[Hatari]

Originally Posted by Naman_Ferrari

I am an Alonso fan but saying that it was just the car is not fair at all.
Vettel is an amazing driver. A car cannot win you 4 world championships.
True, he was very lucky with his car but even with an amazing car, to win 4 world championships is an achievement.
The championships are a result of a combination of the skills of the driver and the car. Both have to be good to win world championships.
Hence, we should not try to take the credit away from Vettel

Being World champion has a huge element of luck.. just ask Villeneuve and Button! A multiple WDC, comes with the understanding that you have what it takes to consistently win - IN ANY CAR that gives you half a chance.

Seb is quick no doubt.. but is he an amazing driver? Im not convinced. This is the first year in the last 5 that he has a less than perfect car and a quick team mate and look where he is.

What we have clearly understood is that he is not at Alonso's level... which Hamilton too has said. and Pat Symonds/Massa all rate Alonso higher than Schumi too.

[Naman_Ferrari]

Originally Posted by Hatari

Being World champion has a huge element of luck.. just ask Villeneuve and Button! A multiple WDC, comes with the understanding that you have what it takes to consistently win - IN ANY CAR that gives you half a chance.

Seb is quick no doubt.. but is he an amazing driver? Im not convinced. This is the first year in the last 5 that he has a less than perfect car and a quick team mate and look where he is.

What we have clearly understood is that he is not at Alonso's level... which Hamilton too has said. and Pat Symonds/Massa all rate Alonso higher than Schumi too.

Even I believe that Alonso is a much better driver than Vettel but that does not mean that we should take the credit away from Vettel.
He got a good car and he used it perfectly to win.
How is that his fault?

I had actually gone for the Indian Grand Prix last year and in the end when Vettel won the race, I wasn't very happy as I support Alonso.
What made me feel worse that day is that when Vettel won the race, people all over were "booing" him as if he had cheated. The guy just won another world championship and people were showing a very negative attitude which is really bad.

[D33-PAC]

Originally Posted by maverick.munish

Alonso is the real warrior of this pack, who on a given day with a better can would win hands down. Asturias in northern Spain is a rugged mountainous region that, historically, is renowned for breeding tough, fierce fighters. Fernando Alonso is a true child of his homeland.

Wow I knew Alonso was from Spain and I knew he was from Asturias, a province in the north, but I did not know this much. You Sirji, are a true blue Alonso fan if I ever saw one. Thanks for that piece, I did not know Asturias is known for fighters. I have always considered Alonso to be the greatest fighter in the pits, a true warrior who fights till the very end. It is no wonder he is such a remarkable person then, as it might be in his DNA.

Going back to the topic (this is for everyone not you Munish), please let us not bash/ridicule those who do discredit Vettel. We all have opinions and my goal was to see what people think now in retrospect. We are all entitled to opinions, and that is basically what I wanted to see.

[rahul4321]

Vettel is an amazing driver! The mind 'psychologically' seems to respect Hamilton, Alonso and Rakkionen more because we have seen them fighting with other drivers in the midfield. Overtaking with centimeters to spare, somebody overtaking them on a corner and then them taking the position right back in the next corner, pinpoint razor sharp driving to squeeze between two or more cars and so on. They are fighters, period!

Vettel for no fault of his had been blessed with a superior car (like Mercedes this season) so he has never had to fight amongst the midfield- not as much as the other guys anyway! But in the few races that he has had to fight when he qualified pretty much far behind (due to whatever reasons) and has then stood on the podium- I have personally seen him fight and come out on top!

It wasnt just about the car! The car was excellent! But then when you are first and in the lead; you dont have to fight! His standing as a racing driver will be proved in this season when he is in the midfield and he has to fight like Hamilton, Alonso and the other guys in the previous years! If he is the 'best amongst the rest' (where the rest are all those who dont have the Mercedes engines')- then he will be right up there alongside the greats! This season is the true test of his abilities!

[maverick.munish]

Dear D33-PAC

Originally Posted by D33-PAC

Wow I knew Alonso was from Spain and I knew he was from Asturias, a province in the north, but I did not know this much. You Sirji, are a true blue Alonso fan if I ever saw one.

I have been a fan of Alonso since his Renault days. The admiration from him grew manifold after the 2012 season when he almost won the title only to lose out due to the blunders of this team.

Originally Posted by D33-PAC

Going back to the topic (this is for everyone not you Munish), please let us not bash/ridicule those who do discredit Vettel. We all have opinions and my goal was to see what people think now in retrospect. We are all entitled to opinions, and that is basically what I wanted to see.

Vettel too is talented no doubt. He is in Red Bull for no reason. However i still believe that half of what he has achieved is because of the Newey and Co. working tirelessly behind the scenes.

[Hatari]

Originally Posted by Naman_Ferrari

Even I believe that Alonso is a much better driver than Vettel but that does not mean that we should take the credit away from Vettel.
He got a good car and he used it perfectly to win.
How is that his fault?

I had actually gone for the Indian Grand Prix last year and in the end when Vettel won the race, I wasn't very happy as I support Alonso.
What made me feel worse that day is that when Vettel won the race, people all over were "booing" him as if he had cheated. The guy just won another world championship and people were showing a very negative attitude which is really bad.

