F1 Fanatic

Team sport, without a doubt. A perfect example being the pit-lane battle between Massa and Vettel at the Nurburgring a few weeks ago. Vettel couldn’t have won that position without such a well executed stop and Massa wouldn’t have lost it if his mechanics had been more on the ball.

It’s both really but for me it will always fundamentally be about the drivers.

I make a distinction between the team effort and the constructor themselves. Just as it’s not just the driver who builds the car, plans the strategy, etc. the driver himself does more than get in the car and drive it. That’s why it’s a team effort; but I see it as a team effort in the sense of it being the product of many people, rather than as a sport which is competed on a team (i.e. the constructor) basis. After all, the WDC is the older, more prestigious championship and constructors’ points are just the two drivers’ points added together, rather than simply their best result (an idea I explored here)

To me it’s only a constructor victory if we see a 1-2 in a race or the championship, or the constructor takes both championships. Other than those, for me it’s the driver’s victory, but of course it’s really the driver’s team (i.e. his side of the garage plus of course some credit to the general management) victory. So for example last year Red Bull won the championship, but if they hadn’t it would have been Alonso, not Ferrari.

A weird and probably not entirely logical way of looking at things, but that’s my view.

@Dan Thorne – A valid point, but I think you could only apply that criteria to the status quo. If Fernando Alonso suddenly jumped ship to Sauber he would certainly have more say and people would listen. I would put that down to circumstances than choice.

@manatcna But you’re only shifting the responsibility to the guys who change the tyres. Their performance is critical. Look at what I said above about Massa in Germany.

Yes, you’re both right, of course
I guess I just miss refueling