Driver styles/preferences

[timbo]

It is not a contradiction to say that Vettel likes rear grip and to use oversteer. Vettel exploits consistent rear grip by inducing the car to oversteer on entry. If a car has poor inconsistent rear grip Vettel doesn't appear to be able to manipulate the rear to his liking - as seen in early 2012. Since you have no provided no evidence to suggest that this is not the case, I see no reason to change my opinion.

My view as well.

Also, the race performance may not be hurt as much as drivers usually try to save rears, so they adjust their driving accordingly and twitchy rear at the limit may not pose that much of a problem.

[SectorOne]

Agreed, i would put it like this, when the car does unexpected things, Vettel seems to suffer much more then Webber.
This is magnified on low fuel, absolute limit-driving.
Once the car start to become very predictable then Vettel is able to be quite a lot faster then Webber.
This could explain how he can have the rear more loose then Webber, but only if it´s predictable.
With Webber he does not particularly like a loose rear end but when the car is chaos, he´s comfortable with it, it does not bother him as much as Vettel.
Same with Kimi who needs everything tuned, same with Massa who we know has trouble getting things out of an unpredictable car and only starts to come on song when the car is solid.
Button is another guy who do not like unpredictable cars. They need it to handle a certain way.

It´s impossible to have constructive discussions with a guy that makes these sort of statements.

Less possible so then a guy claiming a certain driver is on a completely level of the others, "no competition"?
It's getting a little tiring to have you hide behind "I'm totally unbiased, thus whatever I say is the truth" with some of the statements you are throwing around. And it'd be one thing if those statements are backed up by facts or by the majority of pundits, but frequently enough they aren't.

If you feel too good to discuss with us measly 'biased' persons, you don't have to.

Yea isn´t that interesting. A guy that is not a fan of Alonso in any way, thinks he´s a bit of a child when he gets tough teammates and yet have no problem seeing how far ahead he is of Vettel and Hamilton (the guy i´m genuinely a hardcore fan for)

For some reason when it comes to Vettel fans logics stop applying, we already know you cherry-pick stats that promote the Vettel agenda, we know you think he´s the fastest, best, and most complete driver on the grid.
This is why unbiased discussions with guys like you is an impossibility.

You don´t ever look on the other side of the coin, it´s only Vettel´s side and everything bad is quickly refuted through 20 minutes of quote-searching on the net or a complete disregard and acknowledgement of the really bad stuff.

Too bad, because Raymond used to at least act unbiased, but today we can all see the underlying agenda.
If there´s Vettel talk, it needs to be positive things.

But if you look in the Monza thread, nearly all the Hamilton fans said he did a mistake instead of saying "oh you know, it´s the car or it´s track etc" trying to blame stuff on the equipment rather then an obvious driver mistake.

Edit: downvoting like the little bitch you are.

[SectorOne]

We can not explain Torro Rosso, we can not explain his rain driving

Actually we can, The STR and the Red Bull was simply very good in the wet in 07 and 08.

[PlatinumZealot]

They Newey Machines are known to be very well balanced. How often do you even hear Red Bull drivers voicing their dissatisfaction with the balance of their car? Almost Never.

[raymondu999]

Agreed, i would put it like this, when the car does unexpected things, Vettel seems to suffer much more then Webber.

I'd agree with that. Webber is probably a more improvisational driver than Vettel - and as such, when the car is unpredictable, his "on-the-spot" reactions are working better. When the car performs consistently then Vettel is better again. Which is consistent with Webber outperforming Vettel when the V1 sidepod tunnels were choking and working intermittently.

We know that Vettel is good at Monza, and good in the wet (except for Malaysia 2009 and Canada 2011) so I don't think it's a lack of grip that hurts him. Unpredictable/inconsistent handling does seem more the ticket.

[JimClarkFan]

Agreed, i would put it like this, when the car does unexpected things, Vettel seems to suffer much more then Webber.

I'd agree with that. Webber is probably a more improvisational driver than Vettel - and as such, when the car is unpredictable, his "on-the-spot" reactions are working better. When the car performs consistently then Vettel is better again. Which is consistent with Webber outperforming Vettel when the V1 sidepod tunnels were choking and working intermittently.

We know that Vettel is good at Monza, and good in the wet (except for Malaysia 2009 and Canada 2011) so I don't think it's a lack of grip that hurts him. Unpredictable/inconsistent handling does seem more the ticket.

I could agree with that.
Specifically I would say this hurts him most when this is at the rear.
I should also point out, that I, and I presume others are not saying he turns into an average driver in these situations. Rather I think of it as Vettel unperforming compared to his usual exceptional standard when he can't manipulate the car in the manner he likes. No one is suggesting that he turns in narain karthikeyan lol.

[Kansas]

there's so much more in terms of parameter to judge driver's driving style all i see were crap like understeer, oversteer. Driver A can drag magic out of a crap car bla bla bla.

All drivers love a neutral car - a.k.a Perfect balance.

Well, neutral car doesn't come as easily as that. In that case, driver could compromise based on their preference balance on corner entry and exit i.e US or OS.

