Is Vettel overrated?

Is Vettel overrated?

Poll: Is Vettel overrated?

Total Members Polled: 458

Yes: 41%
No: 23%
Apparently!: 7%
Too early to tell: 18%
STFU "hater"!: 4%
Ricciardo is really just that good: 7%
Author
Discussion

Fire99

9,844 posts

228 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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An interesting quote from Alonso in the latter part of last year:

"Time will tell us," Alonso said. "There are many years [to go in his career].
"He is 26 years old, so when he will have a car like the others, if he wins, he will have a great recognition and be one of the legends in F1.
"When one day he has a car like the others and he is fourth, fifth, seventh, these four titles will be bad news for him because people will take these four titles even in a worse manner than they are doing now.
"So there are interesting times for Sebastian coming."

Now it's too early to say one way or the other but I think Alonso spoke wise words there..


Stedman

7,213 posts

191 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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Pretty obvious remarks from Alonso. I think I like him suddenly biggrin


LDN

8,905 posts

202 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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Fire99 said:
An interesting quote from Alonso in the latter part of last year:

"Time will tell us," Alonso said. "There are many years [to go in his career].
"He is 26 years old, so when he will have a car like the others, if he wins, he will have a great recognition and be one of the legends in F1.
"When one day he has a car like the others and he is fourth, fifth, seventh, these four titles will be bad news for him because people will take these four titles even in a worse manner than they are doing now.
"So there are interesting times for Sebastian coming."

Now it's too early to say one way or the other but I think Alonso spoke wise words there..
Hmmmm - I'd have thought 'sour grapes' but perhaps he was on the money.

NRS

22,079 posts

200 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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davepoth said:
It's an interesting parallel. It was said that Webber had difficulty adjusting to the way the RBR car drove during the championship years - getting on the throttle stupid early on account of it vacuuming itself to the road and just letting it get on with things was a bit counter-intuitive. It now seems that Vettel is having trouble adjusting to the way that the new cars need to be driven; there's a lot more torque low-down which means the cars get squirrelly, which is the complete opposite of what he had last year.

It's the mark of a truly great driver that they can get good performances out of cars they don't like - of the current drivers I think you can only really put Alonso and Hamilton in that box.
Simple as that really. I think Webber would be equal/ better than Vettel again this year, as we saw in the past when getting on the throttle early didn't work for Vettel due to car design.

DHB07

80 posts

120 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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leglessAlex said:
In my post I was referring to Mark, not Seb.
Ah, apologies!

TheExcession

11,669 posts

249 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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Hmmm, Sebby - Six years entered in Race of Champions

Never a Champion of Champions score - Romain Grosjean did that it 2012, but took the Nations Cup with Scumey every year. scratchchin

I think the boy can drive.


Hooch747

64 posts

188 months

Monday 21st April 2014
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I think in the last few seasons tyres played too big a part in results - they had such a small performance window many of the races looked like an exercise in tyre management. They seemed unbelievably femur. Its no surprise that the car with the greatest downforce came out on top, although the Lotus proved kind on its tyres too, pushing ahead of potentially faster cars struggling with grip/wear. On occasion this provided some interesting finishes, but overall it meant no other team could mount a challenge to RB on a consistent basis. To get back to the question of SV, I would be ridiculous to say anything other than the guy is seriously fast, as well as very intelligent. I would not yet rate him along side the greats however - the RB on balance has had too big an advantage over the past four seasons, in particular the last two. DR has had a great start ( pace, if not results ) and its clear SV is rattled. The rest of the season will test his mettle..

entropy

5,403 posts

202 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Megaflow said:
I think the commentators are close to the mark, but it is not the level of downforce that's the issue, it's the lack of exhaust blown diffuser. Vettel's style seems to suit a blown diffuser, attempts to remove the blown diffuser reduced his apparent advantage to an extent before they got their head around it again and got it working, then he was back to dominance.

He is suffering from the lack of that blown diffuser IMO.
What about 2009? No blown diffusers, engine/exhaust maps but double diffusers and had dominant wins.

Or how about 2008? New car mid-season and Vettel is regular mid-fielder and a race win.



SuperDude

2,348 posts

121 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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entropy said:
What about 2009? No blown diffusers, engine/exhaust maps but double diffusers and had dominant wins.

Or how about 2008? New car mid-season and Vettel is regular mid-fielder and a race win.
Did the blown diffuser not creep in towards the end of 09? Sure that was how RB caught the Brawns?

