Vettel vs Ricciardo 2014

[basti313]

Me thinks some were a little too caught up as paid up members of the Vettel fan club. In my view we are now seeing that Vettel's world championships say a lot more about the quality of the car than him as a driver.

I've always thought Vettel has been a slightly better than average driver in a top car and the team has been built around him for years. Fair enough, RBR can sell more energy drinks in Germany than Australia, so why not?!

Me thinks you are a little too caught up as paid up members of the Anti-Vettel fan club.

Redbull never build a car round Vettel. It was just the fastest solution and Vettel was just the better than Webber in adapting to the blown diffusor and the Pirellis. No miracles about that and nothing to fall into fanboy or anti-fanboy behavior.
And: Vettel performed great in this car. Many close and very good fights and clearly two of the closest ever WC decisions. But this years car is different and every driver can have the problem that a car does not fit his needs or he just has to adapt better. Nothing to judge the last years so far.

Simply writing a driver off because you believe he is making excuses - based on previous evidence - seems a little harsh.

You can also write it more clear: Based on previous evidence, that Vettel is not making up excuses, it is just because some people like or dislike drivers in a crazy way, that they now claim he is just making excuses.

To be fair, Cam - Pierce89 is saying it's a placebo. The driver can't seem to get the pace - and he then doesn't know what's wrong... "I think the chassis could be cracked" because that's "usually" the case when they have an issue they don't know how to solve. Then they give him a "new" chassis and instead of mending cracks in the chassis it mends cracks in the driver's confidence.

I also think this is just wrong. There is so much coincidence of changing the cracked chassis and the driver performing better, that this would be the best placebo ever...

[NathanOlder]

I think the trouble is, all of the reported "cracks" and new chassis, have been changed because damage has been found. I dont think Red Bull have found any damage yet ? I guess we will find out this weekend, you'd have to say , if Seb is as good as his fans say, he will be a good .5 quicker than Daniel here.

[NathanOlder]

Redbull never build a car round Vettel. It was just the fastest solution and Vettel was just the better than Webber in adapting to the blown diffusor and the Pirellis.

So its basically Vettel not able to adapt as quick ? or the car not suiting his style as most people say. If its the case, why does he say there is always something not working right, why cant he just say it doesn't suit him. Drivers change their styles, Lewis has had to change to help the Pirelli's last, Jenson has said many times, the car or tyres at times doesn't suit his style, as he cant get enough heat into thing due to his smooth driving, I think Kimi and Checco said the same once.

For me, its obvious it doesnt suit Vettels style, I just think maybe, He hasn't realised this yet. The sooner he does, the sooner he can adapt.

[Cam]

To be fair, Cam - Pierce89 is saying it's a placebo. The driver can't seem to get the pace - and he then doesn't know what's wrong... "I think the chassis could be cracked" because that's "usually" the case when they have an issue they don't know how to solve. Then they give him a "new" chassis and instead of mending cracks in the chassis it mends cracks in the driver's confidence.

No. He's saying Vettel is falsely blaming a fault that does not exist and the team is going to baby him by doing nothing yet saying they did. It assumes Vettel is a moron and Red Bull treat him as such. I think we can give any multi world champ the benefit of the doubt. It may be all in his head, but they'd tell him that.

There's a couple of good articles around that delve into the depths of performance that the Red Bull drivers must maintain, including psycology (really sheds light on who and why drivers are picked or let go). They have not bred a driver that makes things up. It serves no one.

[basti313]

I think the trouble is, all of the reported "cracks" and new chassis, have been changed because damage has been found. I dont think Red Bull have found any damage yet ? I guess we will find out this weekend, you'd have to say , if Seb is as good as his fans say, he will be a good .5 quicker than Daniel here.

I wondered why Redbull said anything on this. Normally they keep rather silent on technical things. So I do not expect them to start a press conference in Milton as soon as they find a crack...

And it does not matter what fans say. Rather stupid to discuss on the basis of fan expectations as they hold for no driver.

So its basically Vettel not able to adapt as quick ? or the car not suiting his style as most people say. If its the case, why does he say there is always something not working right, why cant he just say it doesn't suit him.

You really should read and differ what the drivers say and what other people say...you are completely turning the reality as Vettel clearly said it is his fault and never blamed the car. Please, be not so biased if you want a useful discussion.

