Has F1 become less talented?

Last week, Autosport reported that Red Bull driver Mark Webber made the assertion that the quality of talent that makes up the Formula One grid has declined since he made his debut in 2002, largely owing to the increased prevalence of paying drivers.

After reading this article, my initial impression was to dismiss Webber's comments as completely false. After all, in 2002, nobody could hold a candle to Michael Schumacher, whilst we currently enjoy no fewer than five different world champions on the grid as well as a host of other talented race winners.

Upon closer inspection however, I discovered that there was indeed some merit in Webber's comments. Let's have a closer look at the respective line-ups of 2002 and 2013:

	2002				2013
1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari		1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull
2	Rubens Barrichello	Ferrari		2	Mark Webber	Red Bull
3	David Coulthard	McLaren		3	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari
4	Kimi Raikkonen	McLaren		4	Felipe Massa	Ferrari
5	Ralf Schumacher	Williams		5	Jenson Button	McLaren
6	Juan Pablo Montoya	Williams		6	Sergio Perez	McLaren
7	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber		7	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus
8	Felipe Massa	Sauber		8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus
9	Giancarlo Fisichella	Jordan		9	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
10	Takuma Sato	Jordan		10	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes
11	Jacques Villeneuve	BAR		11	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber
12	Olivier Panis	BAR		12	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber
14	Jarno Trulli	Renault		14	Paul Di Resta	Force India
15	Jenson Button	Renault		15	Adrian Sutil	Force India
16	Eddie Irvine	Jaguar		16	Pastor Maldonado	Williams
17	Pedro de la Rosa	Jaguar		17	Valtteri Bottas	Williams
20	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Arrows		18	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso
21	Enrique Bernoldi	Arrows		19	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso
22	Alex Yoong	Minardi		20	Charles Pic	Caterham
23	Mark Webber	Minardi		21	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham
24	Mika Salo	Toyota		22	Jules Bianchi	Marussia
25	Allan McNish	Toyota		23	Max Chilton	Marussia

NB: By 2002, Alonso had already completed a full F1 season for Minardi and was test driver for Renault.
When you compare these two lists, Webber's claim that there are more paying drivers on the grid than there were eleven years ago is difficult to ignore. In 2002, only Enrique Bernoldi and Alex Yoong could truly be classified as pay drivers, and even then, the former was the first graduate of the nascent Red Bull junior scheme.

Now, Esteban Gutierrez (Telmex/Claro), Pastor Maldonado (PDVSA), Giedo van der Garde (McGregor) and Max Chilton (Aon) could all be said to be in their current seats almost exclusively by virtue of their funding, whilst Romain Grosjean (Total), Adrian Sutil (Medion/Capri-Sun) and Charles Pic (IDEC/Lagardere) at least have their sponsors partly to thank for their drives.

But, just because there are more paying drivers on the grid doesn't necessarily make them less talented. With the exception of Sutil, who has now racked up 100 starts in F1, all of the above have placed in the top five in the GP2 series; that doesn't happen by accident.

Admittedly, they may not be the absolute best candidates that the lower formulae have to offer, and Webber makes the valid point that the talented Robin Frijns is set to miss out on F1 because a lack of sponsorship funds. But, just because some deserving drivers miss out shouldn't automatically lead us to dismiss the ones that do make it as no-hopers.

Sergey Sirokin, the 17-year-old Russian who is set to race for Sauber next year as part of a financial rescue package, has come under much criticism. But, as I explain in my "Ones to Watch" article, he in fact has a fairly formidable record in the junior formulae for someone of such a tender age.

Equally, many fans were dismayed that talented veteran drivers Heikki Kovalainen and Timo Glock had lost their seats for this season for want of sponsorship funds. In an ideal world - one where the F1 grid is made up of the best drivers in the world - both Kovalainen and Glock would undoubtedly still be around.

You could in fact argue that the early-to-mid 2000s was about the closest we've had to that ideal world. The combined monetary might of the tobacco companies, eager to take advantage of sports advertising before stricter regulations came into force, and the car companies ensured that nearly every team had a healthy budget in place.

In 2002, tobacco companies backed the Ferrari, McLaren, Jordan, Renault and BAR teams, while Williams-BMW, Jaguar and Toyota were all funded generously by the relevant car manufacturer. Sauber also had a big-money deal in place with oil giant Petronas, leaving only Arrows and Minardi as teams genuinely struggling for cash.

This meant the 2002 season featured such "journeymen" as Olivier Panis, Eddie Irvine, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Mika Salo - drivers whose careers had evidently peaked by this stage, but whose experience proved attractive to the well-financed midfield teams.

Now, only the 'big four' teams - Red Bull (Infiniti), McLaren (Vodafone), Ferrari (Marlboro) and Mercedes (Petronas) - can so much as boast a title sponsor, leaving the rest, including the race-winning Lotus outfit, in a somewhat precarious fiscal situation.

Such a sad state of affairs means that drivers today typically only have two to three seasons to be snapped up by a top team before they disappear from F1. Since the start of 2010, 17 drivers have made their F1 debut; among them, only Sergio Perez has so far done enough to establish himself in a financially secure team.

It's hard to imagine drivers like Nick Heidfeld or Jenson Button being afforded as much time to develop as they were back in the early 2000s without some serious cash in their pockets. Likewise, someone such as Kamui Kobayashi would probably still be on the grid if he had emerged on the scene at the height of the tobacco/manufacturer era.

But, if there's no space on the grid in 2013 for a talented youngster like Kobayashi, there certainly isn't for the Kovalainens and the Glocks. Unless Hulkenberg is able to bag a top drive for next season, the underfunded German could find himself on the sidelines next year, too.

This would of course be an enormous shame, and it goes without saying that more needs to be done to reduce the cost of competing in F1 (I personally favour the idea of customer cars, but that's for another post). But, as things are, young talent just isn't being given the required breathing space to survive.

All of that said, it's the top teams where the quality of the drivers has undoubtedly improved. With the retirement of Mika Hakkinen, Michael Schumacher was left relatively unchallenged at the head of the field in 2002, with Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya - widely tipped as the next big stars at the time - only in their second seasons of F1 and yet to mature into genuine rivals for the dominant German.

Fast-forward thirteen years, and it's hard to choose a single stand-out driver. You could make a convincing case for any of Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton or Raikkonen to be the best on the grid, whilst Button, Webber, Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa (at least in pre-2009 spec) certainly aren't far behind.

But, excluding this group of eight drivers, the remainder (excluding Sutil) have all started fewer than 50 Grands Prix. That makes it very difficult to assess just how good they are, even if many have shown flashes of brilliant potential.

Perhaps, then, a fairer way to surmise would not be to say that the field featured more talent eleven years ago, but to say that there were more "known quantities" on the grid - drivers who in the past had demonstrated great talent, even if their best years were behind them.

Conversely, the grid is currently populated by many drivers whose ultimate potential is unclear. And unless the top teams give these drivers a break, the sorry financial situation of F1 means we might never know whether any of them are good enough to become world champion.