Meh F1.

[synaesthesia]

4 world championships. A huge array of media folks reporting Vettel is "one of the greats".

NO. Tell me why? They can't. Every positive thing they have to say about Vettel in supposed support of their claims should be geared towards the team he drives for.

 

There is no way this guy can be compared, like they are doing often, to the likes of Fangio or Schumacher. He isn't even in the same league as Alonso or Hamilton. Yet the latter is rarely mentioned these days despite what he's doing in a new team. Alonso, Hamilton and Raikkonen are all racers, a term you can't fairly put next to Vettel's name. Without team orders the guy is in trouble when it comes to getting past similar performing cars.

 

The car itself is yet again a masterpiece. Red Bull have yet again harnessed another loophole in engine mapping (ECU this, ECU that...) that is effectively giving them something akin to traction control. They're very good at hiding their little rule-benders and interpreting them in a way that suits them, on top of the fact they have an absolute genius designer. Hopefully next year brings something new, because this year the only thing worth watching are some midfield battles and Hamilton pulling some great performances and some stonking speeds from the Merc. Lets hope the new engines can throw a permanent curveball in Red Bull's direction, because I for one would like to see a Driver's World Championship go to the most deserving Driver, and the Constructors World Championship going to the most deserving constructor. Currently that isn't the case.

[featured_spectre]

People said the same when Schumaker just kept winning with Ferrari, so not really fair.

 

Whilst I think he is arrogant, he is what he is, and that is a winner. Given time it will sort it self out and the better drivers will come back and shine again.

[plexer]

lol

 

Ben

[synaesthesia]

Schumacher was able to drag the less than capable Ferrari of 96 and 97 up to way beyond it's actual ability. The same has been proven of many drivers including Hamilton and Alonso. Granted Schumacher cheated his way to a world championship and the less said about Ferrari the better, but RB are a level beyond. Schumacher was still a proven excellent driver. The same couldn't be said for Vettel who has yet to prove himself on his own. He's proven to be very shakable under pressure and rather childish when he doesn't get his own way, and that doesn't work too well to the teams advantage!

[madurham]

He is a great driver, which get's lost behind such a great car. He's had amazing success prior to F1. He has Toro Rosso's only race victory. He also won 18 of 20 races in Formula BMW in 2003 or 2004.

 

He hasn't been racing zombies in go karts his whole career, he's achieved an amazing feat. I'll wait till the end of his career to call him a great though.

[timbo343]

As much as i hate vettel only due to the cockyness and red bull, i cannot stand horner, i think the fia need to look at relaxing some of the rules a little bit. Why cant someone celebrate by doing doughnuts on the track. Aparently they sent out 2 fia members to check the car and make sure it wasnt tampered with after vettel got out the car. I think if the fia took a leaf out of motogp's, f1 might be a bit more enjoyable to watch. Everything seems so structured and political.

 

As for red bull winning the drivers and constructors again, i think the only person you need to take out the team is newey. Newey was at Williams when they were winning and im sure he was at mclaren when they were winning too. It seems to me, vettel controls the team and if he says jump horner says how high. I want to see mark win a race this year. I cant help but think that mark keeps getting duff parts.

 

I hope next season will be better with the new engines and weight limits which i think they need the revisit, f1 will soon be a sport where drives have to be shorter than 6ft and weigh less than 70kg.

Edited October 27, 2013 by timbo343

[mattx]

Stick Lewis in that Red Bull and I bet he would find another .5 of a second a lap. That is the thing with Lewis - he will find that in ANY car you stick him in.

The season before he joined Red Bull I think he had one or two podiums ? Can't remember off hand but it was nothing that special. Average driver but amazing car. Next year will sort out the men from the boys.

[mthomas08]

Seems to be the big discussion on every site, several articles etc etc

 

I think Vettel is a great, if he isn't then Webber is a bigger waste of space? he is blowing him away with ease and everything seems to be going Vettels way. Even with being on different tyres or no kers still manages it.

 

Of course there is always going to be doubters till he has a proven team mate like Alonso and Lewis. It's going to be an interesting year for Kimi though in 2014

 

There is no doubting though that the RBR and the team is just superb, would have been nice to see Webbers car have more reliability though.

[featured_spectre]

Webber gets screwed by team orders and all focus on Vettel. A test on their cars last season shown that Webbers car had less torque and BHP by around 2%, because the adjustments made to Vettels car were not done on Webbers. 2% might not sound like much but it is enough to lose the competitive edge. This was on the 3rd of 4th engine they were testing.

[plexer]

Webber gets screwed by team orders and all focus on Vettel. A test on their cars last season shown that Webbers car had less torque and BHP by around 2%, because the adjustments made to Vettels car were not done on Webbers. 2% might not sound like much but it is enough to lose the competitive edge. This was on the 3rd of 4th engine they were testing.

 

Source please?