Fire99

9,844 posts

228 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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SuperDude said:
Did the blown diffuser not creep in towards the end of 09? Sure that was how RB caught the Brawns?
Yep.. Brawn started off with a master-stroke but RB soon were playing catch-up

007 VXR

64,187 posts

186 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Melman Giraffe

6,759 posts

217 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
quotequote all
007 VXR said:
laugh

SuperDude

2,348 posts

121 months

Tuesday 22nd April 2014
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Fire99 said:
SuperDude said:
Did the blown diffuser not creep in towards the end of 09? Sure that was how RB caught the Brawns?
Yep.. Brawn started off with a master-stroke but RB soon were playing catch-up
Yeah, I thought so.

Considering how that design dominated the next four years, kind of makes Button and Barrichello's handling of the RB's all the more impressive.

Kind of. I think... Maybe.

Agent Orange

2,194 posts

245 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
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Listened to the BBC Chequered Flag podcast for China this morning.

Interesting comment from Ben Edwards. He was chatting to Gary Anderson recently and Gary mentioned he believes Vetttel is still driving the car in the same way he drove with blown diffusers.

Ricciadro has adapted his style. Vettel hasn't and appears to be struggling to do so. Horner also commented that they saw this at the start of the 2012 season but with updates to the car they were able to tailor it more to his liking and suddenly the results came.

Guessing we're in the same place right now. Vettel is finding the car doesn't suit him but if RB can change the car or Vettel can find the right setup to suit him he'll be back.

I guess the bigger question is would RB now develop the car in favour of Vettel given his current contract is only until the end of next season? Would you rather work with Ricciardo as he's the future of the team?

mattikake

Original Poster:

5,057 posts

198 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
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A good read from Mark Hughes: http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/22058/9279295/ma...

While this all seems perfectly plausible, it still doesn't excuse that if he is so great, he'd adjust his style to suit the car:rules:tyre combination. Smacks of Schumi and traction control.

The best still get the best out of any car, because they adapt. We've seen Alonso and Hamilton win in all manner of cars and rules in every season, bar 1 for Alonso. There's a reason for that.

oyster

12,577 posts

247 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
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Fire99 said:
toppstuff said:
The most impressive drivers for me are those that get decent results even when the car isn't right. You have to hand it to Alonso in that respect.
I agree with that. Alonso has managed some very good results with a very mediocre car.
All good except Alonso had a great car in 2007 and completely underperformed in it.

Agent Orange

2,194 posts

245 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
quotequote all
oyster said:
Fire99 said:
toppstuff said:
The most impressive drivers for me are those that get decent results even when the car isn't right. You have to hand it to Alonso in that respect.
I agree with that. Alonso has managed some very good results with a very mediocre car.
All good except Alonso had a great car in 2007 and completely underperformed in it.
You also have to consider that Alonso seems to have had an unusually high number of poor cars in his career. In circumstances like that you tend to look for a common denominator and I keep coming back to it being Alonso himself.

Maybe he's not the best at articulating the cars faults to his engineers?

MGJohn

10,203 posts

182 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
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Unlike many other drivers, for the major part of his F1 career, Alonso has had decent kit. Yes, even his now five seasons with Ferrari.

Last year we had a no smoke without fire situation where internal exchanges between their driver and the management emerged with all kinds of slants in the media.

Folks here sometimes accuse both Hamilton and Alonso of "driving the wheels off their cars" whatever that means. That accusation can only be fairly levelled at Hamilton.... hence a fair few DNFs with AWOL wheels.

mattikake

Original Poster:

5,057 posts

198 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
quotequote all
oyster said:
All good except Alonso had a great car in 2007 and completely underperformed in it.
Completely underperformed in it? That's an interesting way of seeing it.

Given that Alonso has NEVER underperformed in any other car, could it be more likely that he was simply outperformed by his teammate instead?

(NB: Occam's Razor suggests this is a rhetorical question.)

heebeegeetee

28,591 posts

247 months

Wednesday 23rd April 2014
quotequote all
MGJohn said:
Unlike many other drivers, for the major part of his F1 career, Alonso has had decent kit. Yes, even his now five seasons with Ferrari.
In F1 terms, I'd describe decent kit as something you could win a championship with. He's clearly not had that for the past 5 seasons, so I have to wonder what your definition of decent is.