He is "one of the finest drivers never to win a WDC" (not my words) so it wouldn't surprise me to see him bumped up. I'm just making a guess, remember. As for Mika behind Mansell, British bias. (Also Mansell was DESPERATELY unlucky, I think most people will agree on this)
I can see this leading to Generic Driver Bashing 2.0. "Driver A only won last year because of the best ever car made. Well, actually sources tell me that [insert legendary engineer] befriended a Transformer that took the form of a Formula One car (it did not agree with the name 'Kinky Kylie but was forced to by [insert tyrannial energy drinks corporation]) = FACT" "Yeah, well driver B's momma wears combat boots." And so on..
Vettel makes a couple of mistakes early in his F1 career and seems to be judged by those, rather than some of his great driving, doesn't have the best car this year, and has had some bad luck and now that he has to battle it out in the lower orders and has to rely on the overtaking skill he apparently hasn't got, while his supposedly faster and better team-mate finishes every race, somehow he's managed to get to 2nd in the WDC, and, along with Alonso, possibly the next triple WDC. You know it's hard to overtake when running in the lead, should he've slowed to make a race of it?
The thing is. I dont like to class a driver as great unless they perform well in more than one team. That shows that it is driver talent and not just the team/car. Lets see how Vettel does at Ferrari
8th greatest racing driver of all time? In a Red Bull? "And one particular statistic continues to stand out - only one of Vettel's wins has not come from the front row of the grid." You can analyse that many ways but for me it says the Red Bull has dominated for the last 3 years. If Alonso had had that car I'm certain he would now be a 5x WDC.
Chanoch Nissany was miles worse than Deletraz. Did 1 F1 practice session and was so hilariously bad that he was almost 30 seconds off the fastest time.
I'll stop saying it after this one, but there shouldn't be any current F1 driver on these lists as it's too early in the careers to tell how they will be judged. If Vettel, Alonso, or someone else currently on the grid never wins a race again being put onto this list will look silly. Just wait and see how their careers develop before praising them. The only exception could be Schumacher, because he’s pretty much at the end of his career, he’s retired once and what he’s achieved is remarkable. Going back to the BBC’s list, I think Jim Clark will be fairly high, as I know Murray considers him the greatest. I think Moss will be next.
To be fair to Vettel, he's actually gone up a notch in my estimation this season. He clearly doesn't have the best car, but he's fighting Alonso (also not in the best car) for the title properly, no running away with it. His drive in Belgium was excellent too, there was also the lost 25 points in Valencia.
Maybe.. but other than 1988 and to a lesser degree in 1989, he didn't always have the most dominant car in the field. Also, whilst Webber is a good/solid/great driver, he's not really in the class of Prost, had he (Senna) had a "lesser" partner in 1989, I'm sure he'd have (should have) won that year too. Think Vettel is a "great" driver but he's had the class of the field, in terms of the car since Mid 2009..
Well, if the BBC manage - by popular agreement on not606 - to get the current drivers in completely the wrong order, how much credibility does their "all time" list have?
While I agree with this I think that both Vettel and Alonso are exaggerating the inadequacies of their respective cars. I think it might be more accurate to say that they don't have the best cars for qualifying but both appear strong in the race.
