Vettel (DEU) vs Webber (AUS) part 3

[Marbot]

So it only remains to hazard a guess as to which bones he'll break before the 2011 season starts.

[Knowlesy]

His neck bones, from craning to look at the top of the timesheets to see how many seconds his teammate is quicker.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

His neck bones, from craning to look at the top of the timesheets to see how many seconds his teammate is quicker.

Another Fibula I think.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Marbot

Another Fibula I think.

humerus. very very humerus.

[Splatz the Cow]

Just back to the comments about Mark feeling this was his one and only chance to be champion - because now Seb is Champion, he will unleash his full talent with confidence: I don't agree at all.

I think Mark felt 2010 was his best opportunity because the RBR was his best ever car, and his parity level in the team was tenuous and held in place by his massive experience advantage over Seb, and RBR team policy.

But now with Seb champion, combined with all of the grooming behaviour to Seb by the older men standing behind RBR with the fat wallets, Mark has no defense now to Seb being No.1 driver. A championship that Seb was really gifted to at the last moment by disastrous Ferrari tactical errors. Now any claim Mark makes will be met, however discretely, with "Yes Mark, but Seb wants to do it this way, and as champion..." Any variation on that theme means Mark will not be on a level playing field, as much as he ever might have been, or not, last year.

So the dream is gone, and he will be racing for second place at best in the 2011 championship.

My interest in this years season will be in seeing its overt nature.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Splatz the Cow

A championship that Seb was really gifted to at the last moment by disastrous Ferrari tactical errors.

Comments like this crack me up! Ok, Ferrari blundered in the last race, but fact remains, Seb put himself in contention to pick up the pieces, your boy didn't!

Unfortunately for mark, and indeed, his fans, dispite his best season in F1 and his best efforts, he still couldn't do enough to win the title. But with all the failures, add in a couple of accidents etc, Seb still won it. Imagine had he not had the failures and accidents, no one, including mark, would have seen which way he went. Thats the difference between them.

Mark will be racing for second best, because he's not good enough to race for first and like it or not, it's that simple.

[E.B]

Certainly the last two years have witnessed Mark somewhat losing his bottle at the end of the year, or certain parts of the season. He had the WDC in his pocket this year yet squandered it and was unable to even make the runner up, indeed only kept in the top three by a couple of points.

Still, with the RB7 being potentially another good car he may well have the hardware beneath him to be a contender.... yet I see him lacking the wherewithall to fight against a teamate who without doubt is in possession of more talent and is rightfully seen as the team future.

Red Bull need to be thinking of maintaining Seb's interest in RBR than they need to worry about Mark, certainly by his own inclination in his swansong year(s). Given Seb's long term wish to drive in a red car, they want to ensure that it does not happen sooner rather than later.

RBR now they have achieved part 1 of their dream in their championship success know this needs to be continued before they are seen as an F1 superpower a la Ferrari and McLaren. They (RBR) dont want to become another 'has been' like Williams. Williams at least had several years at the top, and this would be their target.

The above was written whilst hungover and grumpy, so perhaps a little more direct in criticism than may be deserved. It does however reflect my direction of thought.

[dsg]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Comments like this crack me up! Ok, Ferrari blundered in the last race, but fact remains, Seb put himself in contention to pick up the pieces, your boy didn't!

That’s a bit of a straw man argument. Clearly Seb put himself in a position to win and Mark didn't, but the overall premise that Ferrari blew it still stands.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by dsg

That’s a bit of a straw man argument. Clearly Seb put himself in a position to win and Mark didn't, but the overall premise that Ferrari blew it still stands.

Ferrari may well have blown the Abu Dhabi race, but then they were responsible for Alonso's extra points won in Germany, so that sort of cancels the Abu Dhabi faux-pas.

