Michael Schumacher's incredibly impressive 1993 Qualifying performance (using Mansell vs Patrese '92 as benchmark)

I'm afraid you've got the context all wrong in your previous post.

Let me try to explain.

1). Schumacher did 6 races in 1991.

2) Schumacher was in his third season in 1993. With F1 drivers generally, they only improve in terms of pure speed for a season. After the first season, the raw speed is there, what comes next is improvement in terms of consistency, tyre management etc.. Schumacher also entered F1 at a relatively old age compared to the youngest F1 drivers when they entered the sport, the younger you are when you enter F1, the more room you have to improve and the longer the duration it takes for a driver to improve to their peak.

3) Schumacher already drove for Benetton in 1991. And in 1992. Therefore he already had experience with the team. Patrese was then completely new to Schumacher's team in 1993. However, the opposite was true with Mansell, as it was Mansell who was new to (or returned after a while) Patrese's team in 1991 (and he stayed for one more year in 1992). We've seen throughout F1 history that whenever a driver joins a new team, he is already at a disadvantage of at least 0.15% compared to his established teammate (at that team) in terms of quali pace, because said teammate is fully comfortable with the car while the newcomer is not. Therefore, against Schumacher, Patrese was at a ~0.15% disadvantage in terms of team/car experience, while against Mansell, Patrese had an advantage of ~0.15% (maybe a tad less considering that Mansell had previously driven for Williams in 1988, but returned to the team after a few years, so he was still largely out of touch and a lot older when he returned).

4) Moreover, Mansell was 40 YEARS OLD in 1992. 40. At that age, you've already lost a BIG portion of your raw speed. This is all common sense..... Schumacher was at his physical peak in 1993 and at his absolute peak in terms of one lap speed. Patrese was also a year older in 1993 compared to 1992, hence a tad slower over one lap, a tad.

5) DESPITE that, according to your own data, Mansell was about 1s (0.96s) quicker than Patrese, while MSC was about 1.6s quicker than Patrese. That's a gap of 0.2s. Median % figures are tricky, but with the corrections for context mentioned above it puts athletic peak Schumacher (peak in terms of one lap pace) about 0.1s and 0.56% - 0.15% (MSC Benetton advantage over Patrese) - 0.1% (Patrese Williams advantage over Mansell) - 0.125% (Mansell's loss of speed at age 40) - 0.02s (Patrese tad slower in 1993 compared to 1992) = ~0.165% median ahead of peak young Mansell if they were to be in the same car, assuming everything else is equal (note that the correction for context basically is an estimate for what it would be like if MSC and Mansell were to face each other at their absolute youth peak in the same car with equal and fair context..... Now that's realistic. Context is key.

6) Regarding the comparison with Senna, he was 32 years old in 1992, so while the loss of speed isn't anywhere near what it would be at age 40 like with Mansell, I think at age 32 Senna would've lost a very tad amount of pure pace, probably no more than 0.05s. Still, your comparison with Senna and a younger Mansell in 1989 (he was 36, Lewis Hamilton's age last season), put Senna above Mansell by a significantly bigger margin through the Berger cross comparison. I also don't know where you got 0.65s for Schumacher 1993 over Mansell from in your other post, when in this post you clearly say it was 0.2s. Either way, that leads me to believe that peak 24-28 year old Senna was almost definitely quicker than peak 24-28 year old MSC over one lap. You have to remember this one important FACT: a driver is at their absolute fastest over one lap at the age range of 21-28, with 23/24 being their absolute peak (based on sports science) in terms of athletic fitness and peak muscle condition.

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