I agree with this 100%. Until Vettel is actually under real pressure to perform or is being chased for a WDC, rather than the chaser, only then can he be judged on how good he handles it.
You would have to agree Seb did pretty well in his first year in a competitive car. BBC were writing him off 2/3 through the season as they believed he lacked the experience to challenge the WDC and Jenson's only real threat was Rubens. If Seb didn't have a double engine failure at Valencia we might of seen Seb take the WDC rather than Button. 2010 I would say was just an unlucky year that was in equal to Lewis' last season, it's amazing how 1 poor season can damage a reputation and put doubts in people's heads for the next. When the pressure is on Seb and Lewis are equally as erratic and will share the same amount of misfortune when they want to win, the likes of Jenson and Alonso wouldn't suffer as much since having more years under their belt. I have no doubt in my mind that Seb would have been more than a match for a 24 year old Alonso or Lewis and that he is still maturing quiet rapidly to something very lethal on the circuit. 2011 Seb was something I expected to arrive when he was at least 26-27 not 24.
I don't agree with this, the way Vettel closed out the 2010 title was mightily impressive in my opinion, especially compared to Button the year before who stumbled over the line somewhat. In fact the 2010 championship pretty much reflects how I rate those five drivers under pressure, Vettel and Alonso seemed to be galvanised by it at the end of the season, while the other three wilted and, in Webber and Hamilton's case, grew erratic.
Yeah I agree towards the end of 2010 that Seb was by far the most solid of the 5. It's just during 2009 he showed a few erratic mistakes when under pressure, he reduced it slightly in 2010 and in 2011 pretty much erased it bar Nuburgring and in some people's opinion Canada. I would gather 2012 would become the best benchmark from 2010 form to 2012 form, (point A to point B) as its looking to be a tight season. 2011 was really just a walk in the park for Seb even if McLaren were snapping at his heals at 3/4 of the races, if that's who Seb is as a racer now! even including the season added pressure would be something to see if he was able to improve even more than that. As a Seb fan I would easily claime he is the greatest of his era and maybe of all time as he still won't peak for another 3-4 years and nobody would be able to convince me differently. I would also say Lewis and Alonso were his greatest rivals but were just unlucky that Seb existed at the same time as them and stole a lot of possible WDC's for them.
That's fascinating because I have exactly the opposite opinion. I thought Button held on well, playing percentages in a difficult car, and in the end took the championship by its balls; and I thought that, in a car Red Bull acknowledge was stronger than the RB7, Vettel stumbled over the line when the two main contenders got wrapped up in each other's strategies in the final race. I'm not suggesting he wasn't deserving or that he lucked into it because of a single race (same as Raikkonen in 2007) but, in my opinion, it was less convincing than Button's championship.
That's fine but as a not Seb fan I can say that Red Bull are denying me the legendary Alonso/Hamilton rivalry and year-on-year battles that I deserve to see after sitting through yawning years of Schumacher statistic-stacking.
I am still suspect in how Vettel deals with pressure. I will discount 2009 because of inexperience but in 2010 he was never leading the WDC and was never a major contender so was always chasing without any real pressure on him. In 2011 again because of the dominance of the Red Bull and the fact that he was already a WDC there was never any real pressure on him and the time where you could argue there was (Germany - home race, Canada - getting chased down in hard conditions, Japan - chance to wrap up the WDC) he has not performed to his best. He has also not had to contend with battling his team mate last year which takes more pressure off and when he did have to in 2010 he clearly had some issues with it when pushed hard. I think Vettel is all very calm when things are going his way, but have doubts in his dealing with things when they are not going his way.
'm with Genji on this, in 2010 Vettel didn't so much win the title, Alonso and Webber lost it similar to how Kimi got his title in 2007 when McLaren effectively lost the WDC that year allowing Kimi to sneak it. As for 2009, if Brawn had of had the money to develop their car all season I think it would never have been so close.
