Vettels reliability problems?

[Wanta996Gotta]

Is this guy just bloody unlucky or is there something wrong with the way he drives or the design of the car??? Dose anyone have the stats on Vettels failures compared to Webbers???

I dont want us to look back in history in 10 years time and say "He would" have won if not for his mechanical failures/bad luck???

Update:-

http://www.planetf1.com/news/3213/6060883/Vettel-I...

However, it wasn't the car's reliability that was to blame this time around, instead he's revealed it was the fact that a tyre was not "fixed properly" to the car causing brake problems.

"We had a problem with the brakes of the left front tyre. As I understand it the tyre was not fixed properly and therefore had too much play and damaged the brake disc," he told the official F1 website.

"It started two laps before - I wanted to pit but the next lap it was improving again so the decision was made to keep me out, and then it was too late..."

So rather than have 50 points and a comfortable lead in the Drivers' Championship, Vettel has just 12 to his name and a rather keen desire to head home and forgot the last two races.

"It is massively infuriating and in my mind I'm using the 's' word," he said.

"To be honest, at this very moment I would like nothing more but to go home - but life goes on. It gives a certain satisfaction to know that from my side I couldn't have made anything different or better and I think until the moment when the trouble started we'd done a great job."

Edited by Wanta996Gotta on Monday 29th March 10:24

[Jungles]

I don't think it's a matter of driving style. If his driving style is at fault, he would be suffering consistent problems in one or two specific areas, but that's not the case. So far he's had a brake failure and a spark plug failure, which are not related problems. Last year he had engine issues and some people might claim that was a consistent problem, but he was able to drive the remainder of his season on old engines without suffering any further problems with them, so that indicates his engine issue was a matter of chance rather than his driving.

In my opinion, I think the problem is a combination of bad luck and perhaps a technical team that is not quite up to standard. Each driver has his own technical team comprised of a race engineer and a group of mechanics. This is the case with most, if not all, of the established teams. It seems that the quality of work by Vettel's team is maybe of lesser standard when compared to Webber's. Perhaps they recruited some rookies, or are just having a bad run.

Another point of consideration is this: a driver's job is to drive as quickly as possible to win races. A driver's job is not to tip-toe around deficiencies. If the car has reliability issues -- whether it is caused by the driver's lack of mechanical sympathy, a quality assurance problem, component defects, or what have you -- it is up to the engineers to correct it so that the driver can do his/her job. The RB6 has not yet shown a specific deficiency, and unfortunately for Vettel, this lack of a pattern means he cannot take any mitigating action if the car does has defects rooted in design faults. The bottom line is, when it comes to the car, the buck stops with the engineers.

Edited by Jungles on Monday 29th March 14:15

[G0ldfysh]

It is the bad luck crap reliability elf.

It used to live with Kimi but when he left to go crash rally crash someone else had to look after it. Before Kimi it lived with Coulthard, while he was team mates with Mika.

With Kimi I always thought it was driving style, being a little more aggressive than his team mates.

Edited by G0ldfysh on Monday 29th March 22:31

[Mazda Baiter]

Seb Vettel said:

"We had a problem with the brakes of the left front tyre. As I understand it the tyre was not fixed properly and therefore had too much play and damaged the brake disc," he told the official F1 website."

WTF?

No, sorry, bks. I hope that's the language barrier coming into play there, otherwise he is clueless. I think what he meant to say was

"We had a problem with the left front WHEEL. As I understand it the WHEEL was not fixed properly and therefore had too much play and damaged the brake disc,"

Even so, that's a hell of a lot of play for the wheel to contact the disc. I didn't notice any visible vibrations from the onboard shots. Certainly nothing like Kimi at the Nurburgring in 2005/06?

Maybe he has been briefed to say that the car damaged the disc, rather than the press release reading "The BREMBO brake disc failed". A bit like Jack Brabham removing the gearlever from his car with the failed Honda engine. Beard points if you can tell me what race that was.

[anonymous-user]

The failure looked to be either a hub assembly or wheel fixation issue, you can see on the footage a few corners before he goes off that the wheel rim is canting over under load and wobling when not under load, it looked less like a disk failure to me. The disk would have been damaged by the hub assembly or wheel failure, so can easily be blamed, but i'm not convinced the info in the public domain is the reality.

It looked like they got the gearing wrong on Webbers car too, he was on the limiter well before the end of the longer straights, so would have struggled to make any moves in the braking zone, which may have added to the level of risk he had to take to try and pass, it's quite clear if you watch the onboad chanel footage from freeview.

We didnt see enough of Vetel to see if he was riding the curbs which may have induced a failure of the hub assembly. Last year most of the issues were engine related i think, so i wouldnt say he could cause those problems, he is going quicker than Webber so will be putting higher loads on the car, so it's logical he will find the weaknesses, thats not something you can blame seb for though, the car needs to stand it.

[Stuart Dickinson]

Mazda Baiter said:

Seb Vettel said:

"We had a problem with the brakes of the left front tyre. As I understand it the tyre was not fixed properly and therefore had too much play and damaged the brake disc," he told the official F1 website."

WTF?

No, sorry, bks. I hope that's the language barrier coming into play there, otherwise he is clueless. I think what he meant to say was

"We had a problem with the left front WHEEL. As I understand it the WHEEL was not fixed properly and therefore had too much play and damaged the brake disc,"

Even so, that's a hell of a lot of play for the wheel to contact the disc. I didn't notice any visible vibrations from the onboard shots. Certainly nothing like Kimi at the Nurburgring in 2005/06?

