Donnington Park '93...I have to fish out that old thread where some of my mates say it's overrated (because I can't remember all their alternatives).
Well, KB, I'd sure love to hear that one explained. As it is, within that minute or so's footage, you see Senna not only blow away the two Williams that are 75kW more powerful than his Mac, but brush aside Schumacher's now-famous chop like it never happened.
Mind you, by the end of the race, only Damon Hill was on the same lap as Senna and that was because Senna took his foor off the gas for the last laps of the race.
All due respect KB, if that Kristian fellow couldn't even tell the difference between a Williams and a McLaren, I'd take anything he said with a bucket of salt.
I'd have to disagree with you on the issue of the car's standing in the field.
The fact is that the Williams FW15 was obviously THE class of the field, with TC, active suspension and all the bells and whistles, powered by Renault who had taken over Honda's role after their departure from F1. The results will show that both Championships were a walkover that year (and the year before).
In fact, Senna's MP4/8 was not even up to scratch with Schumacher's Benetton - McLaren, as the new customer, had to stick with the HBE7 engine while Benetton, as preferred customer, got the exclusive upgrade to the HBA8.
In short, fact is that the Mac was nowhere near to being the best car on the track in 1993, because they were recovering from being dumped by Honda at the end of the previous year.
Fact is that either Senna read the road conditions better, or simply drove better in the wet. IIRC, during the race, Senna changed tyres four times, while Prost changed them seven times. I think saying that a four-time WDC is no good in the wet is plain ridiculous.
And, as mentioned before, fact is that when the flag fell, everybody except for Hill had been lapped by Senna.
I'm not swayed at all by that thread - it's full of opinions but VERY thin on facts.
How something like that could be "overhyped" is beyond me. You may as well say that Fangio's drive at Nurburgring 1957 was overhyped.
Also, the results of 1993 show that the Mac was clearly not one of the fastest cars that year.
At fast circuits like Imola, Silverstone and Hockenheim, the Macs struggled against the Williams and Benettons. On the other hand, of the five races that Senna won that year, two (Brazil and Donnington) were in the wet and two (Monaco and Adelaide) were on twisty street circuits. The conditions in all four cases would have negated the advantage of a fast car.
When you put the two together, the picture that comes out is that the Mac was clearly nowhere as fast as the Williams or Benetton, and wins went the way of Mac only when driving skill outweighed straight line speed.
