2012 Brazilian GP - Interlagos

[banibhusan]

I remember 2010, Vettel also have to deal with wheel to wheel racing with team mate and he has never lead in the championship throughout the season. BUT against all odds, he came from behind to beat Webber and Alonso to win his first WDC. At this was when he was 23 years old.

When did they fight wheel to wheel apart from Turkey, where both crashed? The early season lead Webber had was because of RB6's poor reliability and errors from Vettel. But whenever things went well, Vettel dominated the whole weekend. When did Alonso have that much pace in the Ferrari to dominate a weekend? The odds in question here are simply irrelevant. I am not taking any credit from Vettel. He did a good job to fightback and win the championship. But the RB6 was still the fastest car for most of the season and without the errors and reliability issues, there was no way anyone else could have done anything to stop Vettel from becoming WDC.

[Nando]

Would be interesting if you could calculate the average gap.

Sure the RB6 had one or two 1 second plus but it also had quite a lot of one tenth, less then one tenth etc.

I honestly got bored to death so please finish it if you want,

RB6 ---- Australia ---- RB7
0,192s ------------------ 0.778s

RB6 ---- China ---- RB7
0,355s ---------------- 0,715s

RB6 ---- Spain ---- RB7
0,834s ------------------- 0.980s (would have been even bigger but Vettel had no KERS so 2 tenths of Webbo)

RB6 ---- Monaco ---- RB7
0.294s ------------------- 0.441s

RB6 ---- Turkey ---- RB7
0.138s ------------------- 0.525s

[raymondu999]

he has never lead in the championship throughout the season.

That is more a sign of how the driver and team squandered his chances rather than how he was fighting against the odds to be honest.

RB6 ---- Malaysia ----- RB7
1,346s 0,104 (did something happen in this quali? Vettel beaten by over 1,3s by Webber, Rosberg 2nd)

Yes - it was wet, and Webber was the only one with the correct tyre choice (inters)

[Nando]

On pace? Name one race.

Here's the list of races the RB6 didn't win:
Bahrain - reliability
Australia - reliability
China - bad strategy
Turkey - collision
Canada - reliability
Germany - duff start
Spa - duff start, drivers getting tangled
Monza - I'll give you that one on pace
Singapore - error in qualifying
Korea - engine failure

I just did, and so did you. Monza. Franlky i think Singapore was one as well as he took pole, win and fastest lap.

error in qualifying does not work as a legitimate point as everyone make mistakes in Qualifying.
Iffy starts the same.

Impossible to get perfect starts and perfect quali laps.

[Nando]

I think that if you would look at all the races Vettel won in 2010, and compare the same races to the ones in 2011 you would find that the amount of seconds he´s won by is far greater but that´s at best a hunch on my part for now.

[banibhusan]

Nando, Singapore race was won by Alonso and in that race also he was hounded by Vettel for most of the race and Vettel finished just .2s behind Alonso. Arguably the RB6 was still the better car that weekend.

[raymondu999]

error in qualifying does not work as a legitimate point as everyone make mistakes in Qualifying.
Iffy starts the same.

It does in this case - because we're not discussing results, we're discussing, as you put it (in bold)

It was beaten more times by it´s competitors on pure pace

Franlky i think Singapore was one as well as he took pole, win and fastest lap.

Singapore Vettel hit the wall in qualifying - does that not count, especially when he then only lost pole by 0.067?

The lack of the win was due to a lack of overtaking at the front, and the lack of fastest lap was due to dirty air (if you re-watched the race, the gap between Vettel and Alonso never reached 0.600s throughout the whole race. It fluctuated between 0.300-0.550s throughout the race, depending on which part of the circuit they were on.

[Nando]

Nando, Singapore race was won by Alonso and in that race also he was hounded by Vettel for most of the race and finished just .2s behind Alonso. Arguably the RB6 was still the better car that weekend.

Possibly yes but i would say quite equal actually.

4 tenths clear of nearest competitor in 2011,
1 tenth behind Alonso and 1 tenth ahead of Hamilton in 2010,

[banibhusan]

I think that if you would look at all the races Vettel won in 2010, and compare the same races to the ones in 2011 you would find that the amount of seconds he´s won by is far greater but that´s at best a hunch on my part for now.

It was also partly related to the competition. Ferrari went backwards in terms of performance and Hamilton screwed up most of time by making silly mistakes. Whenever McLaren had the pace to fight, they mostly won.

Okay Ray beat me to it. He came up with more facts to the prove the same point. Thanks Ray.

[Intego]

I remember an interview where Newey stated that the RB6 was more dominant than the RB7. I can do a research, if wanted.

