I think most people on here didn't read the original statements carefully enough, so here they are again:
"I am very lucky," Ascanelli told Sport Bild. "Twice in my life I have experienced perfection; once with Senna, again with Vettel. In one respect Michael was different because he had to work harder for his success than did Senna and Vettel. With those two it was something else."
Although stopping short of making similar comparisons, Gerhard Berger said he felt that the championship leader was now the most complete racer on the grid.
"Before the season began I thought Alonso was the best driver, but maybe now it's Sebastian," Berger said.
Nothing is really said about achievements, i.e., WDC, domination over a season, points, etc. The comparison stops at the perfection level and how it is achieved. Ascanelli says that AS and SV were/are more naturally gifted perfectionists while MS achieves similar perfection through harder work. And this may well be true right now and right here - no waiting for years of results to be able to compare. If Ascanelli says he's seen both, AS and SV and noticed they both have achieved the same level of perfection in their race craft (? he didn't really specify to what that perfection pertains, so I'm extrapolating here), then I can't help it but to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe him for now. What SV might make of his achieved perfection in terms of results and domination and so on, that what builds the legend, we'll have to be patient for some years to find out.
Berger simply adds his assessment that he thinks SV may have surpassed FA as the best/most complete driver on the grid - again, a momentous assessment, a snapshot that is currently corroborated by the results table and our observations during the first 3 races, but this could change down the road.
So, bottom line in my view is that there's really no need for some of the AS fans to get their knickers in a twist about these statements by Ascanelli since they don't take anything away from AS (yet). They simply state that SV has mastered a similar level of perfection as AS. Of course it's somewhat implied that SV also has a similar level of potential for results in the future as had AS, but until now it has been just that: potential. A few years from now we might come to (or for the British: arrive at
) a more definite conclusion than this...
- By hass25