Which of the current F1 "young guns" line-up will be considered "legends"?
There is plenty of competition between the young guns at the moment. Perhaps another golden age in F1's talent pool. Who will be the next Brabham, Clark, Fangio, Lauda, Prost, Senna, Stewart?
Adrian Suti: Shows potential for greatness, but could go off the boil before he gets his break.
Heikki Kovalainen: A worthy successor to David Coultard of the driver who's not bad and generally an all round nice guy who's hard to hate and harder to support.
Lewis Hamilton: Already people have constrasting and strong opinions of him, if that doesnt define greatness, what does?
Nelson Piquet Junior: Sullying his fathers name with mediocrity.
Nico Rosberg: There have been faster Rosbergs...
Robert Kubica: If he was in a McLaren alongside Hamilton the red cars would fade to obscurity.
Sebastian Vettel: Will float around for a few years then go the way of Steffan Johanson. Who?
Although I voted Hamilton I think that it would be either Hamilton, Vettel or Kubica. Heck Sutil seems pretty good aswell. Vettel seems very good in that inferior car. Very good. Kubica is pretty damn consistent, Hamilton is crazy fast and in the wet no one can stop him, Sutil well I'm not so sure actually heh.
i know what you meant but possibly not the best way of phrasing things given how bellof's career finished and also he never realy had the chance to prove what he could do though given the power disadvantage the tyrrel had he certainly proved he had talent, according to his website he was offered a ferrari conrtact for the 86 season but he never had the chance to take it up
Kubica and Massa are the best drivers in F1 atm, consistent, quick and professional, neither of them are up with the greats though and like the lot they seem too clinical and too professional to be exciting.
Hamilton has been billed as a great, now seems to have got smug thinking he is Senna and with a bit of actual competition can't keep it together.
I actually didn't know that / had long forgotten. Substituted for another Steffan who actually did get the Ferrari drive and still faded into obscurity and as far as I know is still alive and kicking (racing indi cars last I heard)...
Adrian Sutil, considering the car he has been in compared to other drivers like Rosberg and Vettel he has done amazingly well, and I think if he got into a faster car he would be up there with Massa and Hamilton.
Yes, he is very good in a lot of races but he has also made several stupid mistakes this season. He didn't finish in 8 out of 12 races and I think it was due to driving errors in more than half of these races.
On the other side, I can't recall any really bad driving error by Vettel except Fuji last season. Might be my brain, though.
Sutil : We'll never know as long as he's in a Force India.
Kovalainen : Nice guy, not amazingly fast but keeps it on the island. Would be really suited to Le Mans IMO. Oh yes, and he likes Nightwish
Hamilton : Most likely of the lot to win a WDC by far.
Piquet Jr : He'll be driving touring cars before too long, or going to NASCAR.
Rosberg : Don't think he'll be a top line driver.
Kubica : Very good, wether or not he will win a WDC depends on what car he is in, and wether BMW improve or not.
Vettel : Difficult to tell, but he appears to be rather fast and is doing better than his team-mate. Jury is out on if he's outpacing the RBRs on talent or horsepower.
ajp, as much as 90%+ of your posts are dead on accurate, I wouldn't exactly call Felipe Massa consistant, he's made plenty of unforced errors and span more times than a Dead or Alive record on repeat at Silverstone.
EDITS
Zeug, I wouldn't count Timo Glock in this category as he first raced in F1 in 2004.
However, where is Kazuki Nakajima? He is quite aggressive, but can be fast (although at times Rosberg can give him a Grade A pasting) - I think he would be suited to touring car racing.
Massa is consistent? Maybe until the rain comes, then he is nowhere.
I agree that most modern drivers are corporate controlled apes, that why we need someone in like Takuma Sato, reasonably fast but prone to spectacular accidents.
Kubica kind of reminds me of Alonso at Renault back in 03-04, he was on his way up, and luckily he was also in a team that was on its way up, rather like Kubica at BMW.
All it would take is for BMW to somehow get on a level with Mclaren and Ferrari, or for Kubica to move to either those teams, he doesn't seem to make too many silly mistakes so I reckon Kubica could end up more succesful than Hamilton. Hamilton can be astonishingly fast, but he sometimes has a bad attitude and often throws it away, Hamilton is a flawed champion, whereas Kubica seem to be more reliable, if Kubica and Hamilton both drover for Mclaren I would bet on Kubica being more likely to wrestly the cup from the reds.
OT: I would desperately like to see Button in a good car, he showed what he was capable of in 04, shame hes stuck in the most horrible car on the grid, and his chance to make a big break looks to have gone now, someone please hire him away from Honda to save his career.
Currently, Lewis is the young gun. He is an alien and should be racing space ships.
The NEXT big thing: Vettel. If all goes well with carrier and car, i think he could do alot. At the same time, I and many people could be blind just because he has done well in a poor car, doesn't mean 100% he will do good in a good car. (YES i know that sounds weird, but thats the truth).
And with Massa + Wet weather. I am still going to say he is the same old driver. Not a top wet weather driver, but hes just a normal wet weather driver. It was wet in Monaco, he didn't do bad there. He made one error, but I'm sure alot of others did too, you just dont see EVERY error on TV. You cant think less of him just after one bad race IMO. (IE, Silverstone..)
Pardon the ignorance, but can you elaborate more on Bellof's career? I tried googling him but nothing specific came up, unfortunately.
On topic, I think Vettel, Kubica and Hamilton are the best three out of the list. I also agree with aoun regarding Massa - a very respectable performance in Monaco's rain. Remember that he had a rebuilt car at Silverstone, so hard to tell if it was driver's fault completely. I admit that I'm a Massa fan and hope he clinches the title(s), but since he's been in F1 for a while, he doesn't quite fit on the list, I guess.
To be honest it really has to be Hamilton. He has shown he has the speed and also more importantly, he´s shown he can be a ruthless selfcentered son of a b... erm gun on the track, who´ll do anything to win. And the most succesful drivers in recent times (don´t know about the early days) have been that... Senna, Prost, Schumi, Alonso.
I considered Nakajima, but decided that he didn't have the same level of success in lower formulae that the others had. His performance at Williams has been quite good thus far, but not outstanding.
I discounted Glock because he made his debut in 2004, and he's no longer young in comparison to Hamilton, Vettel, et al. But then, Adrian Sutil is only a year younger...
On hindsight, I should have included both Naka and Glock.
For my own opinion, I think Hamilton is undoubtedly the top pick. But I voted for Kubica, due to his trouncing of Nick Heidfeld, his impressive racing and qualifying performances this season, and Hamilton pointing out Kubica as the driver he fears most. Vettel is another very promising contender, but I want to see how he performs against Webber in RBR before forming a strong opinion - he's got speed, he's racecraft, he's outperforming Bourdais, but let's see him against a proper F1 veteran.
I think Hamilton will easily be the most acheived young gun, not to say he's the greatest driver though (too hard to decide who really is best when their in different cars). They are all very fast, what I think the poll comes down to is how the drivers can align themselves with the teams. For Hamilton, aligning himself with Mclaren set him up perfectly for a beautiful start over the others. He has already acheived so much, which is probably why he will be the best.
