Are we seeing a Vettel era?

[Richard]

All this talk of winnign in a Minardi reminds me of Olivier Panis, in Monaco, in a Lieger, from 14th on the grid. That's comparable to winning in a Minardi.

He overtook (yes overtook in Monaco!) Martin Brundle (Jordan), Mika Häkkinen (McLaren), Johnny Herbert (Sauber), Eddie Irvine (Ferari)

[marcush.]

No, not really.Ligier was a top team ,winning Grand Prix in the late 70s and 80s and was a bit like Williams is today...A rather big team .What once was Minardi was in a phase of transition and basically that year TR got a car designed and build largely by RedBull Technologies ,Ascanelli had something like 20 people under him who could be counted as engineers...that´s surely comparable to HRT today ...Imagine HRT or Virgin winning a Grand Prix....Vettel was on pole that weekend as well ,btw.
When Panis won in Monaco he just had so much (deserved !)luck that day and Ligier definetely was on a roll during that time .Panis had scored second places in races 1995 and 1994 before and the following year he would have undoubtedly have won if he did not suffer a heavy crash in Canada breaking his leg.Some Jarno Trulli stepped in and took a second place finish on his debut if I remember correctly.
In those days Ligier was a 70/75 headcount if I´m correct ,but that was already a big reduction by 35 headcount during the winter of 1995 after Walkinshaw /TWR and Ligier fights... one paralell to Vettels Toro Rosso situation clearly was that Ligier effectively ran a car based on Benetton designs but a different engine to the base design. Budgetwise the discrepancy was huge around 22mill Dollors ligier compared to 80+ of Mclaren or 120mill for Ferrari...but todays Toro Rosso is a reported 90millEuro undertaking and that´s only half of what RedBull and the other top teams are spending....

BTW Panis won a Grand prix that had 3 cars actually finishing the race ....different days ..compared to todays...

[myurr]

I imagine HRT with their 20 engineers (your quote) would do rather well if they were given a Red Bull chassis even if they had to compromise it a bit to fit a Ferrari engine to the back.

It's utterly ridiculous to equate Torro Rosso with Minardi. Then, more so than now, Torro Rosso were really a fully fledged Red Bull B team, with hand me down parts and chassis and sharing of IP right across the board.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I imagine HRT with their 20 engineers (your quote) would do rather well if they were given a Red Bull chassis even if they had to compromise it a bit to fit a Ferrari engine to the back.

It's utterly ridiculous to equate Torro Rosso with Minardi. Then, more so than now, Torro Rosso were really a fully fledged Red Bull B team, with hand me down parts and chassis and sharing of IP right across the board.

Concurred.

Although Vettels achievement of winning a GP in a Torri Rosso looks fantastic on paper, the reality is the car was capable of winining that race. I have never witnessed a Minardi being in such a postion. And a great comparison of Hill in the arrows, what heartache I had for Hill! Never had any affiliation or like of him, but you'd have to be stone hearted not to feel for the man.

I digress! Vettel has done too well to be questioned as a worthy champ. Indeed greats such a Senna, Schumacher, Hakkinen and Prost have all had crushing car advantages. But the steed is only as good as it's cowboy, and webber for whatever valid reason, is still not capable of utilising the equipment.

By total definition we are seeing a Vettel era, there can be no argument. For the last 2 years he has proved it, and for his age the most successful driver ever. He is only 24.... Think about it guys.

I end on the sour(sweet) note that hakkinen(of old) would still have him!

[Lurk]

Gerhard, Bourdais had a wet setup that race, and qualified a second off Vettel's pace

Yep but Bourdais isn't really a reference, isn't it?

What once was Minardi was in a phase of transition and basically that year TR got a car designed and build largely by RedBull Technologies ,Ascanelli had something like 20 people under him who could be counted as engineers...that´s surely comparable to HRT today ...Imagine HRT or Virgin winning a Grand Prix...

