Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team 2015

[Andres125sx]

You cannot compare Alonso's time with Ferrari with Vettel's.

Yes we can

If Vettel had a better team mate Fernando wouldn't even be in the fight for WDC.

How can be that true when Webber was ahead of Vettel before final race in 2010? With a better team mate it would have been Vettel who wouldn´t have been in the fight for 2010 title

The situation would have been similar to what we are seeing now and 3rd would have been the best he could achieve.

Sorry but I don´t think Rosberg is any better than Webber

And with the victories give him some time or 4 years to compare the achievements

True, but at least we can compare first season of each with a red car. Let see if Vettel win 3 more races this season to match Alonso´s 5

[Silent Storm]

Yes we can

No you cannot.

How can be that true when Webber was ahead of Vettel before final race in 2010? With a better team mate it would have been Vettel who wouldn´t have been in the fight for 2010 title

If Hamilton was Vettel's team mate Vettel would have lost it but in 2011,12 and 13 Alonso would have been 3rd at max with Hamilton or Button in the second redbull. And maybe Hamilton would have wrapped up the championship lot earlier in 2010 in that redbull or atleast would have had a good point lead going in to the final race.

The situation would have been similar to what we are seeing now and 3rd would have been the best he could achieve.

Sorry but I don´t think Rosberg is any better than Webber

Rosberg is not losing 4-5 places at the start nor is he suffering from reliability problems like Webber and he is a fast driver but not special he is a good 2 tenths slower than Hamilton unlike Webber whose team mate was on pole but he qualified 3rd.
The 2013 Singapore GP comes to mind where Vettel was in a league of his own and Webber was slower than Grosjean. Rosberg is not that slow he just cannot squeeze out those few extra tenths from the car that one of the best driver can.

And with the victories give him some time or 4 years to compare the achievements

True, but at least we can compare first season of each with a red car. Let see if Vettel win 3 more races this season to match Alonso´s 5

That was a different era. Different cars etc etc. in 2010 even with the second best car you had a chance to win the race. Not now where it is difficult to overtake even when you have the fastest car so no point comparing.

[Andres125sx]

Yes we can

No you cannot.

How can be that true when Webber was ahead of Vettel before final race in 2010? With a better team mate it would have been Vettel who wouldn´t have been in the fight for 2010 title

If Hamilton was Vettel's team mate Vettel would have lost it but in 2011,12 and 13 Alonso would have been 3rd at max with Hamilton or Button in the second redbull. And maybe Hamilton would have wrapped up the championship lot earlier in 2010 in that redbull or atleast would have had a good point lead going in to the final race.

So you can do some woulda shoulda about what would have happened with a different team mate, but I cannot compare first season of two drivers in same team?

[Andres125sx]

BTW, with a more competitive team mate Vettel would have lost more points in 2012 with his team mate, and with only 3 points less than he scored Alonso would have won that title

[Sevach]

Must every topic turn to mental gymnastics...

[bhall II]

Must every topic turn to mental gymnastics...

Yes, because my favorite driver is better than your favorite driver, and I can prove it in 43 simple steps...

[Silent Storm]

BTW, with a more competitive team mate Vettel would have lost more points in 2012 with his team mate, and with only 3 points less than he scored Alonso would have won that title

With a better team mate Vettel would have lost all his 4 titles but instead of Alonso grabbing some point on his failure/errors it would be his team mate not Alonso. So this better team mate would have won the championship not Alonso. Similar story this year and last year with Merc, when one driver makes an error or has issues the other grabs the points.

There is no way Vettel and Raikkonen can win 5 races let alone 5 each. You can compare Fernando's first season to Vettel's but remember that red bull was not 1 second faster than the Ferrari. You can compare 2011 season to this season as the W06 is a beast like the RB7.

[Silent Storm]

Must every topic turn to mental gymnastics...

Yes, because my favorite driver is better than your favorite driver, and I can prove it in 43 simple steps...

Vettel is not my favourite driver

[Andres125sx]

BTW, with a more competitive team mate Vettel would have lost more points in 2012 with his team mate, and with only 3 points less than he scored Alonso would have won that title

With a better team mate Vettel would have lost all his 4 titles

No, that´d be with a much much much better driver who not only match Vettel but surpass him

Anycase this is a nosense, it all started beacuse of an unfortunate comment by your side talking about Alonso, like if he should be jealous of Vettel situation, and I only posted to show you a fact most people like to ignore, what Vettel is achieving with Ferrari Alonso already did it, even better, in his first season with Ferrari

So no, he shouldn´t be jealous, actually that´s the reason he left Maranello, because they were consistent second class as much and he got tired of fighting for spare victories and second position in WDC. And this remains the same, Ferrari continue as consistent second class, like it or not.

[wickedz50]

And this remains the same, Ferrari continue as consistent second class, like it or not.[/quote]

The above sentence is true. Ferrari has remained a consistent second class in terms of their car they have manufactured. Also almost made that second class car into a championship winning car will all his skill and might and Ferrari continued that way. Now whether Ferrari wants to produce a first class championship winning car let alone the drivers quality? I think the theme seems like it now. There is not many drivers of that ability left at F1 now so Ferrari cannot reply on such an attitude anymore. They need a championship class development and car production to get out of that second class status and with Allison they are on right track.

