F1 has always been more about the car than the driver.
More so in the past than today, though.
It’s always been just about the furthest thing from a “spec” racing series.
Esp. in the old days (20 years or more ago). Very few rules compared to today. The cars on the grid were very different from each other (different tires, etc).
Today F1 does quite a bit to level the playing field and make a better “show.” Standardized tires, DRS, grid penalties, etc are a bit more “NASCAR” or IndyCar in philosophy.
I think back then it was easier to identify who the best drivers were.
People like Senna and Schumacher, they came onto teams with subpar cars and were very quick in them. They were able to make bad cars (and bad teams) into champions.
I only started watching F1 again a year ago. So I missed entirely the Vettel and Hamilton eras.

Benetton wasn’t great when Schumacher got to the team, was it? McLaren and Williams were dominant in then decade prior to Schumacher winning 2 championships for Benneton.
Then he went to Ferrari, which had a terrible car and hadn’t won a championship in decades, and made them into a multi Championship winning team. IMO no other driver could have done that at Ferrari.
Yes, nobody could win a championship in the worst car. But imo Schumacher could, and did, win in a car that wasn’t necessarily the very best.
(Idk about Hamilton, I never saw him until a year or so ago. But today, he doesn’t seem too exceptional, Russell seems just as quick or quicker).

You must be his brother, Mike.

I'd never seen his races back then.
But a few of them got put up temporarily by F1 in 2020.
Wow...
And not just his driving ability, but his warrior aura when the race went green.
I can see why he had so much hate when I first started reading about F1 on forums in the early 2000's.
Had no idea why before seeing those races.
Then again, I now also saw why he had such fanatical following.

Once RB finally gets caught and penalized for cheating, yes.

I'm not 100% on board with the fine print here, but that's fine... IMO when Schumi /Benetton came good, Williams had just killed Senna and were no longer allowed active suspension, Benetton they had a hell of an engineering team and (shhhhh) they cheated with traction control. They were never officially outed but everyone in the paddock knew from the sound of the engine cutting out, and I recall at some point scrutineers even found an incriminating menu in the software that was hastily removed ;-) Flavio was running it, need I say more ?

At Ferrari Schumi initially went nowhere until... Todt eventually built a team that built a car that even allowed Eddie Irvine to win (not exactly Senna). I still think it's the team/engineers/car more than the driver and the best drivers certtainly can mold a team to their liking and increase performance, there is no question those guys made it theirs and were better than their teammates - the ones they allowed in anyway... To me there has not been a Prost-Senna driver level team ever since. (irvine and barichello were never Schumacher, Bottas was never a hamilton, etc) Anyway, what were we talking about ?? ;-)

Nico and Alex were fairly feisty once Nico decided to push back on Alex's superior political position.
That was a solid inter team battle.

Haha, that’s where I usually end up on F1 driver discussions too. But it’s still fun.

I think without Schumacher Benneton would have 0 championships.

And Schumacher was a huge part of building that winning Ferrari car. He was highly involved in the technical aspects and development of cars, and worked more closely and longer hours with that than just about any driver. They hadn’t won in 20 years, and they probably wouldn’t have without him being there.

Anyways, I think Schumacher is the best modern era driver. Senna second. After that the debates can begin :D

Also, what a rivalry that would have been.
Both ruthless on the track, but the cold, calculating German vs. the fiery Brazilian would have been epic.

Schumacher was fiery as well.

Interesting topic, easy answer first, of course Hamilton will win again, he's not an 8x drivers champion, 103x race winner champion just from luck, he's an outstanding talent. All he needs is a level playing field with regards to car performance

It takes a heap more than a fast driver to win in F1, everything needs to be working at full power, not just the driver

For me in the last 25yrs only a few drivers have been capable of regularly out driving their car ie driving it faster than it really should go

That list in no particular order would be Schumacher, Hamilton, Verstappen and Alonso. Kimi occasionally when he was bothered but not Vettel

Sure. The odd race now and then but no more champ.