He is a very good driver, along with Hamilton, Alonso, Kubica, Button and maybe even Webber, but you have to wait until he has retired to judge whether he is great or not. That is why no saints can be canonised whilst alive; only once they are finished can everything be taken into account, and an informed decision can be made.
Hahahahaha⦠excuse my laughter Silver but your list is purely statistical! Your whole comment is an inverted tautology!
SilverArrow can correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe he's saying a 1st, 2nd and 3rd WDC are not statistics. I think he's just attaching values to them that a 4th, 5th and 6th WDC don't improve: a driver's 4th WDC doesn't make him any greater than his 3rd WDC, but his 3rd WDC sets him apart from those who have won only two. If a driver wins Monaco once (e.g. Panis or Trulli) then it's a great moment in his career. If he wins it twice (e.g. Coulthard) then he clearly knows how to win at Monaco. If he wins it three times then surely he's a Master of Monaco. If he wins it a fourth or fifth time then, hey-ho, he's still just a Master of Monaco. I'd like to read the rest of the article to understand why Edd Straw thinks Vettel "is the greatest 23-year-old that the sport has ever seen" because, without it, I think it's impossible to comment on his opinion.
I find the greatest of all time debates a little tedious, comparing across generations is futile and the only way a driver can be considered one of the all time greats is through being the best of his generation, greater than those he raced against. I'd say Vettel is the greatest 23 year old of all time, he's certainly the most successful, but that's a pretty dubious honour seeing that a few decades ago it wasn't uncommon for a driver to debut in their 30s.
Well that was disappointing. It doesn't go into his age much at all and otherwise just reinforces my opinion of Vettel: it's a hell of a car.
Most important thing on the whole article: Vettel has also won 11 of his 15 races from pole position, with his other victories coming from second four times and third once. There are no 'burn from the stern' victories for Vettel. But to put that into context, all of Hamilton's wins have come from the top four on the grid, and even Fernando Alonso only has a couple from the third row on his CV (disregarding Singapore 2008, for obvious reasons). It's also important to note that Vettel has only twice started lower than third since the start of 2010, at Monza and Spa last year, both tracks where the Red Bull-Renault was not a contender.
Not vettel's biggest fan, but what a consistent driver. Im just wonderig when will button, Vettel, Alonso and Webber have there bad races, I feel lewis has had his already, but none of them have retired from car problems.
That's one of the things that put me off the article. The two previous youngest ever WDCs - they still show better than Vettel so how is he the greatest 23-year old in F1?
Well...considering how many people Seb went up against for the title, (4 of them), 3 of them being a previous WDC's, he should of been the least prepared to win it, but in the end he outclassed his seniors over the last 4 races. Yes he did DNF at Korea, but it wasn't his doing, he was heading for the win or at least a podium. Alonso and Lewis only had one real rival for their WDC year. What I think he's trying to get across is, do you think Lewis (aged 23) or Alonso (aged 23), could of done what Vettel did in the last 4 races in 2010 to get the WDC beating 3 world champions?
err, i dont see them do better at all. Hamilton did several heavy rookie errors (loosing championship in the pitlane and later crashing into another car in the pitlane) which never got beaten by Vettel.
