Grand Prix thread Japanese grand prix

The car was clearly no 1.

He drove from the front mostly.

If we remember the year before he won his first he made a bad error costing himself too.

Webber was never quick enough in quali and was also ensured he wasn't going to be quick enough with aero package favouritism.

When the rules changed and red bull then told vettel he could have the car exactly as he wanted that he ****ed off to Ferrari in a huff.

Tbh..... right now he was second favourite last year but ****ed up then too but this year from race 1 he had a serious advantage and never used it.

He was behind twice and pulled it back. After British gp.... he should have built a huge lead but he threw it away.

 

Newey was recently quoted as saying Vettel is good when he is in front, i.e. he has limited race craft and can only win from the front. Remember the year he and Webber clashed, he only won because Webber was clearly given a number 2 slot after that. I honestly thing LeClerc is going to show him up after he has found his feet in the team.next year. The team can defend him all they want but I am sure they are not stupid. I think Vettel has lost the team. The season is over and Vettels career is likely on the wane for good (hope I haven't jinxed it). Vettel knows it and has panicked as a result, hence the unnecessary lunge.

 

I do think he has damaged his reputation. If he never wins another championship, will the future regard him as the lucky four time champion?

The same criticism could be made of Hamilton of course given that he has always had competitive machinery, but the difference is that Hamilton has matured and ironed out his weaknesses and is damn well unbeatable in a good car, whereas perhaps Vettel has not matured in the same way, or until now he has not had to.

 

Some valid points in there. Lewis has been beaten by Jenson and Nico(just) and was a little lost when he left McLaren, remember him moaning about the telemetry charts and posting excerpts? As you say, he has matured into a fine racer.
Vettel, has failed to mature, I think he thought he was fast (which he is) and all he needed was the fastest car. he never looked to develop himself in other ways.
And yes, I think he was lucky.

 

I don't think anyone who has watched F1 since Hamilton was in it would ever call him a lucky champion

He raced the crap out of a **** McLaren.

Nobody worth listening to would ever say the same of Vettel either.

 

He still faces that tired accusation of his record being the product of having been put straight into a top drive having been already been honed for success. Personally I don't subscribe to any of that stuff but my point is that these days it is hard for critics to ascribe his success just to that when he has clearly taken his considerable talent and worked very hard at maturing it into something very formidable.

 

bollocks was he oblivious, he knew exactly what he was doing, it was a standard MV move, someone was going to get past him so he tries to take them out. 5 seconds for what he did to Kimi is a joke too, that was a Schumacher/Hill in Melbourne move.

 

My initial thoughts was that it was another Max d*** move, but I wasn't sure after a second look. Still need to see it again tbh.

I'm not sure the clog that Vettel is getting today is entirely fair.

 

When I saw it live I thought it was a classic Max collision, but with every replay I felt the blame was more and more in Vettel's court.

The Kimi/Max accident however, that's all Max.

 

Today's race just goes to show how much faster the top 3 teams are!! OK so some of the cars were moving out of the way purely as they know the Ferrari and Red Bulls are so much quicker and not wanting to mess up their own race but the gap is way too big.
Some will argue that it's due to the manufacturers having more info on the PU but Red Bull are anywhere but close to Renault as a PU supplier.
So is it purely money?
If it is just money and FIA put a cap on things then I think Ferrari have certainly positioned themselves very well with Hass and Sauber so closely in their pocket they will be able to 'redistribute' costs massively.

FIA need to reduce the amount of components you can buy from other teams and give option to have FIA standard components. That way the parts don't help other teams in R&D costs etc. Then you risk it becoming a spec series so it's all a big balancing act but at the moment its too swayed towards money and not engineering skill.

 

no, your first instinct was the correct one, he does it every single time he looks to be under threat, struggling to recall a time when he has been passed and hasn't made contact, he doesn;t give a **** because no one will make him give a ****, he needs black flags and stop/goes or a kick in the head from one of the other drivers.

 

The thing that made me laugh was when, I think it was Di Resta was making out like the Max/Kimi incident was a 50/50. Even the pundits are making excuses for his knobheadery. He's never gunna learn.

 

For me one highlight was Kimis Radio transmission where they did not bleep all of THE word out , and the chat straight after it

 

I still say his Father has a lot to do with his attitude.

 

I don't think Eddie or anyone was saying Lewis was lucky, he went on to say Lewis has developed as a driver into what he is today, Matured and damn good. Vettel, I remember panicked during the Canadian 2011 GP when Jenson was rapidly catching him on a damp track, Vettel still panics and has never matured out of that, unfortunately it is in his DNA from what I can see. We all have faults, in Vettels case it effects the output of his work. He is still a decent person though.

 

Coulthard seemed to be trying to make out that Max was entitled to do it and that he couldn't have gone anywhere else, that was utter bollocks, he knew it was the only way to stop Kimi getting past and purposefully hit him, you could see it from the onboard.

yeah, I imagne no one at the junior kart meetings dared rock the boat due to his dad's fame as a dutch F1 driver, even though he was utterly crap.

 

Like BLS, the Kimi incident is indefensible, but I think I'd call the Spoon curve collision a racing incident, perhaps assigning a little more blame to Vettel.


Anthony Davidson calls it 80:20, Vettel more at fault:

. As he says, it's not a normal overtaking spot, because of the speed through there. I think even if Max had driven right around the outside perimeter and given Vettel all the speed he could, Vettel's line would have taken him into Max regardless.

 

The fact Vettel has panicked under pressure doesn't make him an unworthy 4 time world champion. I seem to remember Schuey, Senna, Prost, Hakkinen doing some crazy **** under pressure.

I like a lot more elements of Vettel's character than Hamilton's, but I also think some of his character defects are worse. He is still one of the fastest drivers F1 has ever seen, and I think he will benefit from the change in aero regs tremendously and probably win a 5th WDC next year.

 

No driver will ever escape that accusation. The passionate fans will believe what they want to. "Hamilton's success is down to the car" is easy to disprove, he's got a 6-2 records vs top teammates, discounting bad luck it'd be 7-1. Vettel doesn't have that protection, it's been clear favouritism apart from 2014.

I wouldn't call Seb a lucky champion either, but he's more than a champion. He's statistically the tie 4th best driver in history. He hasn't looked it outside of that Newey car. Certainly needs to do himself some good and dominate Leclerc, and cut out the mistake before they're a big part of his legacy.

 

In a previous post I had Vettel Ranked I think 5th of the drivers on the present grid. He has done nothing to change my mind this season. I have always seen him as an average driver. I think if he had gone up against Ricciardo during his Red Bull championship days and with equal treatment of both drivers, Ricciardo would probably have wiped the floor with him. I don't know why people even bother to blame Ferrari the slum, had he not made all those stupid errors, he would have been in with a decent shot at the title. I think even Bottas would outpace Vettel in that Ferrari. And for the people that think Max will be the next multi-champion? well, first of all he need s to be able to think, and he doesn't! He listens to no one and answers to no one. He is a law onto himself. Max would break a stop light and claim that it was somebody else's fault. If he doesn't learn quickly, accept when he is wrong AND that he isn't a one-man show, or that he doesn't make all the rules and officiate at the same time, then he could end up The Champion That Never Was.