We are talking about the tendency of car US or OS. No driver would prefer extreme oversteer even though he would've prefer the rear to step up a bit on the front.

Smooth and Aggressiveness. Most people judge it by steering input. However, kimi for example is well known for relatively small steering input, people call him smooth driver. But according to renault, kimi is very tough on the throttle.

You can't just generalize driver A is more aggressive because bla bla bla without concerning the other parameter.

Conclusion : there's so much more than just OS and US to better judge a driver's driving style. Stop creating stereotype and influence other.

[raymondu999]

All drivers love a neutral car - a.k.a Perfect balance.

Yes. Problem is - what is neutral for one driving style is not neutral for another. Remember that with the way each driver drives their car, it changes the way the airflow goes over the car, and also changes the weight transfers.

Smooth and Aggressiveness. Most people judge it by steering input. However, kimi for example is well known for relatively small steering input, people call him smooth driver. But according to renault, kimi is very tough on the throttle.

I agree with your sentiment - but not with your example. Kimi is VERY smooth on the throttle. Lotus praised him for this very reason - his smooth throttle application in Melbourne - and through the entire race, only breaking traction twice. Also, Kimi's traction control was broken in his first ever Monaco GP - and he finished the race, indicating that he has fantastic throttle control.

[Sevach]

Agreed, i would put it like this, when the car does unexpected things, Vettel seems to suffer much more then Webber.

I'd agree with that. Webber is probably a more improvisational driver than Vettel - and as such, when the car is unpredictable, his "on-the-spot" reactions are working better. When the car performs consistently then Vettel is better again. Which is consistent with Webber outperforming Vettel when the V1 sidepod tunnels were choking and working intermittently.

We know that Vettel is good at Monza, and good in the wet (except for Malaysia 2009 and Canada 2011) so I don't think it's a lack of grip that hurts him. Unpredictable/inconsistent handling does seem more the ticket.

Webber is a textbook driver, he brakes in a straight line and picks up the throttle at the apex, standard slow in fast out.
Webber drives less on edge than Vettel who likes to turn in early and carries a lot of speed into the corners.

It makes sense that a car with snap entry oversteer would affect Webber less, since he is not pushing the rear on entry.
When the car is consistent Vettel can set it up to have a pointy front end and get his advantage on entry.

Vettel had problems with the early tunneled version, but was ok with a no tunnel car which was no world beater.

[SectorOne]

Also, Kimi's traction control was broken in his first ever Monaco GP - and he finished the race, indicating that he has fantastic throttle control.

If you mean broken as in stopped working then that´s no sign of having fantastic throttle control (which i´m not saying he doesn´t have)
There´s no problems for an F1 driver to finish a race with or without traction control, their skills go way beyond a traction control system.

[timbo]

Also, Kimi's traction control was broken in his first ever Monaco GP - and he finished the race, indicating that he has fantastic throttle control.

If you mean broken as in stopped working then that´s no sign of having fantastic throttle control (which i´m not saying he doesn´t have)
There´s no problems for an F1 driver to finish a race with or without traction control, their skills go way beyond a traction control system.

But there's a question of car setup and even throttle pedal setup. A car that has TC by default may be tougher to drive without it, than a car that does not have TC and is setup accordingly.

[PlatinumZealot]

Tougher to drive on the limit I would agree, but not tougher to get around the track if you delay throttle application and use slightly less throttle opening. I would expect F1 calibre drivers to know when a corner of the car is on the limit of grip even before any throttle is applied.

[SectorOne]

It´s not that big of a difference, it just cuts power during slip and only a far more advanced algorithm then what you would find in your regular car.
You won´t be having serious problem getting a car home because it stops working that´s for sure.

Now if it´s malfunctioning then you might experience some let´s say...."interesting" problems.

[raymondu999]

His TC was malfunctioning in a way that caused him to think he had an engine misfire.

[Stradivarius]

Agreed, i would put it like this, when the car does unexpected things, Vettel seems to suffer much more then Webber.

I would like to ask you: How do you define "unexpected things"? And how do you identify them? I.e. which races are you refering to, where the car has been doing unexpected things? Are you simply selecting the races or qualifyings where Webber performs better (in which case your theory would be a self-fulfilling prophecy), or do you have some other way of identifying unpredictable car behaviour? So which races are you refering to, that suggests Webber is more comfortable with unpredictable car behaviour, and how do you identify them? As long as we don't know this, it is difficult to understand your claim.

In general, a very simple explaination for Vettel suffering more from an unpredictable car, is that he is the best driver when the car doesn't do unexpected things. If we look at how Webber performs relative to Vettel, he tends to finish the races a couple of places behind Vettel, which indicates that Vettel is better overal. I would say that this is a strong indication that Vettel is the one who is better at adapting and adjusting his driving style, since he is the one who usually performs best.

If you say that Vettel's biggest strength relative to Webber is to extract the maximum of a predictable car, then of course Webber will perform relatively better when the car isn't behaving predictably. But that doesn't mean Webber is dealing with unpredictability in a better way than Vettel, or that he is better at adapting himself to the car's behaviour. It may be a result of Webber exploiting the predictability to a lesser extent than Vettel and thus suffering less when the predictability isn't there.