Is Vettel overrated? What do you think

[ringo]

Yup, I do include his first year in assessing Hamilton. In fact, a lot of claims about his passing prowess is based on his performance in his rookie year. Like I said, to properly assess a driver you need to examine all aspects. Just focusing on just the high spots and electing to have selective amnesia does not offer a valid opinion.

I do take offence at the disrespect directed against Alonso. Although sometimes his antics resemble a TV episode of Monty Python, he is responsible for what is arguably the most ballsy and interesting pass in the last few years. At the 2005 Japanese GP Alonso passed Schumacher on the outside of turn 130R. And as mentioned previous, his pass on Hamilton at the 2007 Interlagos was one he had to perform, and executed.

You're digging deep. Just face it, Alonso is a good overtaker, but he's no overtaking master. I'm going to go watch those 2 overtakes you mentioned, they were so spectacular i forgot them.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLZLxT1ZEPA[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X3vZRYHWYw[/youtube]
Even Vettel could do this. ^ Ballsy yes, but it's a pretty simple move at the end of the straight.

How many times and ways has Hamilton passed Alonso? Ahh selective amnesia.

This lost Hamilton the WDC in 2007, not an Alonso overtake.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ryz0ulO ... re=related[/youtube]

But to stick to the topic, Vettel has cracked under much less pressure than Hamilton experienced. Hamilton didn't throw away races in 2007 like Vettel is doing now. He was simply unlucky with mechanical problems.

[DaveKillens]

[you do realise how biased you come across and its fairly obvious your'e not a hamilon fan.

That's a very interesting statement, and I wish to offer an argument.

I've been a dedicated fan of racing for 39 years, and watched so many races live and on TV it would be insane to attempt to count the number. But over the years I have come to realize that fans come in an almost infinite flavor of different types. Some fans only cheer for a certain individual based purely on personal reasons. Heck, I've met and spoken to NASCAR fans who root for a driver only because he has pretty eyes, or supported a certain charity. Then there are fans who are attached to a certain manufacturer, and cheer for their team. And some fans know almost nothing about the science of racing. But you know what, they are each and all fans of racing, in their own way. I don't consider anyone right or wrong, it's the variety that actually makes it such a wonderful sport.

Myself, I have no emotional attachment to any driver or team. I just love to watch the racing, the motorized combat and display of amazing skills. To add to this statment I wish to replay something that happened in 1974. It was at Mosport, the week preceding the F5000 race. The teams had rented the track and were practicing like crazy. I was fortunate in getting a pit pass because I had assisted one team. One day there was a break in the F5000 testing and a Mini race was put on. I was sitting on the pit wall near turn 10, and Mario Andretti sat down beside me and he was captivated by the racing. Not that it was world-class, this was just local racers having fun. But the pack was incredibly tight, and the racing was fierce. But it was obvious Mario was a fan of just racing.

And that's my point, that I'm a fan of the racing, I'm not a fan of any specific driver. I like and respect each and every one of them, no exceptions. I'm definitely not a Hamilton fan, and I'm not a Vettel or Alonso fan.

You don't have to be a fan of anyone, you don't need to know anything about the science of racing, you don't have to follow the rules except for the fact you are a fan. And if so, you are a member of a wonderful community.

I was fully aware that any posts I made in this thread would invite a counter-attack and personal attacks because I was offering something that certain people would not agree with. That's cool, because I don't agree with some comments. Hey, if we all agreed on everything it would be a very dull world. If anyone goes back and reads my posts, they are just counter-arguments to what I considered wild exaggerations. That's all I did, and it provokes such responses.

Someone says something, I push back. And if anyone has been following this thread, after my comments they push back twice as hard, attempting to discredit my opinion.That's a shame, because I respect people's opinions and the right to have them.

[raymondu999]

here's what I don't understand: We always say that rain is a great performance equalizer, and we know that Vettel is capable of rain overtakes from China this year and last year. We know from Silverstone, and Brazil, given a bit of a car advantage (Red Bull didn't have a massive 1.2 sec advantage in Brazil) he can overtake in the dry. So... what's missing here?

[nash]

Good driver won't take others out due to stupid judgement and inferior car control!
vettel is not the same class as other previous world champion.

[marcush.]

with his silly manoevres he reminds me of sutil pre 2010...but Sutil had to go through it coming from the very rear.
He´s not the guy you want to have near you in the race as contact or worse is a fact almost....
then they gave Schumacher a 10spot penalty for a close cut fight without even making contact...

[ringo]

Vettel will get to Sutil's maturity after this year. I think Webber's presence is affecting him.
He has lost some ratings, but he's still valuable. The only draw back is that with the ban on refueling, i think the teams want a driver with a mix of speed and racing ability. Speed alone can't cut it this year, the competition is too stiff.