Maybe he has been briefed to say that the car damaged the disc, rather than the press release reading "The BREMBO brake disc failed". A bit like Jack Brabham removing the gearlever from his car with the failed Honda engine. Beard points if you can tell me what race that was.

There have been a few funny ones over the years - I seem to recall someone once attributing an engine failure to an 'oil leak' while neglecting to mention that the leak was caused by a rod going through the side of the block.

[Jasandjules]

The Red Bulls haven't been quite as reliable as we would hope. I'd quite like to see Vettel win a WDC just because he seems like a nice guy.

[heebeegeetee]

There is no such thing as luck. The team aren't operating at the required level, simple as that.

Vettel has no reputation for being hard on cars, AFAIAA, so nothing to talk about there.

Personally, last Sunday i don't think the wheel had been attached properly. There was certainly no brake dust or bits of disc to be seen.

[VladD]

heebeegeetee said:

There is no such thing as luck. The team aren't operating at the required level, simple as that.

Vettel has no reputation for being hard on cars, AFAIAA, so nothing to talk about there.

Personally, last Sunday i don't think the wheel had been attached properly. There was certainly no brake dust or bits of disc to be seen.

When I saw the replay at the weekend I assumed it was rear left suspension failure as the front right wheel was lifting off the ground. Still a bit confused by it now.

[hondafanatic]

I think you need a fifth option...

Team errors

The way I see it, he's been let down by what could be silly errors from the people putting his car together.

[Flying Toilet]

hondafanatic said:

I think you need a fifth option...

Team errors

The way I see it, he's been let down by what could be silly errors from the people putting his car together.

This is most likely the problem, it was installation error at Bahrain apparently...

[ucb]

I seem to recall that Newey's McLaren designs were also fast but prone to failures. It is an impression of his designs that stuck with me.

Could be entirely wrong, but KR's failures were 'fairly' common (ie common enough to earn him a moniker)

[toomuchbeer]

VladD said:

When I saw the replay at the weekend I assumed it was rear left suspension failure as the front right wheel was lifting off the ground. Still a bit confused by it now.

that's what I thought, so I've just had an other look at the replay, and the front right does appear to be off the floor. Vettel is braking in a straight line, and the back end seems to go, which lifts the front wheel causing it to lock.

When he comes to rest, both front wheels are still firmly attached to the car, and both rotate backwards when he lifts off the brakes. They don't appear loose to me.

[Jungles]

The wheels don't have to be loose. Even if they are just not aligned properly, it would cause enormous vibration and stress to the surrounding area.

[heebeegeetee]

Loose wheel my arse. Mansell wouldn't have let that car take him into the gravel, he'd have carried that car to the flag, on his back if need be, and then he'd collapse on the rostrum in time-honored fashion.

fking kids of today, they're all lettuce leaves...

[The Wookie]

johnfelstead said:

It looked like they got the gearing wrong on Webbers car too, he was on the limiter well before the end of the longer straights

I spotted that too, I assumed it'd just dumped 7th gear. I can't imagine the team not noticing that in testing.

[Flying Toilet]

The Wookie said:

johnfelstead said:

It looked like they got the gearing wrong on Webbers car too, he was on the limiter well before the end of the longer straights

I spotted that too, I assumed it'd just dumped 7th gear. I can't imagine the team not noticing that in testing.

Webber lost a gear during the race.

[ajprice]

Flying Toilet said:

The Wookie said:

johnfelstead said:

It looked like they got the gearing wrong on Webbers car too, he was on the limiter well before the end of the longer straights

I spotted that too, I assumed it'd just dumped 7th gear. I can't imagine the team not noticing that in testing.

Webber lost a gear during the race.

He said it was 2nd gear he couldn't get because he lost time being stuck in first in the pit exit from his stop. But maybe he lost 7th too?

As for Vettel, on his qualifying lap, in those last few corners he was absolutely ragging it round, over the kerbs and sparks flying from the front of the car (literally), could any of that damaged the front left enough to be a slow burner and break from more stress in the race?

[profstoff]

Jungles said:

Another point of consideration is this: a driver's job is to drive as quickly as possible to win races. A driver's job is not to tip-toe around deficiencies. If the car has reliability issues -- whether it is caused by the driver's lack of mechanical sympathy, a quality assurance problem, component defects, or what have you -- it is up to the engineers to correct it so that the driver can do his/her job. The RB6 has not yet shown a specific deficiency, and unfortunately for Vettel, this lack of a pattern means he cannot take any mitigating action if the car does has defects rooted in design faults. The bottom line is, when it comes to the car, the buck stops with the engineers.

I agree with you to a certain extent. A driver's job is to win races, an engineer's job is to build a reliable car. But if the car develops problems, it is the driver that has to get that car to the finish (to finish first, you first have to finish) and if that means driving round problems or nursing a damaged car, so be it. It's another skill in the driver's arsenal and there have been some drivers who have been notable in ths regard. Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher spring to mind.

[Fire99]

Over analysis I think.

If his wheel wasn't secured properly then no doubt it would be a gamble decision by him and the team whether to keep him out and risk it or bring him in for a wheel change/inspection.

Looks like he took a risk and paid the price.