Vettel: Tell Me I'm Wrong
Harris ponders why Vettel can win races and championships but not hearts and minds
I ask this as a Vettel agnostic - an admirer of his precocious talent, but someone who has never sat in front of a telly and urged him on to victory. Except perhaps that stellar weekend at Monza in 2008 when he drove the wings off his Toro Rosso.
What is it that people don't like about Vettel? The obvious answer is the perceived monotony of his success, but any F1 statto can dismiss this and show that he has faced far stronger competition during his frontline career than the other German who dominated the sport a decade earlier. But monotony does breed dissatisfaction in motorsport. Which is odd because tennis fans never seem too bothered if Federer is winning everything.
The nature of the victories is perhaps more important then. I think few of us begrudged Schumacher his podium leap if he'd just out-scrapped Hakkinen. But that statement now leaves me open to the Bridgestone conspiracy theorists who state, with some validity, that MS's extra test mileage on his favourite rubber made for an entirely unfair playing field. But that's another blog entirely.
The notion that an unfair advantage has been exercised or a technical superiority has rendered a championship a non-contest remains a salient point though. This template of creating an autocratic machine working for one driver alone is perhaps the great irony of Schumacher's legacy in F1. In that the very process he shaped undermines the legacy of the driver's record because it leaves behind it a suspicion that his role was diminished.
Vettel is currently suffering the same fate. In fact he has it worse in this current era of strict technical regulations and superstar car designers. Even the casual F1 observer now apportions as much credit to Red Bull's success to Adrian Newey as it does the man who is about to become a four-time world champion.
10 years ago only Autosport reading nerds knew the names of such people, even though Murray gamely reminded us every Sunday. Even in a perfect car, Sebastian (Christian name this time, you can see I'm softening) has to execute a great weekend to win the race.
It's the tedium aspect I find interesting. Did people think Fangio's dominance was all a bit dull? I presume some did, although not to the extent that they harangued him on the podium. And Prost, what about his championships? Take away the rivalry with Senna and you could accuse the good Professor of making a less than inspirational show for the paying public.
So maybe that's the core issue here? The most successful champions, the statisticians' dreamboats, are by definition less exciting and therefore Vettel is simply a victim of his own success?
There's certainly something in the theory. Gilles Villeneuve is the classic example of a driver with an almost evangelical following whose record viewed in Microsoft Excel doesn't justify the hype. Brought forward to recent times were you as sad as me when Kobayashi left F1? Rousing emotions in armchair pundits like us and winning races appear to be different disciplines.
Unless your name was Ayrton Senna. Viewed according to this little deconstruction you could argue that Senna's greatest achievement was to dominate Formula 1 but never to have left people feeling his victories were tedious. Lest we should forget, Ayrton wasn't universally popular at his peak and his untimely death probably meant some of his conduct is posthumously viewed a little more kindly than it deserved. It goes without saying that he was my favourite driver of that generation.
So why doesn't Vettel grab the imagination the way Senna did? His talent shines as brightly, his record will soon be better, his racecraft is magnificent and he is good mates with Kimi. I'm probably not alone in thinking that last fact tells us more about the real Sebastian Vettel than any nonsense emanating from the Red Bull PR machine.
But he gets booed on the podium. I absolutely hate that and, being an arch contrarian, find myself thinking the surest way I'll become a Vettel fan is if the podium abuse continues. But the nagging suspicion remains that Hamilton has more raw speed and somehow always makes things more exciting and that Alonso is still the best combination of speed and nous. That looks absurd written down, doesn't it? A young man is about to be crowned world champion for the fourth consecutive year and yet the majority of experts still reckon he's the second best driver.
Surely this needs de-bunking now. Four championships, Newey-assisted or not, in an era of Hamilton, Alonso, Raikkonen, is perhaps the most remarkable run of success in the history of the sport.
Perhaps I'm thinking too deeply about this. Maybe it's the index finger that rouses the hatred, or some rank xenophobia,
Anyways, please tell me why I'm wrong about 'Seb'.