I think that Alonso himself has more responsibility in his not winning the title by virtue of his on track errors and poor judgement. Alonso was responsible for his own stuff ups such as Spa where he spun any points hope away with a mistake on his own, or there was the Jumped start / drive through penalty earlier in the year (cant remember which race off the top of my head but it was VERY blatant.) Add in the Monaco practice error which required a new chassis causing him to start the GP from pitlane, plus the nonsense and subsequent penalty in the Kubica affair at Silverstone clearly shows that Alonso cost himself more points through his own errors and bad calls than the team cost him over the year. As did Webber Vettel and Hamilton, Alonso made consequential errors that more than outweighed the teams failure at Abu Dhabi.

[Mr V]

He jump started at China iirc.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by dsg

That’s a bit of a straw man argument. Clearly Seb put himself in a position to win and Mark didn't, but the overall premise that Ferrari blew it still stands.

Maybe Fernando and Ferrari were only in a position due to Seb's poor reliability? Afterall, wouldn't Seb have been leading after Korea had his engine not blown??

Fact of the matter is, at the last race of the season, 4 drivers could have won the title, but only 1 managed it.

[dsg]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Fact of the matter is, at the last race of the season, 4 drivers could have won the title, but only 1 managed it.

Yes, but at the start of the race were the "odds" of a win the same for all drivers? I would suggest not as given previous form/reliability/tactics/luck the chance of a title win was not equal.

[E.B]

Clearly prior to the race it was looking rosy for Alonso and Ferrari, as was the case with Webber prior to Korea.

With Alonso 3rd on the grid and with Webber, his main challenger behind him, he was in the strong position, especially given the recent form and reliability he had shown. With Vettel, not only with the points deficit, but running on engine leftovers and a history of misfortune with reliability, Alonso had the relatively easy job. Of course he muffed the start and was stuck behind the two McLarens, albeit ahead of Webber still.

We all know what happened from there with Webber clouting the wall and coming in early for a precautionary tyre change tempting Alonso in to cover him, when in fact his race (in title terms particularly) was by then with Vettel, and in track position terms was with the McLarens and not Webber etc etc.

Certainly Ferrari that day gave back the points that they had given to Alonso in Germany.

Meanwhile at the front justice was being done with Vettel continuing his form from the later races of the year and IMHO taking what he had deserved given his 60+ points lost to mechanical unreliability.

Webber for his part was, well, lets just say he had better weekends, and his 5th place on the grid was not where he should have been given the car he had under him. It was not his worst qualifying... he had another 5th (Singapore) plus a 6th in Bahrain (7th in Canada was thanks to a +5 Gearbox penalty so I wont include).

By Abu Dhabi the WDC was Alonso's to lose and that is exactly what the Ferrari team as a whole managed to do.

[Marbot]

Originally Posted by E.B

Certainly Ferrari that day gave back the points that they had given to Alonso in Germany.

That was very 'magnanimous' of them...not!

So many driver mistakes and reliability problems this season have clouded what would otherwise have been a fairly straight forward 'floor wiping' from Red Bull.

[OZ_HCR32]

I had a big post sorted, but lucky for you all i lost it all

I dont think Vettel enjoys a clear pace advantage over Webber. I see that he enjoys a speed advantage in qualifying, but I have seen nothing in their race pace to suggest over a race distance Webber is any slower.

Evidence we have from the latest season is Webber is perhaps still a tad quicker over a race. Is better at lapping cars (but still not great) when mid field or having to come through the field.

Getting back to quali pace, they were close all year with the overall advantage to Vettel. But we did see it ebb and flow, Vettel at the start of the year, then Webber enjoyed a pace advantage whilst vettel chased the car a little only to get that 0.01 to 0.1 advantage over Webber in quali at seasons end. (typically)

To me the speed advantage in quali, which is sooo important for a good race weekend is small enough that you really need to consider the car variable. Until I see how the cars react to the new tyres and tweak in regs I am not ready to agree that Vettel will have it all over Mark.

