If Vettel performs poorly this year... what will that mean?

[wickedz50]

It is a bit early to make any judgement IMO. Vettel is a driver who needs a car fine tuned to his style. In that he is probably similar to other great drivers. Hamilton is the opposite. He takes every car and wrings all possible performance out of it. I will wait until the Red Bull situation has stabilized and Seb has a car which does reliably what he wants it to do. He has used inferior cars like the Toro Rosso to win a race in the rain. That shows he does not always need the fastest car on track to be superior. So if we see a whole year of bad performances I will also start to have second thoughts about him, but that appears unlikely to me.

I don't agree with that at all
great drivers are the ones who can get the best out of whatever they have in my view
vettel 's past and present results demonstrate that he isn't that , at least not yet ...he is still young , maybe he can learn ...frankly I doubt it but would be delighted to be proved wrong as the sport needs it's great ones

He had the sponsors big money behind him to get a RBR drive and now they will push him to have better results than Vettel just as Hamilton against Rosberg. Its all about the money sponsors the driver brings to the Team. Ric will never win a championship for RBR. RBR should be thankful and grateful for what Vettel had done for the team.

[Aesto]

Vettel is like Piquet. Definitely not the best driver of his era, but he still managed to win a lot of titles by being in the right team at the right time. He also couldn't handle a faster teammate and, in the case of Mansell, outmaneuvered him politically within the team, and once Schumacher joined him at Benetton, he just quit. When the car wasn't the best, he was also completely unremarkable (82,84,85,88-91; in 82 he was even beaten by PATRESE of all people). Same goes for Vettel.

I wouldn't say that this means that Vettel is not a good driver, just that the people calling him one of the 'all-time greats' were exaggerating a little. The truly great drivers of their time (Alonso, Schumacher, Senna, etc.) all managed to do very well even when they weren't driving the best cars.

[turbof1]

In all probabilities that all smile aussie (Danny Rick ) is no better than him. Thats the bottom line !!! He had the sponsors big money behind him to get a RBR drive and now they will push him to have better results than Vettel just as Hamilton against Rosberg. Its all about the money sponsors the driver brings to the Team. Ric will never win a championship for RBR. RBR should be thankful and grateful for what Vettel had done for the team.

This hasn't anything to do with money. Granted, Ricciardo landed the RBR drive because RBR and Kimi couldn't get to an agreement, but Ricciardo still had to proof himself.

RBR is rumoured to have the biggest budget, probably has. As a consequence, they aren't dependent on money a driver brings along. Ricciardo was choosen because of his performance, and he duly confirms he is a very correct choice. Whether or not he wins a championship.

Yes Red Bull should be thankful for Vettel, but the opposite is also true: Vettel should be very thankful for the team delivering a championship winning car 4 years in a row. It's always 2 sides of a coin, not only for vettel but for every f1 champion.

[Ciro Pabón]

I don't know if Vettel is Great, Large, Medium or Small, but Ricciardo surely has beaten the heck out of him.

So, from the question of this thread we can take out the "If".

Today Vettel had to ask if Ricciardo had the same tyres, when Ricciardo was gaining on him.

Ouch.

The radio comment in China was really devastating...

"Please stay out Sebastian, it helps us".

It help us?

Double ouch.

So, if you ask me (don't!) then Vettel performance this year means: "ouch".

"The first stint today was okay but after that I'm not sure what happened". Neither are we, Seb...


He''s not the only disconcerted guy this year, btw.

"I don't know what McLaren are doing". Neither do we, Jen

[JimClarkFan]

As a corollary to what seems to be the general consensus that he is not the best driver on the grid or of his era, I think that many of us would agree that there is a section of the F1 community who don't rate him at all - wrongly so in my view.

It is worth remembering throughout all this. Is that as a driver you can only beat what is put in front of you.

I think Vettel was close to sublime in that Red Bull, I think Newey worked the car so perfectly to his liking. Some would try and take that away from him, which I don't think is right.

He also seems to be one of the most normal and down to earth guys on the grid.

Anyway, interesting discussion, views are varied as expected. We kept it civil too... go us

[turbof1]

Anyway, interesting discussion, views are varied as expected. We kept it civil too... go us

*cough* *cough* 31 moderating interventions! *cough*

[JimClarkFan]

Anyway, interesting discussion, views are varied as expected. We kept it civil too... go us

*cough* *cough* 31 moderating interventions! *cough*

wow... really

Lol, don't go us

Good job on keeping all that underwraps

[Ultra_Tech]

As a corollary to what seems to be the general consensus that he is not the best driver on the grid or of his era, I think that many of us would agree that there is a section of the F1 community who don't rate him at all - wrongly so in my view.

It is worth remembering throughout all this. Is that as a driver you can only beat what is put in front of you.

I think Vettel was close to sublime in that Red Bull, I think Newey worked the car so perfectly to his liking. Some would try and take that away from him, which I don't think is right.

I have always said one simple thing.

As soon as he actually has to race with the top drivers, instead of being in a rocketship where he can get out of DRS in one lap and cruise home.....then we will find out how good he really is. This has been coming for some time now, even when he was in the rocketship there were little tell tale signs that he wasn't the same when the playing field was equalized, particularly when he actually had to race wheel to wheel with other drivers where he really struggled in my view.

The only thing he ever proved in his 4 WDC title years was that he was faster on Merit than Mark Webber, 2012 for example, going life and death with Fernando Alonso, if the roles were reversed and Alonso was in the Red Bull,that title would have been finished mid season, never a final race decider.

