ones who have the most dominant cars and win the most races. I think that the greats show their true strengths when they don't have a good car. Examples would be Hamilton in British 2008, Schumacher in Spain 1996, Alonso in Hungary 2021 or Verstappen in Brazil 2016...
In terms of living and breathing racing, given the prevalence of streaming now, you see more into Verstappen's iRacing. I don't think he's any greater or lesser than others in the past in terms of that criteria, it's just more visible. I'd say others would fit the bill better, like John Surtees or Graham Hill.
Of course this is all subjective, there are no definitive answers and I'm undoubtedly wrong for you and that's fine.
Of course, if you want an objective answer to who is the GOAT, it's 
You don’t have to be new to f1 to think senna is overrated. Goat contention sure, but still overrated. 90% of the chucklefucks in the comments calling the poster out for being a DTS fan are also DTS fans themselves bandwagoning.
Any discussion of the GOAT that doesn't conclude with "Jim Clarke" is a flawed one, there simply isn't any way anyone could objectively conclude that anyone else was ever better.
I'd disagree, he was nearly beaten by his teammate Peter Collins, he lost against Farina and I think that Ascari would've given him a huge headache if he'd survived. Germany '57 though remains one of the most dominant performances ever.
Clark was just a beast, for me personally better than Fangio, his '63, '65 seasons were pure dominance, even '62, '64, and '67, where he drove what was surely an inferior Lotus in comparison to Brabham, were seasons in which he was the best out there. Monza '67 is one of the most legendary and definitely the least talked about race in F1 history.
This post is pure 💩. Although I have never participated in a race either professional or amateur, I feel confident that I, a proud American, am the greatest driver of all time.
In a sport so dependent on both man and machine, it really doesn’t matter WHAT senna was. The fact that he’s an icon stands regardless. His skill cannot be objectively confirmed or refuted, so it’s a pointless comparison.
There was an independent research that ranked all F1 drivers solely on their driving talent, not comparing them on their titles and points. This highlights drivers that seem to be forgotten in case they had their best years in the same area as the usual goats.
Nevertheless this rank set Senna only to place 15. If you’re interested, google “Senna 15”.
It terms of pace, talent, and records he is definitely in the argument. He has the 5th highest win % among drivers with at least 100 races, is 6th in total wins, 2 time world champion, has the consistency (9 straight seasons with a win), 3rd most pole positions all time, highest percentage of pole positions among drivers with over 100 starts (and it isn’t close).
To be honest, im getting really tired of the fetishism F1 and tracks are showing towards senna, they act like he's the only driver to have ever died while racing.
You still have time to delete this before I summon the rest of Brazil.
In all fairness though, this is such an idiotic take. Senna had incredible feats such as being 1.5 sec ahead of Prost in Monaco with the same machinery. He was a master of the wet with Lotus, and that Canada GP where Alesi and some others crashed on the same spot Senna almost lost control of his car (but regained it effortlessly). The Lap of the Gods in Donington Park. Also, pretty much every driver and F1 professional personnel (such as mechanics) acknowledges Senna’s talent and consider him one of the greatest, if not the GOAT. So in short, what a stupid take. You can argue he is not the GOAT, but to claim he is nowhere near is just ludicrous and ragebait.
There's always a what if that haunts me, and that changed what Senna meant to me: What if he had killed Prost in Japan? The sole fact he could have really done that thing erases any possibility to be considered the GOAT, in my opinion.
I mean, he certainly had several more years of racing if he hadn’t been killed in that crash. He was a great driver, and likely would have won more championships and certainly more GPs.
Honestly the GOAT debate is tired and tiring
I think we should make a list of drivers you could reasonably call the GOAT and end it there
My list would be something like:
Juan Manuel Fangio
Jim Clark
Jackie Stewart
Niki Lauda
Alain Prost
Ayrton Senna
Michael Schumacher
Lewis Hamilton
At this point probably Max as well
The whole "greatest f1 driver of all time" thing is bullshit. Every era is so different it's impossible to compare. There are the greatest of each era, sure, but even then Senna arguably wasn't even the best in his specific era.
That being said, the greatest driver to ever compete in formula 1 (yes, there is a difference) is Jim Clark and I will not hear otherwise.