An already 3 years transition and their 3rd car designed by RB Technology...
Even if they didn'thave top team ressources, they had an RBR. Plus RBR team & drivers wasn't bad compared to STR one's but we all know that they were testing a lot of new pieces each weekend without taking time to optimize their usage.
STR had more time to understand them and optimize their setup - and they got only the pieces that worked well, not the bad one's.
So it is more like HRT or Virgin - or rather Lotus but nevermind - winning with an MGP in a race when the top teams starting after 10th place (Webber and Massa can start top 6 if you want, it should be barely a problem ).

What Rosberg did in Singapour 2 or 3 weeks later with a Williams impressed me more than Vettel winning Italian GP. Even if it was already impressive.

[marcush.]

I think you are not getting the point there.Webber is NOT winning this year ,isn´t he ?He has undoubtedly the same hardware and as many recources avaialable to him but still he struggles to even make it into the first row in Qualy or finish on the podium .He rarely looked like he was in contention for the win this year and not only against his teammate..
So by that logic ,handing out a RBR7 to HRT or Virgin will not make those instantly contenders for a Podium ,let alone for a win if there is such a huge dropoff in performance even within one and the same team (And Webber being a mate of Horners and Newey it seems quite unlikely they would deliberately give him second rate service ....and furthermore now with Vettel having bagged all the titles already there is no reason to not give him the very best of everything ,as p2 in the drivers is all there is left to gain for RedBull this year.

[beelsebob]

I think you are not getting the point there.Webber is NOT winning this year ,isn´t he ?He has undoubtedly the same hardware and as many recources avaialable to him but still he struggles to even make it into the first row in Qualy or finish on the podium .He rarely looked like he was in contention for the win this year and not only against his teammate..
So by that logic ,handing out a RBR7 to HRT or Virgin will not make those instantly contenders for a Podium ,let alone for a win if there is such a huge dropoff in performance even within one and the same team (And Webber being a mate of Horners and Newey it seems quite unlikely they would deliberately give him second rate service ....and furthermore now with Vettel having bagged all the titles already there is no reason to not give him the very best of everything ,as p2 in the drivers is all there is left to gain for RedBull this year.

I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make. No one is asserting that if you gave the HRT drivers an RB7 they would instantly become WDC contenders. They're asserting that if you gave Alonso, Hamilton or Button an RB7 they would instantly become WDC contenders. They're also asserting that if you gave Massa an RB7 he might be on a par with Webber.

[Raptor22]

He was in an ecelent car in 2002 and 2004 but look at 2003... the McLaren with Michelins was the thing to have

MP4-17D scored 2 victories against 1 vs the last year Ferrari. Then we had 7 victories in 12 races for the F2003-GA vs 0. And McLaren was the thing to have!?

You must be kidding, right?

Stats don't tell the full story. That year both Williams BMW and McLaren were on Michelin tyres. In the pre season changes were made to the rules that made it difficult for the Bridgestone runners to get their cars set up optimised. The result was that Michelin teams had the uper hand.
Williams and McLaren conspired to lose the championship through poor tactics, accidents (drivers tripping over each other) or just plain overeuberance. On more thna one occasion the Bridgestone runners struggled for pace but thanks to strategy they were able to compete. So no I'm not kidding. Ferrari's results that year are a testimony to the strength of the team, the drivers and a solid car under them. And thats what it takes to win under any set of rules.

In 2011, the RB7 was always in the fight.On occasion it was pure strategy tactics and the driver and team puttin gin the necessary to do what had to be done to get in front that won them the races. Again the stats when viewed from race wins and laps led shows utter dominance. But it was a lot closer than that had McLaren not had their driver(s) running into each other, or other cars as regularly.
Vettel did an excellent job to keep his Red BUll in a position where it required the other teams to take the fight to them. Tis is where McLaren and Ferrari ofetn came up short.
Ferrari's preference for Alonso success bit them hard this year. Hamilton's personal issues boiling over onto the track cost McLaren dear.

Vettel, like Schumacher before him seems to be able to keep perspective better than his rivals. He is not an unemotional machine so he has his vices and moods (as did Schumacher, and Senna, and Prost and Mansell and Clark), he is human.

