Are F1 drivers driving at a higher level than those in the past?

This is something I wonder about a lot. I think this must have been asked so many times, but I've never seen much about it.

I would really like to know what people think about the idea that as athletes keep breaking past records, are F1 drivers also improving to a higher level than those in the past?

I remember Matt Bishop in his "Praise Be" column in Autosport in 2002 asserted this kind of theory and stated that "Juan-Manuel Fangio, at his best, was probably about as good as Pedro de la Rosa is now".

Another reason I think about this is that if you take for example the 1994 season, and rank the drivers by average qualifying gaps, this is the approximate outcome (there were rained out sessions causing unrepresentative times, so it's hard to be exact, and I'm making a few adjustments:

1994 Qualifying
--------------
1.Michael Schumacher (Benetton)
2.Damon Hill (Williams) +0.24
3.David Coulthard (Williams) +0.70
4.Jean Alesi (Ferrari) +0.98
5.Gerhard Berger (Ferrari) +1.04
6.Mika Hakkinen (McLaren) +1.20
7.Rubens Barrichello (Jordan) +1.67
8.Heinz-Harald Frentzen (Sauber) +1.70
9.Ukyo Katayama (Tyrrell) +1.80
10.Jos Verstappen (Benetton) +1.90
11.Eddie Irvine (Jordan) +1.91
12.Martin Brundle (McLaren) +1.92
13.Mark Blundell (Tyrrell) +2.12
14.Gianni Morbidelli (Footwork) +2.38
15.Andrea de Cesaris (Sauber) +2.52
16.Olivier Panis (Ligier) +2.58
17.Pierluigi Martini (Minardi) +2.64
18.Christian Fittipaldi (Footwork) +2.66
19.Johnny Herbert (Lotus) +3.00
20.Michele Alboreto (Minardi) +3.10
21.Eric Bernard (Ligier) +3.20
22.Erik Comas (Larrousse) +3.28
23.Alessandro Zanardi (Lotus) +3.45
24.Olivier Beretta (Larrousse) +3.97
25.David Brabham (Simtek) +4.54
26.Jean-Marc Gounon (Simtek) +5.16
27.Bertrand Gachot (Pacific) +7.12
28.Paul Belmondo (Pacific) +8.34

That should be pretty near to how it was I think.
Now to take the cars out of the equation. This is definitely only educated guessing at best. :(

1994 Driver Ranking based on Qualifying - Meaning if they all drove the same car as though it's a one-make championship

1.Schumacher
2.Hakkinen +0.40
3.Alesi +0.80
4.Berger +0.86
5.Hill +0.86
6.Barrichello +0.90
7.Katayama +1.00
8.Frentzen +1.02
9.Brundle +1.12
10.Coulthard +1.20
11.Irvine +1.22
12.Herbert +1.30
13.Blundell +1.30
14.Morbidelli +1.40
15.Martini +1.50
16.Panis +1.60
17.de Cesaris +1.68
18.Fittipaldi +1.68
19.Comas +1.70
20.Zanardi +1.74
21.Verstappen +1.91
22.Alboreto +1.96
23.Gachot +2.00
24.Brabham +2.24
25.Bernard +2.30
26.Beretta +2.40
27.Gounon +2.90
28.Belmondo +3.24


Doing the same for F1 2012 based on qualifying only, it might be something like this:

1.Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
3.Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) +0.0
2.Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) +0.1
4.Mark Webber (Red Bull) +0.2
5.Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham) +0.3
6.Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) +0.3
7.Jenson Button (McLaren) +0.3
8.Romain Grosjean (Lotus) +0.4
9.Pastor Maldonado (Williams) +0.4
10.Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) +0.4
11.Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) +0.4
12.Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus) +0.4
13.Paul di Resta (Force India) +0.4
14.Felipe Massa (Ferrari +0.5
15.Vitaly Petrov (Caterham) +0.6
16.Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber) +0.5
17.Sergio Perez (Sauber) +0.6
18.Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso) +0.7
19.Timo Glock (Marussia) +0.7
20.Pedro de la Rosa (HRT) +0.8
21.Charles Pic (Marussia) +0.8
22.Bruno Senna (Williams) +0.9
23.Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) +1.0
24.Narain Karthikeyan (HRT) +1.2

I'm sure everyone will agree with that. :rolleyes:

So is Narain Karthikeyan really as fast as Mark Blundell for speed? Is he really quicker than Pierluigi Martini, Andrea de Cesaris and Erik Comas?
Is the maligned Vitaly Petrov really that much faster than Brundle or Herbert? (He was faster than Heidfeld last year)

Notice I am only talking about the AVERAGE of times actually set in qualifying.

I think how it might be is that all these older drivers who have much slower averages have so because F1 was less professional back then, and the issue isn't that drivers like Petrov have 3 times as much talent as Martini, but the case is that the drivers are much more CONSISTENT these days, and all the preparation, the fitness, nutrition, all that stuff is enabling modern drivers to ACCESS much more of their talent much more often, resulting in much better average gaps to the fastest drivers.

I feel like I'm naive on this stuff, so please help me out with your thoughts people.

Source: http://www.motorsportforums.com/f1/155116-f1-drivers-driving-higher-level-than-those-past.html

Ingemar Bengtsson Johnny Bengtsson Angelo Bergamonti Werner Bergold Jacques Bernard