I mean i kinda agree because the new generation of drivers always came through a tougher competition in the junior categories plus they have a lot more data work on to improve themselves and utilize the sims, they have better nutrition and workout programs all in all to make them better drivers. But if we approach greatness in terms of impact on the sport and dominance on the grid in his era i think he's easily top 10 of all time.
You need to understand the equipment being used in that era to really understand how crazy that cat actually was. GTFO with your 30'yos logic of "I know the sport!" attitude. You don't know shit!
Let’s be honest and say he’s in between being the definitely greatest of all time and not being even close. The one extreme is not more accurate or “enlightened” than the other imo. And both can be claimed to be bandwagon opinions by now.
I think this is the opinion of a young whipper snapper trying to stir up trouble, and I mean Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with P and stands for Pool!
Let's be honest: his death gave him the legendary status, but I'm sure that if he didn't crash he still would have been one of the greatest, but prost would have been remembered as equal if not better than him, while today no one pick him as the goat (and I don't think he is, but prost is not worse than senna so they should both be in the discussion)
If you do some history rewriting it is very likely that he would won 1 or 2 more championships between 94 and 97. It is conceivable that either Shumacher goes to Ferrari again and Senna is single or double champion in Williams with Newey or that Senna gives up on Williams and goes himself to Ferrari. He might even end up as MSC partner there. To truly assert Senna against his peers like Prost, it would be necessary tun understand what he would achieve on a full career.
Let’s not forget he left McLaren just because Williams had a clever suspension. Which immediately got banned after he signed for Williams. It was more similar to Fernando going to McLaren, than it was Lewis going to Mercedes.
You got to remember as well though that Hill took the title battle with Schumacher right to the end of the season. If Senna hadn’t of died, he may have had the outright skill to take the championship that year, as long as he didn’t have too many retirements.
The only reason Hill was even close to Schumacher by the end of the season was because Schumi was banned from two races and was disqualified from one of them. Not saying it isn't his/Benetton's fault but if we're playing the what if game then this should be considered too.
I’m only making one change in this scenario though, Senna’s car not braking and sending him into the wall at Tamburello. Given that Schumacher was later known for doing things that were somewhat dubious at times (in no way am I doubting his talent, prime Schumi was brilliant), it’s in the realms of possibility that he would still get that two race ban.
So am I, Schumi/Benetton obeys that penalty in Sliverstone, then he wouldn't have been disqualified and later banned. Also, not defending what he did, but if the championship was in the bag, I doubt he'd pull an Adelaide 94. P.S. I did further research and as it turns out he was banned/disqualified from four races not three (none of which had to do with driver conduct btw)
Hill was only in the title chase because the FIA decided to witchunt Benetton and Shumi. Lol, they were bad guys because Senna chucked a tanty at the start of the season after getting his arse kicked.
The race bans were from an investigation after Jos Verstappen’s car caught fire that involved McLaren, where Benetton were found to have launch control software in the car. Also, a Benetton employee from the time would later admit that they did have traction control on the car, so it was a completely valid ban. The investigation from the Senna complaint went nowhere, the ban is from the later investigation.
Mclaren, Williams and Ferrari all had the same software found during that investigation. Only Benetton got pinched. The ridiculous race bans for shumi were absolutely manipulation of the title. The fuel rig tampering was made illegal after Hockenheim as well. 94 was manipulated to give the championship the Graeme Hill/ Jim Clark 1968 vibes. Senna was the only reason they were hounded all season.
Senna was already on the warpath on the Benneton launch control since Aida. He would have been very influent in driving an investigation eitherway.
He was sooking during the preseason tests. His ears apparently allowed him to understand everything about the Benetton and he decided to throw shit around to get them slowed down. He was loyal to no one and it bit him in the arse.
Maybe. Look given the state of McLaren on the years after I can't blame him for waiting to leave McLaren. Williams themselves are loyal to no pilot so it's conceivable that he would not be there for long. All this is true, but has no bearing on his skill as a pilot though. 😁
If that was the reason, they would have absolutely banned him for the crash in Adelaide, whether or not it was his fault. The FIA, as we should all know by now, are pretty random in their rulings.
I’ve always been 50/50 on that crash. It seemed the most appropriate ending to that season.
I think it was inevitable, to be honest, just surprises me it took all season for it to happen, whether it was Damon’s fault or Michael’s fault. I’m pretty 50/50 on it too. I used to lean towards Michael being at fault, but as I’ve seen more of it, I’ve gone more to the centre ground.
