F1 Fanatic

pedro de la rosa named three f1 drivers who are capable of winning races without having the best car in the field. he mentioned fernando alonso, lewis hamilton and sebastian vettel, and with that was elevating them in a league above the others. jenson button fans might disagree, and they’re not the only ones: fernando alonso reacted to his compatriots quote slightly irritaded: he said that vettel hasn’t proven yet that he can take the 5th or 6th best car on the grid to the podium, since he has always had the best car. clearly referring to the latter part of 2009 and the last two seasons, alonso seems to forget vettel’s year at toro rosso, where he “outperformed” the car (ok you know what i mean by that), even winning a race with that car against the mclaren, best car on the grid.
alonso says that vettel still has to prove his ability to get the maximum of an inferior car. do you agree?

@Todfod Don’t forget that Bourdais in 4th was 1second off pole; on a wet setup to Vettel’s dry setup. And he was streaming away at 1.2-1.5s a lap from Kovalainen in the wet. Fuel weight doesn’t matter much in the wet; especially at Monza where fuel effect is notoriously low.

We also need to remember China 2009. He just absolutely butchered the field in a car that wasn’t the best. It had to go quite a bit lighter on fuel than the Brawn to outpace it in qualifying – if you saw the fuel corrected qualifying figures, the Brawns were still quicker. It was on a day where Mark Webber kept going off the circuit at the last corner too – often to lose his place (though he would always take it back) to Button in the process. The only 2009 victory without a double diffuser.

Button is probably one who you can absolutely super rely on to bag the amount of points your car deserves. Give him a podium capable car he’ll get a podium. Same for a win. Give him a dominant car he’ll be WDC. But you don’t necessarily see him transcending the car’s capabilities.

I reckon it depends just as much who’s in the other cars.

Imagine if in this year’s championship, we’d seen the Vettel from 2009 and early 2010 – making mistakes, not so great in qualifying, crashing a little.

I think it’s fair to say that Button would have won the championship, beating the highly respected Webber and the ‘crash kid’ Vettel in a faster car.

What do we conclude? Button’s capable of winning the championship in an inferior car. Just not when the guy in the best car puts in a season like Vettel just has… a season which has to be one of the best performances in a dominant car ever.

The same goes for a lot of others. I bet Kubica thinks that in 2008, when there were no great driving performances (on the level of an Alonso, Schumacher, Vettel or Mansell), he could have won the championship in either the McLaren or the Ferrari. He came close enough in a Sauber!

So it’s a poor yard-stick. Winning a championship with an inferior car almost always requires your rivals to make mistakes. That means it depends on luck. Vettel might never do it, but that doesn’t make him a bad driver. And it doesn’t mean he can’t attain greatness in the years to come.

@slr would that not make his drive that much more special? If it were dry in Monaco 1984 Senna might have struggled to get into the points. I’m not trying to devalue either win; but my point is; if you can use the wet weather to get your car into places it doesn’t deserve to be – then that is a hell of a drive.

@Alex agreed. Getting your car up high in races is one thing, but winning a championship in a lesser car is almost a dead-cert no-no; no matter who you have in the car.

@George agreed. With the way he seems to be able to go fast and save his tyres this year; at least earlier on this year; he might even have snuck in a win. Who knows…

i am pretty sure that vettel can always take the absolute maximum out of any car. he has had some mistakes in the past, but his pace has always been at the maximum of what a car can deliver, at toro rosso and the first semester 2009 rbr.
for me, he’s already proven to be at the hamilton level, at least.

I guess after praising Vettel’s “great qualities” back in September (http://en.espnf1.com/ferrari/motorsport/story/58151.html), there is still a great quality or two he believes Vettel hasn’t nailed down quite yet. However, I think it’s unlikely we’re going to be seeing Vettel in the “5th or 6th best car on the grid” anytime in the near future, so I’m not sure when all the people holding out on this one will get an opportunity to have their minds changed!

fernando alonso reacted to his compatriots quote slightly irritaded: he said that vettel hasn’t proven yet that he can take the 5th or 6th best car on the grid to the podium, since he has always had the best car

Ah, he’s probably just jealous that Vettel beat his record for being the youngest double World Champion, and that vettel will probably take a third title before he does.

@raymondu999 here you go:

http://www.f1zone.net/news/alonso-vettels-true-quality-yet-to-be-seen/10808/

http://www.thef1times.com/news/display/05146