Fact is Red Bull team Red One did a much better job than Red Bull Team White Two and everyone else. They made better set upcalls wrt balancing downforce and drag, gear ratio's, suspension compliance and exhaust overun (blowing) mapping. They got it right more often than the rest and that shows in the results.

RB7 was not a dominant car like MP4/4 was. It did not lap the entire field in nearly every race. It was not involved in a RB7 only fight for the championship. Two other manufacturers also weighed in and only failed due to not being able to consistently extract the best from their cars.

The really dominant cars of the last years has been:

McLaren MP4/4 (Gordan Murray)
McLaren MP4/13 (ADrian Newey)
Williams Renault FW 14A&B (Adrian Newey)
Williams FW 18(Adrian Newey)
Ferrari F2002 (Rory Byrne/Paulo Martinelli)
Ferrari F2004 (Byrne/Martinelli/Costa)



These cars were capable of leaving the competition a lap behind.
RB6 and RB7, excellent car that they are, were not capable of the same domination but they got the job done on a smaller budget.
The Red Bulls are in my view the kind of cars that Benetton produced from 1994 to 1996. Excellent and dominant in the right hands. Put less capable drivers in the car aka Benetton B196 (Berger/Alesi) and the same car becomes an also ran.
The way Vettel dominated Webber this year is indicative of the way Schumacher dominated Brundle/Herbert/Irvine/Barrichello. All of those were excellent drivers who on a given day with the car set up right were just as fast, but they lacked the skilled to do it consistently.

[Raptor22]

I imagine HRT with their 20 engineers (your quote) would do rather well if they were given a Red Bull chassis even if they had to compromise it a bit to fit a Ferrari engine to the back.

It's utterly ridiculous to equate Torro Rosso with Minardi. Then, more so than now, Torro Rosso were really a fully fledged Red Bull B team, with hand me down parts and chassis and sharing of IP right across the board.

Concurred.

Although Vettels achievement of winning a GP in a Torri Rosso looks fantastic on paper, the reality is the car was capable of winining that race. I have never witnessed a Minardi being in such a postion. And a great comparison of Hill in the arrows, what heartache I had for Hill! Never had any affiliation or like of him, but you'd have to be stone hearted not to feel for the man.

I digress! Vettel has done too well to be questioned as a worthy champ. Indeed greats such a Senna, Schumacher, Hakkinen and Prost have all had crushing car advantages. But the steed is only as good as it's cowboy, and webber for whatever valid reason, is still not capable of utilising the equipment.

By total definition we are seeing a Vettel era, there can be no argument. For the last 2 years he has proved it, and for his age the most successful driver ever. He is only 24.... Think about it guys.

I end on the sour(sweet) note that hakkinen(of old) would still have him!

a little fact that many seem to be missing with the Vettel STR Monza victory is that for much of Vettel's time at STR the team looked to him for set up once they realised he could get the car dialed. His team mates benefitted from that, hence Grosjean was able to get it up to 4th on the grid.

We're seeing the same happen at Red Bull. When Vettel gets the car dialled Webber can;t stick with him and Vettel has been getting it more right this year than last. Last year he and Webber often shared set up data. Often this would lift Webber and sometimes it would lift Vettel. More often than not it was Webber running a similar set up to Vettel that made the difference.
This year with the removal of the DDD and more exhaust influence, VEttel has been able to dial the car more to his preference than Webber. The car appears to be tricky to get dialled in but Vettel/Rocqui and the Mechanics are doing a better job than Webber.
Back to the STR, Vettel lifted the car to whats its performance potential was.
Yes Alonso and Hamilton and even Schumacher could do the same, maybe Rosberg too. Point is, with the equipment they had in 2011, they didn't.
and at Monza in 2008, a rookie, in a car with a lower potential performance ceiling, was set up better and out drove more experienced drivers, in better funded cars to clam victory.

deny what you want, the achievement is simply SPECIAL. It happens once in a while.
Schumacher in a Jordan
Alonso in a Minardi
Hamilton in a McLaren beating a double World Champ.
so yes they would have perhaps been able to achieve similar results in a RB7 but thats quite a stab in the dark since there is no guarantee that any one of those drivers would be able to gel with the RB7 in way that would make it as successful.