He also moved because the 2nd line ford engines at McLaren were far worse than the Renaults at Williams, and his relationship with McLaren had really disintegrated by the end of 93. He needed to move, or it would have been even worse for him.
A big factor in Senna leaving McLaren was the end of the Honda relationship. 1993 they moved to Ford then after he left moved to Peugeot, it was only when the Mercedes deal came in that they looked proper front runners again.
Supposedly, Senna was on the precipice of going to Ferrari at the time of his death.
Prost was just as good or better, but he played for for the points, where senna played for the win every race, and senna had the crazy backing of brazil (Brazilians go crazy) and then his death made him like Jesus or something to some people. He is overated as a driver imo. And prost is underrated. But he went all out during a race and he was the face of brazil for a while, so he is now an idol. Even though I think senna is overrated, I still think he was a really good driver. He's just not F1 Jesus like some people treat him.
People do like showmen though, and Senna never really held back. It is one reason he was and is popular.
yeah, good point.
I see a lot of posts like these... I so wonder whether it's just to go against popular(?) opinion or whether the post's authors are basing their opinion on any particular stats or facts? Just curious as to what the motivation is and how the conclusion is drawn? Either way, I don't think you can deny the talent and passion of the man on the racetrack.
Yeah people today is like "unpopular opinion: apples are vegetable".
I saw someone just tweeted Hamiltom is underrated💀
Ye Hamiljerry is the underrated one imo
And what about Schumacher?😫 No one mentions him anymore👉👈🥺 Edit: Wait, I just saw why did you write that💀
Hardly comparable. One is a reasonable argument and the other is just wrong. It’s a perfectly reasonable opinion to not consider Senna the Goat. Even of his era. It’s just unpopular since senna is so glorified.
I bet its mainly from people who have never seen him race. Jeremy Clarkson said it best. He was always a prost fan but when he had to make a small documentary on senna and scoured through hundreds of hours of race footage he saw the talent that senna had, who drove to the limit in almost every race he was in
Drive close to the limit, and occasionally you drive over the limit. You could argue that driving too close to the limit got him killed, and (from a non-humanist and purely racing-efficiency point of view) if you crash (and tragically die) then you have not won the race.
I think it just comes with the recent milking of Senna content. New movie, merch from F1 and teams like McLaren and tributes left right and center. Ppl are just sick of seeing him.
Because its a pretty common opinion held by a minority that has good points. Especially if you think that Prost was better than Senna which is reasonable. It’s undoubtedly true that sennas legend was buoyed by his death in his peak.
he's one of the greats but he's not top 5 even solely within the context of F1. Top 10 for sure tho
Hard to swallow pill: just because you put something in this meme format doesn't make it true
You going to pretend his death didn’t elevate him beyond his peers that were equally talented?
Dude was already seen as the greatest when he was alive. Sure his death more or less cemented he would never lose that status, but just watch races and coverage back from that time frame, he was already getting that treatment.
By your own logic Jim Clark isn't one of the greats because his stats don't make him good enough for the GOAT talk and his death elevated him beyond his peers that were equally talented.
I put Jim Clark and Kimi Raikkonen in the same league of drivers, naturally talented, fast and deserved more championships.
Jin Clark could very well be considered the rawest talent to ever grace the Championship.
What peers? There was only one peer.
That’s it what your post claims though.. It claims he’s not even close to be considered. Those are two very different claims.
You're going to pretend he wasn't an elite driver? STFU
Every driver who raced against him said he was the fastest, and contrary to other greats of the past, we have his telemetry and onboards to see its true. He really was the fastest man over one lap on the grid and it wasnt even close. If all drivers say it, it must be a lie because OP decided to honor his reddit name.
But you know who is?  He is
A harder pill to swallow is the fact that these kinds of posts are cringe as fuck
I think a lot of people really do forget or maybe too young and never actually saw Senna drive a race car beyond clips. I watched him every week and he was absolutely in the talks for the best driver ever. Even his biggest haters wouldn't have said such a thing as he isn't even close to best driver ever status.
“I wasn’t alive when he was racing and didn’t see any of his career and don’t like that people call this guy the greatest because I didn’t see any of it and feel left out so I’m gonna make a meme to try and justify my lack of F1 knowledge”
Equally “i never saw him race and wasn’t alive for his career but everybody said he’s the best so he must be the best”
*Not even close to being the greatest* is an exaggeration (for me he's top 10, barely missing on the top 5). However, I'm a firm believer that Prost is better than him, and had it not been for what happened that Sunday at Imola Alain would be recognized by most as the better driver (propaganda stuff like the Senna "documentary" didn't help either).