The nature of the car could again see Vettel a tad slower then Mark. I suppose we could see Vettels advantage continue or even increase. But my points is the drivability will play a big part because I see it as being that close.

...and I am still waiting to see Vettel come back through the field due to poor quali, or different strategy like Webber employed at times through the year. Vettels only recovery drive in 2010 was Silverstone and that was messy and assisted by the safety car. If the racey Vettel from Brazil 2008 and 2009 returns? Be it a driver form issue or cars aero in performance...whatever...if his ability in traffic in 2011 is like those two races then I will start to agree that Webber may be edged on too many fronts that over a season the racing gods will not let gim get close to Vettel

...and re the floor wiping. I think in past seasons the WDC has been able to DNF and clash wheel to wheel without the impact we saw this year with cars from different teams being genuinely close. The RBR enjoyed a quali speed advantage, but there were race weekends where they didnt have the race pace of McLaren or Ferrari. So think its a sign of having several competitive teams and drivers from each team. I mean when was the last season you had two teams with two drivers takign points of each other and a 3rd team with a driver with genuine race winning pace at times during the year? Quick think back it was McLaren (Hamo-Alonso), with Kimi and to a lesser extent Massa...still doesnt match 2010 competitiveness

[Mystery]

Seb has more natural speed than Mark, but Seb can break cars and is prone to poor decision making at times. Mark's just pretty quick and consistent, but rarely right at the cutting edge pace wise.

I think that's all it is. Mark's a great driver but in all honesty he's probably not going to win a championship for Red Bull unless Seb keeps being erratic.

It doesn't help that his team support Seb more, and you can argue over the reasons for that, but every team has to make those decisions. One driver might just be more liked by the team, or is actually favoured - it just happens.

[JohnSSC]

fomoco: V is indeed real! Nor is his wit clouded by too much Red Bull!

For as much as V and I disagree (he knows I am an Alonso man) I DO agree with his assessment of Webber. Mark had his best shot at the WDC this season. Despite being handed numerous opportunities to solidify his lead, some through the inexperience of Seb, he failed to do so.

Further, Mark's own behaviour, including not telling the team about the fractured shoulder, is especially puzzling to me and indicates to me that Mark has a bit of an issue with the team itself and their treatment of him. Rather than putting his head down and driving, Mark got too wrapped-up in the team's perception of him and that, I believe, affected his performance.

Bottom-line: Seb learns and learns quickly. He is not going to make the same mistakes twice. Webber is going to be very hard-pressed to take the measure of Seb in 2011. He may indeed be hard-pressed to keep the drive in 2012.

[E.B]

Mark's contract expires end of this year and he himself has indicated that this might be his last year in F1. He has certainly said he wont be 'doing a Trulli' and keep going down the grid to lower teams, and that RBR would be his last employer as a driver.

But never say never.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by E.B

and that RBR would be his last employer as a driver.

But never say never.

Unless Ferrari come knocking and offer him a number 2 drive to back up Alonso

[fomoco]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Unless Ferrari come knocking and offer him a number 2 drive to back up Alonso

Not to bad for a number two driver though.take my front and give it to the sook , Fastest laps, wins, oops sorry, not allowed to beat the golden haired boy.

Redbull gives you what bulls do

[Marbot]

Aren't driver threads wonderful!

Roll on next season, when teams don't actually have to hide their 'favourites' any longer.

[Super Hans]

Right, I've just removed a number of inappropriate posts (along with some replies) after compaints from members. Can I remind everyone familiarise themselves with the rules? Thanks.

[Bononi]

Nice move, so much needed.

[hgmonaro]

all those that have the opinion that SV will 'wipe the floor' with MW should go and make their predictions in the appopiate thread, for review at seasons end. Maybe they should also state what they consider that constitutes. I personally don't think out qualifing someone by less than 1 tenth of a second sould be classed as such, although I'm sure some do!

[E.B]

Like the Australian Ashes Team, it was not Mark's year.
Again.