siskue2005 wrote: ↑25 Oct 2018, 19:55
Vettel made mistakes when they had the best car in the field.... only from singapore did they went backwards...Vettel started to make mistakes long before that, from Baku, France, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Monza..... Japan and USA i can agree he had been psychological defeated by that time when he made the mistake.....but i dont see how the ferrari's operation made him Lock up brakes in Baku, Hit Bottas in France, Become blind in Austria qualy, Crash from lead in Germany, Failed to qualify first hungary with the faster car and Lost the pole in Monza & hit Lewis at the start?
Only from Singapore did Ferrari lose their advantage, why was he overcompensating for their shortcoming before that race? they had the best car from the start of the season till monza (except for France, Spain, GB - thin tyres track).... so where did ferrari fell short of for him to overcompensate and make mistakes in the first 14 races (in which they had the best or equally fast car in 10 races)....and yet he was 30 points behind after Monza
OK, I made a post somewhere back in this thread where I made much the same points I will do now, but anyway.
So, what did Vettel know coming into the championship? From what we've seen he probably knew the car had potential but Mercedes were ahead. After Australian Qualifying, it was that Mercedes were MILES ahead at least on Q pace. He grabbed that win and then the next one. In China Ferrari messed strategy and he was hit by Verstappen. He lost some valuable points. Now he comes into Baku and Ferrari again makes mistake in strategy, putting him behind Bottas.
Overtaking is as hard as ever this year and you can gain most places on starts and restarts. So he used his chance.
France was not a race where Ferrari had the best car. He made a good start and almost got Bottas using the best opportunity to make up positions, and yeah it went bad.
His error in Austria makes me wonder again on what his race engineer was doing (same as in the red flag situation).
Also, Austria was a clear case for the difference in the approaches between Mercedes and Ferrari.
So the pace of the car fluctuates. The team does make mistakes on strategy (every team does, sure but the price is different). Also, taking three GPs to figure out updates weren't going anywhere seems a bit too much, isn't it? Because of this, I have a suspicion that maybe the team can not predict very well where they would be on the pace going into the GP.
IMO these are not the conditions where you can manage to stay calm.
A great campaign of Fernando Alonso in 2012 was different. That year all the teams struggled to some extent and there were many drivers competing for the championship taking points off each other. A calm and consistent approach was really working.
But this will not work if you are in the fight with a consistent team with a clear number one driver (admittedly not from the start of the year). If you have to beat them you have to overtake them, how can you do this when your own team makes mistakes and your car is not consistently quick? You have to take risks. Yeah, it seems Vettel is not the best person for this. But I'm not sure anyone really is.