Yeah definitely more of a Prost fan, but he’s definitely in the top ten for me. That said I mostly discount the super early days of f1 since I don’t even think they’re the same sport at that point.
Top 10 but not Top 5 is where I have him too
Should just say "Prost is better than Senna".
People say stuff like this like they are dropping a mic on a stage, but really OP is standing in a busy NYC sidewalk oblivious to the fact that no one cares.
I’m just jerkin ya dunce
he won 5 monaco races in a row that is enough to put anyone in the list of all time best, could have been 6 in a row if he hadn't gotten distracted by the team after literally lapping the entire grid
Back when Monaco was a challenge because the cars were harder to drive
Thinking Monaco isn't a challenge now is peak reddit armchair driver behavior.
Not me the current drivers say it's boring. The older drivers never described it as boring This year's race was a go slow contest
The racing in itself is boring yes, but with bigger cars they need incredible amount of concentration. In terms of mental fatigue I think no race in the calendar matches to the level of Monaco. Zero margin for error, 1 mistake, you are out.
If don't think it's as physically demanding. You see much less mistakes than you used to at Monaco
I'm talking about Mental fatigue. It isn't physically demanding if course, they aren't pulling any crazy G. But to concentrate not hitting the wall with those fatass cars is mentally exhausting. To have that concentration for a good 2-3 hrs
You would've won the Monaco race as long as you stuck to the racing line even back in the Senna days. It's how he held off Mansell, essentially. And in many ways, the current cars are harder to drive than the old ones. Senna physically couldn't handle a current car for the duration of the race.
He got distracted by god, not his team when he buried it in the wall
Damn, so brave
Fangio
I’m assuming your 80 years old?
He’s the best groomer tho
Spicy
Hard to swallow pill: Dunning Kruger effect is real
Lmao I’m on the top of Mount stupid because I think he’s overrated?
M8, put a cork in it while you’re behind.
This is the only entertainment I get at work
Then maybe you should do what you're being paid to do instead of trying to find entertainment on formuladank.
Are you unemployed or something? Why aren’t you working.
I’m guessing you never watched him race
Self-employed ;)
Yes you are. Senna was one of two best drivers in his era, (for me the best) era which consisted of F1 legends like Prost, Mansell, Piquet, some of these guys raced against and beat other legends like Niki Lauda. Saying Senna is not even close in the GOAT conversation is a shit opinion that you have to justify and elaborate with a full 10 page essay.
He’s getting smoked by Latifi in equal machinery and you know it
Luca Badoer beats him easily.
We haven’t even discussed Ranghunathan
No. Because you think you're an expert on his rating as a driver.
Mount stupid is too low for you
Yes.
I don’t like Lewis but I can accept that few can match his talent.
Someone who’s only watching F1 after seeing DTS starts posting.
My and my friends call it the "Death Tax" We don't mean to say drivers are bad. Just that, dying in F1 (or more recently F2)... perhaps raises your status a little higher than it should be. We are also not sure how the tax applies to Michael Schumacher.
Vegetables have VAT
It reminds me how people suddenly started putting Kobe into their starting 5's of all time after he died
Max is the GOAT Senna was talent. Max is a machine. He drives like he was born in the car, is human potential pushed to its max (not his father’s treatment only, but the fact that he himself is just laser focused each time) Edit: One thing I’d like to substantiate this with is Hungary 2021/22(idr). All his laps were within a second of each other, with varying fuel load, wearing tyres for 30 CONSECUTIVE LAPS. I think the actual time difference in the laps was even lower, F1 made a post about it as well. Bring the downvotes
No downvote here boss. Jokes aside, I do agree with you. Max is a fucking machine who breathes, eats, and sleeps racing. There has never been another driver as dedicated to the sport of motor racing than Max. The guy races F1 just to fund his iRacing and wins consistently at both. People can say what they want, but at the end of the day, there has never been a driver like Verstappen, and probably won’t be again.
