O'Sullivan questions Hamilton's position among Britain's greatest sports stars

Ronnie O’Sullivan is not sure Lewis Hamilton can be compared to other greats of British sport as his success in Formula One has not come on a ‘level playing field’.

Hamilton claimed his seventh world title this year and is now considered by many to be the finest F1 driver in history, leapfrogging Michael Schumacher in that debate.

O’Sullivan is in no doubt that Hamilton’s achievements are ‘fantastic’ but does question whether they can be held up against other sports, given the advantage the car gives a driver.

The Rocket feels his sport, snooker, alongside the likes of tennis and athletics provide a much fairer competition and competitors that triumph in these competitions should be held in higher regard to a Formula One driver.

‘I think it’s difficult to say where he is [among Britain’s sporting greats],’ O’Sullivan told the Daily Star. ‘A lot of the sports I watch… the people that have done it, you have to look whether it’s a level playing field.

‘If you have a car that is going a second a lap quicker than the other cars, in theory all he has to beat is his team-mate [Valtteri] Bottas – who seems to be comfortable and happy playing second fiddle.

‘It doesn’t mean as much as say a sport like tennis with [Roger] Federer playing everyone on a level playing field, or [Eliud] Kipchoge running against everyone on a level playing field.

‘It is fantastic for Lewis to win seven world titles, but if your car is going around quicker you can afford to make a few mistakes and still get away with it.

‘It’s a bit like driving around smoking a cigar with one finger on the wheel’

O’Sullivan, the reigning world champion, compared the advantage Hamilton enjoys in his Mercedes to playing on a snooker table with bigger pockets than his opponent has to contend with.

‘I just think sport is where there is no advantage,’ the 44-year-old continued. ‘I wouldn’t have felt as good about my career in snooker if I had been playing on a table where the pockets I was using were bigger than my opponent’s.

‘At least in snooker everyone has the same equipment and it is totally a level playing field. I don’t choose my opponents or the table.’

While O’Sullivan’s views will ruffle some feathers, racing great Sir Jackie Stewart has contested whether Hamilton can be seen as the greatest ever driver due to how superior his car is to the rest of the field.

‘Lewis drives extremely well, make no mistake, I’m not in any way diminishing his skills. But it’s not the same,’ Stewart told In the Fast Lane podcast.

‘Lewis made a very good decision when he left McLaren at that time and went to Mercedes-Benz, and I take my hat off to him for making that decision.

‘But frankly, the car and the engine are now so superior that it’s almost unfair on the rest of the field.

‘Now you can’t say that, you must take your hat off to Mercedes-Benz, to Toto Wolff and to Niki Lauda before that for making one hell of a team, for choosing the best engineers, getting the best money that most other teams couldn’t get, apart from Red Bull.

‘It’s not quite the same respect, if you like, of being able to do it in less than the best car. And that’s where sometimes there was a difference between the very, very great drivers and the ones that were very successful.

‘To say Lewis is the greatest of all time would be difficult for me to justify, in sheer power of what the other drivers were doing.’

MORE : Ronnie O’Sullivan says Elliot Slessor win was ‘one of the best victories of my career’

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