Photos: LAT Photo, Red Bull/GEPA Pictures
A few more heros might sproute out if we get rid of the electronics, wings, intorduce jumps in the tracks and supply large quantity of beers before the race starts. Oh and where's the driver on the podium with all those 'birds' up there? ;-D
At least if the guy had switched teams a few times, evidently had raw talent and was hamstrung along the way with ropey cars or politics - where he had to show he had pure grit and determination to drive through all of that, you could at least admire the guy. But I just find it hard to watch him turn up, and drive the entire race at the front - as seems to be the norm for most races this season.
I wish I didn't feel that way and I wish I could respect him for his achievements. But I just can't. And I still can't shake this nagging feeling of doubt that there's something about his car which is giving him some kind of advantage!
As for Vettel, he shows no humility or empathy. He's either winning and being smug, or losing and being a spoiled brat. Neither is a likeable trait. It's why Kimi and Fernando seem more human, I guess, but they are more mature as well, which helps. Lewis, I find just as lacking as Vettel. He comes across as too corporate sponsored. They all are, but Lewis makes it obvious. And the whole god squad, divine intervention interview in Car really, really put me off.
Far play to Vettel though, he keeps his private life well out of the way of all the media, perhaps this is why he isn't popular? He needs a twitter account and a Facebook page
It doesn't bother me to be honest, I just see it as his trademark "thing" - much like Schuey's podium leap.
Is he the best current F1 driver? Not sure.
He is clearly one of the best drivers, with a team built around him, with arguably the best car - the benefits of the latter two cannot be overstated.
Also I think some credit should also be given to the rest of the Red Bull team, in particular on Vettel's car, their pitstops are always flawless and have been all season, and tactically they seem to make less mistakes than the rest. It doesn't seem that Webber's side of the of the garage are as good as Vettel's?
Agree the podium booing is out of order, and I like him way more than Schu (or even Senna in era.. sorry Chris) but he struggles to shake suggestions that he's fallible when running in the pack and by implication only wins races because the Neweymobile is that much quicker and he can disappear from pole.
People look at Hamilton and Alonso as better drivers (especially when in not the fastest machine in the race/session) and it's a simple conclusion to say he's not the greatest driver of this era, regardless of 4 Championships.
A race without Lewis or Fernando would be missing something, but if someone put Kobayashi in Sebs car I'd be glued to the screen and not miss him for a second. Sorry.
Rick
@pofg
He reminds me of a successful footballer, perhaps one that dresses in blue for his work place. Over entitled, over-inflated sense of worth and not a single ethic to be seen. Not happy with his own lot, seeks to cause problems for others, including team-mates.
- Multi 21
- Turkey 2010
- Silverstone 2010 (breaking his own front wing and taking Webber's, then Webber rubbing his nose in it by winning - "Not bad for a No. 2 driver")
- Horner's bullst about the two drivers being equal
- Horner's rabid defence of him in many of the above situations when it was clearly him in the wrong
- Almost all of the team's bad luck seems to be with Webber - poor pitstops, failures and so on. Vettel does have his failures, but they are never normally down to oversights from the team. How many wheels has Vettel lost, how many slow pitstops has Vettel had, and so on, in comparison to Webber?
It generally comes down to the fact that Webber is a very likeable guy being treated poorly by his team for Vettel's gain. I was genuinely happy for Vettel when he won his first title - the emotion he showed really told us what it meant to him to have won - but many of the things that have happened are brushed off as not important, whereas if it was the other way round the team would/have come down hard on Webber. Whenever Horner is questioned about the team's structure, he always says that both drivers are equal which is clearly not the case. All this just puts me off Vettel.
Once in it, and scampering away on the first lap, you know the boredom will set in for the remainder of the race, and then you start focussing on the following things which seem to irritate:
...coupled with Mark's car getting a strange array of faults, rarely seen on Seb's car.
When things aren't going his way you see just how much of a baby he is. I could understand if Webber was all over his rear wing putting both their cars in danger but he was nowhere near him.
Put Vettel in a Ferrari or Mercedes and watch the success drift away.
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