F1 Fanatic

I’ve gotta agree with you Nik. But I think we will have to wait until Ferrari and Mclaren put their first large updates on the car. If those updates do not make them more than a second quicker on quali pace… then the season will be over for sure.

I think you mean 2009. I think Vettel will do more than just a Button. Button slacked after the first 7 races of the season, and that gave the fans a glimmer of hope for a title fight. I just dont see Vettel losing his intensity and focus, or RB losing their advantage at any point of time during the season. I hate to say it, but 3 races down and this season looks over already.

My initial response was to agree with this… however.
Things change in F1 so quickly! Car could be banned, someone else finds a killer new trick with the rules or Vettel is injured.

Lots can still change, were only 2 races in!

We’re not even three races in. Way too early to judge how the season will pan out. At this point last year, if you include the 2010 Bahrain GP, you wouldn’t have been able to pick between Alonso, Button or Vettel. At this point in the season, Webber was actually in a worse position in the championship than he is now…a couple of races later he was a clear leader.

As we’ve seen in qualifying today, McLarens are a strong challenger to the Red Bulls at the moment and Renault have a car that is challenging for podiums. I don’t think it’ll be a predictable season at all.

No I did mean 2001. Schumacher won 9 of 17 (i.e. someone else won almost as many times), but there was no single consistent challenger to him. 2009 would only apply if Red Bull suddenly went off the rails.

Of course, it could just turn out being 2002 and 2004 and no-one challenges!

As Superted says there are a couple of things that could stop Vettel, namely Ferrari or McLaren getting a decent upgrade or, God forbid, Vettel getting injured. I think their car is just about catch-able, McLaren have recovered from larger performance disadvantages in recent years (although admittedly they had fundamental issues with their car – as they did in testing this year).

As has been said a lot this year though, qualifying performance is less important than usual, and in race pace things are much more equal.

From 2009, I realise it’s just the bees knees if it’s a driver from your nation doing all the dominating, but it gets dull after a while, I want lots of drivers going for it!