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Henry,
In F1 the driver who can best prepare his car and team will usually win the WDC..see Damon Hill, not the best racer by far, nor the quickest, but in talking to those who worked with him and others (like MS) certainly one of the best ever development drivers. He was able to get his car onto the front row and drive from the front, watching him cut thro traffic was painful.
It is the fundamental reason why MS won so often, he crafted a very good team and worked very hard to develop the car he wanted race...that gave him the best possible chance to win WDCs, even when his car was not as good as others.. like the McLaren in 2001. His speed and racing ability ensured he won a record number of WDCs, even if with a 'better character' he could have had another one or perhaps two championships to his name (1997 and 2006)
FA did the same at Renault, it was there or there abouts with regard to McLaren in 2006, but KR, whilst a better racer and faster on race day was not as diligent as FA during testing and development; hence the car was not as reliable as the Renault....
You might believe, as an ex-pro that all you can do is turn up, drive as well as you can and hope for the best, but F1 allows the driver far more input, IF that is what they want to do.... MS wanted to, as did DH and as does FA, spending far more time with the team, talking to the designers and engineers about what they want to driver and how they do it...others like Jenson Button and KR have a more relaxed approach, leaving the designers to create the best they can with little additional input.
I would suggest that a good look at the results over the last decade suggests the teams that have the most driver input during the design and development of the car are those who have the majority of the success, is that luck, talent or hard work?
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