Not his fault ofcourse. The stat in itself has only been achieved by MS. But 4 WDCs doesnt mean he is better than another 2 WDC.

[Naman_Ferrari]

Originally Posted by Hatari

Not his fault ofcourse. The stat in itself has only been achieved by MS. But 4 WDCs doesnt mean he is better than another 2 WDC.

Thats true!!!
I am also a crazy Alonso fan
Hope he does well in the Spanish Grand Prix....

[Mik]

Considering his stellar drive yesterday (aided by the second best car on the grid some might say), I think people here should cut him a little slack
He won't go down easy.

[sourav9385]

Vettel.Is.Talented.

Let's just leave it at that. There is no way that an F1 driver can win not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 F1 World Championships by being lucky with a car.

Was Mark Webber absent from all the races that Vettel was racing in?
Did Webbers car crash out in all the 80+ races that Vettel competed in?
So how come Mark Webber ended his streak with RBR without a single WDC, and Vettel walked away with 4 WDCs?

Yes he is competitive. Yes he likes collecting the little nuances, like the fastest lap of the race, pole positions, along with the win.
Yes he is known as the Finger Boy . But I cannot for a moment imagine that he is not talented.
Some people have even said that he can't do wheel to wheel racing. I disagree. Need proof? Watch the Italian Grand Prix from 2011.

Sure, there are bloody brilliant drivers out there like Alonso, who can take a car as rubbish as the F2012, and fight it out with Vettel till the last race in Brazil
But I won't call Vettel NOT talented. Yes the car designed by Newey & co was brilliant. Yes the blown diffusers helped RBR & Vettel get to where they are today. And yes, no team in the past 4 years was able to give their drivers a car worthy of taking the fight to team RBR. But that is no reason justifiable enough to say he is not talented and it was all the car.

P.S: I am in no way a Vettel fan. I just like to appreciate people for what they do best. I've always liked Button for his driving style, Hamilton for his amazing attitude, grit & determination & Alonso for the sheer brilliance.

[D33-PAC]

Ricc faster than Seb in quali -- difficult to make a comment considering vettel's kers problems.

[tilt]

Not sure if he really did have KERS issues, considering he did post a pretty decent lap time. I am guessing it could be a Red Herring transmission just to confuse other teams.

Cheers

[deetjohn]

Sebastian Vettel was told to "raise his game" by Helmut Marko.

Originally Posted by Helmut Marko

Marko said Vettel was also unhappy with the new turbo hybrid engine rules and the effect that these, along with changes to the aerodynamic rules, were having on the team's ability to make the car behave in exactly the way he wanted.

"Sebastian was complaining about having such a bad car," said Marko. "Sebastian wants everything absolutely right. "His main problem was the downshift was always destabilising the rear and he couldn't understand that we couldn't solve it.

"Furthermore, he thinks the way F1 is going is not the right one - the cars should be monsters, not relatively easy to drive. "With all these problems, maybe he wasn't as committed as he should have been, but that has changed. Already in Spain we saw already a different approach from this guy."

Marko said that Vettel, along with the rest of the team, had not expected Ricciardo to be so strong this year, especially after the team's troubled pre-season testing programme. Marko said Vettel was "a little bit surprised, like we all were, with Ricciardo" following his switch from Toro Rosso.

Red Bull's world champion told to ‘raise his game’

[Blue_V]

Thread needs a bump. Again Vettel loses out to DR, this time during Austrian GP qualifying. I think SV is a class of drivers who are excellent/brilliant/etc when the car is working really well. Some of the other drivers who are like that are Kimi and Jensen. When it does not suit them, they look not so good.

[Blue_V]

Here is what I think of certain drivers. Fernando/Michael/Lewis/Senna fall into the red line. They have a bigger bandwidth talent wise to accommodate for less than ideal conditions, related to car, circuit, tires, weather. They can adapt themselves better. Of course this is just a quote, unquote a two cents generalization trying to explain why Alonso is Alonso and Massa is Massa.

There are other drivers who can be just as fast as them when conditions are ideal. But are not fast enough when adverse conditions arise.

Anyone is free to shoot the graph to pieces, it was just a wild generalization as I said.

[asr245]

Originally Posted by Blue_V

Thread needs a bump. Again Vettel loses out to DR, this time during Austrian GP qualifying. I think SV is a class of drivers who are excellent/brilliant/etc when the car is working really well. Some of the other drivers who are like that are Kimi and Jensen. When it does not suit them, they look not so good.

Actually sometime last year I read an article by Gary Anderson (I think). It mentioned something along the lines that SV driving style was very suited for cars with high downforce (or something along those lines). He compared MW & SV performances from 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. In 2010 & 1st half of 2012, MW was almost on terms with SV. In 2011 (with EBDs) and 2012 (2nd half), 2013 (coanda exhausts), RBR had lots of downforce available and SV was miles ahead of MW. This year, with big decrease in downforce, SV is struggling. (Plus he seems to have inherited MWs bad luck). Now with Newey, less involved than before, either SV needs to adapt quickly or see his stock diving.