Just like in football, you cant compare drivers of different eras. In the 1950s the likes of fangio didnt have seatbeats and the done thing when going to crash was to jump out of your car to saftey!
1980s cars had no power steering, manual gearboxes. They required a extrodinary level of brute strength to get them around the track.
Drivers didnt start in f1 their mid to late twenties. Reliability was a joke, engines running at 18,000 rpm regularly blew up. Alan Prost lost a WDC because Renault were to cheap to replace a 38pence part. Which kept failing race after race.
Nelson Piquet didnt feature in the tier list on the other page, but how many drivers have won the WDC with 3 different teams in arguably the greatest era of f1 the 1980s?
If you listen to Beyond the Grid podcast where Tom Arnold, interviews ex-racing drivers of all eras as well as others involved in F1. You realise how many fantastic drivers didnt win a WDC, due to bad luck or they or they were killed. So many f1 drivers died on a regular basis until Senna's death, shocked f1 into action.
For me a tier list personally only works by era of racing. Also a racing driver can be judged by 3 factors;
1) racecraft
2) single lap pace
3) team building
You could for example argue that Alonso is brillant at racecraft, one of the very best of his generation. Single lap pace not the best. Also his team building is poor.
You could take those three metrics and apply them to others. Id say team building was schmachers greatest strength as a driver. He took that to levels not see before, which are now the norm for any f1 driver.
Lewis is sensational over one lap, probably one of the quickest ive seen. His racecraft is very very good, though id say alonso edges that over lewis. Team building wise he is also very good. However not at schmacher level for team building.
I think its too early to judge max, we need to see him at another team to judge his team building. Maybe at ferrari or audi. He has really good single lap pace, his racecraft can only really be judged when he gets older and wiser and is put in more diffcut situations than this season so far.