Sometimes your posts make me smile, Silver . I find it interesting that you seem to show a tendency to play down Newey's contribution. I think it fair to say that he is generally regarded as peerless, within the trade. He is the benchmark and generally others might only approach him. Sometimes. To present my opinion another way, if you were to ask virtually anyone concerned with F1 who they think best qualifies as F1's living genius, I'm pretty sure Newey would get a landslide vote and that most of the minority who might vote differently would do so as partisans, rather than true-gut belief. Please do not take this as a slight upon Vettel. It is not. Vettel is a great driver; of that there can be little doubt. However, he and Newey have decided to tie their contracts for good reason. Vettel's driving style is something Newey can exploit, whilst Newey's genius as a designer is something Vettel exploits. In a sense, it's a marriage of convenience; a complimentary arrangement; and a very powerful one. Although of course, there are differences, the collective thinking is essentially similar to how Schumacher achieved domination. This type of ground-base should not be under-estimated and when it comes to the sharp end of F1, is forever the envy of others. I'm sure you'd agree no driver on the grid would be disappointed to discover suddenly that Newey would be designing his/her car…
Given the opportunity, surely you'd pick both? Both act as insurance on the other. It is therefore a 'win-win' situation.
Would be interesting to see how each of them preforms when they are split up. I suppose it'll be easier for Newey, just has to work for a team that has a driver with a similar driving style to Vettel's. But Vettel could struggle with being used to a extremely quick car and being able to talk to a designer that knows exactly what to do with his feedback. Vettel is a very good driver, he's in the top group of drivers along with Raikkonen, Hamilton and Alonso, but I think out of his comfort zone, he could really struggle. It sort of reminds me of Schumacher in that Schumacher was so good because he had all that in season testing time and could develop a car really well, but when he returned when there was no in season testing, he struggled.
I think you make some good points there, nh-f1. I doubt we'll see a Newey/Vettel split, at least until he has achieved their combined objective (along with Hemut Marko's dream, Mateschitz's ambition to stamp his brand on anything which moves, and Red Bull's entire support system) which is to eclipse Schumacher's impressive list of statistics, regardless of how the former were achieved, but not with an entirely dissimilar mentality. However, if I may offer further opinion on this increasingly obvious comparison, the Vettel situation is far more palatable than his idol's; not least because although Vettel may have upset an awful lot of people with the 'Multi-21' incident, he does not deliberately put other driver's lives at risk to anything like the same degree. Neither does he have a proven cheat and fraudster as his closest ally… (P.S. to WestCoastBoogaloo: I intend to respond at some point; but since this post is to some extent in tune with your message, I've taken the liberty of adding this footnote here. Do you think you need to factor in various allegiances between F1's biggest players? Perhaps include 'masters' in the equation? That said, I am not sure how much extra detail I will be able to include.). *Apologies to the thread. This aside is not intended to be cryptic and is merely included for convenience.
the thick of it is I cant consider Vettel a legend yet because of many factors. Schumacher and Fangio managed to win championships with multiple teams. This surely proves them as the real deal. What can we currently measure Vettel against while all his victories come under the same setup. Can he adapt? Alonso and Hamilton have moved on and proved they can be competitive in other teams. Also there is the doubt that he isn't even the greatest driver in his current generation. Even when Schumacher was winning against Hill we knew deep down we (Hill Fans) were backing the underdog as MS was a far superior driver. There is a lot of DOUBT that needs to be cleared up before we can measure him as a legend
So you don't class Jim Clark as a great then? Or Ayrton Senna? both only won WDC's with one team, and in respect to Clark, one designer
Schuey did win it with 2 teams, but they were moulded around him 100%, and with a nice slice of help from the FIA via the Ferrari technical veto. Fangio is the one who was truly able to hop from one car to the next and win titles. Alfa Romeo, Mercedes, Lancia, Maserati. Didn;t matter what he drove, he won.