[ChrisF1]

With comparisons, I think it is best to compare Vettel with the first Ferrari-Schumacher season. Let's compare the situation going into 1996 and 2015.

1996 - dominant Williams with 2 drivers taking most wins. Ferrari hadn't won the title in years, but had a few near misses and had spent the past 4 years running around as the 2nd-4th best car every weekend.

2015 - dominant Mercedes with 2 drivers taking most wins. Ferrari hadn't won the title in years, but had a few near misses and had spent the past 4 years running around as the 2nd-4th best car every weekend.

So here we are, lets look at the situation at half way point.

1996 - dominant Williams is class of the field, and Williams had won all but two races. Schumacher had managed to win one race.

2015 - dominant Mercedes is class of the field, and they had won all but two races. Vettel has managed to win two races.

[f1316]

I'm going to sidestep the driver debate, as I'm not sure the purpose. Apples with oranges.

More interested in whether anyone knows the current eta for next engine step, originally it was monza but I've seen implications in a couple of articles (e.g. Autosport discussing sauber upgrades) that it could be there for spa.

I remember Marchionne described it as "something special" so you imagine it's a decent step, even if, for all we know Mercedes step is bigger.

Still, the Hungary race makes me wonder if the PU is really the cars strength and chassis its weakness. Seems to me that both are clearly below the perfectly set up Mercedes (usually Hamilton's) but that Ferrari are actually closer to the pace (at least during the race) in places like Monaco and Hungary than in Canada, Austria, Hungary. I'd previously expected the opposite - thinking their high speed corner performance usually a bigger strength than low speed in recent years - but I think that's been disproved in recent races.

[LionKing]

1996 - dominant Williams with 2 drivers taking most wins. Ferrari hadn't won the title in years, but had a few near misses and had spent the past 4 years running around as the 2nd-4th best car every weekend.

One correction, Schumacher did a lot better and won 3 races in 1996!

Anycase this is a nosense, it all started beacuse of an unfortunate by your side talking about Alonso, like if he should be jealous of Vettel situation, and I only posted to show you a fact most people like to ignore, what Vettel is achieving with Ferrari Alonso already did it, even better, in his first season with Ferrari

This is also quite a useless comparison:
Red Bull had the upper hand in majority races but the competition from Ferrari and Mclaren were a lot closer in most circuits. In power tracks like Monza, Red Bull was not even in contention that year. In 2015 we have a dominant car whose margin over competition is much bigger. They win as long as they don't screw up.

Secondly Alonso's competition was a lot less reliable, so far Merc is pretty much bullet proof. Alonso inherited some wins due to that. For instance Australia and Korea 2010 when Vettel retired from almost certain victories. In another win in Germany, they asked Massa to move over and hand the victory to Alonso.

In any case, we will have to wait many years to see how Vettel era develops at Ferrari and what they achieve together.
In Schumi period Ferrari won 5 WDC, 6 WCCs.
In Kimi period Ferrari won 1 WDC and 2 WCCs (though 2007 would have gone to McLaren if they were not excluded).
In Alonso period 0 WDC, 0 WCC.
In Vettel period ??? , ???

[ChrisF1]

One correction, Schumacher did a lot better and won 3 races in 1996!

You are correct, but I am only commenting on the first half of the season (2 of Schumi's victories are later in 1996 as a Spa/Monza back to back)

I didn't see the relevance of comparing the whole of Schumacher 1996 with half of Vettel 2015

[Schuttelberg]

Now let's wait to see what Fernando has to say.

Probably something similar to this

"Still 9 victories to match what I did with Ferrari"

or

"Still 3 victories to match what I did in my very first season with Ferrari"

or

"Still far from 2nd position in WDC, what I did twice with Ferrari"

It's the media that asks him all these questions and a lot of times things are sensationalized and words are put into the mouths of individuals. Why can't we just be objective about the whole situation?

I think, Alonso genuinely believes in the McLaren project and regardless of whether he wins the championship there or not, or whether Vettel wins ever in the Ferrari or not is simply conjecture on part of the fans and the media. In my opinion, Alonso is happy with where he is at and considering we just lost a Formula 1 driver, there is more to life than just x beat y in this year and so he must be better than z. The same applies to Vettel. He seems to be happy with where he's at.

Coming to this debate about drivers? In my opinion, and it's only as good as anyone else here, I feel Alonso, Hamilton and Vettel are the best drivers today. Who is the best of their generation? Unfortunately, they're all a different age and I don't see any of them retiring to conclude the argument. By the time it's concluded, if it ever will, we'll be arguing about Verstappen, Sainz and may be Mick Schumacher.

The essential point simply is that all 3 drivers have driven dominant cars as well as pretty poor one's and they've all done something special in them. At the same time, they've driven good cars and have had mediocre seasons. I'm not going to indulge in details because I don't want to debate pages after pages with the end result being a bit nothing. I think we're extremely lucky to see the wealth of talent in terms of drivers in the past ten years. It truly is fascinating.

I'll simply conclude by saying that anyone that's trying to emphasize that one of these three is better than the other two is simply playing favorites and nothing else. To say that 'so and so would have beaten so and so in so and so year when it never really happened is nothing but wishful fantasy.'