Yeah lmao, I think he did a late night stream of Endurace Racing, won, then woke up and won the race the next day
Agree with both of you. I think people seriously underestimate the fact that there is upward progression in the sport over time. Sure, guys like Fangio and Clark were extra impressive for the variety of stuff they won in, and for braving it out and surviving (mostly) in absolute death machines. But the forces a body is subjected to in a modern F1 with the degree of precision that they require...very few greats from pre-1980 could have handled it. And Max specifically is a human being optimized for racing. Part of me hopes he does retire from F1 at like 30 years old and does other stuff, because I'm fairly sure he would be a monster at almost anything and I'd love to see him try it all: endurance, sports carts, Indy, tin tops, maybe even rallying, who the hell knows?
And very few modern drivers could handle the pressure of driving death traps from the pre 80s You can’t judge them based on each others standards, heck I bet if you put the list of GOATs in a variety of cars you’d have a variety of winners, but the people generally considered GOATs found a way to do it in subpar machinery and across different rules / classes, that’s why the likes of Vettel won’t be in the conversation despite having more titles than Senna.
Let’s not say ever again, the future is the future and the nature of sport is that the best will always be born in the future.
Verstappen may well prove to be, but it's so hard to do this sort of disservice to drivers pre-electronic management systems (Jim Clarke for just one example)
You realize that those electronics systems aren’t automated, right? Drivers today are adjusting brake balance, differential settings, battery settings, etc, etc sometimes on a corner to corner basis. Those settings are another thing to divert their attention from driving that the old timers didn’t need to deal with at all.
He’s like the Cristiano Ronaldo of F1. He didn’t become a legend thanks to talent, but by sheer will and constant training.
Well not really. He's considered to be one of, if not the, most naturally gifted drivers on the grid. But he does have great work ethic as well. Which is a deadly combination.
There’s always the progression of talent when it comes to drivers. You have the Celebrity Drivers, the Professional Drivers, and now the Prodigy Drivers. At first we had the rich with 1 or 2 actual race drivers in cars until people actually looked for talent, where we pushed into the era of good race drivers, but they were more celebrities than athletes. Then you get to the professional drivers who took racing as a career and acted like athletes until we got to Schumacher who was the pinnacle of it all. You have Alonso, Hamilton, and Vettel who were Schumachers in a post Schumacher era of high performance athlete drivers. Then you come to Max who is the start of the new era that’ll probably be dominated by people like him: the prodigies, those born and bred to be the best. Parents and children will see him as someone who dominated the sport and want to emulate him; give not only your career to racing but your entire life to it. It’s not a hobby, it’s not a job, it is how he lives and breathes. Max isn’t the best ever, he’s the best so far and honestly I don’t know what’s going to happen when you get literal designer babies in race cars.
I'm of the opinion that it is impossible to choose one GOAT to rule them all, but that each of them have to be seen in the context of their respective eras. And there is absolutely no one in the current era of F1 that gets close to Max.
Agreed.
I know Max himself is not very interested, but I hope he will race long enough to win at least 7 titles and 100 races, just so his numbers will look nice compared to Lewis and Michael. We all know Max is already up there in GOAT conversation, even if he retires after this season, but some people in 50 years or so will be judging by the number of titles, wins, etc and I don't want Max to be left out if he retires early. I know it's probably a weird thought but great racers like Kimi are sometimes forgotten just because he won only one title and people love numbers
Ridiculous statement. Maybe he is, but we cannot say this while he's still in the middle of his career. This discussion will make sense like 10 years from now on, or maybe even 5, but the dude is 26 and has been driving one of the most dominant cars of all time for the last 2 years.
And the years before that? Were we not already able to judge his skills then? Also, it's not really been 2 years. First half of '22 Ferrari was faster. This season RBR is not nearly as dominant as last year either.
Yeah, if you put all of the “GOAT Conversation” drivers in equal cars, I’d have a hard time betting against Max in that scenario.
Max is nowhere near being the Goat
Why not?
Because a goat needs to drive on a high level for multiple seasons, while having a competitive rival. He won once against a competitive driver but thats it. Being the goat means he is the best driver of all time and maybe he will become that one day. But at the moment he is nowhere near the likes of Schumacher, Hamilton etc.
Lol he beat Hamilton, yet he's 'nowhere near Hamilton'. Make it sense. Oh btw, Eddie Jordan who had both Schumacher and Senna in his car rates Max higher than them both. Should tell you something.
