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Sebastian Vettel, the Pep Guardiola of Formula 1

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    magon4
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    This analogy will only make sense to football (soccer) fans. Bare with me, this might be a longer post.
    When Pep Guardiola, the former spanish midfielder, took over FC Barcelona as their coach in 1998, he almost instantly became the new star in the manager scene. At the end of his very first season, he had won all possible trophies, including a historical beating of Manchester United in the Champions League Final, making Sir Alex Ferguson’s boys look like amateurs. Ferguson is considered probably the greatest football manager ever.
    After a few years of success and football for another star, quite frankly, Pep gave up his job at the team he played for when he was a pro. And opinions diverged. Guardiola was either a genius to walk on the football (soccer) planet, or he was just lucky and anyone would have won those titles with that team and that Lionel Messi, by some already considered the all-time greatest football player.
    So he made a bold move half a year later, announcing he would take over German side Bayern München.

    This is what people seem to want from Sebastian Vettel, who burst into F1 basically instantly a success, even as a 19-year old sub driver for BMW, winning his first F1 points in his very first race. After a great season at Toro Rosso, where he outperformed the Red Bull drivers, he chose to stay with the family, although he could have probably picked any team. With him, Red Bull became a winning car, and a car to challenge the WDC with. For those of us who can remember the Red Bull beginnings, first as Sauber sponsor, and then as their own team(s). RBR followed acts like Stewart (some good moments) and Jaguar (a disappointment), and no one really believed this could become a championship winning team. They had the potential and the money, but could someone make it work?
    Now, people don’t know if Seb is just lucky to be at the right place, at the right time, or if he is really that talented, compared to the all-time greats. So they want him to drive for another outfit, to prove his worth.

    Against that logic, we now see Pep at Bayern, a team which ended up winning this years Champions League in a very convincing manner. Some already say, once again Pep is just lucky and his team was already the best in Europe without him. After an impressive 3-1 win at Man City, some have given in, saying that this Spaniard is trully talented. But for others, he will never convince.
    Same could happen to Seb. Who moves, say, to Ferrari, and when he comes, magically the car is the best on the grid. People would still be saying “It’s the car, not the driver”.

    I’m curious to see how these two stories continue.
    Just as a comment: Sir Alex Ferguson had some astonishing success early on in his career, at Aberdeen FC, where he challenged the establishment of Rangers FC and Celtic in Scotland, but then went to ManU and never left.

    Any thoughts?

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