I think its the inter team battles that put more pressure on the drivers! If the teamate is competitive it affects the whole race weekend, obvioulsy they are likely to be on the same piece of tarmac during the race and the strategies can be potentially affect by not trying to impede either of the drivers. In 2009, JB had a competitive team mate and so did Vettle in 2010 making the championships far harder to win. In 2008 and 2011 both Hammilton and Vettle had no internal competition which elevates some of the pressure. I am in no way saying that any of the WDC's are more deserving than the others, just that internal competition is another complication both the drivers and the teams have to worry about. You also have to factor in car development throughout the season. The fastest driver, in the fastest car with little or no competition from a team mate will win the WDC year in year out!
I do find that less convincing than Button's WDC but as I said, Vettel put together a title bid in 2010 as good as (and ultimately better than) anyone else's, just as Raikkonen did in (mainly the second half of) 2007. I wouldn't put the 2010 WDC down to that one bad race for Webber and Alonso - you have to be in it to win, as they say. I just think the way Button retained control throughout the second half of 2009 and then screwed up his courage and drove supremely in Brazil was far more convincing to me than picking through the debris and frustration in the last race of the 2010 season. It isn't all Button's 2009 WDC vs. Vettel's 2010 WDC, though. I think Hamilton's 2008 WDC was another skin of his teeth job and, as thrilling and satisfying as it was, I can't say beating Massa was hugely awe-inspiring. Again, as with Vettel in 2010, I wouldn't seek to belittle Hamilton's achievement - only his second season in F1 and all - but I personally think it was somewhat less assertive than his debut season. 2007 I've already likened to 2010, but Raikkonen was mega-impressive once he got on top of the Bridgestones. 2005 and 2006, for me, were supremely convincing WDCs. You can argue that Raikkonen was handicapped by an unreliable McLaren in 2005 but in both years Alonso just scrapped and battled and took it. Of course, it didn't hurt that he brought the boring years to a close. I think there's another category for 2002, 2004 and 2011. As in 1992 and 1993, and maybe 1998, when a team produces a car that is simply so massively superior to the competition, although it's relatively easy for the driver it can't be considered unconvincing. It might be less exciting but when a driver dominates so comprehensively then he is simultaneously worthy of accolade and equally deserving of the claim that the car won it. I think these instances should be set aside from the argument because, from the perspective of a neutral fan of the sport, they represent the unknown. We don't know for sure how, if at all, superior to the rest of the field Vettel was last year. All I would say is that in all those instances the WDCs have been widely acknowledged to be among the top drivers of the day. 1988 and 1996 are interesting comparisons, too.
I caught an interview on Sky Sports news the other night with Bernie, he had another of his "ideas" which is to give the new teams at the bottom the title winning car from the previous year and allow them to race them for up to 3 years. Guess we would find out if a championship was driver or car that way.
Isnt that what prodrive tried to do? I dont agree with it as its a constructors championship so the teams should build thier own damn cars. Bernie is becoming more and more out of touch with F1's ethos by the day!!
If that was allowed I would start up my own team find two young drivers from GP2, Renault 3.5 who look the nuts and get them in a season early as I will be able to take 99% of all the designs for next season and challenge for the WDC+WCC. I would only spend 80 odd million as the car would be made already thanks to RBR/McLaren and the drivers will have their travel paid and that would be it for extra costs, fk paying them they get a championship winning car.
If it happened I imagine you would get the WDC runners up from the top teams opting to drop down to the teams running cars like last years Red Bull. We'd end up with drivers like Alonso and Hamilton in Vettels old car, some thing we pretty much all talked about at one time or another over the last year, perhaps even Vettel in the same car too. Have to admit, that sounds a little tempting ;-)
As cosi's pointed out elsewhere, Ecclestone does this either to distract attention from serious issues or to get people talking about F1. He doesn't care if he looks a clown (especially when he's raking it in) as long as people are talking about it. It's just depressing to me that the media lap it up as if they think he's serious. He's actually F1's arch WUM. On this particular point, however, it's not so long ago that the likes of Toro Rosso were allowed to run restricted V10s when everyone else had to move to V8s.
changed my mind I want yuji Ide & Tarso Marques in a championship winning car driving for El_Bando racing!....