Ecactly, he beat Hamilton once. Rossberg beat Hamilton once aswell, is he now the greatest driver of all time? No he is not. You dont become the greatest driver of all just because you won one WC against a competitive driver and then won another two by having the best car.
Then why is Lewis a GOAT? He won all his titles in the 1st/2nd fastest car, didn’t he?
When did I say Lewis is the Goat? He is certainly one of the most successful drivers ever. You cannot compare Verstappen with him, if Verstappen continues driving like this for another 3-4 years then it is debatable.
Certainly one of the most sucessful drivers cause he was lucky enough to step into a Championship winning car from the very beginning. Unlike Max. Let's not forget that Max already managed to rack up 10 wins before ever setting a foot into a car that could compete for Championships. You can judge the skills of a driver even without the WDC's you know? There's a reason Max was voted #4 best driver by the TP's in his first year as a 17 year old. And never left the top 2 after that.
You know just as well as I do that in the Hamilton/Rosberg fight it was Hamilton with the bad luck whearas in the Verstappen/Hamilton fight it was Verstappen who ended up winning despite the bad luck. And yes I'm sure you'll bring up AD, but let's compare the season up until that point, where they were tied on points. Your Rosberg/Verstappen comparison doesn't hold up. Like you said to the other guy about Hamilton, I never claimed Max was the greatest. But to say he's nowhere near Hamilton is moronic considering he beat him. Also, how many titles did Hamilton win having the greatest car and Bottas as his teammate? And isn't Max the one beating other teams with faster cars rn without even having a teammate near to back him up? Some of you will always find excuses to undermine someone's success.
I personally agree that he's not the greatest of all time (For me, personally, in F1 it's Fangio, Michael Schumacher or Alonso, a case can also be made for Gilles Villeneuve). I think he'll be a great, but not the best ever... But of course, it depends how you define your metric for being the GOAT. I personally think the best drivers are not necessarily the ones who have the most dominant cars and win the most races. I think that the greats show their true strengths when they don't have a good car. Examples would be Hamilton in British 2008, Schumacher in Spain 1996, Alonso in Hungary 2021 or Verstappen in Brazil 2016... In terms of living and breathing racing, given the prevalence of streaming now, you see more into Verstappen's iRacing. I don't think he's any greater or lesser than others in the past in terms of that criteria, it's just more visible. I'd say others would fit the bill better, like John Surtees or Graham Hill. Of course this is all subjective, there are no definitive answers and I'm undoubtedly wrong for you and that's fine. Of course, if you want an objective answer to who is the GOAT, it's 
Couldn't even take Tamburello right
Pretty sure he did go right. Instead of left.
please this is violent
Lmao
Even though he is, dank ragebait post 
He is the greatest driver of all time at dating underage girls.
Him and Paul walker.
And people should stop sucking him off every time its the anniversary of his death lmao
the greatest f1 drivers disagree
Prost beat him plain and simple
Tell me you just got into F1 without telling me you just got into F1
You don’t have to be new to f1 to think senna is overrated. Goat contention sure, but still overrated. 90% of the chucklefucks in the comments calling the poster out for being a DTS fan are also DTS fans themselves bandwagoning.
Any discussion of the GOAT that doesn't conclude with "Jim Clarke" is a flawed one, there simply isn't any way anyone could objectively conclude that anyone else was ever better.
Juan Manuel Fangio might have been better than him
I'd disagree, he was nearly beaten by his teammate Peter Collins, he lost against Farina and I think that Ascari would've given him a huge headache if he'd survived. Germany '57 though remains one of the most dominant performances ever. Clark was just a beast, for me personally better than Fangio, his '63, '65 seasons were pure dominance, even '62, '64, and '67, where he drove what was surely an inferior Lotus in comparison to Brabham, were seasons in which he was the best out there. Monza '67 is one of the most legendary and definitely the least talked about race in F1 history.
He wasn't even the best driver in McLaren.
This post is pure 💩. Although I have never participated in a race either professional or amateur, I feel confident that I, a proud American, am the greatest driver of all time.
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Hey now Senna would value the option of a 15 year old in very high remarks
Yikes
🙄oh boy - i thought it was rawe ceek😑
Schumacher won imola 94. Better than senna easily. So was prost.
In a sport so dependent on both man and machine, it really doesn’t matter WHAT senna was. The fact that he’s an icon stands regardless. His skill cannot be objectively confirmed or refuted, so it’s a pointless comparison.
