TGF and 65 poles

[chillibowl]

personally i though his quali lap at hungary was fantastic, but he was light on fuel. in this situation, a track where overtaking i difficult and holding up the pack while in first is a credible/viable race stratagy. on the other hand i really enjoyed Jarno's pole at indy also on light/no fuel (very high rating on the unintentional comedy scale) But quali just doesn't seem to mean the same thing anymore.
im not being a ferrari hater and qualifying with race fuel has been disscussed before, but for me, i will be really upset if MS breaks the 65 poles record in a race where he just runs light to win the pole.
i know being on the pole for any race is the best position to be in, but with the rules being the way they are, i really hope ferrari choose to challange this record without sacrificing the particular race it happens in.
just wondering what others though about this?

[Kicking-back]

Qualifying doesn't mean the same?

No.

It's more important than ever.

[Glen]

Ferrari aren't going to put Schumi on pole for a hollow reason - only if the race demands it (like Hungary), in which case other teams will try the same anyway. It wasn't as if he stopped on the second lap or something.

Aslo, single lap is tough, I agree.

[Knowlesy]

It will be annoying if MS breaks the record in such a manner, but it doesn't detract from the fact that Senna was the ultimate qualifier. And it has taken MS longer to reach 65 poles anyways (if he does reach).

[maximus]

He wasn't even the lightest either!

[Adam43]

He actually ran too light, he could have had another second of fuel onboard - that must of annoyed!

Anyway, more generally. There is a difference due to the change of how qualifying happens. There have been changes before, although perhaps not as big a change.

Stats are stats. They can always be argued. What stands out for me though are all those poles Senna got in the Lotus: He dragged the car up there.

[luke]

The only way you can truly find who is the better qulaifier which is who had the most poles on adverage, and Schumacher has had man many more race weekends so Senna would and always will be the pole king.

[Adam43]

In which case Fangio destroys them both.

[luke]

However Fangio was not in my era so I wouldn't have known that.

[Kicking-back]

Neither was Senna

[luke]

When was I born? The '80s. Senna also raced in the '90s?

[djinvicta]

At the end of the day; Senna quailified under a different rule book, and if he was still here, he would be way way past 65 now, so Schu can beat it but by "foul" ways. I dont think you can compare the living to the dead. IMO, Senna would have kicked his ... anyway.

[Kicking-back]

One can only qualify and race under the rules of the day

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by djinvicta

Senna would have kicked his ... anyway.

Love it.......

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

One can only qualify and race under the rules of the day

That is true and it isn't the fault of the drivers which rules they are. However you can still judge on the rules. To take an extreme; perhaps they change the rules so the grid is in alphabetical order? Well the drivers can only line up depending on the rules of the day, but no one will deserve the pole more than Trulli at Indy!

It should be considered that Schumacher is the sort of driver who would qualify relatively heavy (or relatively light) if it was in the interests of his race, so he may well have lost a few poles too. However that is also a further result that qulaifying isn't only a test of outright speed.

Oh and just for fun:

Originally Posted by luke

When was I born? The '80s. Senna also raced in the '90s?

Senna scored 42 pole positions before you were born at a rate of 45% and 23 pole positions after you were born (34%).

He claimed pole at the last race before you were born, but not the first race after. Berger got that one, beating Senna in the same car (and giving Gerhard a false sense of his relative pace according to Berger). Senna wasn't on pole again until the second race after you were born and just after you were three months old.

[djinvicta]

Just goes to show he kicked ...! Loved it too! Sorry, you cant compare the two. Senna destroyed competitors by total commitment with nothing like todays cars. And wasnt shy to boot them off the track sometimes too. Oh, there a comparison to Schumi! Adam; youre a walking encyclopedia, but v interesting facts!

[djinvicta]

Sorry; Im passionate about this. the man was Boss, full stop. No arguments. He cant answer, but he would have done with race wins and more more poles.

[BootsOntheSide]

Senna got 17 poles and 5 wins with Lotus, didn't he? Those cars were fast but unreliable as a rule, I knwo that in 1985 he lead more laps than anyone but only took 2 wins. He may well have retired from the lead 12 times in that era. Then in 1988 he had a dominant car and Prost (who was rarely as good in qualifying as the races) as team-mate - hence 14 poles and 'only' 8 wins. After that point he actually only got 6 more poles than wins, so the extent to which he was better in qualifying than racing is exaggerated by some.

Michael's Hungary qualifying lap was amazing, and once you adjust it for fuel it was still faster than Alonso's or Rubens' by some distance. It's hard to directly compare Kimi's as he had to run firt, but even the most extreme estimates put the loss of time from running first at 1 second - the same as their time gap, with Kimi pitting 3 laps earlier. I suspect that under an old-style qualifying session Michael would have still taken that pole.

I agree that Michael taking a 66th pole would not make him the greastest qualifier of all time, as he's certianly done more races in field-leading cars than Ayrton did. The way Montoya regularly beat him in qualifying in 2002 despite Michael's car being so superior is perhaps a testimony to that.

[Menelaos]

in my opinion counting the poles as stats has no meaning anymore. McLarens would be on 1-2 in every gp in the old qualifying system, but now they sometimes try more fuel. Simply, it shows nothing with the new rules.

[Wrex]

Agree with most of that boots, except your last point. The Williams that year was very good over 1 lap, races were a different issue (sounds familiar).

I do laugh at the "Michael was light" BS. He came in later than most of the field. Michael is more likely to put a near perfect lap in than others on the grid. Other qualifying specialists would include kimi (my god he is quick sometimes), Webber & Trulli. Alonso is fast but inconsistant (more likely to make an error).

[Menelaos]

Originally Posted by BootsOntheSide

Michael's Hungary qualifying lap was amazing, and once you adjust it for fuel it was still faster than Alonso's or Rubens' by some distance. It's hard to directly compare Kimi's as he had to run firt, but even the most extreme estimates put the loss of time from running first at 1 second - the same as their time gap, with Kimi pitting 3 laps earlier. I suspect that under an old-style qualifying session Michael would have still taken that pole.

That was a stunning pole in a mediocre car.

[BootsOntheSide]

Fair point about the Williams there Wrex, although Ralf didn't particularly shine in qualifying that year. And Menelaos has summed Michael's Hungary lap up -Michael's best in a long time, and surely in the top 5 of the post-2003 era.

[Dutton]

Juan's 2002 poles were, IMHO, a mixture of the Michelin's being superior over one-lap and him wringing more out of the Williams than it really deserved.

[Gt_R]

Germany and Hungary goes some way to show Michael's abilities at driving a fast lap in the new system. In both races, sceptics believed he was running very light...but he surprises with a competitive first stint, qualifying way ahead of where he should.

I like Senna and although it is sad that probably by the end of the year, his name isn't at the top of any of the major history books. But it didn't matter to those who remembers his greatness in his own ways. At least, a worthy successor of high calibre took over, and that having somebody on top of him in the books doesn't mean Senna is in anyway inferior.

The new qualifying system may seem pointless.. but if anything, it makes a good driver/team harder to get pole as it makes it easy. In the past, the quickest car/driver would automatically get pole. This system may mean that a slower team may run light to get the pole ahead of a fast team/driver.

With such a rotten year, i believe breaking Senna's record would at least be a consolation for Michael/Ferrari. Just a matter of time in fact

[Glen]

No mention of the qualifying special engine that TBF used then?