F1 legend Murray Walker says Lewis Hamilton is better than Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna
A legendary figure in the world of Formula One has made a massive call on where Lewis Hamilton sits in the pantheon of greatest ever drivers. Do you agree?
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Legendary Formula One commentator Murray Walker has declared Lewis Hamilton a better driver than Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna because he never adopted their “highly debatable driving tactics”.
Speaking ahead of this week’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone, the former voice of F1 said Hamilton was on track to becoming the greatest of all time, declaring the sport had never “seen anybody like it before”.
While he conceded the debate over who the greatest F1 driver of all-time was difficult comparing drivers from different eras, Murray said there was no arguing against the statistical body of evidence Hamilton had amassed.
Hamilton is just four wins away from equalling Schumacher’s record of 91 career wins and he is fast closing in on the German great’s record of seven world championships.
“(Juan Manuel) Fangio took a lot of beating, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart ... I could go on. Which is the best? I really don’t know,” Walker told the In the Fast Lane podcast.
“I used to say Fangio, I think I’m going to have to say very shortly Lewis Hamilton.
“If you look at it in terms of statistics, he has already got more poles than Michael Schumacher, he has got at least three years (left) in him – if he doesn’t hurt himself or leave Mercedes for some reason or they decide to stop – in which case he has got another three championships ahead of him.
“So statistically he will become the greatest.”
But Walker said it was Hamilton’s “clean as a whistle” driving which he felt made him stand alone in the sport’s history.
“He is also, in my opinion – and this is very contentious indeed – he is better than either Schumacher or Senna because both of them … adopted at various times in their career, highly debatable driving tactics,” Walker said.
“Like Schumacher stopping deliberately at Monaco … like Schumacher colliding with (Jacques) Villeneuve at Jerez in 1997, like Senna with (Alain) Prost in 1990 in Japan.
“Lewis Hamilton has never been anything like that. He has always been clean as a whistle, he is an extremely nice, gigantically talented driver and I don’t think we’ve ever seen anybody ever like it before.”
Famously excitable behind the microphone, Walker admitted he would have gone “absolutely bananas” calling the final laps of last weekend’s British Grand Prix when race winner Hamilton limped him to the finish line with a punctured tyre.
While acknowledging the dominance of Hamilton and his Mercedes team, Walker predicted it was going to be a while before the Silver Arrow’s rivals Ferrari could be competitive again.
“They clearly have not got the right people in all the right places,” Walker said.
“Reshuffles always take time to take effect. Sadly I am not expecting Ferrari to be competitive before 2022.”
TYRE SHAMBLES BLAME GAME
Pirelli said that problems with its tyres late in the British Grand Prix, which saw Lewis Hamilton cross the line on three wheels, was due to unusually long use of the second set of tyres.
Hamilton clung on to the victory on Sunday after driving with one tyre in shreds for most of the final lap, while his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz Jr of McLaren also suffered punctures on a hot afternoon at Silverstone which saw the safety car come out twice.
Bottas was second when his tyre disintegrated and Sainz was up to fourth when his fell to bits. Both finished outside the points.
In a statement Pirelli, the exclusive tyre supplier for Formula One, said that the “key reason” behind the tyre problems was “a set of individual race circumstances that led to an extremely long use of the second set of tyres”.
“The second safety car period prompted nearly all the teams to anticipate their planned pit stop and so carry out a particularly long final stint: around 40 laps, which is more than three-quarters the total race length on one of the most demanding tracks of the calendar,” the Italian manufacturer said.
“Combined with the notably increased pace of the 2020 Formula 1 cars (pole position was 1.2 seconds faster compared to 2019) this made the final laps of the British Grand Prix especially tough, as a consequence of the biggest forces ever seen on tyres generated by the fastest Formula 1 cars in history.
“The overall result was the most challenging operating conditions for tyres. These led to the front-left tyre (which is well-known for working hardest at Silverstone) being placed under maximum stress after a very high number of laps, with the resulting high wear meaning that it was less protected from the extreme forces in play.” For the second race at Silverstone next Sunday, which will officially mark the 70th anniversary of the creation of the F1 World Championship, Pirelli has already confirmed that the three types of tyre on offer will be one notch harder than those used in last Sunday’s GP.
Pirelli said the tyre set up would also be reviewed and altered, with, for example, a higher minimum pressure to reduce stress on the tyres.
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