No. He's saying Vettel is falsely blaming a fault that does not exist and the team is going to baby him by doing nothing yet saying they did. It assumes Vettel is a moron and Red Bull treat him as such. I think we can give any multi world champ the benefit of the doubt. It may be all in his head, but they'd tell him that.

Well, fanboys can discuss if Vettel can fell cracks or if only Alonso is able to do so.
In reality no one is moaning around and no one feels slight cracks if they do not occur from one lap to another. The engineers decide if a chassis is changed or not as they would have data they do not understand when comparing the telemetries of a working car with a defective car.

[NathanOlder]

Id go as far as saying, the only cracks red Bull will find , are in Vettel himself

Anyway, the results are clear to see, Ricciardo is doing better, I think this weekend will be crucial for Vettel to silence his critics

[basti313]

Id go as far as saying, the only cracks red Bull will find , are in Vettel himself

Yeah...I already suspected that...

Anyway, the results are clear to see, Ricciardo is doing better, I think this weekend will be crucial for Vettel to silence his critics

Yes, he is doing better now. Not more, not less. Nothing to state about the last years or the next years.

Also nothing crucial for Vettel now. He did his job when it counted. If he now is P3 and Ric P4 or the other way round is rather boring.

For me the only one to blame in this is RedBull (Mateschitz), as they did not give Ric the car one year before.

[rayden]

seb in presser:
"Chassis change is more of a sanity check then a problem with the old one"

[stfn_ger]

Imho, the truth is in the middle, as always.

Yes, Vettel is chased by bad luck so far. He had technical issues in the majority of weekends so far. Barcelona is the worst by now with a completely missed friday and a gearbox-failiure in qualifying.

Yes, Vettel has problems to adapt to the new car. He said that himself, and some predicted this already last year, given the fact that Vettel was the one who adjusted his driving style the most extreme to the best working EBD-system in the field, which is now simply not existant anymore. Furthermore, he is the youngest of the top-pilots and hasn't had to adapt his driving style much in his career until today. He needs to prove now that he can do it.

Yes, the team also struggles to figure out its problems. We had software problems, electrical failiures, cooling problems, tyre problems, now gearbox problems, it seems everytime you solve one problem, another one shows up.

So, Vettels RB10 refuses to work right most of the time while the driver would desperately need driving practice to "learn" the new generation of Formula1 cars. This can't work out well.

[dobbster71]

I think that it will be interesting to see how this pans out over the next few races. Now that the teams are back in Europe they can have the drivers over at the factory at a moments notice & will be able to make more subtle changes to the cars, fine tuning them.
Also, Raikkonen has been in a similar position to Vettel at the fly-away races. However, now it seems that Ferrari have fine tuned some aspects of his car to enable him to be more competitive in relation to his team-mate. It could, of course, be a one-off for Raikkonen this week, but I doubt it!!

[AlexJ]

This thread makes for some entertaining reading now

To be fair, I wasn't entirely sure last year why Ricciardo got the Red Bull drive, had been thinking he hadn't really done anything impressive.

[beelsebob]

To be honest, that is more of what is reinforcing my opinion that Vettel is somewhat mediocre. It's not that Ricciardo is beating him particularly (that can be argued either way). It's that a driver who no one saw as particularly special is able to push Vettel to the limits. That says to me, Vettel is not particularly special either. That's a much simpler explanation than Ricciardo (and Vergne) being the second coming. Occam's razor says, Vettel really just isn't that good.

[damo46]

Everything that is happening to Vettel this year happened to Webber throughout his time with Redbull. Bad luck, trouble adapting to the car and/or situation etc... All the Vettel fans were just saying he was a crap driver. Now Vettel has it, they come up with the excuses.

To me if a driver can't adapt to different cars or setups then they aren't a top driver, good yes but not great. Vettel obviously had a car that suited him when he won those championships, the real test now is if can adapt to the new cars.

Like some i have always thought the car made him look better than he was, when Mark had the car hooked up Vettel couldn't beat him. I think the worst thing for Vettel was Mark leaving the team - his biggest rival may have actually been his good luck charm

[beelsebob]

Everything that is happening to Vettel this year happened to Webber throughout his time with Redbull. Bad luck, trouble adapting to the car and/or situation etc... All the Vettel fans were just saying he was a crap driver. Now Vettel has it, they come up with the excuses.

No, I'm not a Vettel fan, and I still say Webber was pretty crap.

[Vettel Maggot]

Vettel is almost as overrated as Kimi.