Vettel is still in my top 10 drivers for 2010, though he lost a whole bunch of places. 2 other Germans take his spot. Alonso is just there out of respect and potential to turn things around. He's been almost as bad as Vettel this year.

Hamilton
Alonso
Sutil/Rosberg
Kubica
Webber
Button
Vettel

[marcush.]

err thats only 8 ringo..does hamilton score triple?

[ringo]

Oh right, i have to list all ten. I'd say Heiki and Shumacher. The order is not reflective of speed.

[marcush.]

I would not want to run into a drivers ranking debate here but given the RBR6 is the class of the field ,neither Webber nor Vettel can be considered top 4 in a ranking ...
I even feel they´d struggle both to make it savely into the top 10 at this time ..
to me both vet and Web are not influential in the development and speed of the car and so could be easily substituted even though when Vettel arrived at RedBull this was certainly giving the team a boost.
Today i would think Kubica,Button,Rosberg ,Schumacher,Raikkonen,alaonso,massa etc etc would have not fared worse than these two by a long shot.

[lolzi]

There's a difference between defending your position and risking a collision and causing a needless collision when you're trying to overtake.

When Senna wanted to overtake he overtook, and you never saw him. When he defended his position he would risk a collision, but that's a psychological stand he took. This is most certainly not what Vettel is doing. It's just incompetence. To swerve to the outside when you realise the inside is closed, when it should have been obvious, and do it violently in a way that you lose control of the car, that's just a kamikaze move.

Indeed I rather doubt that anyone, least of all Button was "intimidated" in the way that Senna intimidated other drivers. Vettel's move in this instance had quite the contrary effect and JB (along with everyone else I suspect) is determined to beat Vettel next time out, giving him minimum leeway in the process.

As to his efforts on "slower" drivers his "Chop" on I think Liutzi (old age=bad memory for detail) was pretty pathetic and again serverd mainly to prove incompetence, not pecking-order. If you're going to play the "tough guy" you have to do it sucessfully, with a bit of panache.

Senna had the respect of other drivers. He earned a special status so that most other drivers kept clear. Vettel is at least a couple of WDCs and a lot of growing-up away from that status.

As I said in my earlier post he's a fast driver, but doesn't seem able to understand the mechanics of winning an F1 race except when he starts from Pole (and not that often then).

I'm probably wrong, but I thought Vettel was on the inside? A "chop" is normally from the outside, I thought?

[segedunum]

This lost Hamilton the WDC in 2007, not an Alonso overtake.

No, what lost him the championship was a succession of mistakes prior, the biggest being blowing his tyres in China. Oh, and he qualified extremely badly in Brazil. But, nice try anyway.

[snowy]

The McLaren team insisted he stay out for another lap, while they pontificated in China, he had a very significant lead up until that point and had plenty of time in hand to pit. They shouldn't have left him out on worn tyres, an error from the team.

In Brazil Lewis qualified on the front row, if qualifying 2nd is extremely bad then woe betide everyone not driving a Red Bull this season.

[snowy]

FORMULA 1™ Grande Prêmio do Brasil 2007

Pos 	No 	Driver 		Team 		Q1		Q2		Q3 		
1 	5 	Felipe Massa 	Ferrari 	1:12.303	1:12.374	1:11.931 	
2 	2 	Lewis Hamilton 	McLaren 	1:13.033	1:12.296	1:12.082 	
3 	6 	Kimi Räikkönen 	Ferrari 	1:13.016	1:12.161	1:12.322 	
4 	1 	Fernando Alonso McLaren 	1:12.895	1:12.637	1:12.356 	
5 	15 	Mark Webber 	Red Bull 	1:13.081	1:12.683	1:12.928

[Pup]

(slap)

[PlatinumZealot]

This lost Hamilton the WDC in 2007, not an Alonso overtake.

No, what lost him the championship was a succession of mistakes prior, the biggest being blowing his tyres in China. Oh, and he qualified extremely badly in Brazil. But, nice try anyway.

Nice try , but how do you know which error was critical to him losing the championship?
This succession of mistakes is exagerated. The team messed up more than the driver a number of times. Name a race in 2007 where he placed a wheel wrong and messed up his race. Brazil 2007 poor start was just at the begining of the race and had little effect on it's outcome.
I'd say the last thing that happened is more relevant. Which happened to be the FIA remotely shutting off his gearbox!
They didn't want a rookie making the Highest form of motor racing look like a cake walk.


Vettel's closest sniff of a WDC was last year, but he lost in Brazil qualifying.