History is what it is, "What ifs" only serve to highlight ones contempt for history.

[raymondu999]

Grosjean was able to get it up to 4th on the grid.

Damn that Grosjean kid's good. He qualified 4th a year before he got into F1
I kid, I kid but of course that was just a simple typo and you meant Bourdais

I do agree with your post though. Very well written.

[Gerhard Berger]

Stats don't tell the full story. That year both Williams BMW and McLaren were on Michelin tyres. In the pre season changes were made to the rules that made it difficult for the Bridgestone runners to get their cars set up optimised. The result was that Michelin teams had the uper hand.
Williams and McLaren conspired to lose the championship through poor tactics, accidents (drivers tripping over each other) or just plain overeuberance. On more thna one occasion the Bridgestone runners struggled for pace but thanks to strategy they were able to compete. So no I'm not kidding. Ferrari's results that year are a testimony to the strength of the team, the drivers and a solid car under them. And thats what it takes to win under any set of rules.

Ferrari was still good that season, and different teams were competitive at different races. I would say that if anyone threw the title away, it was Williams and Montoya rather than Mclaren and Raikonnen. Seasons like 97 and 98 show the strength of Ferrari when they had an inferior car.

In 2011, the RB7 was always in the fight.On occasion it was pure strategy tactics and the driver and team puttin gin the necessary to do what had to be done to get in front that won them the races. Again the stats when viewed from race wins and laps led shows utter dominance. But it was a lot closer than that had McLaren not had their driver(s) running into each other, or other cars as regularly.

It seems you are getting into the dangerous practice of writing an alternative history by using the word "if". Sure Mclaren could have done things better, but then so could have Red Bull. Better to deal with the facts though, rather than what could've have happened.

Vettel did an excellent job to keep his Red BUll in a position where it required the other teams to take the fight to them. Tis is where McLaren and Ferrari ofetn came up short.
Ferrari's preference for Alonso success bit them hard this year. Hamilton's personal issues boiling over onto the track cost McLaren dear.

Well i guess that comes down to the pace of the car. Red Bull were able to get nearly all the pole positions this season, and it was a similar story last season.

Not sure what evidence you've got for Ferrari's preference of Alonso. Massa has been ahead of Alonso on multiple occasions this season yet no team orders were used. Same can't be said for Red Bull with respect to Webber and Vettel.

Vettel, like Schumacher before him seems to be able to keep perspective better than his rivals. He is not an unemotional machine so he has his vices and moods (as did Schumacher, and Senna, and Prost and Mansell and Clark), he is human.

I don't see the similarities with Schumacher personally (apart from both being German). Schumacher was less emotional and certainly kept his emotions under wrap apart from a couple of infamus occasions. Vettel reminds me more of a Hill or a Hakkinen.

RB7 was not a dominant car like MP4/4 was. It did not lap the entire field in nearly every race. It was not involved in a RB7 only fight for the championship. Two other manufacturers also weighed in and only failed due to not being able to consistently extract the best from their cars.

A flawed comparison. The MP4-4 had Senna and Prost driving the car - the 2 best drivers of their generation and 2 of the greatest drivers of all time. If Vettel and say Alonso were driving the RB7 then the comparison might work.

The really dominant cars of the last years has been:

McLaren MP4/4 (Gordan Murray)
McLaren MP4/13 (ADrian Newey)
Williams Renault FW 14A&B (Adrian Newey)
Williams FW 18(Adrian Newey)
Ferrari F2002 (Rory Byrne/Paulo Martinelli)
Ferrari F2004 (Byrne/Martinelli/Costa)



These cars were capable of leaving the competition a lap behind.
RB6 and RB7, excellent car that they are, were not capable of the same domination but they got the job done on a smaller budget.

FW14A was too unreliable to be classed as truly dominant and some might say the same about the MP4-13. Difficult to compare todays cars to those ones because the playing field is more level these days.

