In the last two years only Jenson Button has won a race while starting from lower than P3 on the grid. After reading this stat at first I was going to write an article about how it is not only Vettel who wins from the front. I then decided to scrap that and write one about how it is still very important to qualify well. After I had decided to scrap that along with one about how dominant the Red Bull have been for the last couple of years and then conversely one about how close the compeition has been the last few year, I just thought **** it there are too many important reasons why.
Which shows to me they shouldn't have had the major regulation change into 2009. Fixing something that wasn't broken.
Disagree with that, the sport had grown stagnant in my opinion and needed freshening up. I think a large contributor to this stat is the excellent reliability these days, in the past you could inherit a win due to others breaking down. Another factor is the FIA's refusal to race in the wet, there's less chance of a Spa '98 or a Monaco '96 because of red flags and starting behind the safety car. A lot of it is just coincidence, fourth placed Alonso was able to challenge for the win in Nurburgring this year for example, he, Webber and Hamilton could all have won that race and grid position had little impact on the end result, it just happened that a driver starting top three came out with the win. All that aside should we really be surprised? If you're starting fourth or lower you probably don't have the pace to win. Even with easier overtaking this year you'll still lose time coming through the pack. Qualifying is still important, but if you asked Webber if he'd be prepared to sacrifice a grid spot or two for a faster start I'm sure he would take it.