Nevertheless I think this is a good point to start a RB5–8 comparison thread. Mods?

[Nando]

error in qualifying does not work as a legitimate point as everyone make mistakes in Qualifying.
Iffy starts the same.

It does in this case - because we're not discussing results, we're discussing, as you put it (in bold)

It was beaten more times by it´s competitors on pure pace

Franlky i think Singapore was one as well as he took pole, win and fastest lap.

Singapore Vettel hit the wall in qualifying - does that not count, especially when he then only lost pole by 0.067?

The lack of the win was due to a lack of overtaking at the front, and the lack of fastest lap was due to dirty air (if you re-watched the race, the gap between Vettel and Alonso never reached 0.600s throughout the whole race. It fluctuated between 0.300-0.550s throughout the race, depending on which part of the circuit they were on.

Yes pure pace. the race does not end in Turn 1. Plenty of time to get back just by missing a start.
therefore it´s quite irrelevant of how bad the start were.
A start is not connected to the pure pace of the car.

Well it depends on how much time he actually lost.
And again, the gap to Alonso could very well be Alonso managing the gap.
It was probably the quicker machine but i think it was a matter of a tenth rather then completely holding up Vettel.

Both Vettel and Alonso was 30 seconds clear of anyone else when they crossed the finish line.

Edit:

i would rank them like this,

RB7
RB6
RB8
RB5

I guess you could rank them like this as well,

RB7/RB6
RB8/RB5

[beelsebob]

More wins, more poles and more fastest laps do not translate into more dominant. The RB6 was a much less beatable car, it just happens that Vettel drove like a mong that year, and Hamilton drove like a mong in 2011.

It does actually. This is why the most dominant cars throughout history all have extremely impressive stats to back it up.

It is more dominant in every way you can imagine.

You really need to learn, and understand the phrase "there are lies, damned lies, and statistics". Just the statistics seeming to say something, does not mean it's true.

[RB7ate9]

If one wants to talk about the absolute dominance of a car in terms of pace and grip and aero, one cannot mistake the false equivalency of one car's all-around best with a car best suited to one driver.

Allow me to make the most common example: the MP4/4. It is the most dominant car in a race season. Ever. But, neither single driver dominated the season. Prost and Senna were able to make the most of the car to get a fairly equal number of wins (Senna 8, Prost 7). That is the mark of a truly, undeniably great car. A car that complements ANYONE with the stones to hurl it to its limit.

The RB6 was a car that was designed well enough that EITHER driver (Webber or Vettel) were able to extract the maximum from it. 5 wins for Vettel, 4 Wins for Webber, 10 Poles for Vettel, 5 for Webber, 3 fastest laps each. It was an all-around amazing car to be used. If anyone wants to bring up: "Well, put Alonso/Ham/00's Schumi in that car and they'd dominate too" then they should use the RB6.

The RB7 was designed specifically around the EBD, which better suited Vettel's driving. What resulted is that you have Vettel with maximum poles, maximum points, and Webber doing fastest laps because that's the most he could really do. The RB6 was a demonstration of how a team can make a great TEAM car. The RB7 was a demonstration of how a team can make a great DRIVER'S car. And the RB8 is a demonstration of how one driver can make a dodgy car into a great car that the other driver takes over.

***Mods are more than welcome to move to RB5+ comparison thread (as the RB9 is going to be another evolution, yes?)

As for BRAZIL '12 , I would really like to see Alonso and Webber back at it, dueling as they often do, for the win. Down amongst the other scrappers (Ham, Rai, But, Gro, Mas) I would like to see Vettel dice it with them WITHOUT DNF-ing! A clean end to the race would be fantastic.

....and first point(s) for one of the new teams would be awesome too

[Nando]

Or it was simply Webber who failed to use all the potential stored in the RB7.

Can hardly blame the car because a driver can´t match his teammate. Do you think Alonso and Hamilton or even Raikkonen would have similar problems as Webber in that car? I doubt it to be honest.

Red Bull built the RB7 on the basis of building a quick car. Exactly the same basis for the year before.
It just so happened that one driver could not extract everything from it.

That´s like saying the Ferrari´s in the dynasty era was crap because Massa could not match Schumacher when in reality if he had a top top driver in the other seat chances are the results would be neck and neck.

[CHT]

Nando, Singapore race was won by Alonso and in that race also he was hounded by Vettel for most of the race and Vettel finished just .2s behind Alonso. Arguably the RB6 was still the better car that weekend.

Singapore race was won by Nelson Piquet Jr.