The Red Bulls are in my view the kind of cars that Benetton produced from 1994 to 1996. Excellent and dominant in the right hands. Put less capable drivers in the car aka Benetton B196 (Berger/Alesi) and the same car becomes an also ran.
The way Vettel dominated Webber this year is indicative of the way Schumacher dominated Brundle/Herbert/Irvine/Barrichello. All of those were excellent drivers who on a given day with the car set up right were just as fast, but they lacked the skilled to do it consistently.

I disagree. The Benetton's never dominated qualifying the way the Red Bulls do, and they rarely got 1-2 finishes.

The Red Bull this season is comparable to the Williams of 92 and 93. One driver dominating the championship - the other having to fight for 2nd place with inferior cars.

[Gerhard Berger]

History is what it is, "What ifs" only serve to highlight ones contempt for history.

Ironic that you should try and re write history for this season then.

[Lurk]

That year both Williams BMW and McLaren were on Michelin tyres. In the pre season changes were made to the rules that made it difficult for the Bridgestone runners to get their cars set up optimised. The result was that Michelin teams had the uper hand.

Didn't say Michelin wasn't better. In fact I think that Ferrari with Michelin that year would give us another 2002 / 2004 season.
But the best car/tyre couple were the FW25 and F2003-GA, even if Ferrari hadn't the best tyres.
Williams were very strong but they made some mistakes. As said G.Berger, it was Williams and Montoya more than McLaren and Raikkonen that threw the title away.

MP4-17D wasn't that fast, Raikkonen just get the most of his car. He humiliated Coulthard this year and quiet frankly it was one of his best season if not the best...

[marcush.]

I think you are not getting the point there.Webber is NOT winning this year ,isn´t he ?He has undoubtedly the same hardware and as many recources avaialable to him but still he struggles to even make it into the first row in Qualy or finish on the podium .He rarely looked like he was in contention for the win this year and not only against his teammate..
So by that logic ,handing out a RBR7 to HRT or Virgin will not make those instantly contenders for a Podium ,let alone for a win if there is such a huge dropoff in performance even within one and the same team (And Webber being a mate of Horners and Newey it seems quite unlikely they would deliberately give him second rate service ....and furthermore now with Vettel having bagged all the titles already there is no reason to not give him the very best of everything ,as p2 in the drivers is all there is left to gain for RedBull this year.

I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make. No one is asserting that if you gave the HRT drivers an RB7 they would instantly become WDC contenders. They're asserting that if you gave Alonso, Hamilton or Button an RB7 they would instantly become WDC contenders. They're also asserting that if you gave Massa an RB7 he might be on a par with Webber.

Webber was closer to winning the WDC last year than Vettel was until the last race unfolded..one has to acknowledge that something happened to swing the balance so seriously in favour of Vettel.
My point is it´s not the car and its dominance but it is Vettels improved form this year that made the difference.He really did not fail often and he put in really good qualy performances .He did start very well and he was able to keep the car in a condition to finish races in the best possible position when last year he really was a bit kack handed when it came to overtaking situations.
Vettel has improved a lot in recent time and basically he won this championship and it is very much debatable if Alonso ,Hamilton ,Button or Rosberg would have done any better in this car in that team .Webber is living proof that a capable proven driver this year was not enough to even bag a win in RBR7.

[beelsebob]

Webber was closer to winning the WDC last year than Vettel was until the last race unfolded..one has to acknowledge that something happened to swing the balance so seriously in favour of Vettel.

Yes,
1) Webber acknowledges that he can't get the Pirellis to work at all.
2) Psychology after seeing your best chance of winning the championship disappear.
3) Psychology after becoming WDC.
4) Vettel hasn't cocked up massively this year (this is the biggest improvement we've seen in him).
5) Red Bull's reliability has been utterly bullet proof (unlike last year).

Webber is living proof that a capable proven driver this year was not enough to even bag a win in RBR7.

No, in 2010, Vettel and Webber both struggled in an utterly dominant car to tie up the season. Go back and listen to any commentary from the end of that year – you'll find the commentators lambasting the two RBR drivers for not wrapping it up earlier.

In 2010, Vettel and Webber were both mediocre drivers in an epic car, in 2011 Vettel is improved, and driving on the same level as Alonso, Hamilton and Button, but still in an epic car, putting him way out in front.