[synaesthesia]

We all know Webber doesn't have the same car as Vettel, certainly when it comes to the latest rule-bending gadgets and the traction-aiding engine mappings that can't possibly exist. We know he's not an excellent driver, not up there with the rest of them but Vettel isn't up there with Alonso/Hamilton yet.

[featured_spectre]

Read in the F1 magazine at my stepdads house.

[pcstru]

I think Vettel is a great, if he isn't then Webber is a bigger waste of space?

Ha! I don't much like Vettel, but mediocre drivers just don't win 4 titles. It also is very much a team sport of which the actual race is a relatively small (but hugely important) part. There are hundreds of man years behind a car going into a season and many man years behind each iteration of the car. There is no doubt that RBR focus that development effort more on Vettel, building a car that suits him even where that is at the expense of the other driver. That doesn't lessen Vettel's achievement.

 

(and surely in these days of F1 becoming ever duller, the driver just staying awake is an achievement).

Edited October 28, 2013 by pcstru

[Ad93]

Vettel is a good driver, I will give him that, but he is no way great. When you consider that his car has different driving aids and devices on it that even his team mate doesn't have, it puts it into perspective that he might not be as good as it appears.

 

There is talk that Vettel has a traction system on his car but Webber doesn't because of his weight, this was noticed at Singapore by Gian Carlo Minardi, who saw that Vettel was able to get on the power earlier than anyone else and that his engine was grinding like none of the other Renault engines, now this would pose a huge advantage over the course of a lap let alone a race or even the season.

 

Another thing with Red Bull is that the team isn't run by the supposed team boss Adrian Horner, it is run by Vettel and Helmut Marko as much as people like to disagree with that when you look at the decisions made and punishments to drivers after incidents, Malaysia, they either favor Vettel or punish Webber.

 

Unless there is equal treatment between the two Red Bull drivers, or even the FIA to close some of these loopholes within the regulations, I don't think you can call Vettel great as his machinery is on a different level to anyone else.

 

In F1 I believe they need to bring in some form of control parts like they have within touring cars, it increases race excitement and also helps to bring costs down. F1 needs to look at bringing its costs down because otherwise drivers won't want to compete unless they are in a top car and sponsors won't be able to afford to back the top two or three teams.

 

BTW David Ward for FIA President!

 

A

[sonofsanta]

...the Constructors World Championship going to the most deserving constructor. Currently that isn't the case.

 

How is that not the case? You said yourself "the car is a masterpiece" and "they have an absolute genius designer", they have superb reliability (in Vettel's case at least!); what other considerations should go into the constructors championship?

 

I do think the RBR has been far and away the best car and has perhaps given Vettel the appearance of a dominance he doesn't necessarily have, but he is inarguably a good driver. You don't get consistent laps, consistent pole positions and consistent victories by accident. The man is a machine - a very-dull-to-watch-machine, but he executes his drive flawlessly 98% of the time. Sometimes he acts like a pillock (multi 2 1 and all that) but he's 26, young, arrogant and competitive - in other words, a racing driver.

 

His race yesterday shows he's capable - after pitting on lap 2 he shot back up the rankings, overtaking beyond even the expectations of his team judging by the radio messages. Again, the car is undoubtedly an advantage, and it uses some design tricks others can't fathom or match - but Vettel is the driver who knows how to work that to his advantage, how to drive that RBR round corners in the way that suits its aerodynamics, how to play the throttle to vent the exhaust to create the downforce to give him the grip out of the corner. If there was traction control going on, don't you think the Ferrari International Association would be all over RBR? Or are we pretending the FIA are in the control of Red Bull now that they're dominant?

 

(although I do think the FIA/Ferrari were a bit cosy back in the day, to be fair.)

 

Webber has had rotten luck and undoubtedly played second fiddle to Helmut's favourite, but even when his luck holds he's been competitive with the other top teams, not dominant like Vettel - and Webber is a superb driver in and of himself.

 

It's been a boring second half of the season watching Vettel dominate, and I've only been watching for the battles around 2-6th that have been so entertaining (I think the field of talent on track at the moment is amazing - Alonso, Hamilton, Raikonnen, Button, even Grosjean at the moment) and I am very much looking forward to the rules changes shaking it up. But pretending that Vettel isn't a good driver is nonsense. An arrogant prat, perhaps, a lucky son-of-a to be in the RBR, yes; but still a good driver.

[plexer]

In F1 I believe they need to bring in some form of control parts like they have within touring cars, it increases race excitement and also helps to bring costs down.

 

The ecu is one such part currently, I just the article that refers to the "traction control" and seems to be linking the kers with the suspension which is interesting and not aginst the rules with the changes for next year around the engines and kers it will be interesting.

 

Ben

[synaesthesia]

How is that not the case? You said yourself "the car is a masterpiece" and "they have an absolute genius designer", they have superb reliability (in Vettel's case at least!); what other considerations should go into the constructors championship?

 

You snipped the first part of that sentence that gives it the full context.

[sonofsanta]

You snipped the first part of that sentence that gives it the full context.