Hmm… With the greatest respect, Bando, I think the 'different teams' argument is a bit hollow, not least for reasons similar to Miggins. I also differ, at least in terms of strength of your opinion with regard to Hill, as Schumacher being "a far superior driver" for reasons I do not wish to divert this thread with. Suffice to say that such a discussion requires some separation of driver from his/her environment – which is not dissimilar to our current discussion of Vettel! Besides, I am sure I made my opinion well-known during the BBC606 years. That said, I confer with your fundamental point that Vettel may need to do a bit more to be classed as "a legend".
Senna and Clark are really unfair points as their potential of further success was cut short. But still they are both not as high up as Schumacher and fangio which Vettel is also being compared against. Where does Vettel stand against prost? Another 4xWDC but was also competitive for more than one team.
Fact is a great driver wont win in a **** car, so a great driver will always want a good designer and vica versa. He's won more than Senna in less time, will equal Prost in less time, will probably beat Fangio and Schumcher too, but he'll have to die early to be regarded as a great.
Well, statistics is an altogether different matter. So far as statistics go, there can be no argument whatsoever in terms of who has most, or any 'pecking order' derived from mathematically accountable achievement. But, Bando: I know you know it's far from the whole story! In terms of statistics, there is no point in the concept of 'best', 'worst', 'unluckiest', 'luckiest' or 'greatest' ever being discussed in a forum, since statistics make nonsense of any argument not relying entirely upon its own system of judgement or appreciation. But as I hope to show below, this itself is a contradiction in terms! Getting back to Vettel for a moment, I am quite certain he and Marko have had statistics in mind right from the start. I want to emphasise that such a focus does not in any way reflect a lack of quality; but simply that it does not in itself confirm it. Obviously a high quality driver is needed in order to accrue significant statistics against the highest quality of any era. Equally, statistics are necessarily quantitative and can say nothing whatsoever about quality in themselves, even if they might hint at it for those not confined by them. All of the 'greats', the ranks of whom Vettel is surely approaching (at least in terms of statistics, if he is not already amongst them), will have some sort of statistical claim; but 'greatness' – in terms of a human being, including one who specialises in sport – is not a simple matter of statistics and does not in itself say that one driver is 'better' than another, even in the same era. For instance, I agree that Clark, Senna, Gilles Villeneuve, Cevert (and many, many others who I should include here), had potential beyond their cruelly curtailed life-spans; but accepting this fateful caveat opens a whole can of worms on the statistical argument because there can be no certainty that a hundred+ others who met an untimely end might not have achieved an awful lot more, both in terms of circumstance and survival. Furthermore, death is not the only absolute caveat. No: far from it! It should be seen that assessing true greatness is a never ending merry-go-round of ifs and buts, and is ultimately confined to conjecture – unless you eliminate conjecture through the stale, non-qualitative, statistical argument which eliminates all discussion including the whole point of a forum. If we stick to statistics alone, none of us have any reason whatsoever to interact, since everything is 'a given' and anyone not conforming to the statistical model would by definition be talking nonsense. –Quite literally! Fortunately logic extends beyond statistics sufficiently to allow us to see that the preceding paragraph is defeated by logic itself, since we are all actually here discussing various aspects of motor racing, including the quality of various drivers (Vettel included) which necessarily extends beyond statistics in order for us to be discussing it!! This proves that statistics, convenient as they are in their simplicity, can only ever form part of any argument; and that any conclusion drawn from statistical analysis can do nothing more than add weight to pre-existing, pre-conceived or projected conjecture, any of which are fundamentally non-statistical.
Yes, stats can only form part of the argument in F1, since success can only really be achieved if you are able to secure a top drive which doesn't always happen. But, it's really hard to argue that Vettel isn't one of the great. Yes, he has a fab car and amazing team... but how many mistakes does he make? Almost none. Vettel is brilliant... the team is brilliant, which is why they're destroying everybody. I just hope someone can bring this to an end before it becomes too much of a snooze-fest.
one wonders what will happen next year if RBR don't have the best car on the grid and Vettel picks up WC no. 5
I don't think there'd be much problem if it was an open championship. If Vettel has it as controlled as this season, I could see F1's popularity dwindling quite substantially. A good percentage of people are counting on the rule changes mixing up the pecking order.
If Vettel has a fight on his hands and had to win the majority of his wins from further down the grid then that could change opinions.
