I think you can draw some comparisons though. Or at least, there are things you can compare. For example being a racing driver isn’t just about driving the car. They play a huge role in development and setup. It’s pretty well documented that Schumacher had a huge hand in changing that team and car around.
To a degree but there are many differences between eras.
There was unlimited testing in schmachers era and Ferrari were running custom Bridgestone tyres no one else had.
Senna/Prost era had even less reliability, less sensors. Semi automatic gear boxes etc.
Piquet / Fittipaldi era had manual gearbox, no power steering, even less reliability etc.
So and so forth the further back you go. Can you imagine max, Lewis and Fernando jumping out of the car before it hit a wall? No? That's what happens in fangio's era when they raced without any seatbelts.
As for their involvement in developing the car. Senna as far as I remember was the first who spent alot of time at the factory speaking to everyone and anyone at McLaren. However I don't know if Prost was similar, I'm lacking in that knowledge.
Schmacher brought a whole new level of fitness and professionalism in looking after himself that didn't exist in F1 before.
Hamilton and Rosberg took marginal gains to the extreme in trying to beat each other.
Drivers do play a large part in car development,but they also need to be lucky to be in the right car at the right time. The right time being that the rules work best for your team to tell detrement of others.
The F1 we watch now will be very different when the likes of piastri and antonelli are coming to the ends of their careers.