 

Only attempting to be neat, not to present anything out of context. However:

Lets hope the new engines can throw a permanent curveball in Red Bull's direction, because I for one would like to see a Driver's World Championship go to the most deserving Driver, and the Constructors World Championship going to the most deserving constructor. Currently that isn't the case.

...doesn't seem to be much different - it's still saying that you don't think the Constructors has gone to the most deserving team, is it not? Earlier in the paragraph you talk about rule-bending and loopholes, but I can't blame a team for making the best of a situation. If they are the only ones clever enough and capable enough to spot and work with said loopholes, shouldn't that deserve reward? If they were doing anything massively against the rules the FIA would have been down on them like a ton of bricks - as they have been in the past.

[synaesthesia]

I don't mean that at all, sorry if it reads that way. I mean the constructors should be more specific to what the team does, and the drivers for the drivers. One one hand it's a team sport (each team being a complete package which RB certainly have) on the other the biggest part of it is the world driver's championship. It's that latter part which is an apparent issue as some drivers have less to do than others in a very layman way.

 

The FIA do not and can not always come down like a ton of bricks on broken rules. Double DRS, blown exhausts, dodgy defusers etc; admitted it wasn't in the spirit of the rules but it wasn't breaking them either. It took them until the next season to do away with them. Those flaws can sometimes work in the sport's favour - Brawn GP did the best job at the start of 2009 and it showed. All the FIA can ever really do is keep tightening the rules. It's a little like what we have do with filtering in schools; sometimes it gets so bad people often look at whitelisting sites rather than blacklisting for that very controlled approach but sometimes it's not always the best. F1 for some, myself included is a technical sport of 2 sides, and as it is one side (constructor) is impeding massively on the driver side. I would love to see racers able to race, whether it's down to technical restriction or relaxation, or team-bloody-orders.

Let's also not forget about the level of corruption we've seen in the FIA! (Better now than it was obviously - 80s and early 90s was awful. 2007 and 2008 were particularly bad recent periods.

[sonofsanta]

I also would love to see racers being able to race, I am sick of 90% of the race being drivers taking it easy so they don't wear the tires too much, and only actually racing for half a dozen laps out of the sixty.

 

How would you score the constructor's if not by race points, then? I agree with the point that (I think) you're making - it's effectively two sports happening at the same time, who's the best driver (can't really tell because of imbalance in cars) and who's the best team (can't really tell because of imbalance in drivers), and each aspect ends up compromised by the other to an extent.

[plexer]

How would you score the constructor's if not by race points, then?

 

Rock, Paper, Scissors?

 

Ben

[happymeal]

I don't really rate Hamilton that much - he reminds me (attitude wise) of Vettle now. Hamilton threw his toys out of the pram when his car couldn't perform and started to have issues with his car (gearbox failures, engine issues, etc) before he moved to Mercedes. And now he's still in the same position as he was last season - minus the excuses about the car/team.

 

This season has been a bit meh to be honest - the only person that stood out was Kimmy IMO.

It's easy to slate Vettle off - he's young, shakable under pressure, and needs a bit of guidance on when to push and when to hold - but the drivers need to push themselves a lot harder, teams need to find ways to push their cars to the limit, exploit the rules to their benefit (al la Red Bull). Inject some determination into themselves for next season. I'm not a fan of the tyre rules, but at least it puts a bit of planning into the race.

[synaesthesia]

I still rate Hamilton with Senna, mostly because he's either doing a very good job of imitating his mannerisms or is just as naturally talented. He and Alonso are without any shadow of doubt the best two in the current field, both now shining in their own ways in different teams. They all have faults though, being as human as they are, unlike Vettel who switches off the humanity for a lack of respect or caring for anyone including his own team. Not too unlike a certain Schumacher.

 

Pirelli are still doing my nut, they keep throwing every excuse at us/the FIA at every opportunity. Paul Hembrey should work for Apple or maybe as an estate agent.

[pcstru]

I also would love to see racers being able to race,

Watch a different sport then.

I am sick of 90% of the race being drivers taking it easy so they don't wear the tires too much, and only actually racing for half a dozen laps out of the sixty.

Taking it easy. Right.

 

I'm not even a huge fan of F1 any more. I stopped following it regularly when watching coverage started to require paying large sums of money to watch aerodynamic advertising billboards going round a track. 'Taking it easy' is a few tenths, off (say) a 110 second lap time. The difference is ~0.1%. The problem with 'racing ' in F1 is that the cars are so fast and so well matched, that overtaking is all but impossible. It's only via gimmicks like the aero-duct, KERS and tyres that actually wear out, that F1 isn't a procession from beginning to end (with maybe one or two good moves per race at the front of the field). If you want to see drivers racing each other, you probably need to watch lower formulas or even fixed formula stuff. Even better, jack in the Sky sub and spend it on iRacing instead. :-)

[featured_spectre]

You want good racing...watch nascar...yes they just tend to do loops, but all cars are equal, same fuel, same engines, same tyre compounds. It is literally a skillful race because of this.