Interesting how you have dismissed Webber's chances even though he is Vettel's closest rival in the Champoinship - quite rightly I'd say
It is
very unlikely for anyone other than Vettel to win the 2011 Championship - the title is 100% in Vettel hand's now and even if Alonso wins every race, he needs Vettel to mess up a few times as well - anything to keep
Vettel off the podium basically. Things like driver errors, bad lack, mechanical failures/car problems and collisions with other drivers could quite easily restrict Vettel's points to 0 in a race. If that were to happen just twice, Alonso will be back in the game and suddenly the pressure will be back on Vettel and he might not cope very well with that added pressure.
It's going to take a phenomenal second half of the season from Alonso, but this "do or die" approach of taking every race as if it's the last race of the season could be exactly what he needs to make a successful comeback. With the greatest respect to Vettel and Newey, both the car and driver have weaknesses which can be exploited. When I say weaknesses, I mean vs Alonso and the F150.
RB7
- Tyre management - one of the biggest strenghts of the car is how quickly it heats up the tyres, but over a stint that becomes a problem, which is quite evident with Mark Webber when he's in dirty air, and whenever Vettel is stuck behind someone his tyres don't last very long either. The F150 doesn't have that problem.
- Speed - Due to the superior downforce, Red Bull usually have a deficit in straight line speed compared to Ferrari. In addition Red Bull's DRS is better for qualifying. This could cause further problems for Vettel should he find himself in a position where he needs to overtake.
- Traction - Red Bull are good in this area, but we saw in Barcelona that Ferrari are a step ahead of them, when
Vettel couldn't stay with Alonso in that final sector, which caused overtaking difficulties.
- KERS - Not only do Red Bull have a weaker KERS but it's also unreliable -
meaning defending could be a problem as well
Vettel
- Tyre management - People say he's good at managing his tyres, but most of the time he's in clean air out in
front. At Silverstone in Hamilton's dirty air, he destroyed his tyres - maybe the car was mostly to blame, but it is something that for this year, could hinder Vettel.
- Overtaking - Apart from having just pitted (with advantage of fresh tyres), Vettel hasn't really done many overtakes. Similarly, he hasn't produced great memorable overtakes like Hamilton and Alonso have. In Silverstone he failed to overtake Hamilton with a much faster car - in fact, he didn't even come close to having a
proper go at
him, while Alonso took just 1 lap to get past Hamilton (having closed the gap). Not saying Vettel can't overtake, just that this could be another weakness for him.
- Pressure - Vettel has coped well at times but he bottled it in Canada and Button wasn't exactly close to his gearbox. I don't think his "crash kid" alter-ego will return this year, but I think if put under enough pressure, Vettel will crumble.
As far as I'm aware, the greatest comeback in F1 history was Hunt vs Lauda in 1976. Under the current points system, Hunt would have been 98 points behind Lauda with 9 races remaining. The circumstances are obviously different, but why can't Alonso come back from 92 points behind with 10 races remaining?
I would love nothing more than to see Alonso and Vettel fight for the Championship all the way to Brazil, but once again I'll say it is very unlikely for anyone other than Vettel to win it. Sorry for the long post, hope it was worth reading.
