Vettel vs Ricciardo 2014

[Waywardism]

I'll reserve judgement until around August (Spa) when "luck" should have evened out and both drivers are comfortable in their machinery. I was very impressed with Seb's drive today coming through the pack. Maybe things are starting to click again for him.

It was a very good drive from Seb today no doubt about it.

I find the suggestion that luck has been on Ricciardo's side quite wrong though. Yes Seb's various car issues are what immediately spring to mind when we think of bad luck at RB this year. Ric lost 18 points in Australia through no fault of his own, you could argue that may have been less points had they not exceeded the fuel flow limit. He also lost points in Malaysia with the pitstop fiasco and again in Bahrain with the resulting penalty.

Of course it's much harder to quantify how many points Seb has lost out on with his reliability issues, but I think it's fair to say that Seb is not ahead of Ric by 6 points in the championship due to being the better driver this year.

[PlatinumZealot]

I would love for Vettel to come to Mercedes and go against Rosberg. Perez already said in 2012 that Rosberg is the fastest German and not Vettel.

[lebesset]

OK Today Vettel showed again why he is 4XWDC. He may not be the absolute fastest over a flying lap, but he sure can handle a race like a true Champ.

yep , he was nearly as fast as his team mate , managed to overtake all the slower cars

[Vegetabill]

I am by no means a Vettel fan. I do not think he has ever really had a decent yardstick of a team mate in F1 to be compared to the greats, old or current. His early single formula career was hardly distinguished and IMO showed him on a par with the likes of DiResta, DiGrassi and Sutil.

Will people stop with these lower category results nonsense already? Vettel had a broken finger when he was teammate with di resta (almost lost it)
image
webber beat alonso for god's sake (weren't team mates, but still).

Sorry if you think it's nonsense but as this is a comparison thread I think it's relevant. It is difficult to draw comparison in Motorsport due to the different cars so the one true test is against someone in the same car. Yes he broke his finger that season racing in a different formula but he had 3 weeks to recover before the next race and didn't miss any. If you watch motogp you will agree this is quite a minor ailment. I also agree it was a long time ago but I was just putting forward my opinion, that's my right last I knew.

[Vegetabill]

I'll reserve judgement until around August (Spa) when "luck" should have evened out and both drivers are comfortable in their machinery. I was very impressed with Seb's drive today coming through the pack. Maybe things are starting to click again for him.

It was a very good drive from Seb today no doubt about it.

I find the suggestion that luck has been on Ricciardo's side quite wrong though. Yes Seb's various car issues are what immediately spring to mind when we think of bad luck at RB this year. Ric lost 18 points in Australia through no fault of his own, you could argue that may have been less points had they not exceeded the fuel flow limit. He also lost points in Malaysia with the pitstop fiasco and again in Bahrain with the resulting penalty.

Of course it's much harder to quantify how many points Seb has lost out on with his reliability issues, but I think it's fair to say that Seb is not ahead of Ric by 6 points in the championship due to being the better driver this year.

Good points made, I agree.

[cherok1212]

Vettel is almost as overrated as Kimi.

No one as overrated as the Iceman. RB9 was a slot car after the break last year, designed for anyone who knows throttle from brake, not just Seb.

Great drive by VET great weekend for RAI, crow well done please...

[Cam]

So by that reckoning, putting Maldonado in Webber's seat would have yielded the same results?

Edit: seeing as Mateschitz went to great effort and cost to put 'the' team together, to put a "crap" and "average" driver in there is basically accusing them all of negligence. Why? For some conspiracy to make a German look good? They need to win, having the best people in every position is key - they would never carry dead weight, which is what those opinions are claiming.

Maldonado won in a mediocre Williams. That's better than Webber by my reckoning.
Who said anything about employing a mediocre driver to make a "german look good"?
Red Bull employed driver preference as a strategem to get both titles. It works well with a commanding machine as they enjoyed the last 4 years.
Whether it makes a driver look good or bad is if no consequence as it's more important the Brand Red Bull wins. Its a means to an end.

