F1 Fanatic

I think this needs a more level-headed approach (and yes, given time I’ll do the same for all races, all 3 top cars).

Malaysian Grand Prix
Race pace:
Is there reason to believe Vettel and Hamilton could not have matched Alonso’s race pace in his Ferrari considering …both Vettel and Hamilton’s ‘clean air’ times were about as much faster to their team-mates as Alonso’s was to Massa. (FL not representative comparison in wet)

Is there reason to believe Vettel and Hamilton could not have…
…overtaken Nico Rosberg in lap 1 (Schumacher and Grosjean clashed) from p8 to p5.
…overtaken Mark Webber for p4.
…leapfrogged Button and Hamilton in the pits for p2.
…overtaken Sergio Perez for p1 and defend against him for the 3 laps he was within 2 seconds.

European Grand Prix
Race pace:
Is there reason to believe Vettel and Hamilton could not have matched Alonso’s race pace in his Ferrari considering…
…Alonso’s fastest lap was 0.765s faster than his team-mate’s.
…Hamilton fastest lap was 0.799s faster than his team-mate’s.
…Vettel was flying today (FL not representative considering DNF).

On track performance:
Is there reason to believe Vettel and Hamilton could not have…
…jumped from p11 to p8 in lap 1 (Massa moved from p13 to p10, also past Rosberg and Button).
…overtaken Hülkenberg and Maldonado on soft tires, with those two on medium.
…overtaken Webber, Senna, Schumacher and di Resta on old tires for p4.
…overtaken Hamilton in the pits for p3 when McLaren screwed up the pit stop.
…overtaken Grosjean on the restart (not too unsimilair to Vettel’s move on Rosberg in Australia; I have little doubt Lewis could not make that move).
…picked up the win when the race leader’s alternator failed.

German Grand Prix
Is there reason to believe Vettel and Hamilton could not have matched Alonso’s race pace in his Ferrari considering…
…Alonso’s fastest lap was 0.181s faster than his team-mate’s.
…Vettel’s fastest lap was 0.325s faster than his team-mate’s.
…Hamilton brawled with Alonso and Vettel (FL not representative considering DNF).

On track performance:
Is there reason to believe Vettel and Hamilton could not have…
…taken pole position on much fresher tires.
…lead the race from the front (Massa’s free air pace was not too dissimilar).

Now, as I have said very often, Fernando Alonso is a great driver, who drove some great races, but there is no reason to Sebastian Vettel or Lewis Hamilton could not have won those races in those circumstances.

If you believe there is, please point to where Alonso put in a performance the other two great drivers on the great would not have been able to.

For me any achievement from 1997 is dissolved by the last event. Schumacher was disqualified from the standings and rightly so. All that hard work for nothing. Its a year to forget really.

Agreed.

@kingshark
Are you never ashamed of yourself?
Don’t you ever think about that for a second when you cower with your tail between your legs as you are afraid to answer the topic?
Do you really think it is not clear as daylight that you are trying to derail because the implied answer does not match up with your perception of reality?

I know, scary and confrontating big questions you will most likely again be too afraid to answer, as you never dare to answer for tough qustions.
Now for three easy questions:
- did I say I was going to make that for all top 3 cars and drivers to compare?
- did I say that Alonso would not have been able to put in similar performances in the Red Bull?
- did you derail the subject and not answer the question?

Now please, be a man, and answer the question.

That´s just normal coming from that guy…. Geez… I think he would drink Vetel´s piss if he asked him to… Kind of hilarious in a way but sometimes I just wish i had him face to face…. I know the beef is not with me but geez he needs a good whooping sometimes…

Personally it irritates me that they keep going on about the fact he only “raced” 18 out of 20 races. Firstly if you starting 7-8th on average, surely at some stage in a very long season you going to be caught up in a first lap incident? Secondly, relaiblilty is a massive part of building a championship winning car, I think this season showed that it is more important than outright spped if you compare them to McLaren. In many ways the Ferrari was the car to have – specially when the entire team is focused totally on you.

Just another point, I have read on this site comments saying mechanical failure is not bad luck, i can not agree in Vettels “alternator” case:

Renualt supply 8 cars engines
There are 20 races in the season
160 starts – 4 Alternator failures
97.5% success
2 of 4 those alternator failures on Vettels car
Add to the fact that Renualt had a fuel pick-up problem which probably cost Vettel a win – was that 1 in 160?

Yes, you could argue that reliability is self inflicted, but you’d be completely wrong to do so. The alternator issues have been a problem for Renault engines for about 6 years now and they’ve still failed to resolve it. Arguably the more competitive the car, the more stressed the engine, and so the greater the likelihood that it’ll fail on a Red Bull than, say, a Caterham. But to try and pin it on the driver himself is clutching at straws a little bit, isn’t it.