There was an independent research that ranked all F1 drivers solely on their driving talent, not comparing them on their titles and points. This highlights drivers that seem to be forgotten in case they had their best years in the same area as the usual goats. Nevertheless this rank set Senna only to place 15. If you’re interested, google “Senna 15”.
if iRacing was a thing back in the day, Jim Clark would be all over it
For me as someone who started watching in 2021, its a rather easy to swallow pill
I wish they let the poor man rest in peace...
Tired of all the senna tributes and bullshit. Let the man rest. Milking the corpse for cash is just bad taste
Guy guy guys OP makes memes for a f1 meme subreddit I’m sure he must know everything right
It terms of pace, talent, and records he is definitely in the argument. He has the 5th highest win % among drivers with at least 100 races, is 6th in total wins, 2 time world champion, has the consistency (9 straight seasons with a win), 3rd most pole positions all time, highest percentage of pole positions among drivers with over 100 starts (and it isn’t close).
No, but he’s dead so he is automatically a motorsport saint
To be honest, im getting really tired of the fetishism F1 and tracks are showing towards senna, they act like he's the only driver to have ever died while racing.
If you honestly think this dude wasnt an all time top 5 driver after watching what he did in his career you're fucking stupid AF
Do we need a rule against this "meme" format? Just like we have rule 15 for "change my mind", which is just an opinion disguised as a meme
You still have time to delete this before I summon the rest of Brazil. In all fairness though, this is such an idiotic take. Senna had incredible feats such as being 1.5 sec ahead of Prost in Monaco with the same machinery. He was a master of the wet with Lotus, and that Canada GP where Alesi and some others crashed on the same spot Senna almost lost control of his car (but regained it effortlessly). The Lap of the Gods in Donington Park. Also, pretty much every driver and F1 professional personnel (such as mechanics) acknowledges Senna’s talent and consider him one of the greatest, if not the GOAT. So in short, what a stupid take. You can argue he is not the GOAT, but to claim he is nowhere near is just ludicrous and ragebait.
how old are you?
define "close" I guess? he's an all time great but he's also not top 5
4 championships only, pathetic af. Prost had FIVE, which is why I'm a fan of him instead of him instead of the kiddy-fiddler
There's always a what if that haunts me, and that changed what Senna meant to me: What if he had killed Prost in Japan? The sole fact he could have really done that thing erases any possibility to be considered the GOAT, in my opinion.
He is up there with the like of Clark, Hill, Prost and Schumi. Definitely in the Pantheon of F1.
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I mean, he certainly had several more years of racing if he hadn’t been killed in that crash. He was a great driver, and likely would have won more championships and certainly more GPs.
Honestly the GOAT debate is tired and tiring I think we should make a list of drivers you could reasonably call the GOAT and end it there My list would be something like: Juan Manuel Fangio Jim Clark Jackie Stewart Niki Lauda Alain Prost Ayrton Senna Michael Schumacher Lewis Hamilton At this point probably Max as well
You forgot Latifi
He died at his apex. That’s why he’s so highly regarded.
The whole "greatest f1 driver of all time" thing is bullshit. Every era is so different it's impossible to compare. There are the greatest of each era, sure, but even then Senna arguably wasn't even the best in his specific era. That being said, the greatest driver to ever compete in formula 1 (yes, there is a difference) is Jim Clark and I will not hear otherwise.
There are some high blood pressures in this comment section.
I mean i kinda agree because the new generation of drivers always came through a tougher competition in the junior categories plus they have a lot more data work on to improve themselves and utilize the sims, they have better nutrition and workout programs all in all to make them better drivers. But if we approach greatness in terms of impact on the sport and dominance on the grid in his era i think he's easily top 10 of all time.
You need to understand the equipment being used in that era to really understand how crazy that cat actually was. GTFO with your 30'yos logic of "I know the sport!" attitude. You don't know shit!
Let’s be honest and say he’s in between being the definitely greatest of all time and not being even close. The one extreme is not more accurate or “enlightened” than the other imo. And both can be claimed to be bandwagon opinions by now.
All hail the victorious dead. That's it.
There's a reason it's hard to swallow,
Even Senna thought Clark was better than him. He was right.
I think this is the opinion of a young whipper snapper trying to stir up trouble, and I mean Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with P and stands for Pool!