A fluke win for Maldonado counts in your books? The team had no idea how they did that nor could replicate it, it was a freak of the tyres, not driver skill IMO. If that's better than Webber for you then we can agree to disagree on that one (and it explains a lot actually).

The Red Bull car was only as good as it's development. Yes Vettel got far more out of it than a driver "in the autumn of his career" and rightly so, but his efforts were far from average and crap. The strategy to keep them together almost cost them titles on the track, but the net result of moving the car development forwards, banking points and qualifying well, is what kept Webber there. I doubt anyone would consider Webber capable if winning 4 x WDC, but to call his efforts crap, is disgraceful and plain wrong. Why else was he there, the millions in sponsorship he brought?

Ricciardo is doing the same job. Qualify well, bank results, develop the car. That's why he's in the seat and not your choice of Maldonado.

[Lycoming]

The team had no idea how they did that nor could replicate it, it was a freak of the tyres, not driver skill IMO. If that's better than Webber for you then we can agree to disagree on that one (and it explains a lot actually).

In fairness, that was the case for everybody at the time.

Maldonado won in a mediocre Williams. That's better than Webber by my reckoning.

Webber doesn't crash other people out of every other race. That's better by my reckoning.

[Cam]

The team had no idea how they did that nor could replicate it, it was a freak of the tyres, not driver skill IMO. If that's better than Webber for you then we can agree to disagree on that one (and it explains a lot actually).

In fairness, that was the case for everybody at the time.

100% agree. So how anyone can put that result up as a mark of driver skill is amazing.

Strad called Bob out for trolling. I agree. And it's comments like those below which back that. I'm out. Call me when rational debate returns.

Maldonado won in a mediocre Williams. That's better than Webber by my reckoning.

[Lycoming]

100% agree. So how anyone can put that result up as a mark of driver skill is amazing.

One could argue that keeping it together for the whole race without taking himself or somebody else out was quite a remarkable demonstration of skill from Maldonado.

[Cam]

100% agree. So how anyone can put that result up as a mark of driver skill is amazing.

One could argue that keeping it together for the whole race without taking himself or somebody else out was quite a remarkable demonstration of skill from Maldonado.

But does one swallow a summer make? Keeping it together and not crashing is not special, if you can't do that at the top level, questions need to be asked. Webber had his share of questionable crashes too, but the good and great performances over a long period outweigh that, IMO. Saying webber is no better than Maldonado... even for the most biased fanboy, that's a long bow.

[JimClarkFan]

I think Mark would have performed better in these cars relative to Vettel than the EBD cars from 09-13

[FoxHound]

Maldonado's record at Williams is better. He won a race.
Question the guy's competence by all means, but not his record.
He leads 40 odd laps, got a defacto pole and held off Alonso for alot of the race and its a fluke?

You do the man an injustice.

Anyhow, I for the record rate Webber as better than Maldonado, but not by very much.
Webber was accident prone too, with various incidents each season for red bull I recall.

Webber is in the same league as Massa, Barrichello and others who have demonstrated they are good enough to be in F1, but not good enough to win championships.

My opinion is that more than half the grid could've achived better results as the number 2 RB driver.
Ricciardo is proving that.

[Cam]

Maldonado's record at Williams is better. He won a race.
Question the guy's competence by all means, but not his record.
He leads 40 odd laps, got a defacto pole and held off Alonso for alot of the race and its a fluke?

yes a fluke. No team had any idea how to make the tyres work consistently. It was setup 'pot luck'. Simple.

You do the man an injustice.

the only injustice here is a race seat for a promising young driver is blocked by money.

Webber is in the same league as Massa, Barrichello and others who have demonstrated they are good enough to be in F1, but not good enough to win championships.

Agreed - but not "crap" either.

My opinion is that more than half the grid could've achived better results as the number 2 RB driver.
Ricciardo is proving that.

I disagree and I think we'll never convince each other otherwise. In some ways, I think Vettel is missing Webber and I know that's hard to believe, but I feel part of his performance came from a deep fire of competition and hatred with Mark. Apart from Mark's tech ability, this is also why no other driver combo could have done what they did, i.e. Hamilton & Alonso.

[FrukostScones]

grrrr...