Quote:
Originally Posted by Teretonga
F1 has always been about the car.
However as the sport has become even more competitive between the teams the car has become ever more important.
The emphasis on aero development and downforce exaggerates the difference between the cars even more.
My own belief is that there are six or seven drivers out there who were not contenders but could have been contenders had their teams been running a Red Bull.
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I think you could probably have argued that after last year. Last year re-emphasised the importance of the car in F1. We saw Button win loads of races and the title, we saw Webber and Rubens winning races, we saw Fisichella on pole and Sutil on the front row, and we saw the "best" drivers make little impact for much of the season in poor cars
However, I think this year re-emphasised the importance of the driver. With 3 races to go, we had Mark Webber, a driver who had gone up in most people's estimations since the beginning of 2009 and was virtually breaking in to the "top tier" of drivers, on top of the standings. If it was all car, surely he would've cruised to the title. But he didn't. And it was the acknowledged 3 best drivers in the field (with the exception of Kubica, who never had the car anyway) who rose to the top
If anything, it re-establishes the pre-2009 general view that the great really are a class apart from the good. But this time, it's not necessarily in raw speed, but in terms of mental strength, being able to deliver when it counts. Webber proved this year that he's only a tiny fraction behind Vettel in one lap pace. Where he lost it was being able to deliver his maximum every weekend, especially at the end. That's where their true advantage of the best drivers is