Signs have been there for some time. I really thought 2009 when Jenson Button was destroying everything that moved would have shown people once and for all that most of the top 6/7 driver will look like Senna when their car is 0.5 per faster than anyone else, but no.....people obviously were still getting sucked in unfortunately.

[Gerhard Berger]

As a corollary to what seems to be the general consensus that he is not the best driver on the grid or of his era, I think that many of us would agree that there is a section of the F1 community who don't rate him at all - wrongly so in my view.

It is worth remembering throughout all this. Is that as a driver you can only beat what is put in front of you.

I think Vettel was close to sublime in that Red Bull, I think Newey worked the car so perfectly to his liking. Some would try and take that away from him, which I don't think is right.

I have always said one simple thing.

As soon as he actually has to race with the top drivers, instead of being in a rocketship where he can get out of DRS in one lap and cruise home.....then we will find out how good he really is. This has been coming for some time now, even when he was in the rocketship there were little tell tale signs that he wasn't the same when the playing field was equalized, particularly when he actually had to race wheel to wheel with other drivers where he really struggled in my view.

The only thing he ever proved in his 4 WDC title years was that he was faster on Merit than Mark Webber, 2012 for example, going life and death with Fernando Alonso, if the roles were reversed and Alonso was in the Red Bull,that title would have been finished mid season, never a final race decider.

Signs have been there for some time. I really thought 2009 when Jenson Button was destroying everything that moved would have shown people once and for all that most of the top 6/7 driver will look like Senna when their car is 0.5 per faster than anyone else, but no.....people obviously were still getting sucked in unfortunately.

Agree with this.

Ross Brawn once said that a great test of a driver's ability is to see how he performs when he doesn't have the best car. We saw Schumacher was outstanding in years like 96-98 and we've seen the same from Alonso the last few years and so far this year. Yet to see something similar from Vettel, and this year, with the car as it is, is the perfect opportunity.

"For Sebastian, what will come now, which will be an interesting phase of his career, will be when he has not got the best car," Brawn is quoted on Autosport as saying.

[beelsebob]

As a corollary to what seems to be the general consensus that he is not the best driver on the grid or of his era, I think that many of us would agree that there is a section of the F1 community who don't rate him at all - wrongly so in my view.

I'm not sure that's true. I think simply that arguments on the internet make people's views seem more polarised than they are. As someone I suspect you may think who is from the "don't rate him at all" category, my actual opinion is that he's probably about as good as Kimi or Sutil - i.e. pretty damn good, just not god's gift to mankind.

I think Vettel was close to sublime in that Red Bull, I think Newey worked the car so perfectly to his liking. Some would try and take that away from him, which I don't think is right.

I'm not sure what "close to sublime" is meant to mean to be honest. He drove a very fast car fairly consistently. There are many drivers that could do this.

He also seems to be one of the most normal and down to earth guys on the grid.

I disagree. I would have agreed in 2010, but now, he seems like an egotistical child who expects to be handed everything. The way he refused team orders today was insulting to everyone in the team for no reason other than being petulant.

[ringo]

I'm not a fan of his, but Vettel is a great driver, and in the same breath Piquet is. What's similar with these two is that they may not be the best of their time, but they made the best of what they were given and who they were up against.
From the beginning i knew he wasn't the fastest guy on the track or the most complete.
In fact based on his racing, he doesn't have the beastly chracteristics of Hamilton or Alonso; however he knows how maximise.

Even if ricciardo continues to thresh him out into the floor, and we start to see that vettel got lucky these past 4 years. All it is saying is that vettel made hay when the sun shined. Vettel doesn't have to prove anything else to be considered great.
He only has to prove more to be considered legendary.
And the funny thing is, guys with less championships, such as Alonso and Hamilton, in my book are also great drivers and have their part of legend already engraved in history. They have the miraculous drives to prove it.

Seb is talented like all the other drives. He's not as great as his fans make him out to be. Same as Kimi. But he can't be discounted.

[turbof1]

I disagree. I would have agreed in 2010, but now, he seems like an egotistical child who expects to be handed everything. The way he refused team orders today was insulting to everyone in the team for no reason other than being petulant.

I have to admit he did come across to me as defiant with the "tough luck" comment. Now that I've given it some thought, it might (or might not) have just been a genuine discription of the situation. I don't know, probably it was him ignoring team orders, but I'm keeping the possibility open.

Even then; I personally have nothing against a driver that doesn't want to follow team orders. That's racing. Going from that he did obeyed in Bahrain, he does give the team order some serious thought. In Bahrain he realised he and Ricciardo had a clear strategy difference and holding up Ricciardo would disadvantage the later very gravely. At China the benefits of letting Ricciardo through weren't at the time not as clear cut, not seeing the point of letting ricciardo through. This isn't a egotistical child; this a driver that gives the team order some critical thought about what he is being told. teachers in the academic world try to bring this very same philosophy to their students: don't just accept what's being told, but think and judge if it's actually correct.

[QinetiQ]

That awkward moment when Kobayashi in a Caterham overtakes Vettel in a Red Bull. Dang, Seb must've pooped his pants

[SilverArrow10]

That awkward moment when a Caterham overtakes Vettel. Dang, Seb must've pooped his pants

Good old kobayashi. No matter how bad his car is and how good the opponent is he will always try stick one up the inside, and being able to annoy the four time world champion can only do wonders for your cv.

[Coulthard's Jaw]

Even then; I personally have nothing against a driver that doesn't want to follow team orders.

I don't either, but it works both ways, I don't want to hear Vettel demanding Ricciardo be moved out of his way later on in the season.