MPH: F1 has its best drivers ever, says McLaren boss. He has a point

At the Sao Paulo Grand Prix McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the following:

“I think what we see in this season in Formula 1, in terms of competitiveness — and this is something that you may pick for a little bit of analysis — I don’t recall that there was such a competitive pool of drivers in any other season.

“The new generation of drivers, they’re just so good, and now you have seven, eight drivers which are at world championship level. Like I say, I’m not sure this has happened before.”

Well, there’s a challenge. It is indeed a good subject for a bit of analysis. We do indeed have a remarkable crop at the moment with Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso proven multiple champions — and Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri all capable of winning a title. We might be able to add Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon to that list and soon probably the starring rookies Isack Hadjar, Oliver Bearman, Gabriel Bortoleto and Kimi Antonelli.

If we look back at the history of the world championship and divide it into eras, we can say that while the depth of talent down the grid in the 1950s was less than today it witnessed one of the very greatest, Juan Manuel Fangio, at the height of his powers being challenged early in his career by the stunningly fast Alberto Ascari and towards the end of it by the genius of Stirling Moss. There were other great drivers — Froilan Gonzalez, Tony Brooks, Peter Collins, Mike Hawthorn — but take a look at the pace difference between the great and the good, when pushing up to the limit carried altogether darker consequences than today, and it’s apparent that there was a sharper drop-off from great to good than now. Back then it would be no disgrace as a team-mate to be 1sec per lap or more slower than someone such as Fangio or Ascari. That would get you podiums and occasional race victories. Today it would get you the sack.

In the transition to the rear-engined F1 a new generation was initially measured against the towering ability of Moss — a challenge which Jack Brabham, Jim Clark and John Surtees in particular were measuring up to — before Stirling’s career-ending accident early in 1962. But a truly great generation formed in those years. In addition to Surtees, Brabham and Clark — who came to rival Fangio’s status as a contender for the greatest of all time — came Dan Gurney and Graham Hill. Four of those five were world champions and Gurney could have been with better team choices. Denny Hulme sneaked an under-the-radar title in there in ’67. They overlapped with the thrusting new generation of Jackie Stewart, Jochen Rindt, Jacky Ickx and Chris Amon in the late ‘60s. Stewart came to dominate that generation but got out while he still could, having witnessed some horrible carnage. That tended to limit the career lengths of drivers – even those who survived unscathed tended not to hang around too long.

As Stewart retired with a then record 27 grand prix wins, the generation which had been competing hard with him latterly came to have maybe even greater depth: Emerson Fittipaldi, Ronnie Peterson, Mario Andretti, Niki Lauda, James Hunt and Jody Scheckter were the acknowledged top dogs. But on any given day they may have been beaten by Carlos Reutemann, John Watson, Patrick Depailler, Jacques Laffite or Carlos Pace. Then there were the super-talented Shadow duo Tom Pryce and Jean-Pierre Jarier and latterly the era-transitioning Alan Jones. Not all of them survived, and perhaps there wasn’t the overriding talisman genius – no Fangio, Clark or Stewart – but that mid 70s era featured a fabulous depth of talent.